INT: The date is
February 13, 1996. The survivor's name is
Mr. Nathan Leipciger L-E-I-P-C-I-G-E-R. At birth
it was L-E-I-P-Z-I-G-E-R. I am the interviewer. My name is Richard
Bassett, B-A-S-S-E-T-T. We are in Toronto, Canada,
and the interview will be held in English. The date is February 13, 1996. The survivor's name is
Mr. Nathan Leipciger. I am the interviewer. My name is Richard
Basset, B-A-S-S-E-T-T. We are in Toronto, Canada,
and the interview will be held in English. What is your name, please? NL: Nate Leipciger. INT: Could you spell Leipciger? NL: L-E-I-P-C-I-G-E-R. INT: And was that your
spelling at birth? NL: No, that was my-- I assumed that name
when I came to Canada. My name's spelled
L-E-I-P-Z-I-G-E-R. INT: How old are you now? NL: I'm 68. INT: Where we were
born, Mr. Leipciger? NL: Czorzow. INT: Could you spell that? NL: C-Z-O-R-Z-O-W. INT: Where is Chorzow? NL: It's in Silesia. It's in upper Silesia, not
far from the town of Katowice. INT: And when-- what was
your actual date of birth? NL: 1928-- the 28
of February, 1928. INT: What was your
father's name? NL: Jacob Leipciger,
he had that name. INT: When was he born? NL: He was born in
1902 in [NON-ENGLISH]. INT: Did he survive the war? NL: Yes. INT: And what was
his occupation? NL: He was a merchant,
and also a tailor. He studied-- studied-- wanted to come to
Canada as a young man, so he became a tailor
because his brother in Canada was a tailor. INT: Did he have a shop? NL: No, he never-- he never
practiced tailoring in Europe. INT: Where was your mother born? What was her name? NL: My mother was born
1900, January the 15th. And she was born
in [NON-ENGLISH] INT: What was her name? NL: Faygel Leah. INT: And her family-- NL: Maiden name was Percik. INT: Could you spell that? NL: P-E-R-C-I-K. INT: Did you have any
brothers or sisters? NL: Yes, a sister, Blima. She was born on
January 25, 1925. INT: Did she survive the war? NL: No. INT: Can you tell me about it? NL: How she died? Well, she was on our last-- on our deportation from
the Srodula Ghetto, we were deported to Auschwitz. And when we arrived
in Auschwitz, she was with my mother. They were sent to the
women's camp in Auschwitz. And on Yom Kippur of
1943, they emptied the camp, the women's camp. And they sent some thousands
of women to the gas chamber. And from information
that I had after the war, she was sent to the gas
chamber on that day. INT: How did you get
this information? NL: I got that
after the war, when I went back to Poland in 1945. I met some people who were
with her in Auschwitz, and they remembered
that they were-- that she was in camp with them. And then she just disappeared. So the only way she
could have disappeared-- she was not sent to a
transport to Germany to work, so they must have sent
them to Auschwitz, to the-- to the gas chamber. As a matter of fact,
I remember the day. Because it was Yom
Kippur, and they kept us all inside the barracks. I was, at that time,
in the [NON-ENGLISH], which is the transition
camp, the temporary camp. And it was right on the
route of the trucks that went from the women's camp, past
our camp, into the crematorium, to the gas chambers. And they had women
naked on-- on-- on trucks. And they were
screaming and yelling, and they knew what was
happening by that time. Once you were in
Auschwitz, you knew what the purpose of Auschwitz was. And once they took
you, naked, on a truck, you knew what's going to happen. There was no questions in
their mind as to what their-- was going to happen to them. INT: And that was? NL: They were sent directly
to the gas chamber. INT: What were your
grandparents' names? NL: My father's parents were
Avraham Hirsh, and Rudl. My-- Bernbaum. Yeah, my father's mother's
maiden name was Bernbaum. And my mother's parents was
[PAUSES FOR 4 SECONDS] Elka, Hoffman-- ne Hoffman Percik, and my
grandfather is Schuman Percik. They died before the war. I mean, my grandmother
died before the war, and my grandfather had died just
before the first deportation from Sosnoviec. My father's parents, they
were sent to Treblinka. INT: How do you know all this? NL: My cousin, who
lives in Paris, she was with them when they were
deported from Czestochowa. She was in the Czestochowa camp,
and she knows that they were-- she was there when
they took them and the rest of the family. Most of the family, at one
point, went to Treblinka. INT: Could you please
tell me your father's-- the names of your father's
brothers and sisters? NL: Yes. My father had three
brothers and four sisters. The oldest was David,
who was in Canada, and he, of course, survived. A second one was Leon. The third one was Kuba. My aunts were Dora, Mierka-- I've forgotten their names,
I have to look that up. Fella and Rifka. Rifka was the youngest. They all had children, two
or three children each. The only children of my
father's, brothers, and sisters that survived were
two children of Mirla, that's Ganja and Roma. And Leon's daughter,
who's name is Sasha. Ganja and Roma survived, and
they lived in France, Paris. And Sasha lives in Israel, and
they all now have families. INT: And how much
of the family of-- how much of of your
mother's and father's family actually lived in Hoshiv? NL: There was a very
small group of us. Because most of my family-- my mother's family
comes from Lodz. So most of my aunts and
uncles lived in Lodz for my mother's family. My father's family comes from
Czestochowa, and most of them lived in Czestochowa. Now, two sisters, Dora and
Mirla lived in Hoshiv, together with Leon and Kuba. So that was the family-- my cousins that I-- that I
knew, that we played together and we got together on
the holidays, et cetera. My mother's family, she had
two sisters, Rusia and Sasha. And they lived also in Hoshiv,
as did my maternal parents. My father's parents
lived in Czestochowa. And they were very religious,
and they were [NON-ENGLISH] and, I mean, very,
very fine people. INT: Did you ever go to
Czestochowa or to Lodz? NL: Yes, yes. Before the war-- actually,
when the Nazis occupied Poland, we were in Lodz. My father was military
age, so he was notified that he will be drafted. So he stayed in
Hoshiv, which was right on the border,
six kilometers from the German border. And he sent us to Lodz, which
was further in to my father's-- to my mother's family. And when the Nazis
bombed the city, they, of course, bombed
the Lodz very badly. And we were hiding in
bunkers and basements. And then the occupation came. Actually, they occupied Lodz
before they occupied Hoshiv, because they went
around Silesia. They didn't want to
destroy any of the land that they eventually annexed. INT: Before the war, do you
remember, as a little boy, going to visit [NON-ENGLISH],
or any time to Lodz or to Czestochowa? NL: No. This was my first time
that I went to Lodz, and I met my family there. But I went, too, many
times as a child. Lodz was quite far
away from Hoshiv, but Czestochowa was a
couple hours by train. And we used to go to bar
mitzvahs, and weddings, and family affairs, and just
to visit my grandparents. And my grandparents
only spoke Yiddish, so I had to learn
Yiddish and write letters to them in Yiddish. INT: So tell me
about your home life. What was the language
that you spoke at home? NL: Well, living in Hoshiv,
we had three languages. German, which the-- a
lot of people in the town spoke German. Most of the kids that I
associated with were non-Jews. We lived-- Hoshiv had a very
small Jewish population. It had one synagogue
and one [NON-ENGLISH]. And I would say that there
were maybe 500 families, maybe between 300 and
500 families in Hoshiv. So it was-- Jewish families. So there was a small community. The town was most likely-- I don't know
exactly, but I would say somewhere between
50,000 and 100,000 people. It was a very industrial
and dirty town, a lot of coal mines and smelters. And we went to school. I went to school. We went to a Jewish
school which was formed by the Jewish community. And it was-- we were
taught in Polish, and the rabbis come and-- to teach us-- I don't remember if it
was twice or three times a week that he came
and taught us Bible. And then, of course, he
had to go through cheder, which was separate. And [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS]
it was an equal but separate school. Except-- so there
were only six-- six grades. After the sixth grade, like
my sister went to gymnasium, and then that was
already a Polish school. And that's where
difficulties arose, because now she had
non-Jewish teachers, and there was discrimination. And she always
complained that her marks weren't given to
her as she deserved because of this teacher
or that teacher. So these stories became very-- very troublesome to me. Even as a child,
as they became-- they were troublesome
to the whole family. I was, at the time of the war
in 1939, I finished grade four. And my father was on the road. He was selling merchandise
to farmers and people in the mining communities. And we lived a very
simple life, as Jews live in all over the world. INT: Where did
you actually live? What was the address? NL: It was 8 [NON-ENGLISH]. It was a street not far
from a beautiful park where we spent a lot of time. And it was a mining town,
so the most of my neighbors were children of miners. And there was only one
Jewish family that lived-- was a tailor, who
was very religious. And who he was the one that
went to the [NON-ENGLISH], whereas we went
to the synagogue. Which was an orthodox
synagogue, but it was like what we call here,
a modern orthodox synagogue. And, of course, the first
thing that the Nazis did is they burned the
synagogue down. The school is still standing. I went to see it after the
war, just a few years ago. And, as a matter of fact, I
took my family, just this year, back to Poland. My three daughters with their
husbands and my wife and I, we went and we had an odyssey
back to my birthplace, to where I spend the-- where I was at
first at Sosnoviec, then the open ghetto in
Sosnoviec, and then to Srodula. And then, we went from
there-- we to Auschwitz to complete the path. And I must say, it was a-- it was a victorious trip. It was a trip to
remember the bad things, but also to appreciate
what we have now, the fact that I've been
able to re-establish-- establish a family, and
have eight grandchildren. And they go to day school. And we live a Jewish life,
something that Hitler didn't want us to do. When Hitler gave me a
ticket to Auschwitz, it was a one-way ticket. And I came back, as
it were, victorious, after almost being defeated. INT: Number 8 [NON-ENGLISH],
what was that? Was it a house or a building? NL: It was an
apartment building. There's a courtyard,
and we lived on the ground floor,
which is-- we had very unpretentious dwelling place. It consists of one bedroom and
a kitchen, which was our living room and dining room. And in the bedroom, we made
room for Pesach to have a Seder. We had a dining room table
in the-- in the bedroom, where we had our Pesach Seder. And you were saying what
languages I was talking. So when I was on the
street, I spoke German. When I spoke to my parents,
they spoke to me Yiddish, and I spoke to them either
in German or in Polish. And then, when I went
to school, of course, I had to learn Polish. And then, in addition
to that, there was a Silesian jargon
which we always used to talk on the street, as well. INT: Who were your friends? NL: Well, actually, my friends
were some of the Jewish people that I knew from school. They were my closest friends. But because they
lived further away, my everyday friends
were the people who were my neighbors
right in the-- on the block. And they were Christians,
Catholics most of them. And we used to get along
very well, except for Easter, when they came from the
church, and the priests used to say, you know, the
Jews are the Christ killers. And so, for about two weeks
I had to hide from them, and we didn't play
together because they used to call me Christ killer. And as far as that goes,
every-- every courtyard had their own gang. And I was part of
our courtyard's gang. And we had wars between our
courtyard and the next door courtyard. And-- but that was the way-- the way it went. INT: Was this Jewish versus
non-Jewish, or just-- NL: No.
INT: --gangs of kids? NL: Gangs of kids,
one against the other. And I was accepted among
my friends in my block, except at Easter. And even then, it
was sort of watered down as to what happened if they
caught me outside of my yard. So that they're
going to school, we used to go in
groups of students. Because otherwise, if
I was caught by myself, there would be-- there would be enough
gangs in the city that, if I wasn't caught by one,
I would be caught by others. And my technique was
to go against the wall and look up at the
building opposite and say-- and start yelling, Ma
or Dad, So that they thought that I lived there and
that I was going to get help. Even so, it was blocks
away from my home. Or I would go and
attach myself to a lady and pretend that I was with her. So as to-- so you learn a
mechanism in order to survive, in a hostile environment. INT: So, in fact, you were
threatened or attacked as a boy? NL: Yes, many times. Punched, and beaten, and-- you know? But that was the reality
of the situation. INT: Would you fight back
or go after the kids? NL: No, we would-- well, if we were together,
we would fight them back. Either with stone, or with
sticks, or with our pencil holders, which was
our defense mechanism. And we did not take it quietly. But that usually ended
up that it escalated. And then, if they
found you, they said, oh, he's the guy that
we fought yesterday, so let's beat him up. And so that's how it went. INT: Was this just because
it was an alternate gang, or was this a case of
because you Jewish? NL: Well, this happened mainly
in like-- it happened in 1930-- the ones I remember-- it's already 1938,
the beginning of '39 when there was an awful lot of
Nazi propaganda coming through into Poland and against Jews. And there were already signs
on the-- on the stores. My father was beaten up on the
street because he was a Jew. And there was-- windows
were broken in the stores, and there was already
[NON-ENGLISH], you know, described on the-- INT: What does that mean? NL: Down with the Jews. And there was a lot of
graffiti on the storefronts. And people were-- generally,
Jews were harassed by the-- INT: What happened
in the two weeks-- Sorry. NL: --By the people
who lived in our town. And the town that we lived in,
as I indicated, there was-- before 1918, it was
part of Germany. And then [NON-ENGLISH] of
1920, it became Poland. So there was a lot of
German nationals there. And when the war was about to
break out, they came out like-- they came out like
flies to the light. And so a lot of-- and the Poles themselves, were-- there was a lot of
anti-Semitic and fascist Poles that helped in this--
in this regard. I mean, there were
a lot of good Poles, but there were many
that participated in the anti-Semitic riots. INT: You said it was a special
time around the two weeks before Easter? NL: Two weeks after Easter. INT: After Easter. NL: Yes. INT: So what happened then? NL: Well, because the
kids went to the church, and the priests would
tell them about the story of the crucifixion of Jesus,
that he was betrayed by Judas, that he was betrayed
by the Sanhedrin, and that he was sold out. And that story was attributed
to the demise of Jesus, and therefore we
were Christ killers. INT: So what happened to
you in those two weeks? NL: Well, as I
said, I had to avoid my friends, because if they-- on every occasion
that they saw me, they would call
me Christ killer. INT: But these
were your friends? NL: These were my friends, yes. INT: Would they just
call you names-- NL: Yeah. INT: --or would
they ever hit you? NL: Well, they would hit me. They would sort of punch me, but
they would not really hurt me. But they would sort of make--
make me very uncomfortable. INT: How were you able to stay
friends with them after that? NL: Well, they were
the only people around. Then they made up. They said, well, you know,
I don't even remember how, what mechanism it
was, but I know that after that came
Pesach, and I had some toys, and they wanted to
play with my toys. And so they became
friends again. INT: What was your
religious background in-- at home? NL: Well, we were like,
modern, like what you say today is a modern orthodox. My father didn't wear a
beard or [NON-ENGLISH] but-- INT: Are you Shomer Shabbos? NL: Was Shomer Shabbos,
and we were a kosher home. And we went to Shul. Not every Sabbath, but on
most of the Jewish holidays. INT: Would you like to
[NON-ENGLISH] every day? NL: No, I didn't like them. INT: Did your father? NL: No. No. I know my grandfather
did, on my father's side, but not on my mother's side. INT: What were
your parents like? NL: Well, they were
very loving people. My father was very stern,
and I was frightened of him. He didn't spare the rod to spoil
me, and my mother spoiled me. And my father had a very good
relationship with my sister, whereas I had a very good
relationship with my mother. And I never thought that my
father liked me till we-- till the-- we went into
camp, and when he started-- we were just the two of us. And we had an opportunity,
being together, and I realized how
much he did love me. But as a young child, I
was very much frightened, like most kids of
that-- of that time. INT: What made you think
your father didn't love you? NL: Because he was
a disciplinarian. I was a-- I was a rough kid. I lived in the yard, which
was full of miners' kids that had a very loose discipline. And we, collectively, we used
to get into a lot of trouble, running around the streets, we-- you know, we stole, we raided
other people's gardens, we-- all the mischievous things
that kids think of doing and tried to get away with it. So my father was
very strict with me. And when I was caught,
he let me have it. INT: What kind of
a student were you? NL: Well, I was not a
particularly good student. I was not interested in school. I was more interested
in what was happening in the world around me. I was-- I had
difficulties reading. I was-- I think I must have
had some disability, because I had great difficulty
learning how to read both Hebrew and Polish. And I used to have tutors,
and that used to help. INT: What was your sister
like, as you remember her? NL: My sister was
an exceptional girl. She was very, very bright. She always stood
first in her class. And she was-- she could write
beautiful stories and essays. And she was the pride and
joy of my family, really. And she learned
French and Latin. And, as a matter of fact,
during the war years, when we didn't go
to school, she was the one that took in
kids to teach in order to make some money. And I was one of her
students in her class. So I benefited from
her brilliance. INT: What was her
personality like? NL: She was very kind. We were very good friends. The only time she
didn't want me around was when she went out with boys. And other than that, the
typical sibling situation. We fought. We had our fights, but we also
had our good times together. INT: What are some of
the favorite dishes you remember your mother preparing? NL: Well, I used to-- I used to like to
watch my mother cook. She was an excellent cook. And I used to help her in the
kitchen, make challah and fish, gefilte fish, and carp. And she was an excellent
baker, and she always used to let me help her bake. So it was the normal-- normal dishes. Potato salad was a specialty,
with salami, and eggs, and cakes, and, you
know, all of the things that everybody likes. Nobody likes flanken. I didn't like flanken. [LAUGHS] We like chicken, and we
didn't like porridge, and we didn't like [NON-ENGLISH]
which is [NON-ENGLISH] or cereals. And so that's-- you know,
[PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] I had not a very wealthy background,
but it was a very warm and very loving background. INT: What's one of your
fondest memories from home? NL: Well, my fondest memories,
I think, is usually Pesach. Pesach was-- the-- the
time just before Pesach, we used to get new
shoes, and new clothes, and get special gifts. So that was-- that was the-- the time that we
really, really enjoyed. It was a very, very
important holiday. And you think matzahs, and the
Seder, that was a lot of fun. And-- INT: Was it just your
immediate family? NL: It was just our
immediate family, yes. And my mother's sisters
used to come and join us on [NON-ENGLISH]. And, of course, birthdays
were always good times, because we had parties
with friends and gifts. And these were the
beautiful times. INT: 13, 1996. Are there any other memories
you have, Mr. Leipciger? NL: Well, I think that the
memories that really stand out was the summers. Because we lived in
a very dirty town, it was medically required
for me to leave the city. So we went-- my parents
and my grandparents, my mother's parents, went to
villages in the mountains. And we used to move in
with a farmer's family and live basically on the farm. And we did our own things. But many times, we went with the
farmer to the fields and look after his cattle and graze them. Because the farms
were very small and the plots were
very small, so they used to have to watch
the cows that they didn't go into the neighbor's field. And we used to go
collecting berries and swim in the river,
dammed up the river. Big project every, every summer
was to make a swimming hole and dam up the river so that
we could have some deep water. And the later years, I
think, 1938 I remember, was-- we went-- we had-- maybe even
'39 as well, my sister went to a Zionist
camp, Akiba, which was not far from where
we were in the village. And so my sister was
there for the program. And I used to go and visit
her for the day program. And we used to love that. Because we had the dancing
and singing and bonfires, and the general sort of
Zionist camp activities. INT: These farms that you were
on, were they Jewish people? NL: No, no. They're all-- they're
Polish farmers. INT: Did they know
you were Jewish? NL: Yes, yes. But they did it in order
to bring some cash income. They would move upstairs. And they would give
us their main place that they lived all year
round, which was a bedroom and dining room and kitchen. They would help my mother, you
know, with the cleaning and-- INT: Did you have
kosher food there? NL: Yeah, we had kosher food. And we used to have-- I mean, most of
it was brought in. But there was a kosher butcher
in the village that had, you know, brought in the meats. I don't know from where, but
I know, I know it was kosher. INT: What's one of your
favorite possessions that you remember as a child? NL: Well, I was-- from a very early age, I
became a stamp collector. And I had, during the war years,
beginning of the war years, I've enriched my collection. I had lots of beautiful stamps,
and [PAUSES FOR 4 SECONDS] one of the-- it was
my prized possession. And I took it with me
when I went to Lodz. And during the raids and
just before the occupation, my cousin's brother,
my older, my older, an older cousin of mine, went-- ran away from Lodz to Warsaw. And on the road, he was killed. And the news came
back that he died. And my cousin, who was my
age, was very distraught. And I was-- we were all
distraught, of course. But he took it very, very hard. And I wanted to cheer him up. And I know that he, he always
envied my stamp collection. So I gave him my
stamp collection. And [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS]
then I started a new one. INT: What was
Chorzow like as far as Jewish life was concerned,
organizations, papers? NL: Well, there was-- I don't know very much about-- only from what I,
what I've heard. Like I remember that 1938,
when the Germans threw out all the Jews, the Polish
Jews, a lot of the Germans came to our town. And Jewish families,
through [INAUDIBLE], used to organize for to get
apartments, get furniture and clothing, and to, to
absorb the people that came in. I also know that the Jewish
community, ran, of course, ran the school. And there were, you
know, charity balls. And some of the
pictures that I have, there was Purim
balls, that I have a picture of my sister in
a costume as a queen on. And so that was, that was
the type of life that we had. My parents had mainly
Jewish friends. And we used to go together,
you know, to their house. And they came to our
house and played their, with their friends,
with their children. INT: Did you believe in God? NL: Yes, at that time, I
certainly did believe in God. My image of God was that
of a 11-year-old boy that read Genesis and Exodus. And that was, you know, that
was my understanding of, of God. INT: You say you did then. So you don't now? NL: I do now. There was a time when I didn't. INT: When did you
not believe in God? NL: I was very
angry at God when-- after the war when we found
out what really happened. For somehow or another,
during the war, I did-- when I was in the camps, and
I remember I prayed to God. I prayed to him in English-- in Polish. And I know my father,
[INAUDIBLE] where he worked, three times a day. And you know, most
people believed in-- I think, believed in
God, even in Auschwitz when they were
deporting those women. The men were standing
between the bunks. And they were having Yom
Kippur services by heart, by-- from memory, as we did not
have books or siddurim. So-- INT: How were you able to
reconcile after the war and start to believe again? NL: Well, I came
to the conclusion that it wasn't God that
destroyed six million Jews. It was men. It was a struggle
between man and man. And I was angry that
he didn't intervene. And it's difficult to
know why he didn't. And-- but I realized
that what happened was the inhumanity
of man to man. And by blaming God, I
was letting the Nazis off the hook, so to speak. And I don't think that they
were a tool of the divine will. I feel that they were
pursuing their own interests. And that's basically
what it was. They, they needed, they
needed a scapegoat. They had a ready-made
enemy among them from which they could organize
themselves around and fight a very, very effective fight. And I think the
prejudice was there, which was there for
2,000 years through the Christian teachings. And the climate was ripe. Jews in Germany had attained a
certain amount of establishment [PAUSES FOR 4 SECONDS] status. They became wealthy. And they lived a good life. And it was, in the eyes
of a lot of Germans who did not have jobs, who
were very poor, and especially in the 1930s, where
a runaway inflation, and Jews lived a good life. And there was a guy
that came and started agitating that it is the Jews'
fault that, that is destroying Germany. So it was-- But my own belief came
back after the war when I started studying Judaism
from a more serious point of view or more adult or-- point of view. And I came to the conclusion
that [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] also God was silent. I don't think he was dead. INT: When do you remember
things beginning to change? NL: You mean during the,
during the, During the war? INT: Toward the war. NL: Well, it started
in 1938 and '39, as I indicated
before, that we had an overflow of anti-Semitism. After the death
of Pilsudski, who was the president of Poland,
other people took office. And they became much
more anti-Semitic in their, in their attitude
toward the Jewish people, yeah. INT: When did Pilsudski die? NL: I think he died in 1938. And so it turned, it turned
very rapidly and very ugly. And there was much more
organized persecution and state-organized persecution
of the Jews or Jews being excluded from jobs and from
positions and sorts of things like that. There was-- INT: Were you able
to continue school? NL: Oh, yes. There was no problem with that. Because I was in the-- in the Jewish school. So we felt that-- but my sister, who was
already in gymnasium, she felt more of that. There was more anti-Semitism
displayed from her teachers, especially those who
had a German background. INT: Was your father
able to continue working? NL: Well, he-- it was
more difficult. As I said, he was attacked a number of
times when he was on the road. And he had to-- but he was a strong, big man. And he used to
look after himself. His attackers did not
walk away with anything other than some bruised bones
and bruised and bloody faces. And [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS]
then, then came the war. Of course, as children, we were
very much afraid of the war. Because the old-timers who were
there in the First World War used to tell us stories of what
the next war is going to be, how the gas is going to be used. And when we were in Lodz, we
always carried tampons there, which we soaked in
a certain solution to counteract the
possibility of gas. Of course, nothing like
that ever happened. But the fear of gas
was always there. INT: You had said that you were
in Lodz when the war actually broke out? NL: That, that's right,
when the-- that's right. INT: What do you
remember of the day that the war actually broke out? NL: Well, there was, I
guess, the general hysteria, as just before
the war, everybody was starting to go in the
stores and buy everything that they could possibly buy. And the shortage
became almost instant, because everybody
started hoarding whatever they could buy. And-- INT: So you knew
that it was imminent? NL: Oh, yes. And then, of course, the, the,
the first thing that happened immediately the first-- almost the first day of
the war, Lodz was bombed. INT: What day was that? NL: That was the 1st of
September or 2nd of September. INT: Of '39? NL: Of '39. And the-- most of the
bombs were incendiary bombs so that a lot of the
buildings became infernos. And we used to sit for hours
in bunkers and basements while the buildings
were shaking. And we never knew whether there
was going to be a direct hit or not. The sounds, you know,
were, were terrible. And as an 11-year-old child, I
was very much affected by it. And then it didn't take
very long when the, when the Nazis occupied. And the first
encounter, you know-- first, when they marched in,
we all ran into the streets to see this [INAUDIBLE] to
this fantastic army march in. And they were very
impressive with the shining boots and shining tanks
and armored carriers. And we were fascinated
to see them come through. It was a real war machinery. And only about two
or three days later-- we lived in a courtyard-- and they came in. And they went into the shtiebel. And they got all the Jews
out from their prayer with their prayer shawls on. And you know, if it
was during the week, they most likely had their-- they did have their tefillin on. And they were starting
to come and photograph these archaic
people and make fun. They would shave their-- they would cut their beards off. They would--
INT: Did you actually see this? NL: Yes. They would take
them in and ask them to take the [? talesim ?]
and, and dance on them, and all the time
with guns pointing at them and
[PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] camera crews filming it. INT: Did you ever
see any Jewish-- Jews resist or refuse to
dance or refuse their orders? No. I, I must say that they-- we were very much frightened. There was-- this was
mainly old Jews that, that they went after. And the young people, they
took and they very quickly organized into work parties. And they deported most
of the young people very, very quickly. My father was deported when I
came back from Lodz in October, on October the 16th, 1939. They, they went to the
Jewish community in Chorzow. And they told them
that they must-- all the men between the
ages of 16 and 45 or 50 must come to a
certain place to go to be sent to labor, to come
with winter clothes and picks and shovels, and
that they're going to go and go to some work camp. And my father, of
course, went, and-- [PAUSES FOR 5 SECONDS]
was sent away. And I was-- I remember distinctly
as it was yesterday how upset I was and I saw-- when I saw my father
[PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] being taken away
on a, on a truck. And I didn't think that
I'll see him again. And he was gone for many
months before he came back. INT: So you're saying
in October, your parents and your sister went back
to Chorzow from Lodz? NL: My, my grandfather, yes--
my grandfather, my mother, and my sister, and
I we went from Lodz. We went-- we had permission
to go by train back to, to Chorzow. But even then, even so
we had permission to go, maybe didn't have-- we didn't have any papers. But we were on a-- in a cattle car. And every, every
time the station-- the, the train pulled into
a station and stopped, the Nazis would come onto the
train and call for any Juden. Are they any Jews there? And they would take the
people who looked Jewish, or who somebody pointed
out that they were Jews. And they would take them away. We-- [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS]
my grandfather spoke fluent German. And he, for some
reason or another, he managed to get us through
from Lodz to back to Chorzow. INT: So your father
was shipped off. NL: Yes, and we were-- INT: And were you in touch
with him for those few months? Did you know what was
going on with him? NL: No, we didn't
know what happened to him for many, many months. And right after he left, he-- [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS]
my, my family was ordered to leave Chorzow. So my grandfather
organized a, a wagon. And we took whatever
furniture we could take, put it on the wagon. And [PAUSES FOR 4 SECONDS]
then we went to, to Sosnowiec. He found-- he went before
to find an apartment. He found an apartment, which
was very difficult in those days to get an apartment. And we did go. And we lived on
number 12 Prosta. INT: So that's you
and your mother and your sister and
your grandfather? NL: And my grandfather, yes. INT: And this was in October? NL: This-- we came in
November, I think, already. INT: Of '39. NL: Of '39. INT: And how long
were you In Sosnowiec? NL: We were-- in that,
in that apartment, we were till about 1941, '41. In '40-- end of '41, or it
must have been in the spring of '42, early spring
of '42, we moved-- we were evacuated from-- we
were told that we have to leave. This was the Jewish
district where we lived on. And then they, they contracted
the, the, the, the Jews into [INAUDIBLE]. There were still Gentiles living
in our apartment building. So we were not
segregated at that point. But then in 1941 or
beginning of '42-- I don't remember
exactly the dates-- we were told that we have to
move into another dwelling place, which was already all,
all Jewish, the only people that lived in our district. Before that happened, my
grandfather had a stroke. And he died on 12 Prosta. And my father has come back. He was sent from-- on from October 16, they took
them to the Russian border. INT: In '39, you mean? NL: In '39, a
place called Nisko, which was the border between
the Soviet Union and Germany. And they released them. And they told them
that they should-- that they, that they
can go to Russia, that they should go to Russia. And of course, a lot of
people tried to get in Russia. And they were arrested
on the border. Or they were shot
because they tried to smuggle themselves
across the frozen river and get into Russia. My father was there, too. And at that time, many, many
thousands of people from Poland were running into
the Soviet Union. And the, the Nazis actually
encouraged them to, to leave. And that was very difficult-- like my father was
in [INAUDIBLE], and it was very difficult
to get food, to get a job, or to find a place to live. And he reasoned that
there was no point in coming-- taking his family
from Sosnowiec, from now from the Polish part of
occupied Poland, by the Nazis, to take them into the
Russian occupation zone. Because he felt that--
and these are his words. He said then that he
felt that he would rather take his chances
with the Germans than with the barbarian-- the Russian barbarians. INT: Did he say that-- what language did
he say that in? NL: In Polish. INT: Can you say it in Polish? NL: Yes. And that he felt that--
or I don't remember, it may have been Yiddish. The two languages were
interchangeable, so-- INT: Can you say
roughly what he said? NL: In Yiddish? INT: In Polish or
in Yiddish, yeah. NL: No, I don't think so. But he said that
[PAUSES FOR 4 SECONDS] the German-- he lived in Germany
since 1916 or 1918. He was a young boy when
he ran away from home and went to Germany to work. And he worked as a miner. And he spoke fluent German. And he respected--
you know, he was a-- he's self-taught. So he went to
cheder till he was-- or to yeshiva till he was 16. He was a very self-taught man. And he said that he would
rather take his chances with the German cultured
people than-- he says the may not make us-- they may not allow us to
work and to do business, but they certainly will not
prevent us from working. And that was because--
like when his brother and-- left from Chorzow, they
went to Czestochowa just before the end-- before the beginning of the war. My uncle left the store that
he had in my father's name. And when-- before October the
16, the Nazis came to him. And they said, you got to come
to the city hall with his keys to your store and the
papers, ownership papers, to prove that you own them. So he did go. And he-- they took his
papers and his keys and says, now this store
is being confiscated. And you're not
allowed to go there. If you have any other keys
and you go into the store, you'll be considered as
stealing from the German Reich. So he knew it was his store. But he felt that
he certainly will be allowed to live
in, in Poland, in the occupied part of
Poland, as a, as a worker. INT: How did your father know
to find you in Sosnowiec? NL: Pardon? INT: How did your father know
to find you in Sosnowiec? NL: Well, we had, we had-- people were going from
Sosnowiec to Czestochowa. And they-- we have
corresponded with him. At that time, the, the press,
the post was established. And we could write letters. INT: Oh, so you were in touch
with him for the few months? NL: No, we were not in
touch till he came to, to Czestochowa, like after he
came back from the Russia-- from Russia, he went
to his hometown, where his parents and his
brothers were, sisters. And then he found
out where we were. And we knew that he was coming. He wrote us that he was coming. INT: So what went on between
1939 and 1941 in Sosnowiec? NL: Well, the schools-- I wasn't going to school. So we were running
on the streets and getting into mischief. And I'll do some
black marketeering. I used to sell--
make and manufacture and sell cigarettes. And then when my father
came back, when my-- even when my grandfather
was still alive, he used to buy some watches. And I would go and sell
watches on the street and do whatever, you know, an
11-year-old, 12-year-old boy can do. And by that time, I was
already 13 years old. So-- INT: What was your father
doing and your mother? NL: My mother, she,
she was a knitter. So she would knit for people. My father had wool in
his-- in, in the house. And so she would take the wool. And she would knit people-- dresses and sweaters for people. And that's how we made
a living, to sustain-- INT: Did you have
enough to eat and wear? NL: We-- in 1930-- 1941, we had-- we still
had what to eat, yes. As I said, we were selling
off things that we had. So at that time, we still had-- INT: But there was
food available? NL: There was food available. But when we went to 1942-- in 1942, when we
went to Srodula, we already had to depend on-- no, even, even before
we went to Srodula, we had to depend on
the soup kitchen. And my father-- INT: Was this considered
a ghetto, Sosnowiec? NL: Sosnowiec was
an open ghetto. Srodula was the, the ghetto. But Sosnowiec was
an open ghetto. INT: What does that
mean, an open ghetto? NL: There was no, no, no walls
or barbed wire around the city. You were not allowed
to leave that area. But there was no, no, no
barbed wire or like typically, you know of Warsaw ghetto
and the Lodz ghetto, where they had actually
built walls around the city. INT: Were there guards on
the borders of the city? NL: No, no. There was-- usually, there
was just a prohibition. We were not allowed to. If you were caught-- we were
wearing, of course, the armband or the Star of David and the
Judenstern, as they call it. And if you were caught
outside, they would deport you. And nobody knew
what would happen to you once you were deported. And there were, there were-- not
that I remember that there were any shooting or anything
of that nature going on in Czestochowa-- I mean, in Sosnowiec-- INT: Sosnowiec. NL: At that time. INT: Describe the
star or the band. What arm was it on? Where was it? What did it look like? NL: Well, there were two, two. At first, we had the-- [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] I don't
remember which one was first. I think the Star of
David was the first one that we wore, a yellow star
with Jude on it, what means Jew. And we wore it on the,
on the left, left side. And I don't remember whether
it was later or, or earlier that we wore white bands
with a blue Star of David. I think that the band
came first and then the, and then the Star of David. INT: Was anybody
ever able to take off the, the band or just
not wear that shirt-- NL: Yes, yeah. INT: And then, and
then try to leave? NL: Yeah, they did. A lot of people did. And they were caught. They would be either
interrogated or beaten. I know-- I remember
one of my neighbors was almost killed by being
caught outside the area where he's supposed to be. And he was accused of smuggling
or being a black marketeer. And they, they
almost killed him. They certainly
made him a cripple. And that was, that was about
the only thing that we heard. There was a lady, a German
woman, that lived from-- that came from Germany, a
Jewish woman whose husband was taken from her and sent to
a camp or, or even murdered. And when the Nazis came to
get her, instead of being-- instead of going
with them, she went and she jumped out the window. And she, of course,
killed herself. But that was, that was the-- if the Nazis came for you,
the Gestapo came for you, your life was pretty
well over, whether they interrogated you or they thought
that you had some information. And so they-- we
knew we were living in a very hostile environment. And people generally
did not take it lightly to go outside
of the, the boundaries or to take off
the Star of David. INT: So there were
Nazis present? NL: Oh, yes, of course,
[? and the police. ?] INT: Do you remember any of
the names, the names of any of the officers? NL: No, no. There was Polish police that
was sort of traffic cops. But the German soldiers
were very, very visible. And the Gestapo was very visible
in-- on all the main streets and, you know, patrols going
through in the evenings and-- INT: Did any of the officers
ever start up with the women? NL: Not that I know. I, I, I'm sure
that that happened. And we heard-- I heard about it. But I, I don't know of
first-hand knowledge. INT: So in 1941,
you went to Srodula? NL: Yeah, in 1942,
we went to Srodula. INT: '42, what month? NL: Yes. '41 we were
in the open ghetto. INT: What month? NL: And in-- to Srodula,
we went in the spring. Because I remember the, the mud
on the streets of the villages was terrible. And before that, of course, we
had the people from Oswiecim or Auschwitz come to Sosnowiec. A lot of them came to
Sosnowiec and Bedzin. And we had to absorb
them in our district. And then in '40-- in '42-- INT: 13th 1996. Mr. Leipciger, before we move
on to [NON-ENGLISH] is there anything else you wanted
to add about [NON-ENGLISH]? NL: Yes. I think I should
talk about the-- what the Nazis did
and how they lulled us into a false sense of security
and that they would not bother us. Right after my father came
back from Russia in 1940, the Jewish community
organized itself. And the man who was in
charge of the Judenrein was [NON-ENGLISH]. And he felt that as long
as the Jews cooperated with the Germans, that they
would be able-- that they would leave them alone. So the first thing
they came, and they asked like they asked
everywhere else, to give them the silver and the gold
and the silver plate and whatever we
possessed of value. That we should give it to them. This would appease them. They would leave us alone. INT: You said the Judenrat. What was the Judenrat? NL: Judenrat was a
Jewish community. Sometimes it was
instigated by the Nazis. I think this one was too. And they chose, or
somebody chose themselves, to become the spokesman for the
town of the Jewish community. And they would
look after welfare, and they would look
after hospitalization and generally deal
as an intermediary between the Nazi regime
and the Jewish community. And in our town,
Sosnoweic-Bedzin-- it was twin sister cities-- [NON-ENGLISH] was very much
convinced that he could save a large number of Jews from
deportation, or from whatever, and to provide us with a certain
amount of economic stability. So he-- I guess the
Nazis came to him they said they need 400 men to
go to the war camp in Germany. And my father was related
through my mother's aunt to [NON-ENGLISH]. So it was sort of a
loose family connection. And he knew of my
father, and my father was a big man, strong man. And he said, Jacobi
wants you to volunteer to go on this work trip. So he did. And 400 men went with him. And they went to a camp in
Germany, which is in Silesia, and they were treated very well. There was an open camp. They worked during the day. And at night, they
could go into town. And they would barter with
the farmers in the town. And they would actually send
packages through the farmers to Sosnoweic. And you know, they
were paid money. And so actually, our economic
situation for the three or four months that he
was away improved. And after the three months
were up, they came back and they said, you know,
that they're going to-- he must have been home
maybe a week or two-- and then there was another
decree from the Judenrat that said that they
need 2,000 men. Well my father and
all those 400 men were the first
ones to volunteer. And they had an
over-subscription, and they had people that they
had to refuse because everybody wanted to go to work. The stories that they were
bringing back with fantastic. And so they went. But this time already they,
instead of being an open camp and being able to
go to the city, there already were
barbed wire and the SS-- or it was SR-- was in charge of their camp. And they were mistreated
if they didn't work. They were hit, and
they were beaten if they were not producing
for working fast enough. Anyway, my father declared
himself that he is ill. And they brought him
back to Sosnoweic to examine him by the doctors. They didn't have a camp
doctor in that town, so they brought the sick people,
they brought to Sosnoweic and they wanted to replace them
with other healthier people. And while this was
in process, my father escaped from that transport
coming back to Poland. And he hid out and then,
eventually, he came home. And after that he
was hiding out, and he actually became like-- [NON-ENGLISH] caught him. The police-- we had Jewish
police at that time. And they found out where he is. And they came to my
mother, and they said, either he gives himself
up, or we catch him and we're going to send
him back to Germany. If he gives himself up and if
he agrees to become a policeman, then he can stay in the city. So it was a very difficult
choice for him to make. And at that time
the police were not involved in any of the
deportations or anything. They were mainly traffic cops. So my father joined the
police force and his duties were mainly those of keeping
traffic and making sure that there's is no disturbances
and stuff like that. And we were already in
a sort of enclosed area. But then in 1942-- in the spring of 1942-- the whole town was ordered
to go to a place-- a park. A huge park. And the kids of course, we were
thinking this was a picnic. You know, by that time,
we already worked. And we thought there
was a day off from work. And it was a marvelous day. It was a beautiful,
sunny May day. And when we got to the
park-- about noon-- it was just like somebody
would turn the sound off the television because
everybody became absolutely quiet and you realized that
something was happening. And the Nazis put on long
tables, and you had to-- each family had to go
between the tables. And they either gave
you the ration card, they stamped your passport. It wasn't a passport,
but your papers. And that they said you have
to have this stamped in order to get you ration cards. And then they
retained-- they detained peoples who were without
a visible breadwinner. Like the husband had been
in Germany already working. So they kept the wife
and the children back. And they kept them in
one part of our ghetto. Actually, they took over
some of the buildings. One of the buildings was
our own dwelling place. And they put these
people in there and they kept in
there for two weeks before they sent them away. And the scenes was very
tragic because they separated families, and everybody
tried to get their family out of that group of people. I don't know why they kept
them there for so long. But maybe it was
[NON-ENGLISH] intervention. And as a matter of fact,
[NON-ENGLISH] aunt was in that transport. My aunt. And the children went
to [NON-ENGLISH], and they asked that
he let his mother out. And they came to my father
that he should intervene. But he had very little power,
if [NON-ENGLISH] couldn't do anything. [NON-ENGLISH] frankly said, we
have to save the young people. And she was an
elderly lady by then. She must have been in her 50s. That was considered old. And they were deported. I think it was in May of 1942. They were deported to Auschwitz. INT: You said that you
yourself were working? NL: Yes. INT: What were you doing? NL: I was working
as an electrician. That would save my
life eventually. In 1940, after the
Polish-- the schools were closed by the Nazis,
the Jewish community organized trade schools. And so I was too young
to go to a trade school. In 1940, I was
only 12 years old. I made myself older, and through
my mother's intervention, I was accepted into
a trade school. And I actually did quite well. I liked-- I liked, you know,
involving work with hands and I had no problem studying
the theory of electricity or the mathematics. And I really liked it. And so half a year course-- after the half a year
course, I went to work. I went to work for an
electrician at first, and we did the installation
in buildings outside of the ghetto. And then after that, I got
a job in a shoe factory as an electrician to
wire up the place. And after the place
was wired out, they took me on as
the stock keeper, and I worked in the stockroom. And I learned how to make
shoes and cut leather. So that became a very important
aspect of my survival. And then, I was already
working and living in Srodula. And during that process
it must have been 1942, I think that we went to Srodula. And I don't remember who worked. I worked in the
factory, and we had to walk from Srodula through
the city to our workplace. And at night, we walked back. And my father must have left
the police force before then, because he was
working in a company-- in a clothing company
called [NON-ENGLISH], and they were making
uniforms for the army. And I was working
in a shoe factory that was making and
repairing miners' shoes. And so we were walking and
every time when we got back to the ghetto we never knew
whether they would have an [NON-ENGLISH]
or a deportation. They would just come in,
they surround the ghetto and they go through
the streets and they would go from house to house and
search whoever they could find. Children, young men,
women, or old men and that was the only people that were
left in the ghetto at that time because the workforce was
working out in the factories. And so we never knew who was
left when we returned back to ghetto of ours, because
my mother and my sister did not work. INT: So for a while you were
still living in Sosnoweic but you were working in Srodula. NL: No, the other way around. INT: The other way around. NL: After we were
deported to Srodula, we came back from Srodula
to work in Sosnoweic. INT: So when did you
actually move to Srodula? NL: Now I don't
remember the exact date. I don't remember if it
was in the fall of 1942, or whether it was in the
early spring of 1943. The only thing that I
remember is that it was cold and it was muddy. And we had to walk through
that mud to get to our house, So I must imagine it would be
in either the very early spring or sometime in the
winter of 1942. INT: How long a walk was it? NL: It was about half an
hour, maybe three quarters of an hour walk. We walked in one column with
the Jewish police guarding us. INT: You had mentioned that
Srodula was a closed ghetto. NL: Srodula was not--
it wasn't barbed wired. There was also not-- INT: It was also an open ghetto. NL: It was a ghetto but it
was surrounded by fields. It was more difficult to-- they had patrols. Nazi patrols going
around the ghetto. And once you were
outside the ghetto, you were told that,
you know, you would be subject to being shot on-site. So that was a very
serious offense to go to. As a matter of factor, at one
point I was going to escape. And so I went ahead,
and I got some peroxide. And put some
peroxide in a basin. I put it on my hair
to make myself blonde. And I was going to escape
out of the ghetto with some of the guys. And I must have put too much
peroxide because my hair became yellow like straw. And it was a feeble attempt. And then, of course,
everybody discouraged us from going because if they
caught you-- there was nowhere to go. That was the biggest problem,
that there was nowhere to go. You didn't know if you
went outside of the ghetto, if a Pol that saw you wouldn't
denounce you and take you to the Nazis. And if they did, they
either sent you away, or they shot you on site. So it was very difficult. INT: Did you ever know
of anybody who tried to? NL: Yes, there are many
people who escaped. Especially some of
my sister's friends. They were young Zionists. And they banded together, and
they escaped one at a time. INT: Do you know what
happened to them? NL: I don't know what
happened to them. INT: Did you ever actually
see anybody get shot? NL: Yes, yes. I saw people being shot. INT: Under what circumstance? NL: Well this already while
they were deporting us. And if somebody went out from
one line to the other line-- if they were trying to run
from one place to the other-- they just took a little revolver
and shot them on the spot. And you see, as I was saying,
when we were out of the ghetto to go to work, the
Nazis would come, and they would come
into the ghetto and grab everybody
that they found, so we built hiding places
in our-- in our homes. And we lived in-- it was
like a sixplex, an apartment building in Srodula,
maybe it was three floors. So maybe it was-- it was about six weeks
apartments in there. So I built with friends of mine
a hiding place in the basement. And then we built-- because it was quite
small, we built another one above the roof space. The building was in two stories,
so we went through the hallway through an opening
in the staircase to go into the roof space
of the adjoining building. And we come in through
the opening with a sandbox that you would pull
away to get in there. And then once you're in there,
you lock it with hooks and bars to hold it rigid in
there against the wall. And of course, it became
useful when we were to-- when they finally-- it
was August 1st, 1943 when they finally came for us. We were home. It was Saturday night, and
so they came in early Sunday morning. And my sister was away to
a party and she came home. Must have been after midnight. It was well after midnight. And we had sentries-- sentries stand station on the
roof to see what was happening. Because we knew
that when there was a deportation from
previous experience, we knew that the Gestapo
headquarters, which was visible from our
ghetto, all the lights would come on at 3
o'clock, or 4 o'clock, or 5 o'clock in the morning. So we knew that
something was happening. And that same thing
happened that morning. So we were pre-warned. And we lived at the
far end of the ghetto. [CLEARING THROAT] So we got
ready to go into the hiding place. INT: Right now you had been
there for just over a year. NL: It was not quite a year.
it was less than a year. And we, uh-- So I was very proud
of this hiding place that we had in the basement. But my father
says, I'm not going to crawl like a dog
to go into that place, because he had to
get on all four to get into this hiding place. And then I was very hurt
because he didn't appreciate the huge effort that
I made because we had to close off a wall. And we have two plaster
it and paint it. And the other wall we had
to dust with coal dust in order to make it
look old and stuff. It was a really
good hiding place. The only thing that
wasn't very strong with it was that we didn't
have enough air in it. We went in there and we
started sitting and seeing how it feels to be in there,
and the candlelight went out. So we realized that there
was not enough oxygen so we had to make a large opening. But then it became academic,
because when we got to the-- when we finally decided
to go into hiding, we went to the hiding place,
the hiding place was full. Other people heard about the-- knew about the hiding place
and they took that place. So we went into the
second axillary hiding place, which was not as
safe, but it was still-- it was in the roof space. And it was August. It was a very hot day,
and we were sitting, water was running from us. And we were in there, and we
heard the soldiers come up the stairs. And it was a woman
came from somewhere, and she came into our hiding
place with a young baby. And there was about thirty
of us in this hiding place. And we told her that
she shouldn't come in. And she said, don't worry,
I will keep the baby quiet. And as the Nazis were going
up and down looking for us, they must have gone
three or four times up and down the stairs. And they missed that box. And we stayed there
and then we came out. And then the baby was dead. I don't know what happened. I didn't see what
happened with the baby. But I know that the baby-- and she felt so guilty about
it that she with the child went and volunteered
to go to the place where they gathered the people. And we stayed behind. And so we survived the
first two searches that way. And then there it was already
getting cooler in the evening. And again, people came
out from somewhere, and they went into this
hiding place that we were in. The basement was full. Over the roof was full. So finally, we decided that
we will go in the roof space, into the [? boyden, ?]
as we called it, on the-- in our building. It had sort of pull-down hatch. And we went in there. And we were hiding,
maybe an hour, and then we heard the footsteps. And the Nazis came,
and they looked for us. And they were just almost ready
to leave when we heard them saying there's no one here. And they pulled boards and
ropes away from the walls, and looking for hiding places. And then the last guy,
he noticed the hatch in the ceiling. And he started saying,
is there anybody there. And of course, nobody
answers, then he started shooting right
through the ceiling. And the women started screaming. And so we had to open it up. And we went out. And as we were walking down, the
same guy was very meticulous, and he must have seen a
crack of light between-- because it was getting dark
already in the corridor-- it was lighter in
the roof space-- he saw a crack of light between
the box and the opening. So he forcibly
got everybody out. And he shot into the space
to make people come out. So everybody left with us. As far as I know, the space in
the basement, they didn't find. And I found out subsequently
many years later, that the people did
survive in there. But then they give themselves
up because there was nothing. There was no food, and the
Nazis were all over the place. So they were
actually kept there, and they were working and
liquidating the ghetto-- removing all the valuables
from the ghetto and et cetera. INT: What was life like in
the few months in Srodula? NL: Well, as I said,
we worked, and I worked in the shoe factory. So I had a very good
rapport with the son, who was a [NON-ENGLISH],
who was running this plant. He was a very rough guy. INT: What's a [NON-ENGLISH]? NL: A national German. He was living in Poland but
he was and national German. So they, of course,
assumed their heritage, and they became the overseers. They became the people
who looked after, when the Jewish
business was taken over, they became the
[? tri-handler, ?] which would mean the third hand. A sort of intermediary
to run this business, or to confiscate,
or to liquidate it. INT: Was there enough
food and clothing? NL: There was enough food
because we had access to the, like I said-- we had access to the
Polish population. So I would steal leather
from the factory. Or I would bring this father-- the owner's father was working
with me in the warehouse. He was a real old-timer,
and he hated the Nazis. And he used to confide in
me, and I would go and get stuff for him. I would buy tobacco for
him on the black market. And he would give me
leathers, soles, cut soles. Or even the top
leather, or made shoes, and I would take this
to the black market to sell it and buy
whatever he wanted. He wanted liquor or-- the biggest thing he
wanted was pipe tobacco. It was his biggest desire. So I was making them money
and being able to buy bread, and we lived from
that very well. And my father worked as well. He worked in a tailor shop. INT: What were you living
conditions like in Srodula? NL: They were very-- we had one
room in which the four of us lived in. Two beds, one on either
side of the room. And there was the table
between the two beds. And that was our living
room, our dining room, and our bedroom. Then we had commode against
one wall, and a wash stand, and a curtain. INT: What if somebody got sick? NL: Oh, you looked after him. I don't think there were
hospitals at that time. You just brought the doctor in. The doctors were
still around with us. And I don't know what
medication there was. But if you were
very sick, you died. It was as simple as that. INT: So in 1943,
you were deported. NL: Yes, we were deported. Because like I said, we were
found at the end of the day. So we were marched from Srodula
to another ghetto in Bedzin. INT: Tell me who we was. NL: My mother, my
father, my sister. And it was a terrible situation
because women and children got lost from parents. And they were running
around screaming for their-- for their mothers. And other women seeing
the child-- they would pick them
up and carry them. I'm talking about toddlers. Some mothers maybe even
abandoned their children. I would rather think
that they just got lost. And we were marching,
and we saw the Pols on the outside of the ghetto--
some of them were laughing. Especially the young kids. They were making sport of us. They were saying [NON-ENGLISH]-- away with the Jews to Palestine. And other were weeping. Because they understood
what was happening. I think in 1943, my parents
knew, but I did not-- what was happening. INT: Did you know what was going
on any of your family members, other than your parents? NL: No. No, I didn't know anything. I knew that my aunts,
my mother's aunts, were hiding out as Christians. And one of them got caught. And she wrote her husband-- she got married to a Pol-- and her husband wrote a letter
to my mother that she should-- that she should look for
the papers, the adaptation papers of her sister. So that gave away her
story as to what to say. And she claimed she was not
Jewish, that she was adopted. And they brought my
mother to the Gestapo and they questioned
her for hours. And it didn't help. They still arrested
her and they sent her. They were going to-- they sent her and
some other women, but she escaped from jail. She escaped. And having her husband to
help her, she could hide in-- among the Pols. And my other aunt
also, she was, just before being
arrested, somebody-- she worked in a town, and
one of the Polish women went to the Nazis and
told them, there's a Jew working in our office. And the director, who was
a Pol, came to my aunt, and he says, you know somebody
went ahead and said that there are some Jews working
in our office, and I think the Gestapo
was going to come and look through everybody's papers. So she understood what that was. It was a not very nice warning. And she escaped out
of the town and hid and went to another town. And they both survived the war. INT: Mr. Leipciger,
I just wanted to ask you a couple more
questions about Srodula before we move on. You were about 15
years old at the time. Did you have an understanding
of what was going on? NL: Yes, we had a very
good understanding of what was going on. But we heard rumors-- as that-- people we know. Like, for example, in 1942,
when they were deporting the-- about 1,500 people
from Sosnowiec, we saw how they were treated,
how they treated the-- the-- the children, how
they put them in the-- in the cattle cars. We-- we were-- actually
could go and observe them. And we heard that
they would just take-- as I didn't see
myself, but I heard that somebody saw that
they take the babies and they just throw them into
the-- the wagons by their feet, as if they were a
sack of potatoes. So we knew what they were
doing with some of the people, you you never-- you always
consider yourself, you know, you're strong, and you-- and you're capable of
working, and so why would they destroy you? The-- the destruction for the--
the-- the idea of destruction for-- just for the
sake of destruction, I don't think occurred to me. So it may have occurred to some
of my contemporaries, older ones, and certainly my parents. But we lived a very
precarious type of existence. We knew that you had to
live a very narrow and-- and-- path, that you could
not get a-- into trouble, that the minute you
were-- got into trouble, they were jailed, or
deported, or, you know, something happened to you. And you just disappeared. And, you know, that
did not stop us from-- kids are kids-- and we--
didn't stop us from going out and having fights with-- with Polish guys and Polish kids
that would come and attack us. And especially, when we
still lived in the town, Polish groups would come in-- kids would come in, and
they would attack women in the ghetto. And they would rob people. And we became sort of
a group of vigilantes. And we started to
roam the ghetto. And when we caught somebody,
we would beat them up. And that, of course,
sent the message out that it's not-- it's not-- it's
no, not such easy pickings. INT: Who was with you? Do you remember the
names of people? NL: [SIGHS] You know, it's
an interesting situation, that I don't even remember the
name of my very close friends. That's-- that's something that-- as if it got wiped out. I-- I don't remember. They were boys that were
mostly older than myself. I was-- let's see, I was 14, and
some of them were 15, 16, 17. And they were-- they
was quite strong. And they-- you know, I mean,
one-- one occasion, I caught-- I stopped a-- a rock
with my glasses. And of course, it was
a terrible situation, because, to replace your
glasses in the ghetto was very expensive
and very difficult. But they broke my
glass, and I was lucky that none of the
glass got into my eye. And I saved my eye this way. But so, life went on. And you were always
hoping that-- I mean, I was-- I worked as an electrician. And after hours, I
went to people's homes, and they wanted to add a
plug, or another light. And I was working for this
family, the German family, Jewish-German family,
who was deported from Germany into Poland. And they had a crippled-- I mean, a disabled child
that was in a wheelchair. She must have been about
20 or 30 years old. Maybe she was more than 20. She was about 30 years old. Her parents were quite older. And one day, they came for her. And I witnessed this terrible,
horrendous scene of the Nazis taking her daughter in
a wheelchair on a truck, and the parents
being left behind. And that was-- that was--
you know, that was a-- a horrendous story. So you-- you-- you see--
you-- you could see what was happening, the-- the-- the-- the-- you
know, and the children being separated from their
parents and everything, you know. After-- after, there
was a deportation, the-- the-- you know, the
families that were left, they were devastated. So that was-- that
was all apparent. INT: So N said then, in
1943, you left Srodula? NL: Yes. In-- in 1943, we
marched from the-- they marched us from
the Srodula to Bedzin. And then, this was-- the was Sunday. Sunday. INT: How far was that? The march? NL: It was about 5 kilometers. And then, from there,
the next morning, which must have been Monday,
the 2nd, August the 2nd, they took us to Auschwitz. And-- INT: How many of you were there? NL: The transport was-- I think it was a transport-- was about 2,000 people. And at the time before
deportation, you know, '43, August '43,
it was very late. Most of the towns,
the surrounding towns, were gone by then. Most of the other
cities were gone. So there was only
a few ghettos left. Tehre was Srodula, Bedzin, was-- was Lodz, who were
still in existence. All the other ghettos
was liquidated. And it was [? Monique Marin's ?]
theory that-- that saved us till
the '43, till 1943. He-- the-- the two
ghettos together, had approximately 35,000 people. Whereas, the-- you know, the
Lodz ghetto was much larger. It was probably
about 85,000 people. At any rate, when we got to-- before we-- when they embarked
us on a-- you know, on a car, they-- they had-- they
stuffed us into a-- a-- a cattle car, a
closed cattle car. And we were there with
my mother, and my sister, and my father. And we were sort of
huddled together. We couldn't sit. We could almost-- there was
not enough room to-- to sit, but we huddled together. And my father took out
whatever money he had. And he divided the
last marks that he had, gave us each five marks. I think that was
all he had left. And my mother said,
whoever survives, we'll meet at my mother's-- at my grandmother's
neighbor's home. And my sister's boyfriend,
who was on the-- on that train was at the window,
somehow or other. Either he shouted something,
or he yelled something, and the Nazis opened fire. And they-- and they-- he caught a bullet right
in between his arm, right in his arm, between
his body and his arm. And he was bleeding badly. And he was trying to
look after his wound. People were helping him. And then, of course,
the gates opened. We got-- we arrived
in Auschwitz. INT: How long a journey was it? NL: Oh, it wasn't long,
maybe-- maybe two hours, maybe-- maybe less. Was only00 Sosnowiec is only
about 30 kilometers from-- maybe 30 or 60 kilometers
from Auschwitz. INT: Did you know that you
were going to Auschwitz? NL: No. When we got into Auschwitz,
they disembarked us on a-- on a field. It was not into the camp. They-- you know, they
see the-- the train. There are tracks
going into the camp. That-- that was done much later. That was done in 1944. When we arrived in
Auschwitz, the train stopped outside of the camp. We got off, and
they told us-- oh yeah, before that, you
know, as a punishment, because they-- we
were hiding, they did not allow us to take any
suitcases or any belongings with us. So we thought, you
know, we would be very-- really [INAUDIBLE],
because we were not-- we wouldn't have--
we didn't even have a change of
clothes with us. But of course, it didn't matter. Because when we got to
Auschwitz, the first thing they said, everybody
who brought a suitcase, they had to dump
it on a big pile. And the big pile
was lying there. And for some-- we
were the last car to-- in-- in the train. And we ended up to be we're the
first car to be disembarked. And my father and I, and my
uncle, the husband of my aunt that was deported in 1942,
we're standing in the line and with a couple
of friends of mine. And the women were
separated, as well. They were standing
in another column. And a Nazi comes up. And he looks at my father. And he says-- he
tells him to come. And he says, you come over
here and line up these men, as I send them to
you, in rows of fives. And I heard that. And me, he sent-- I should go to the other side. So I went to the other side. And we formed a new row. And I was in the first
row of the new five, with my uncle, the two
boyfriends, and myself, and some other guy. There was five of us. And we're sort of standing,
and waiting, seeing what's happening. I looked at where
my mother was, and I could see that she,
with my sister, were in the first row
of the women's column that was with the young people. And that was a good sign,
because I knew that the-- with the young people,
that means they're going to be sent to work somewhere. And my father was, of course,
with the young people. And I was with the
young, you know, boys. But there were no
infants, because the-- the young children that
are below 5, or before 4, I don't know, they-- they went--
they went with the mother. They went-- they were with
their mothers in that lineup of the older women-- young women with children. And so I figured it out. I remember it was just-- it was like yesterday I
figured that my father's going to go to Germany, my
mother and my sister are going to go to
Germany to work, and I'll stay here in
this Auschwitz, whatever this camp was. I didn't know the name of it. But whatever we were, I
was going to stay there. And I said I was an electrician. I can earn my keep. I could do anything that
they wanted me to do. And then, just as we do
that, my father's calling me. And so I jump out. And he's standing there
in front of me with a-- a Nazi soldier. And he says, that's him. He's 17 years old. He's an electrician. And he's a good worker. So he looks at me and says,
he's pretty small for 17. He says-- he says, yeah,
but he's a good worker. He's worked for a
number of years. And he thinks and he thinks. He says, OK, take him,
but make it quick. So my father and I, we
ran over to the group where he was lining them up. He shoved me in between
two men on either side. And he kept on doing
whatever he was doing. And it was very unusual
because, firstly, most of the times,
the soldiers-- I mean, the-- the
prisoners from the camp were coming to the--
to meet the trains. And they were lining up
the people in rows of five and marching them out. There were some soldiers
that were doing-- I mean, some striped
uniform prisoners, they were doing that anyways. So for him to ask my
father was unusual. And when he was doing that, one
of the Nazi soldiers came by. And he looked at my father,
and he recognized him from somewhere. And he tried to
make contact, and he tried to figure out
where he knew him from. By that time, nobody wore the-- the Star of David, or
anything like that. And so he started
a conversation. And my father spoke
fluent German, so they tried to
figure out whether he's a neighbor of his from
Chorzow, or whether he met him at the factory,
the diesel factory. At any rate, he-- my father
grabbed the opportunity. He says, my son is
in the other lineup, and I would like to have him. And he-- he agreed to
have me-- let me have. And that line up that
I was in, you know, a few minutes later,
was marched off to the-- to the gas chamber. In the meantime, while I
was still standing there, the womens were being
loaded onto the trucks. And I saw a girlfriend
of mine that lived in the same
apartment that we lived. And we waved to each other. And we-- you know, we-- we actually didn't make
eye contact, but I just-- just waved to her, as if-- because I-- I-- I-- we knew
something was happening. And they put her
up on the truck, and that was the
last time I saw her. And then, a few
minutes later, we were marched off to
the part of the-- the Auschwitz that they called
Canada, where they took off your-- your civilian clothes. They shaved your hair,
and they tattooed you. And my father was
right behind me. And I was right in front of him. So they tattooed
me with 133,628. INT: Could you hold your
arm for a moment, please? NL: [SIGHS] [HOLDING ARM] So we became prisoners
of camp Auschwitz. Right after they-- we were
tattooed, even before there-- before they were tattooed,
they were searching us. And they did a body search, to
see if everybody-- anybody hid something. They took off all our rings,
and all the possessions, and made sure that they
didn't-- that people didn't hide anything in their body cavities. And they gave us a lecture. They said, this is a
concentration camp. This is not a sanatorium. That story was
repeated many times. And they say, if
you don't behave, if you step out of
line, you'll join your brothers, and your
sisters, and your parents, in the gas chamber. This is-- this is it. No more deception. No more hiding
what was happening. And-- INT: You said that you saw
some of-- some of the-- the-- the line that you had been
in, of-- of the-- of the-- of the young boys, went
off to the gas chamber. How did you know that that's
where they were going? You didn't know yet? NL: At that time, I didn't know. INT: You found out afterward? NL: Yes. Once we were in
camp, we found out. Up to that point,
I still thought that we were just in a-- in a work place, that we were
going to be left there as-- because that's what
they were telling us, that they're deporting
us to the East, that they're
letting people work, that they're going to be
together with their families. And you know, so they even
had some postcards come back from Auschwitz. This was the--
this was the story. INT: Did you ever find out
why the procedure was broken, as to the fact that your father
lined up those prisoner instead of-- NL: No. INT: This Nazi, who was telling
you where to line up and so on, you know his name? NL: Yes. Subsequently, we found out that
it was Mengele, Josef Mengele. He was the doctor, and a
very infamous doctor who did experiments on children. I mean, this is a story
that became very much known after the war. INT: What did he look like? NL: He was a tall-- well, actually not that tall. He was a skinny looking man. And with-- with
his peaked head, he was-- he looked much
taller than what he was. And his little cane that
he kept in his boot, like a conductor's
cane, and he would orchestrate the dance of death. INT: What did he wear? NL: He wore a uniform. [INAUDIBLE] And I-- I--
don't remember whether it was a green or a black uniform. I don't remember. I tried to remember
that for many times. Somehow, I think-- INT: Were his hands-- NL: Pardon? INT: Were his hands covered? NL: Yes, he had gloves. But I-- I think that he had-- I think he was wearing a
green uniform, because most of the people there-- most of the Nazis around us
wore-- wore green uniforms. INT: What did his
face look like? NL: He was a-- a skinny
face, just a long face, not particularly-- no distinguishing
marks, that I could see. INT: What expression
did he have? NL: He-- almost, if anything,
he had a smirk on his face. He didn't display any-- any particular emotions. He sort of looked like
he was enjoying his job. INT: Did he come across
to you as being scary? NL: No. He was not scary to me, no. He-- if anything, he was, like-- like as I said, like-- I couldn't-- you couldn't read
from his-- from his face what-- what he was like. INT: What was his eyes like? NL: I don't even know that
I made eye contact with him. I-- I don't think I did. INT: What was his voice like? NL: Well, he didn't
use his voice. So when he talked
to my father, this is the only time he talked. He-- he talked quite calmly
and gave curt orders. He says, you, there,
come and line up these people in rows of five. March them off at hundred. That's the only
thing that he said. It was quite
businesslike and wasn't-- he wasn't shouting. He wasn't threatening. INT: Did you see him
again, after that point? NL: No. INT: Did you see any
other infamous Nazis? NL: No, not that I-- I never saw Hess, or the
commandant of the camp, or-- I saw some people that came for
us later on, that took us out of Auschwitz, but I still
don't know his name. I only know his rank. And we were-- from there, we
were shaven and given civilian clothes with a KL
marked on the-- the back of the-- you know-- of the clothing. And what-- INT: What does that mean? NL: Konzentrationslager. And we wore civilian clothes
with white paint on it. And-- INT: This is after the tattoo? NL: Pardon? INT: After the tattoo? NL: After the tattoo. I-- I don't even think we
had numbers at that point. Numbers were only on our arm. And we were marched
off, and given a shower, and taken to the
durchgangslager, into the transitional camp. And there we were, in
the middle of the camp. And we recognized-- I
recognized that they-- every week, they came by. And they-- they took away
the people who are the-- had swollen hands, swollen feet. For some reason or other,
people get swollen feet and legs-- and hands. They drank bad water
that was stationary, and they-- and they--
because it was very hot. It was a very hot summer. It was in August. And people would drink anything. And they-- their
faces, and their-- and their hands, and their
legs would blow up swollen. So they'd come up,
and they'd take all of the people, the
people who were hurt, or-- Like my sister's
friend, Olick, who was-- I-- I tried to help in-- in
the barracks for the couple of weeks that he was with us. And his wound was
starting to get infested. And he was in a lot of pain. I tried to help him with bread,
or a soup, or whatever I could. And-- but then, eventually,
he was taken away. And every week
that-- that they-- that they came to search for
people who were either skinny, or small, or-- they-- they would
take them away. So I hid inside the camp. I-- I-- I could see
what was happening. And they went through
this barrack, you know? And when they came close, I
would go from this barrack, go to the barrack that
they already searched, that they already
processed, and hide there, or go to the latrine and hide
in the latrines, and something like that. INT: How long were you
in the durchganglsager? NL: Nine weeks. And then, after nine weeks, we
were selected out to go out. So I think we were there, I
think, a total of 12 weeks. We left August,
September, October-- I think it was the beginning
of the end of October, or beginning of
November that we left. INT: Of '44? NL: Of '43. INT: '43? NL: Yes. It was getting cold. I remember, we were
standing on the belplatz. It was very, very cold. INT: How did you spend your
time there in-- in the few weeks in Auschwitz? NL: Well, Auschwitz was-- the durchgangslager did not-- the-- we people did not have
to go to work, but they-- they would exercise us. They would march
us, and they would make us do push ups, and-- and frog jumps, and run,
and stand, and you know, on attention, and
take off, put on hats, take off hats, sort of
in a military fashion, and try to see who-- who--
who they can wear-- wear down. INT: Did you have what to eat? NL: There was-- I personally had enough
to eat, my father did, because I
was the youngest-- I was the only child
in that barrack. There was another boy of my age. He was a couple years
older, maybe a year older. That when I ran
over with my father, he also ran with me, not with
me, but at the same time. And so he was in the
same barrack as I. And he had his
father there as well. And I was-- the-- the
stubenalteste was a French Jew. He was the-- like a kapo. He sort of gave me a--
a job to do inside. The bread had to come--
came in rows of-- one-- one piece of bread, we
had to cut it in four quarters. And there was usually more
bread than there was prisoners, because people used to die. And he used to
falsify the record. He used to say that
there's more people there. So there was bread left over. And so I had an extra ration. I could give it to my father,
or to some of my friends that were with me
in the barrack. INT: Where did you sleep? NL: We slept on
these boards, bunks. I don't know if there was 8 or
10 people sleeping on one bunk. And I was sleeping with my
father, next to my father. It was in the middle bunk. And-- INT: When did you get
up in the morning? NL: Usually, at
the crack of dawn. INT: Were you woken? Or you just got up on your own? NL: No, no. We were woken. They came in with
the sticks, starting to bang on the-- on the bunks. Get up! You know? And we had to get dressed. And we had-- we could go
to the wash-- wash barrack and latrines. And then, we had to come back
and line up, and count us again, and march us,
and back and forth. And-- INT: What time did you get up? NL: I don't know. It was-- it was-- I think it varied. It just-- when it got light. So we were more-- I think, we were-- as it became light, we woke up. So it's not that it was-- INT: How long was your day? NL: 6 o'clock, till-- till--
till-- till it got dark. INT: How long was your day? NL: Well, that was daylight
was our day, which was-- in August, it was a long day. And in October, it got shorter. So that's how it was. INT: So you were-- did you have to go to bed
as-- when it got dark? NL: Yeah. When we got-- when it
got dark, we went to bed. Actually, before that. They-- they had a curfew. I think, it must have been
maybe 8 o'clock after we got-- we got our bread. We got-- bread and tea,
we got in the morning. And soup, we got
in the afternoon-- in the evening. And after soup, they-- they allowed us to-- they counted us, and then we
were back in the barracks. And-- and we went to sleep. INT: What did everyone
do throughout the day? NL: Well, most of
us did nothing. You sat around and tried
to find some shade. They wouldn't let us
into the barracks. INT: Do you remember thinking
that-- believing that you would get out of there alive? NL: No. INT: You didn't believe that you
would get out of there alive? NL: No. At-- by that time, I-- I-- I-- we saw the crematorium
chimneys spewing out flames. And we saw what was happening. We didn't see, physically, how
they took them into the gas chamber, but we heard from--
from other people who worked in the-- in the Canada camp. And my-- INT: Could you smell the smoke? NL: Pardon? Yes, you could smell-- you could smell the stench. You could smell the burning-- burning flesh, or--
you know, it was-- it was definitely a stink. I don't know what it was. And depending on
the wind, you know? The wind blew our way,
we could smell it. If the wind blew the other
way, we didn't smell it. And-- INT: Were you in touch
with your mom and sister? NL: We found out
that some people-- they came into the camp and
asked for volunteers to go and do some jobs outside to-- and the people who were
volunteered came back, and they said that they were
working alongside the women. So my father decided that he
would like to [DRINKS WATER] go and see if he could
contact my mother. Because as my mother saw
me, she saw me in the-- in the lineup with
the young men-- young boys and old men. So she thought that I was-- went to the gas chamber. By that time she,
you know, already knew what was happening. And-- do you want to
shut the furnace off? At any rate-- the-- so he found out that the women-- that the men saw the women. So he wanted-- so he-- he
volunteered to go to work. He volunteered to go to work. And he left early in the
morning, must have been, maybe, 8 o'clock, 7 o'clock
in the morning. And when he came-- usually, they
came back about 5 or 6 o'clock at night. And this time, they
didn't come back. And it was-- by that time,
it was already September. And the days were
getting shorter. And it was getting dark. And I could see the
flames against the sky, shooting out of the crematorium. And I'm thinking that my father
must be among those flames. My father's soul
must be going up. And then, around 9:00,
it was almost dark, he finally came back. They came back. And what happened? So of course, I asked
him, what happened? And so he says,
well, after the work, instead of coming
back to camp, they took them to the-- to
Canada for showers. And while he was getting
dressed, a kapo, a German kapo, came up to him. He was a civilian, who he
knew from before the war, from our home town. And he says, Jacob Leipciger,
[NON-ENGLISH], you know? He says, you know,
[NON-ENGLISH], you know what I make doing here. I'm-- I'm a Jew. So he says, I'm a kapo
in the tailor shop, and I can save your life. INT: --six. So this Nazi said
he had a tailor? NL: No the-- no, he-- he don't-- no, he
was an assist-- INT: The kapo. I'm-- the kapo. NL: The kapo. The kapo was a tailor--
the head of the kapo-- of the tailor shop in-- in Birkenau. You know, we're talking
about Auschwitz, but really, it was Birkenau. And I'd like to correct
that, because Birkenau was part of Auschwitz,
but it's a separate camp. And we keep referring to
Birkenau as Auschwitz, as well. But it's called Auschwitz
Two, or Birkenau. And so he was-- he
was the kapo there. And he says, Jacob,
I can save your life. You can become-- come to
work for me in the shop. And he says, you'll
survive the war. But he says, my son
is in [NON=ENGLISH]. He says, forget him. He's-- it's going to be--
it's a matter of time. You're not going to save
him, so just save yourself. So my father says, no, I'm
going to go back to him. But one thing you
can do for me is you can give me some clothes
that will fit him. Because the clothes that I
had were clothes for a man, and I was wearing. So the-- the-- the-- the pants came up to here,
and the sleeves were-- and I could take the jacket
around me three times, and I'd look like a-- like a scarecrow. So he brought me a pair
of-- and we wore rubber-- we wore these wooden clogs. And so he brought
me a package, which had a shirt, and underwear, and
riding pants, and riding boots. And it was my size. So that, again, saved my life. Because a-- a few weeks
later, when we were-- they were-- they came-- they were looking for people,
but this time, obviously, they were looking for healthy people. They had a doctor
sitting on a chair. And people went
through the barrack. And at the end of
the barrack, he would select the
people, in or out. And my father was
in front of me. And I was behind him. And a few people were-- I always tried to put
myself between people that were of smaller
stature than my father, so that I wasn't dwarfed, that my
[? size ?] wasn't so apparent. And-- but it didn't help,
because we were naked. He examined us naked. And by that time, I
was already skinnier-- [DRINKS] And I was rejected. So I went around. And they separated us with
some kapos keeping guard. And then, my father, with the
people that were selected, were sitting--
standing to one side. And my father saw the
officer was, obviously, supervising this selection,
in addition to the doctor, who was doing the-- the
actual selecting. And he went over to him. He tried to go over to him. And of course, the-- the-- there was a
policeman-- or, I mean, it was a kapo, or-- or a
Nazi soldier that was there. They tried to stop him. And he started to
hassle-- hassle with them. [DRINKS] And finally, this
officer saw this commotion. So he-- he motioned
to my father to come. So he came. And he was dressed by then. And he says, I have
a son here, and I would like him to come with us. I understand we're going to
a factory to work something. He's an electrician. He's a good mechanic. He's 17 years old, and I would
like to have him with me. So he-- so my
father told me this afterwards-- he says,
you know, he said, I would like to have
my son with me, too. But it's war, and he's
on the East Front. And who knows whether
he's still alive, or not? And having said that, he
somehow paused for a minute. And he says, where is he? So by that time, I was dressed. And my father motioned to me. And I, of course, I jumped up. And I had these boots on. And I could click my heels
and stretch myself out as tall as I could, make myself
look like a human being. And he says, OK. Wait here. So I waited. And they-- they were-- the
selection was going on. And then, the doctor
motioned to him that he has the quota, that
he had the number of people that they wanted. It turned out that
it was 600 men. So he called me, and he
says, OK, give your number. So I pull up my sleeve,
and I gave my number. And I was 601-- number 601 on a
600-man transport. They took 49 additional people
so that, in case somebody got sick or died,
in the meantime, that they would have the full
complement of 600 people. [DRINKS] Well, the next two weeks,
while we were in quarantine, we were separated in a separate
barrack, the 650 people. And we were given
better rations. And we were marched. We were exercised. And we were-- you
know, a lot of-- lot of exercising, every day,
all day long, practically. You know, jump, and run,
and squat, and jump, and do leapfrogs, and to attention--
on attention, hats off, hats on. And the unit became-- like in two days, it became
like a military unit. Everybody marched in unison. Nobody-- nobody was out of step. Nobody got a cold. Nobody got sick. Everybody was hanging on,
because this was life. Everybody knew what that meant. So it came time to get
dressed, because they, they-- so they shaved our heads. They shaved a stripe out
in the middle of the head, and they brush-cut
the rest of us. They disinfected them. They put them in
striped uniforms. And the 50 of us were sitting
in one part of the barracks, sort of very jealous that
we were not going to go. And my father decided
that he wanted to change places with me. So he went up to the-- that was before he got dressed. And he went to the kapo, who
had the list, and he says, exchange my number
with my son's. Make the-- his list 133,629. He says, make an 8 out of the 9,
and let my son go in my place. So he says, no. He says, they got
it on the list. He says, I'm going to-- you're
going to get me into trouble. I said, I'm not getting
you into trouble. I-- but my father
argued with him. And there was commotion. And at any rate, just
then, the Nazi soldier came in with a list. And he says, OK,
all 650 are going. Everybody get dressed. And that's how we
left Auschwitz. INT: And when was this? NL: This was in the
middle of October. I think it was the middle
or latter part of October. INT: Of '43? NL: Of '43. It was already getting
cold, and muddy, and rainy. And it was a good time
to leave Auschwitz. INT: So once again, now,
what did you tell me about your mother and sister? Where-- where-- did you--
what did you hear about them? NL: Well, they were-- they were we-- like in-- in Yom Kippur,
which was, I think, the beginning of
September, 1943, while we were in the barracks. And we were confined
to the barracks. I climbed up on the top bunk. And there's a-- there's a
space between the-- the wall and the roof through
which you can see out. And I could see, because
we heard the screaming of the women going by our camp. We saw them being taken
to the gas chambers. There was no question
as-- in our mind as to where they were going. INT: Did you-- you
didn't actually see your mother
and sister, though? NL: What-- well,
what do you-- you're questioning-- you're asking
whether my father saw my mother? About what do you want-- INT: Or-- your father, or you? NL: Yeah. No, my father, when
he went to work, he never make contact
with my mother. The-- the woman
weren't there that day. So he went there,
in order to let my mother know that I'm alive. But by going there-- he went
to Canada, he met this guy, he brought my uniform-- this good clothing, which
allowed me, first of all, to survive better in
the next few weeks, because it was getting cold,
and miserable, and rainy, and I had-- INT: Proper clothing? NL: A good jacket and boots. And most everybody was walking
around in in wooden clogs. So-- INT: So that trip saved you, but
he didn't-- he didn't actually get word to your mother? NL: He didn't have-- he didn't
get word to my mother, no. INT: And you also didn't-- he
also didn't find your sister? NL: No. No. And I think they must
have gone together. So, you know, all of these-- like, my theory is that you
have to have a million miracles in order to survive. If one of them didn't
materialize, you were lost. And talking to other
survivors, that's the story. Everybody has a different story. And everybody's survival
was dependent on-- on the number of coincidences,
of miracles, of near miracles, of fortitude. You know, you couldn't
figure it out. Whenever you tried
to, sort of, think-- figure out which way to
go-- whether you should go to the right or the
left, invariably, you did-- you went to the wrong way. They were masters of disguise. They were masters of trying to
conceal the-- the true nature of what they were doing. INT: At this point, were
you believing in God? NL: Yes. Yes, I had-- I believed in God,
till after the war. And I'll tell you the
story, as we go on. Well, once we-- once we
got out of Auschwitz, [INAUDIBLE] survive, because
we went to a camp called Funfteichen-- INT: Funfteichen? NL: Which was in Silesia. Was not far from Breslau. It was a group
factory, or crop, that was manufacturing
guns for the ships. Huge guns. They were what they
called the Big-- the Big Berthas. INT: How far was Funfteichen? NL: From Auschwitz? INT: Yeah. NL: Oh, it was-- it must
have been a couple hundred kilometers. INT: And how did you get there? NL: We went by train. And we went in open cars, like--
like a coal car, you know? And there was a--
the Nazi soldier-- there was two
soldiers in each car. And we were sitting there. And it was-- it was not too bad. We had enough space to-- to sit. And we were given our
ration before we left. And the soldiers were there. And I sort of started talking
to the soldiers, as we went-- as we were traveling. I think it took us 200
kilometers, but it took us, oh, two days to get there. And he got to know me. And later on, when we
were in the next camp, he was one of the
guards of the camp. So he occasionally used
to come and talk to me. And when we got to Funfteichen,
I became an electrician, and I worked in the-- wiring up the barracks that-- they were expanding the camp, so
I was working inside the camp. And I worked there for
about three or four months, till the job was finished. And then I got a job in-- in part of the--
in the camp itself. But sooner or later, they--
they threw me out of the camp, and I had to go to work
in the-- in the factory. So I went to work
in the factory. I went to work as an
electrician, which was a very good job, because I-- you know, it wasn't
difficult work. You're pulling wires, and
working with your hands, and machining, you know, bending
pipe, cutting pipe, threading it, stuff. So this was-- was work, but
it wasn't-- wasn't-- you know, nobody stood over with you
with a, with a-- with a-- INT: A gun? A whip? NL: With a gun, or with a
stick over your head, you know? We had our kapo. And our boss was a
civilian, who we worked for, and a civilian Nazi. German. And it was a very good job. The only-- the only
thing was that it was-- you know, it was dangerous work. We worked on live electricity. And one day, I was
sitting in the trench-- the wiring was in
trenches-- and I was trying to file out a burr
out of a box that was alive. And the file touched
the live terminal, and it just went--
welded right through. And a big flash hit my
eye, and it blinded me. And I thought I lost the--
the sight of the eye, but it was temporary. It gradually came. There's some physical
damage in my eye, but I-- I-- I-- I saved my eye. And possibly, because
I wore glasses, that-- that saved, because
my face was totally burned. I was, like, raw. And that was my--
not my problem. My problem was
that I was accused of being-- of having sabotaged,
of sabotaging the plant, because I put about two
bays out of commission. Like a bay-- there
was a big, long bay where they had dozens of pieces
of equipment and machinery. And everything just went to a
standstill, till they reset. They had to check
what-- what happened before they reset the breaker. It must have been a half an
hour or an hour that they lost, so they accused
me of sabotaging. And it was interesting that
the-- the-- the civilian boss that I worked for
came to bat for me. And he said he-- he said
that it was an accident. And instead of putting me
back into work with the tools, he put me into a warehouse. So I became the warehouse
keeper, which was, again, a very fortuitous--
fortuitous occurrence for me. My-- my face healed--
didn't leave a mark on it. And the-- my eye came-- my-- my sight came back. And I worked in the--
in the-- in this plant and in this warehouse. And I started manufacturing
little heaters, which I proceeded to sell
to the German civilians in the factory that
worked with us. You see, all these-- we were-- the-- the prisoners
were working with civilians, side-by-side. And my father was working
on a-- on a lathe. And-- and I-- and his boss was a very
kind, old German gentleman. And he kept telling
my father what the news were from the front. And he kept saying,
hand on, hang on, the war is almost over. Hitler's not going to win it. And there's no way that
he's going to win the war. And by '43, you know-- that was after the-- the-- the-- I think, the attack on Leningrad
that they started in 1942, I guess. So they were already
being driven back. So the war looked not so
good for the-- for the Nazis anymore. And I manufactured these things. And I would sell it to him. I would give it to him. I would go about past
my father's place, and I would drop it
on the-- on the bench, and keep on walking,
or pretending that I delivered some material. And he would take it, and
he would sell it to his-- or-- the kapi between-- he'd sell it to the other people
that lived in the barracks, because they confiscated
all hot plates. And this thing, you could
put in a glass of water, and it would boil. But it wasn't-- basically,
two wires with two metals, pieces of metal, separated by
a piece of [INAUDIBLE] light, and became a-- it was boiling by electrolysis. And they-- they really
liked it, because they confiscated all the hot plates. So if they want to have a
cup of tea in the evening, they couldn't have it. So this was a very hot item. So I manufactured this as
soon-- as fast as I could, without giving-- making obvious that
parts were disappearing. And he would either give my--
my father a piece of bread, or he would drop a bag
into the garbage bin as I was walking by, so
that I could retrieve it. Because there's
no fraternization between the people. And that's how we worked. And then-- then, while I was
working in the plant one day-- I also worked for
the couple in the-- in the barracks. I would do his dishes
and prepare his food. They had-- he would have his
buddies come in and play cards, because they-- they had-- they had
an easy life in-- inside the camp. They didn't have to go to work. They stayed home all-- like, in the barracks all day. They slept up-- slept
through the day. And then, when it came at
night, they were awake, and everybody else
went to sleep. And so I was-- I liked the job, because it
was giving me extra food. When I was preparing
food for them, I made sure that there
was enough that they-- was left over for me and
my father that I gave him. And it was a very-- but what it-- the--
the difficulty was that I was very tired,
because I stayed up till, maybe, 11 o'clock. And at 5 o'clock, I had
to get up with the appel. And so, during the day, I tried
to find a place where to sleep. And the warehouse
was not very busy. And there was two of us
working in the warehouse, so I would tell
the other guy that was working with me is,
I'm going to go and sleep. And there was a desk-- just a small desk with a front-- roll-up front. And I would go inside, put
my legs in, and pull myself in, close the desk up, so that
nobody could see me sleeping, even when they-- because the--
the warehouse was wire mesh. So no matter where you were, if
you were sitting and sleeping, somebody could see you. OK? So you-- you're
looking for a beating. So this way, I was out of sight. And then, nobody
knew where I was. INT: Did you ever get caught? NL: That's the point. I got caught. Once, I got caught. The-- the-- the civilian that
saved my life came by my-- came by the warehouse. And he says, where's der kleine? Because my name
was 'der kleine'-- the little one. So the other guy says, he
went to deliver material. He says, where did he go? So he told him. And while he-- while he
walked away, I came out. And you know, I started
making myself busy. So I told him-- he said-- I said-- he says,
what did you tell him? I actually heard what he said. So he says-- so I
said, I better tell him that I went somewhere else. So when he came
back, I told him I went in the opposite
end of the factory to deliver some material. So he says, You're lying. He says, I went past there
as well, on my way back. And he says, they did not
see you this afternoon. So he says, I'm going to
take you to the Gestapo, because you tried to escape. He says, I saved your
life once, but this is it. And so-- and I started
pleading with him. And I was saying, look, you
must have children, you know? You know what's going
to happen to me. They're going to either
hang me, or they're going to send me back to Auschwitz. I says, please, believe me. I'll tell you what-- I'll tell you the
truth what happened. I was hiding in the desk. I was sleeping. He says, you're a liar, you. He got mad at me. He started shouting at me. He says, you know,
he says, you'd never fit under that desk. I said, yes, I do. I-- I-- I'll show you. Come back, I'll show you. So he-- we-- it was-- it was 10
feet from the door where they-- where
the Gestapo was, where the-- where the Nazis were. And he turned around with
me, and he marched back to the warehouse. And I lay on the floor,
and I put my feet in, and I pulled my body out. And he started laughing. And I figure, I had him. And he says, but I'll fire you. You're fired. And that was a big blow,
because it was just-- just in the middle
of the winter. And it was very difficult
working outside. That's the only job
that I could get, is we'd go to the Baustelle--
to the construction site. And he left me in the
factory till May, or April. When it got warm, I
got my notification that I am fired from
my job in the factory. And I had to go out to the-- to the Baustelle. And-- but the summer was coming,
and the weather was good. And I spent the whole
summer working outside. And it was good for me, because
I, again, being a little guy-- There was the civilian that we
worked for, and he was there. And there was a couple. But the civilian, I kept
carrying his lunch bag. I-- I would-- whatever he
wanted, I would do for him, you know? When somebody-- when he
wanted some attention, I-- I watched him. Whatever he needed, I
would anticipate what he-- what he would need, so that
I was always helping him. And he-- he liked that, so
he would give me easier jobs. And I always watched the-- the guards and the
kapo, making sure that, when they-- when they ever
watched me, I was working. And the minute
they turned their-- their eyes or their
face, I would stop. That's the only way you
could survive on a-- on a construction site. And to-- to an extent, it
became sort of ridiculous, because we were carrying big
railroad tracks and-- you know? And-- and was about
that far shorter-- And my Shoulder was
that far shorter below-- below the
man that was carrying in front and back of me. So I was just holding it up,
really, not doing very much. And that-- that old man,
he took a liking to me. And he started giving me jobs to
do, like count the [INAUDIBLE], count the prisoners,
or cook his meal. And he would bring me a-- a
bag of potatoes, raw potatoes. And he'd tell me to make
a fire, especially when it got to the-- in the fall, and
the potatoes were harvest. And I would make a fire, and
I'd roast the potatoes for him. And of course, always a couple
got lost in the-- in the fire. And he didn't mind. He-- he was-- he was OK. And I could help my
father with bread and soup all through the-- INT: How often did you see--
did you see your father? NL: Well, we slept
in the same barracks. And sometimes, when
he was on night shift and I was on day
shift, that-- we-- we'd pass each other, us,
going in and out of the camp, or coming into the factory. And so I would make sure that
I was on the right-hand side and he was on the
right-hand side, so that I could throw
him a piece of bread. Sometimes, my--
my bread Russian-- and I figured I'm going
to get some soup from my-- from my other sources,
or some bread. Sometimes, it didn't
work that way, so I went without
food for a day. But that-- that didn't kill me. Anyways, I start
working on the outside. And then, at the-- at the-- it was almost
coming to September. And-- INT: This was '44? NL: '44, yes. And I was walking
barefoot when I stepped on a piece of wire that
went right through my foot. And so I went to the infirmary. And I had to actually--
you know, I couldn't walk on my foot, they saw. And Dr. Zambromski, which was
the doctor in-- in the camp, who came with us from Auschwitz,
and who I gave a lot of soup and bread while I was in
a position to do that, to Zambromski, at the-- in-- in-- in Birkenau. And so I knew him quite well. And he looked at my foot,
and he says, OK, you can stay in the barrack. So I stayed in the barrack. He put a bandage on it, and he-- he cleaned it out, because it
was a rusty thing, you know. I'm sure-- I don't
know if he give me an injection against whatever. INT: Tetanus. NL: Tetanus. I-- I don't even know
whether they had that. But all I know is that my foot-- like, if I stood on it, my
foot would get swollen up, and it wouldn't heal. And I didn't want to go back
out into the construction, because it was already October. It was the rainy season. It was cold. And while you're in
camp, you sort of organize yourself so that
you-- you had better uniform, and you had a sweater, or--
or an undershirt, or good underwear and socks,
and-- and shoes. You organize all of that from-- from with-- from
with-- within the camp. Whenever-- whenever
there's an exchange, you make sure that you get
the best possible clothes. Or you-- you took-- they gave us cigarettes. Cigarettes became money, so you
could trade cigarettes for-- with the-- with the guy that
was looking after giving out the-- the clothing, and the-- give him a bribe so that
you could exchange better-- for better clothes. So I had good clothes going-- before I went to the infirmary. But once you come
out of the infirmary, they sent you back to the site. You start from nothing. You start-- you go-- they remove everything. You go to delousing. They give you new issue. And you got the worst
thing-- paper-thin uniforms and everything. So I didn't want to
leave that infirmary. So during the day, I would go
into the-- into the infirmary-- the kitchen-- the-- we
had our own kitchen. And I would help the
guys to clean the dishes and deliver stuff to
the people who could-- who were bedridden, who
could not get out of bed, and tried to make myself useful. OK. Became in the evening,
my foot was swollen up, and Zambromski says
to me, Leipciger, you're not staying
off that foot. He says, I'm going to
give you one more week. If it's not healed, you're
going to go out on the-- the-- on the Baustelle anyways. He knew exactly
what was happening. So he told me I
have one more week. So sure enough, I
stayed off my foot. And it started to heal. And he threw me out. He said, OK, you've
got to go out. So I went. And it was just as I expected. I got terrible clothes. I had terrible shoes. I had-- I was freezing all
day long on the Baustelle. And then, at night I went
to the [NON-ENGLISH], or to the infirmary. And I said to Zambromski, you
know, my foot swelled up again. I said-- I said,
please, let me stay in the-- in the hospital ward. I said-- I said, I
remember, you owe me. I helped you in Birkenau,
you got to help me now. I said, I am-- I am not going to survive,
being on the Baustelle. And so he agreed to let
me stay in the barracks-- in the infirmary barracks. It was actually a compound. Had about four barracks. One was an infirmary,
and a couple were the-- the hospital wing. And I was-- became
his personal helper. INT: It's February 13, 1996. So you were able to stay in
the infirmary, Mr. Leipciger, until May? NL: No, it was-- no, this was-- this happened
in-- in the-- in the late fall, in September-- October, I think,
October or November. And I stayed there
all through January. And it was a really
good time for me, because it allowed
me to recuperate. Both my foot healed, and I
also could put on some weight, because once you're
in the infirmary-- I was the adjutant
to the doctor. And I would make his bed
and look after his room. There was two doctors
that would share a cabin. And I looked after both of these
guys and did do their dishes and cook their meals, if they
had some special things to do. They didn't usually
like to eat the-- the-- the stuff that the
rest of the prisoners ate. And of course, they had alcohol. And they would send me
with a bottle of alcohol to the-- to the kitchen, to-- to give the chef a
bottle of alcohol. And he would, in turn, send
eggs, and salami, and butter, and margarine, and bread
with me back to the-- to the-- the doctor's room. INT: Could you intercept
any of this food? NL: Oh, for sure. [LAUGHS] It never got
bigger on the way. And, you know-- INT: What was your father
doing all this time? NL: My father was continuing
to work in the plant. INT: Doing what? NL: He was working on a lathe,
on a vertical lathe, making the locks for the-- for the cannons. Very intricate job. And he became very
skilled at it. He became a very
valued employee. And they actually
treated him quite well. I mean, they didn't--
they didn't beat him. Or you know, he
worked hard, but-- and it was a big piece
of steel that he had to lift and work around with. But he was treated
well by the civilian that he worked
with, and respected. Occasionally, he would be given
some food, some leftovers. They would sort of leave
it so he could pick up. Any rate, while I was in the-- I could help my father. He would come to my-- to the-- to the-- the [CLEARS THROAT]
hospital ward. And I would give him--
through the fence, I would give him
this bowl of soup. Or you know, he had
a special canister. I would give him canisters
of soup, and some bread, and some stuff that-- that
was easy transported, to-- to be able to give it to him. And-- [COUGHS] and
that camp, the-- we were too-- we were
working together with Poles and other
nationalities, Italians, civilians. I mean prisoners, but Polish
prisoners, not Jewish, Christians. This was a true concentration
camp with people from all over the-- the-- in the occupied Reich-- Ukrainians, Ukrainian
soldiers, Russian soldiers that escaped and
were recaptured. And they would be given-- put
into the concentration camp, rather than into POW camp. So we had quite a
mixture of people and utilized that
period very well to sort of build
our strength up. In January of 1945,
we were evacuated. And we had to go 80
kilometers from Funfteichen to Gross-Rosen,
which was further-- [CLEARS THROAT] further west. And on the way, the first
day, you know, there was-- first of all, I had bread on me. And my father had bread on him. And they-- when we left,
they gave us bread ration. The bread disappeared. I mean, people ate it within-- within one day. I mean, it was-- it was insane. But you know, when you're very
hungry and you have the bread, you eat it. It's very difficult to-- to keep it, so-- to save it. Anyways, for us we did
have some bread on us. And we didn't dare to
eat it during the day, so we used to eat it at night. INT: How did you
get to Gross-Rosen? NL: By foot. We walked. And 80 kilometers. There was a big, long-- the camp was divided
into two groups. I found out afterwards that
one went to Gross-Rosen, and another one went to another
camp, which I don't remember. INT: Was this a death march? NL: This was basically
a death march. It didn't start out
like that, but we were given about two days ration. And we were marched--
the first day, we were marched very quickly. And a lot of the prisoners
started to fall-- to fail. On the second day,
prisoners started to stumble and get weak. And we didn't get any water. And the second day-- the first night, we
stayed in a barracks-- in-- in a-- in a-- in a barn, a huge barn. And some people slept outside. I got inside with my father. We slept inside, in straw. INT: What was the temperature? NL: It was down below freezing. Snow was on the ground, so it
may have been minus 5 degrees. It wasn't terribly cold. INT: And how were you dressed? NL: Pardon? INT: How were you dressed? NL: We-- we dressed in
our uniform, but I had-- I had good clothes. I had shoes. And my father had good shoes. And we-- we were dressed warmly. Like, when I was working in
the factory as a-- as a-- an electrician, one
of the byproducts of being an electrician, we--
the-- the wire, coils of wire, came wrapped in
crepe paper, which was a very important
commodity, because you could use that to
wrap your feet, in addition to your socks. And people couldn't
detect that you have it on you, because they-- they
wouldn't let you do that. Or when I was working on the
[NON-ENGLISH], we would have-- we would save the
inside bags of cement-- remove the outer
and inner pieces of cement out of the paper. And there were about
four layers of paper that we saved and
cut out a-- a neck, and wore sleeves,
cut out sleeves. So you wore it as
a-- as a windbreak. And that was very important. So-- but we had-- we had good
clothes accumulated through these-- we were there over a year. INT: How many people
were on this march? NL: Well, I think-- I don't remember how
many, but I think there were, at the
camp at that time, must have been over 10,000. So I think 5,000 went
with us on this march. INT: How were the-- how was the average
person dressed? NL: The average
person wore-- well, the uniform was you had
underwear, and you had a-- a-- a jacket, and pants, a
shirt, and an overcoat, all of-- made out of denim, made
out of a very thin material. Not very-- not very warm. INT: Did you have
Jewish stars on? NL: We had-- we
had the number on. And we had two stars, two--
two triangles, a yellow and a red triangle
superimposed on each other. So that made a star of David. INT: What are-- I mean-- NL: The yellow being
Jews, and the red being political prisoner. And then, there was a
P on it for-- for Pole. But we didn't have to have
a P, we just had the-- the two triangles. And we were marched
out quite quickly. And I think we must have
gone about 20 kilometers in the first day. And we could hear the--
the war coming closer. The-- you know, the shells
were bursting in the air. And we'd hear the
Front not far from us. And the people-- some people-- I had-- you know, some people
were left in the infirmary. And we didn't know what was
going to happen to them, whether they're going to
burn the infirmary, they're going to shoot everybody,
or what's going to happen. But any rate, we went. And the second day,
people starting getting tired and weak. And the Nazis would
come over, and they said, sit down, sit down,
sit down by the road and-- and rest. And we were sort of
drifting back, as you-- as-- as the group moves, you
sort of keep drifting back. And we found ourselves
at the back of the-- of the big, long
column of people. And they noticed that what
they-- what they were doing is they were shooting
the people who sat down. They come from the back. And actually, sometimes,
you take two heads, put them together, and
shoot with one bullet to kill two people. And that was--
that was horrific. So we decided we have to get to
the-- to the front of the row. So two of us, we sort
of marched quickly and to get to the
front of the row. And then, you could relax,
because you're slowly getting passed over. And like the-- it
wasn't-- wasn't a march, it was more like a-- like a-- like a walk. Everybody shuffled. After the first day,
everybody sort of started to just floating around
in this column of people. And the Nazis, even
they were getting tired. And they took the bags on
their-- their back, the-- the-- the rucksack that they had,
and they put it on some strong looking prisoners, so
that they could carry it. And [CLEARS THROAT] some
people started running, so run, try to get away. And of course,
they saw them fall, because they shot them right
as they-- as they went out. And-- INT: Were these all men? NL: All men. Our camp was all men. And we finally got to-- after about four days,
we got to Gross-Rosen. [DRINKS WATER] I think we
lost close to half the people that started out. [CLEARS THROAT] And-- INT: On the way, you lost half? NL: On the way. And you know, women were
coming out of the houses. And they would try to
get us bread and water. And you know, they-- they wouldn't-- they didn't-- the soldiers would push
them away, shout them away, you know, run, started
shouting at them. So they would throw the bread. And you know what happens when
you throw a piece of bread. 10 guys falling on each other. And they would say, you
see what you're doing? You see what you're doing? And they starting hitting
us and beating, and-- you know? Invariably, somebody got killed. So they were trying-- you know. So this is-- when the
women, they were coming out with the help, with the food,
because they saw that we were-- we were just shuffling,
we were Muselmann, we're sort of walking skeletons. And [INAUDIBLE]-- INT: What's that term you used? Muselmann? NL: Muselmann. Yes. INT: Is that what
you were called? NL: That was a German-- German term that they used for-- INT: What did it mean? NL: It was an--
an-- an emaciated person, who was sort
of skin and bones. You-- your eyes protrude. Your buttocks are just
skin hanging down. And you-- you walk
on a very-- you know, you're half-delirious. And-- and people were
actually starting to walk-- they started-- at that position,
they started walking backwards, because they-- they lost-- they lost-- they lost
their-- their orientation. And so they would lay
them down, set them down. And the first day, they would-- they had clean up wagons that
came with us, that they would take the dead prisoners
and put them on the wagon to take them with us. After the third or fourth
day, they just sat there. They just left them there. And when we got to
Gross-Rosen, there was-- the camp was
absolutely overfilled. And it was horrendous. We got some food rations. We were put into barracks. There was no beds. We had to sleep on floors. There was hardly enough
room to-- to turn around, and terribly congested. And lice were-- just
infested with lice. Your-- your body was-- like, in the morning,
was bitten with-- from-- by-- by the lice. And you know, lice are
carriers of typhus fever. And it-- it was--
it was terrible. In the morning, we
took off our sweater, and we could-- we just kept,
you know, shaking out-- the lice were so-- so plentiful,
that you could actually shake the sweater, and
they would fall down. And it's-- it's hard to believe
that, that's how-- how-- how bad-- how bad
the situation were. And I used to go-- we used
to go to the [INAUDIBLE]. They used to grab
people who could still-- you had some flesh on them. And then, they would take us
and put us on cleanup duty. So we'd have to go and get dead
people out of the barracks. You could let-- go
lie down in-- in the-- in the evening. And in the morning, you
would, like, wake up, and the guy beside you is dead. He's died in his sleep. INT: Did you have to do clean--
clean up some of these bodies? NL: And I had to do
the cleanup work. And I remember, I was-- I was-- I was cursing the
bodies, because I was-- you know, they were heavy. And they were sapping my-- my health, my-- my strength. And we-- it was terrible,
because we carried them by their hands. And their-- and their skull
was bouncing along the ground. And I still remember that-- that horrible sound. And then, we were there
for about two weeks. And they shipped us in
open cars to Flossenburg. We didn't know where we were
going, but they shipped us out. And Flossenburg is in Bavaria. And we went to-- and they put us about 100
people in a-- in a car, or maybe 80 people
in a car, again, with two soldiers in each-- in each car. And by about the-- they gave us a whole bread-- the whole loaf of bread, which
is really four-- four days' rations. So we figure that it's going
to be a long time before we're going to get food. So my father and I,
we cut up the bread, and we put it against our
skin, underneath our shirt-- underneath our shirt. And the belt sort of held all
of it around, to conceal the-- the-- the bread. And we wrapped it in
little pieces of cloth that we carried,
that we had, and so that not to lose even a crumb. And we just took a
piece of bread a day. And by the third day,
everybody was without bread. And there was no water. It was snowing, so we ate the
snow to get some moisture. And by about the fourth
day, we could all sit. We were not allowed
to get rid of the-- the bodies, so we had
to-- we lined them along the outside of
the car, the cattle car. And we covered them with
straw, and we sat on them. And there was lots of room,
by the time we arrived in-- in Flossenburg, which
was seven days later. And they never stopped for-- we stopped-- you know, they--
we were traveling and stopping, and traveling and stopping. Most of the time, we
were traveling at night. And the Nazis were making
sure that nobody had even the strength to-- to
jump out of this-- the railroad car. You know, the railroad car
was way over your head. Nobody could-- even had the
strength to chin themself up. And when we got to
Flossenburg, there were very few of
us left in the car. And we had to walk
up the hill, which was a very strenuous march. INT: When with this, now? NL: This was about February-- beginning of February, 1945. And it was cold, but we didn't-- I don't even remember-- I don't remember even being
cold, for some reason or other. And we went-- we
got to Flossenburg, and we were put into-- we got there in the
evening, in the dark. It was already nightfall, and--
or-- or it was getting dusk, dark. And they put us in
this big, huge shower room, this huge shower room. And we were sort of
looking at these things. And we're looking to see
if there's any holes where they would throw the gas into. But we didn't know
whether this was it, or whether this was
just a regular shower. And we stay-- stayed there the
whole night in that shower, not knowing what they're
going to do for us. And we were naked and cold. And there was nowhere to sit. And you know, our bodies didn't
have very much flesh on them anymore. So just to sit on your--
you know, it was hurt. Everything. No matter what position
you were, you could only stay there like for 10, 15
minutes, before your bones were-- you were hurting. And it was a very long night. And in the morning, they
turned on the water, and they deloused us. And they gave us uniforms. And many people were dying. And they had huge pyres
going where they were burning the people on-- on pyres. There was no crematorium
in Flossenburg, so they just burned
them in open pits. We were again lucky
to get out of-- out of-- out of Flossenburg. We volunteered to
go on another-- they were looking for-- Flossenburg was a-- a
steinbruch, a quarry. Was very many people died there. Was a terrible camp, so
anything was better than that. So they're looking for-- they
were looking for mechanics. So that means they were
going to a factory. So my father and I, we obviously
were qualified mechanics, so we lined up. And we-- there were
there, you know? They were viewing us. They were counting us. They had interviews with us. And they-- you know,
they came to me. They stopped, and they
looked at me and say, hey, you're quite small. How old are you? What can you do? And I told him. And anyways, they
let me go through. So we went to another
camp called Leonberg. INT: So when did-- how long
had you been in Flossenburg? NL: About two or three weeks. So this was by the
end of February. INT: So you must have been
quite emaciated yourself at that time. NL: That's correct. Yes. INT: So what gave you the--
the-- the will to go on? NL: My father, the fact
that we were together. That was the most
important aspect of it. He lived for me,
and I lived for him. You know, we-- we sort of--
when we were on the death march, we sort of dragged each other. I would pull him, and
then he would pull me. And the fact that we were
together really, really survived us. And he helped us to survive. And so we got into another
camp, called Leonberg. And then, we were working inside
of a tunnel, like a railroad-- like a road tunnel. And they built-- they
excavated inside. And they built a
Messerschmitt factory. And my father was--
became a mechanic. He was working on-- on the-- on riveting the-- the-- the skin of the aircraft. And I was left in the barrack. And our barracks-- about
a week after we got there, developed typhus fever from
all the lice that we had. And so they quarantined us
off, and they wouldn't let my-- I couldn't-- you
know, my father, they wouldn't allow
him contact with me. But my father-- and
then, it became apparent that we were going
to be shipped out. So my father went-- after the work, he went to the
camp commandant, and he said, I would like to go with my son. And he says, you must be crazy. He says, they're
going back to Dachau. He says-- he says,
you-- you're healthy, and they have typhus fever. Why do you want to go there? He says, well, I would
like to join my-- I would like to go with my son. So he says, well, we
need you in the factory. You can't go. He says, but I was
in contact with my-- with my son. So he put him out. And he says, if that's
the case, then-- and they put him into the
quarantine, which it was not true that-- we were not
in contact, but he-- he said that we were. And we got on a train. This time, was a closed
train, closed in. And they took us--
we got to Dachau. And there was no room for us. We were standing in Munich
while they were bombing Munich. And the-- the sky was
lit up like daylight, the bombs burning around us. And then, we got into another
camp, called Muhldorf. And there, I got a
job in the kitchen. And my father was working
on the construction. INT: So how long
till you-- you got-- NL: That was-- oh, before
we got in there, like, when we got to the camp, they
said to us, anybody who's sick, report to the-- to
the-- they showed us in front of the infirmary. There was beds with linen on it. And they said-- just indicate
that you-- that you-- come forward and say, sick. I was ready to go. And my father, because I was-- I must have had fever. I had diarrhea since
the first march, the first walk, the
first march, when I-- INT: In January. NL: In January. I ate some snow,
and I got diarrhea. And I was sick
with the diarrhea. So that really took
a lot of out of me. So he put his hand
on my shoulder. He says, you're not sick. You're staying with me. And so, sure enough,
the next morning, they had to go and bury
them, because they took them in the forest and they
just shot everybody. So we stayed for about two
or three weeks in that camp. And then they transferred
us to another camp, which was in the
middle of the forest. And this camp was completely
surrounded by woods. And the-- the-- the
huts were dug out of-- out of the mud, and just
so-- and they put like a lean to put over it. So you slept on
the-- on the earth. And you could walk in the
center, in this trench. And we were there for,
maybe, two or three weeks. And they-- INT: What was the
name of this place? NL: Pardon? INT: What was the
name of this place? NL: Muhldorf. INT: Muhldorf, [INAUDIBLE].
NL: Muhldorf. Muhldorf. It was Muhldorf. I mean, that was the name
of the town next to us. And-- oh, no, this was--
this was-- this is-- Muhldorf was the previous camp. This one, they just-- they just called it Waldlager. It means forest camp. And in that camp, I went
out, I worked again. And I got a job
working in the kitchen. And we used to go
out in the fields and pick up some weeds
that were high in protein that the-- that
the kitchen cooked. And we went on the
farms, and you know, we-- wherever we could,
we would go and-- on the fields. Sometimes, the fields
were potato fields that were just harvested, and
we would dig up some potatoes. Or they were left over
from the year before. I don't know how
we would grab some. As we were going
past the farm house, we would see a dish put
out for the dogs to eat. And we would grab the
food from the dogs dish, and just-- just to eat. Anyway, so this lasted
only about a week. And [CLEARS THROAT] they--
finally, they-- they evacuated the camp. And they were--
evacuated us too. We decided we want to-- we
want to hide inside the camp, but there was nowhere to hide. Everywhere where there
was a hiding place, there were already two or three
guys hiding in that place. And so we tried-- we stayed
back as far as we could in-- in the camp. And then, finally, they cleaned
the camp out, and they got us. And I came to the
commandant and I said-- I said, I can't go. I'm too weak to walk. I says, rather than die
on the-- on the way, I'm going to die here. And please let me stay. And so,
[PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] my-- I said, can my father stay too? He says-- he looked at him. He was a big boned man, so
he-- when he was a skeleton, he looked big,
with big cheekbone. And so he says,
no, he has to go. So I said, well, then
I'm going to go with him. And he sort of half
carried, half dragged me. And we went and
turned around to-- walked away from him. And he changed his mind. He called us back. He says, you can both stay. And that train went out. And the next night, it was
bombed by the Americans. And the prisoners
started running. And the soldiers were-- the Nazis were
shooting everybody who was getting off the train. As a matter of fact, I met
somebody in Toronto many years later that was on the
train, that ran away, who had successfully
ran away off the train, hid in a farmer's barn for three
days, and survived the war. With us, we stayed in the
barracks, in the infirmary. And about two days later, the
commandant came and took-- had his insignias ripped off
and had a paper in his hand that was supposedly
saying that it is an order from Himmler that he
should destroy the camp, burn the camp, and
kill everybody. He says I'm going to give the
camp over to the Americans. I don't have food
to-- to take you out, so I'm going to give you
over to the Americans. And two days later, sister
camp that have prisoner-- Russian prisoners of war, two
guys escaped from the camp. Guards-- there were very few
guards were left by that time. It was already end of April. And [DRINKS WATER] two
of them escaped and went with a motorcycle, one of
the Nazi's motorcycles. And they went out through the
front, and they brought in-- we were surrounded
by Americans already. But this was inside
of a dense forest, and they were not in
a hurry to go in-- into-- get into mines, step on
a mine, or get into booby trap. INT: So where and when was this? NL: This was May
the 2nd, of 19-- May the 2nd, 1945. And then-- INT: And where exactly was this? NL: That was in-- not far from Muhldorf
am Inn, which is about 60 kilometers south
of Munich, and-- or let's see. It was east of Munich. And it was in the-- in the
foothills of mountains already. Beautiful place. And so we were-- they brought a personnel
carrier and a tank with them and to liberate us. And they arrested the
Nazis that were there. And they were standing on
the-- on the personnel carrier. And they were-- the-- the-- the
Americans were shielding them from us. And you know, somebody
killed a horse. And the prisoners
went after that and went-- started
cutting the meat. And they brought
it in the kitchen and started to cook the
meat and with all the fat. And half the people became ill. And even then, the
Americans came, and they tried to
organize soup kitchens. And finally, they
emptied the camp, and they took us to a-- a
convent, which was a hospital. And on May the 7th,
the war was over. And I was with my father. And May the 10th, I became
deathly ill with Typhus fever. And I almost died. I was five days in a
semi-coma or in coma. I just had very few
moments, lucid moments. And that's why,
the reason I know that I believe in God,
because whenever I was awake, I prayed to God. I was arguing with God. What did I do to
deserve to die, now, after having suffered
all of this hardship, and what I saw,
all of the things? Why should I-- why do
you have to take me now? INT: --6. So you were talking
to the Almighty? NL: Yes. Well, I was-- like the time
that I was awake was very short, but I remember that I was
arguing with my-- with God. And I-- I couldn't understand. You know, I-- During the time
that I was in camp, there were many days
where I realized that maybe I'm being punished. And the people who went to
their death, to the gas chamber, had it easier, because at
least they went quickly. Whereas, the struggle,
every day struggle through-- in the camps-- even so, I
had it, in many instances, better than others,
it was horrendous. And you never get
used to hunger. And you-- you're-- different people
react differently to-- to hunger. And you become
weak and lethargic. And you don't want to move. And depressed. And all of this adds to your--
to your feeling of despair. And we despaired many times. And you know, now, through--
we just tasted the freedom. Just-- just out-- you know, the
war, was liberated, eight days. The war was over. It ended just two days ago. And here, I was going-- I knew that I was dying. I had not enough-- I couldn't even lift my head
from my pillows, I was so weak. And there was a little
sister, Josephine, a nun, who started to look after me. And he brought me-- she brought me a
water bottle that was the size of-- you know,
it fitted under my body, so that I shouldn't
hurt my intestine and my-- my internal organs. And she gave me some pills,
because the-- all they had was two aspirins
every four hours. And for five days,
she nursed me. And at the end of the
five days, the fever, suddenly during the day,
it went suddenly down. And she came to my bed, and she
put her hand on my forehead. And she felt cold and clammy,
and she thought I died. So she went-- she ran
to get the priest. It was the only thing
she knew what to do. And my father was out
of the room, apparently. And the priest came in with
all of his paraphernalia. And my father comes in, and
he starts yelling at him. What are you doing? He's Jewish. And in this
commotion, I woke up. And it was a long trip
to recovery, after that. I became-- I was very weak. I was-- my stomach
disorder was continuing. And we stayed there
till about July of 1945, when we
decided to go to Poland. So we went to a
town called Bamberg, as far as we could go by train. And in Bamberg,
there was a DP camp. And instead of going to the
DP camp, we went into town. We went to the city hall. We asked them to
give us an apartment. And they put us on welfare. And we lived on our own. And then, about four
weeks later, I decided-- my father decided
to go to Poland. And I decided-- I decided to stay. We figured that one
person traveling is much easier than two people. No chance of getting separated. And so we went to
the place where we were going to go on a train-- oh no, on a-- hitchhike on trucks that
went across the border and-- or went close
to the border, because across the border,
you had to go on foot. And we met some people
coming from Poland. And they said, don't go. Let your son go. He says, they're
still drafting people. The Russians are taking
people to the Army, because the war with
Japan was still on. And so he took his bag. He gave it to me. And I went to Poland
to look for my mother. And I went to this
neighbor of my grandmother to find out who
was-- who survived. And she told me that my
mother's two sisters came. And she told me that
they were in Lodz. And then, I went
to the city hall to see who was in the city,
who survived in the city. And I found an uncle and
three of my cousins-- two of my mother's-- two of my [CLEARS THROAT]
father's sister's daughters. INT: Was there a registry there? NL: There was a registry there. There was a city hall. Like everybody who wanted
to get an apartment, you had to register. Everything was like
during the war. Everything was registered. You couldn't move
anywhere without papers. So they registered. I found them, and I was-- I stayed with them. And then, I had to get back out
of Poland, because we made-- before I left, we
made up that, if I don't come back in four weeks,
my father comes back to Poland. And there was no
reason for him to come. So I went to Lodz. I found my aunts. And a really difficult
time finding them. I didn't know their name. I didn't know what
name they've assumed, because they changed their
names three or four times. Anyway, I found their name. And I found them. And we had a reunion,
which was really something. One was in a Lodz,
one was in Katowice. And I went to both of them. And then, I had to
get back to Poland-- to Germany. [CLEARS THROAT] And it
took a long time for me to get back to Germany. It took me about two
weeks to, because to go against the stream was
much more difficult. I had to cross
borders illegally. And I got back to Germany. And my father was ready
to leave the next day. He was sitting packed. So I made it just in time. It took six weeks. He gave me two extra
weeks to get back. And then, from there, we waited. My uncle-- my father
wrote a letter through an American soldier
to my uncle in Toronto. And we had contact. And he tried to
make papers for us. And he made papers for us. In 19-- I have
the applications-- 1946, he made the application. And it took us two years,
because we were rejected on-- on two occasions, because
there was a severe quota. Canada wouldn't take Jews. Finally, our number came up. And they let us through. And we came to Canada. And my father started working as
a tailor in my uncle's factory. The-- the-- he was-- my uncle was a-- a designer in a-- in a certain plant,
Durable Cloak. And he got him a job. INT: Can I just ask you? Where did you stay
for two years, until your application
was accepted? NL: In Bamberg. In Bamberg, in the
city of Bamberg. INT: And what did you
do in those two years? NL: Well, I-- my father got
a job with the American Army. He was working as a tailor
in their tailor shop. And so he had contact
with the Army. He had-- he got food from them. And I was trying to learn. I didn't have any
education from-- since starting 1939, except
for maybe half a year that I went to school,
learning electrician-- to become an electrician
and my-- whatever I could learn from my sister. So I was very anxious
to get an education. So I went and I
hired private tutors to teach me German
and mathematics. I wanted to become
a radio technician, so I needed to have
algebra and trigonometry. And I studied a bit of Latin,
and German, and English. [CLEARS THROAT] So those
were three years that I was-- and I did a little bit of
business on the black market. So that was very dangerous. So I tried to do
very minimal of that. And-- INT: What did you sell? NL: Pardon? INT: What were you selling? NL: Well, what I would
sell is I would sell-- I became-- befriended some
boys that were German-- German boys who were-- father was a baker at a bakery. And he-- he had there
used ration cards. The ration was already. So he gave me the ration
cards, and I sold them to the DP people for bread. And the-- the
money that I got, I bought alcohol and sold it
to the American soldiers. And that's how you make money. [LAUGHS] And I
didn't do very much. I had-- I was really consciously
trying to get an education. And when we came to Canada,
that-- the helped me, because, when I arrived, it was
just after Rosh Hashana, or just before Rosh Hashana. And after Rosh
Hashana, I went to go to get a job as an
apprentice electrician. And I asked my cousin-- I said, what's the chances
of going into high school? So he says, I don't know. Let's try. Turn around, and we went
into Harvard Collegiate and talked to the principal. And he says, how old are you? I said, 18. I made myself two years younger. And he says, OK,
what do you know? So I says, well, I took algebra. I took trigonometry. I took German. I took Latin. So he says, OK. Have you-- and he says, what
do you know about algebra? So he brought in the teacher. And he told me, a plus
b quantity squared. INT: What language
were you talking in? NL: English. INT: How did you know English? NL: I studied. For three years, I studied
in Germany, English. So I had quite a-- I had a decent vocabulary. I could make myself understood. I couldn't express myself, but
I could make myself understood. And so I-- you know, I could-- I didn't have to speak. Algebra, you can write. And so he gave me
grade 11 algebra. And I went grade 12
and grade 13 subjects, the whole mishmash of subjects. And I went into high school. My father worked in the factory. And that's how I
started my career. A year later, I-- two years later, I
entered the university. And-- INT: Where did you study? NL: At the University
of Toronto. I became an electrical engineer. INT: Did you have any
expectations coming to Canada? NL: Yes, I had very great
expectations coming to Canada. I-- also, when we
landed in Quebec, I think I was ready
to go back, when we saw the-- the port
facilities of Quebec City with the broken
down, old houses. I mean, nothing was
constructed during the war. And I said, you know,
maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should have
stayed in Germany. And my father says,
when you get to Toronto, it's going to be
a different city. You'll see. And he was right. I came to Toronto and, of
course, the biggest thing was that I met my two cousins
and my uncle and aunt. And they were just
starting their families. And it became a new life. And I worked very hard to learn. I didn't have any friends. The friends-- the
people that I came back from Germany, the
other survivors, I had very little in common. They were much older. They were not interested. They were working. I had to go to school
and study at night, take night courses in order
to make up the shortfall that I had. So in 1940-- 1950, I went into university. First, I went into science. And then, I changed courses. I went into engineering. And then, 1954, one year
before I graduated, I married. '55, I graduated from
electrical engineering. INT: What's your wife's name? NL: Bernice. INT: What was her maiden name? NL: Collis. INT: And how did you meet? NL: We went to-- we were looking
for women and during the summer month, to Gravenhurst,
the Gateway Hotel. And there she was, looking
after kids as a counselor. I was introduced by another
person that I knew in Canada. It was a very
exciting time for us. I was-- I was like-- I really put everything
out of my mind. I learned-- tried to learn
English very quickly. I-- one of my biggest-- my biggest ambition
was to try-- to lose my accent, so that people
shouldn't ask me, where you from? That people shouldn't
say, you're a DP. And I succeeded,
in such an extent that I went to school
with many people that never knew my story. I went to university with people
who never knew my background. INT: How were you able
to just block it out? NL: I just did. You just-- you just do it. You just-- it's very
important to you. And to do it, you do it. INT: What was you father doing? NL: My father, a year after
we got-- he was working. And a year later,
he got married. And I lived in his house
together with two stepbrothers, Benny and Al Waxman. And Al Waxman of the-- the actor/director
became my stepbrother. And that's how we started a
new life with a new family. It was difficult. It
was a difficult time, because I remembered my mother. And I-- you know, we made an
agreement early-on that we would call our prospective
parents by their first name-- well, their spouses
by their first name, so that we didn't have
to call each other. Because the boys--
the Waxman boys lost their father about
two, three years before, when they were quite young. And they had the same difficulty
calling my father dad, as I had calling
their mother, mother. And then, we married. And we had three children. We have three children. INT: What are their names? NL: The oldest is Lisa Sharon. The middle one is-- she's-- Lisa Sharon is
named after my mother. And Rondo Beth is name-- named
after [VOICE BREAKS] my-- sorry-- [EMOTIONAL] my sister
and my father's mother. And my youngest daughter
is Arla Nadine, named after my in-laws' parents. INT: How many
grandchildren do you have? NL: I have eight--
eight grandchildren. INT: [INAUDIBLE] Mr. Leipciger, how did
all your war experiences change you as a person? NL: How did it change
me as a person? How do you know? How-- how can anyone
know what you're going to be like when you grow up? How can you-- you don't-- you don't know what's going to-- what's going to
influence you, what-- what plays more of
an important role. All I know is that my whole
life, even in spite of-- even maybe because
of it, was governed by what I saw, what I suffered,
and the fact that I survived. And I-- it's more emotional for
me to talk about the good times than it is about the bad times,
because [VOICE BREAKS] you can't take the good
times for granted. [EMOTIONAL] [TEARFUL] You have
to be very thankful for what happened after the war, the
fact that [CLEARS THROAT] I had an opportunity to restart
my life, have a family, grandchildren. [PAUSES FOR 7 SECONDS] And it's difficult to
say how you've changed, but I know that
all my decisions, all my thoughts are governed
by what happened before. And I have a philosophy
that basically says that the people who
went through the war, their characters did not change. I think that their-- maybe their qualities changed. I think that the person who
was a-- a cruel person before the war, was cruel-- was more cruel during the war. The war and the
experiences in camp, they-- they exaggerated
the characteristics of the individuals
that they had. There was no mantle of civility,
there was no mantle of society that they-- that would
allow them to hide their-- their true nature. So if they were violent,
they became more violent. If they were reticent, if
they were easy going, if they were kind, they were kinder. Their kindness became like
a-- like a shining example, like a-- like a-- like a torch,
because there was very little kindness. And so the people who
were kind, they stood out. NL: Why did you do
this interview today? NL: Hm. Well, I guess I--
the same reason why I've started working
in the Holocaust Memorial and Holocaust remembrance
studies some 25 years ago. I felt after-- right after
my father died, that, up to that point it
was sort of his duty, his role to tell the story who-- to the people who would listen. And very few did listen. And in '72, I-- after his die-- after
he died, I became involved in the
Holocaust studies and the Jewish Congress. And one thing led to the other. And I felt that, in order
for something-- for the world to learn something, we
had to educate the people. So all my-- all my energy
and efforts has been going into either creating
an educational center, or creating-- helping to create
curricula, or helping-- going to talk to classrooms,
and informing people, and creating
education committees, and working on educating
committees, working on-- I created the
Holocaust documentation in Toronto, and with-- together with Dr. Paula Draper. And we recorded
hundreds of interviews, just to keep a record
of what happened. Because you know, it's
just two days ago, the newspaper had articles
that said that the major-- the majority of crimes in
Canada are race or religion-- INT: Oriented. NL: Oriented. INT: Is being-- is Jew-- is
Judaism important to you? NL: Yes, Judaism is
very important to me. After the-- after the
war, I lost faith. And I felt that I wanted
to learn something. So I studying-- studied
all different religions. And the only one that I
didn't study is Judaism. And when I started
studying Judaism, I realized the
breadth, the depth, and the-- and the beautiful
religion that we have. And I came back. And I've educated my
children in religious schools and in the Jewish way. We kept a Jewish home. It was very important for me
that my daughters should marry Jewish men, that they
should have a Jewish family, and that they should continue
the Jewish faith, because I feel that Jewish religion
is a beautiful life and a beautiful
religion to live with. INT: Is Israel important? NL: Very important. I think that there are
very few people that would argue the point that
it was Israel that allowed us to make a good
life for ourselves, a Jewish life in the diaspora. Jews could came out-- come out of hiding. They didn't have to
disguise their names. Anti-Semitism, to a certain
degree, became unpopular and became socially
not acceptable. And that furthered the-- I think, the development
of Jewish life in Canada and the diaspora, generally. And it is-- if Israel
were there in 1933, the Holocaust would
not have happened. INT: Before we end,
is there anything you want to add about anything,
say anything to the world or to the children of your
children of your children, who are going to be seeing
this tape throughout the years? NL: The only thing, the
most important thing, is be a mensch. Remember where you come from. Remember your heritage. Remember those who
did not make it. [EMOTIONAL] And remember
Israel, that it is Israel is our homeland
and our guarantee that it doesn't happen again. And help to educate
the world that hatred-- it may start on the--
on the schoolyard, or on the-- on the-- on the
parking lot, or on the street, but it can end in Auschwitz. INT: Mr. Leipciger,
thank you, very much. NL: This is Bernice,
my wife, who-- we've been married now for-- BERNICE LEIPCIGER: 41 Years. NL: 41 years. And with her, we have created
a very nice life for ourselves. She helped me through many a
problems that I may have had. And we had together-- we have together three
beautiful daughters, who are now married with children. And-- BERNICE LEIPCIGER: Three
wonderful son-in-laws. NL: Son-in-laws. BERNICE LEIPCIGER: And eight
beautiful grandchildren, and one on the way. NL: Yeah. This is my mother's mother,
Elka Percik nee [? Hichman. ?] INT: When was this picture
taken, approximately? NL: This was taken in 1938. INT: Where? NL: In '30-- my-- my-- I don't know. She was younger than that. It must have been taken-- I don't know. I got that picture
from my aunt in Poland. And she got it from a woman
that used to work for her. And so this-- this
looks like she must have been taken somewheres
in 1930, maybe, 1935. INT: How old might she
be in that picture? NL: I would say, 1935, she-- I don't know. She must have been around 50. These are my father's parents. His mother's name was Rudl
Leipciger nee Bernbaum. And my grandfather's
name was Avraham Hirsch. And between-- they
had eight children-- four sons and four daughters. These pictures were sent
to my uncle in Toronto, sometimes in 1930s. I would say, it was most
likely in the early 1930s. I don't know their
age at that time. It must have been so close,
most likely around 50. My uncle Dave, as you know,
lived in Toronto at that time. These pictures
span a long time-- a long period of time. The top picture is
an engagement picture that my parents sent to
my Uncle David in Canada. And this was 1922. And then, the
picture on your left is my sister, just before
being deported to Auschwitz, [INAUDIBLE]. And then, on the right,
is a Purim costume, a ball the-- my sisters
dressed up for that occasion. INT: Where were
these picture taken? NL: They were all
taken in Chorzow, except the-- the picture of
my sister as a young lady. It was taken in-- that was already
taken in Sosnowiec. This is a picture of my
father's brothers and sisters. Standing from left is my Uncle
Leon and my father, Jacob. Sitted-- sitting-- seated
are his sister, Mierka, and her husband-- he did survive-- my Aunt
Dora and my Uncle Tobias. INT: What's your
brother-in-law's name? NL: Pardon? INT: Your-- your--
your sister's husband? NL: [? Kurt ?] [? Nadelberg. ?]
He and his two daughters survived. And they're-- they
lived in Paris, till a very short
time ago, when one of their-- of their
daughters died. This is my father and
I right after the war. This is about 1945. You see, my hair-- our hair has grown
back by that time. And this was in
Bamberg, Germany. This is 1954, our
wedding picture. The photograph was taken
at my wife's parents' house on Farley Crescent, in Toronto. Starting from the
left, standing, is [? Stephen ?] and Lisa Pincus
and their daughter, Jordana. And next to them is Rondo
and [? Carrie ?] Green. Next is Arla and Zvi Litwin
with their little boy, Adam. The middle row, the
first on the left is Jennifer Green, my wife's
parents, Saul and Molly Collis, my wife, myself, and Mira, my-- Mira Pincus, my
oldest daughter-- my oldest daughter, daughter. Sitting on the floor is-- is Jonathan Pincus. Then there's Jason Green,
Daniel Green, and Jonathan-- I'm sorry, Joshua Litwin. INT: Where was
this picture taken? NL: This was taken
a couple years ago at the wedding of my niece,
my sister's son's wedding. INT: And where? NL: In Toronto. The synagogue was Temple Sinai.
