Alexander Lebenstein, pt. 1

you're not even gonna be in there now I Got News for you it's strictly for me egotist self-serving oh I did not this is an interview with Alex thank you good morning my name is Alex Lipinski Laban Stein in German over here we call the levenshtein to English would be Livingston yes that's unimportant I was born in Germany in a town called Halton in Australia November 3rd 1927 I'm a Holocaust survivor and I'd like to give some documentary here of my past I speak English the best of my recollection those would be the first 11 years of my life and grew up in this Roman Catholic town life in the city was in my opinion rather nice was rather good as a child up to about 1937 when I realized that things were not so glossy or anymore in this town in Germany yes yes there was a small Hospital but I was not born at the hospital I was born at home yes most of birth took place in their private homes my family was well established family my grandfather was born in a town right nearby in Halton was the same district more or less and in fact my grandparents are buried in Halton so my father also was born just nearby in a small town called Reagan H alte Reagan II cken balsam of course in Westphalia and the western part of Germany my grandfather was a livestock dealer my father also dealt in livestock that also was a butcher yeah yeah the small slaughterhouse and he would go and purchase cattle or sheep himself from the farmers and slaughter in this small slaughterhouse yeah the sausage factory there where he would make his famous sausage which was very well accepted by highly accepted him like it was a small Jewish community to the best of my recollection some 40 some-odd families at that time when I was little there was a need for kosher meat my father studied to become a shortcut which is the permission to slaughter for the kosher for a Jewish home which keeps Scotia and as such the slaughtered he slaughtered enough to supply the local community with kosher meat the products that were not usable for kosher like the hindquarters he would sell off to the non kosher quote/unquote competitors there were only competitors in form of that day where butchers there were also his friends because he also was the war veteran of the First World War and went to war fighting for Germany with many of these friends and remained friend friends with them after coming back in 1918 from the war so he was able to fulfill the and satisfied the Jewish community Chris kosher meat and supply the other butchers with some of the hind quarters which were so much more favorable for that industry they were placing each other so business was conducted rather harmoniously we had a small synagogue there enough so that we could have a minyan and on occasion if I remember about 1935 436 when we were shot to have dominion and we brought in a couple of young men from a larger town they became guests of my parents and they helped us to conduct services I myself went to Catholic school I was the only child in this particular class that was Jewish in the younger years I don't recall having any problems with the children until about 1937 we played together we studied together when it came through Catholic religion religious schooling I was excused where was up to my parents to give me Hebrew lessons or I went home when lessons were not available in the small town and we played together I played together with the children didn't feel any anxiety any kind of prejudice again until later was able to make a good living oh yes my father had made a good living and there was always plenty to eat I very vague liquor we remember that our home was such where we had special quarters for people that work and learned under my father's jurisdiction he was a master slaughter and master sausage maker and as such in Germany in order to go into business you have to take a minimum of seven years of learning before you can get a license to open a business at least that's how it was in those days and some of these years these young men would live in our quarters and worked with my father in a slaughterhouse and that became less and less while time went by and by about 1937 it was already very difficult for anybody to work for my father first of all that was discouraged for non-jewish people to work with Jew and second of all or probably most of all the business had died down because of the spread of anti-semitism not to purchase from Jewish people a lot of the people in the city well nothing client to be seen in our store anymore and dwindled down after a while that my father only supplied the kosher community and there was really nothing us to employ any anybody else did you have where there were other children in your family I am the youngest I had three sisters my oldest sister Hilda passed away of natural causes I believe in March of 1932 it was roughly five years old I do remember her I remember her coming from a hospital without hair and wearing a cap what her illness was was never disclosed to me my next sisters name was rose and then I have assisted by the name of Hollies my sister Rose lived here in Richmond Virginia yes later on well she passed away 11 years ago back to that time were the sisters in in the house with you when you were growing up my sister's rare with us till about 1937 mm-hmm at that time it became like I said before increasingly difficult from my father to earn and even to pay bills because there was really not enough income and it was suggested that my sister should go to work in a larger city for some rich people and work in a household which they did my older sister worked in a small town called Alva near Bielefeld and she worked in fact for a while for a cankle of mine who was married to my mother's sister my other sister worked in the city of Bielefeld Falls in household they did come occasionally became home and sometimes I went to visit them during the years of like 38 in the beginning of 38 or 37 did your obviously Rose survived she came to Richmond you said and she passed away here did your other sister also survive yes both of my sisters being that they were older than myself were able to get affidavits to emigrate to England and therefore they were spared from going to the concentration camps both well my sister Rose married Edward Spanier and in England and then moved on to the United States and then Southie in Richmond Virginia my sister Alice remained in England until 1947 late of 1947 and then joined my sister here in Richmond Virginia I think in 1948 but doesn't came before the name is Jeanette mm-hmm so after they left for England it was your parents and you living in Halton when did they leave for England in 39 you were still able to immigrate in 1939 they were like of the last people to go to England at that particular time this was already after Kristallnacht right so you were attending the public school the Catholic school and what was happening to the Jewish community we're talking still before November 1938 crystal nerfed did many of the Jews of Halton leave were they able to get away people that had money who had connections in foreign lands like in England or the States saw the writing on the wall people that were not true gullible moved away and were able to immigrate my parents obviously she was not true do you know why did they make attempts to leave I am not sure if they made attempts to leave I can only surmise that it was too difficult for them to send me off to get permission to send me offer to get an affidavit to get me on a transport for children and they certainly wouldn't abandon me you know that difficult time I was 9 and 10 years old and but I believe most of all my parents were very German they believed in their country they believed in the neighbors they never would have believed that anything as horrific as we know that to have happened would have turned out to be so terrible I wonder if the foresight would have been there if they might might have tried to flee Germany but to the best of my recollection my father really had hoped that this was just blow over and it would be a short interruption in the German in the life in Germany for Jewish people do you remember discussions in your family about what was what might happen or what could or what was happening I was very shielded my parents tried their best to shield me from what was going on politically from whatever they realized in atrocities that were going on they tried to hide all this from me so I don't I did not have really an eye opener crystal crystal not let's move on to that time how old were you November 9th 10th 1938 my birthday was November 3rd 11 years old would you describe what happened at that time on that particular day on that day or what led to it were there any do you remember anything that preceded it that could have anti-semitism was there and did you feel anti-semitism before Kristallnacht from 1937 I already realized that I was not able to walk safely in the streets mm-hmm what did you say well children would spit at us and even try to attack me in the streets I was they wouldn't play with me anymore their parents told them that they were not allowed to play with a Jewish boy and my parents needed to watch over me that I should not go by myself on many occasions and when I did I sometimes have problems to come home safely so you are already sensing this tell us what happened then on Kristallnacht well I believe it was November 7th well there was there overheard some talk neighbors with my father some of the neighbors that stood friendly was my father's his bodies that someone killed a German person in powers and that the government took this as an excuse to beat down on the Jews even more severely to come down on them even more severely there were some stories of Jewish people being arrested on the following day about like the 8th of November and on November 9th it was very widely publicized that in the larger towns Jewish homes were being destroyed and synagogues were burning that hordes of Nazis went to Jewish homes plundered their home through the furniture into the streets broke up everything chased them through the street if anybody protested they were arrested so you got news of this happening elsewhere other towns my father of course being so very German and so callable talking to his friends the neighbors really didn't believe that would affect him because the neighbors from look this is such a small town they're not going to bother you here they're not gonna come here what should they do with just a handful of Jewish people were left at that time probably less than 10 families and my father wanted to believe that he will be safe mr. Jones of his friends his neighbors and they were absolutely right nothing happened on November 9th in our town and they celebrated themselves in that evening while in other towns some synagogues were burning and other Jewish people were suffering little did they know that on November 10th hordes of people even from the bigger cities came to this two hours town and news came from some neighbors some of my father's friends told him that a house belonging to one abram while was being destroyed that windows were broken and furniture being thrown into the street abram while was the one jewish person that was known to be wealthy in this town helped Hulton out of bankruptcy on many many occasions was very active politically and was very much of a German citizen and everybody was surprised if anybody with the tech anyone it should not have been Abram while because he was such a good Jew shortly thereafter we heard that that's remind the house which is the little schoolhouse that was once used in front of the synagogue later was converted to living quarters where a family by the name of Daniel's lived and the synagogue was right behind this house that they these sorts of people came to the Daniel's house mrs. Daniels was a hat maker ladies hats and that the merchandise was laying in the street and then we were told that the synagogue was being broken up and damaged very very severely but again my my father's friends came and said nothing don't worry they're not going to come here they're not they know that you are a true German and you fought in a war in the First World War side by side with us they're not going to touch you they're not going to do anything to you you've never done anything wrong and they're just not going to bother you my father even at that particular time still wanted to believe but I saw him also getting very anxious and we heard that another Jewish home was being plundered and it was suggested by my but by my father's friends that he should go and put his medals on his chest that he earned during the First World War to show that he is a veteran and that he has a right like anybody else to live there which he did he put on his medals and with some friends stood in front of our home I was standing right besides him and he had his horse of people suddenly came around the corner screaming anti-semitic slogans some of them carrying an axe or sticks they did not even bother to wait to come close to the house and I heard the window shatter my father screaming out to these guys you cannot do this to me how dare you I'm German and all this were these people he knew there were some I knew a couple of the children that were dressed in Nazi uniforms that I some couple years prior went to school with the parents already you know converted them to the Hitler Youth I'm sure that my father also recognized some but a lot of these SS uniform people came from out of town there leading people I believe came from out of town I I won't be able to verify if my father knew exactly who was who and here they were breaking the windows and before you know people started to run into the house and some of them went upstairs and before you knew it our my father's my parents back from friendship were flying through the window from upstairs into the street and I heard my mother screamed inside let's get out of here they are killing us they're killing us by the way this is recorded in the archives in Alton so I just want to mention it so it could be verified that this these were my mother's words they documented this themselves yes yes and here I'm staying with my father at all Symons simultaneously this all happened quite fast yeah these this biggest s guy approaches him come straight to him and my father holds out his arms to say stop you cannot go into my how dare you get these guys out of here and this SKS guy said what do you have there he says I'm a German soldier I'm a decorated soldier fought for this country and I have a right to be here this guy looked at him and he tore the metals off his chest stamped down on these medals and broke them in the street and had spat in his face started to beat down on him and here I'm holding on to my father's the first time that I saw my parents being beaten and chased and it became obviously probably the most hurtful time in my life more painful perhaps than the physical pain I can do it later on it it left an everlasting damage to me I recall this moment very clearly hearing my mother scream we ran into the house passed by some of these hoods they were destroying the house through the little slaughterhouse to the back street didn't know for a moment where to go and then it was suggested that we should go to the little garden that that we had like a few hundred meters from the house a little vegetable garden that my father planted vegetables there which my mother used used to care for the wintertime we had a little gazebo in there a little table this is a place where my father used to entertain himself as his friends playing cards in that time off I remember the trellis on the outside of this gazebo he planted beans and even so this was November I remember they were still some good size and leaves on this trellis and it made us feel safe that we could not be seen just like that we went into this little gazebo can we hit there and some of his friends of course nube everywhere I was getting cold because by this time a relief it was afternoon on November 10th and the climate is such that it was getting cold and some of the friends came and brought us some hot coffee some sandwiches and blankets and we stood here for a while then one of my father's friends came as a messenger and said to my father not on the SS is looking for you you cannot remain here they will find you here this big guy that tore off your medals change that you spent in his face not that he spat in your face and from the stories right here that's like instant death and you cannot remain here you need to flee my father says where am I gonna go yes I'm here it's my wife and my son it's a small town everybody knows us there is no way to go for one block without being recognized it's very difficult to move about without being found and he said something to the sky that maybe it would be better for him to give himself up so he would that my mother and I would be safe and his friends protested that idea something to the effect you never were a coward before you don't give up without a fight you need to try to stay alive and it was suggested that we should move on from this little garden and possibly to hide at the cemetery cemetery on the outskirts of this little town very much in walking distance from there however we need to pair several homes from some streets it was I felt like we are going in a position of hide and seek being looked out for by some of my father's friends to guide us to the cemetery we finally did reach the cemetery and safety there was an end clave with some overgrown shrubs and trees it was suggested that we should hide in there and surely no one would come to the cemetery to look for us or look for my father would never occur to them that we were hiding at the cemetery again that's what my parents wanted to believe and that's what we did and we hid in this underbrush on this cemetery and after while I was getting really cold the darkness was settling in I don't remember exactly if it was around five o'clock or so in the afternoon and suddenly there were these noises again with lots of people coming along the cemetery Street and I remember there was an iron gate that would let you into the cemetery I don't think that iron gate in all the years it was there was ever and it's Greek there was a horrible squeak and these sorts of people came screaming into the cemetery my mother saying to my father we were sold out we are of course in the right place we will never leave the cemetery there's these sorts of people they're gonna finish us all off right now we will go to to rest with your care my my father's parents and as Hilda my older sister was buried there and of course we huddled together being very much frightened holding onto each other not sounding anymore words not speaking anymore these hearts of people came in rushing into the cemetery we thought they would come straight for us but they went straight to the gravestones and destroyed all the gravestones they must they demolished every gravestone I believe maybe one that was hidden under some tree a very old one remained and they spent quite some time because they didn't just topple him over some of them they really broke up into pieces and then it was a quiet all the way in the back of the cemetery and again I hear my mother whisper they're probably big in our grave over there shortly thereafter we saw the crowd moving back in our direction it was very very frightening moment then this SS man started walking straight towards us we totally froze we thought that was the end but he stopped about 20-25 yard from us only to relieve himself right in our direction after that he turned and ordered his so-called troops to leave and go home were you obscured from their view were you behind enough you believe they did not see you no they did not see us they were not able to see us nobody came in through that direction that was quite an end clip it's very overgrown and they didn't go over there at all because there were no graves on that site at all you know that was like for later on for a future Cemetery it was like an abandoned piece of land yes so after they left things quieted down again my father was really blessed with some friends don't let anybody say that all Germans are bad yeah of course good people among all people they're always righteous people righteous Gentiles as welcome among the German people as well as under any other race or in any other country these people really cared for us and came back and again brought us some hot drinks and blankets and after everything quieted down I don't remember how long we were there time had no meaning but it was suggested that we should leave the cemetery we went to a place that was it like what we know today it's a bed-and-breakfast place and my father was very friendly with the owner of this place and they hid us in their basement and again it is so long ago that I don't remember for how long we were in this basement if it was one night or two nights but when the out-of-town Nazis left the city government knew then Revere and they established a flat an apartment in a house that formerly belonged to Hammond Kohinoor still belong to Airmen Cohen at that time and it was a large loft and they assembled all the Jewish people in this one loft that they called it the student house so I remember the address was 28 minster Strasse in Halton this house had belonged to one of the Jews still a survivor was with us at that particular time in this flat all the Jewish people because nobody could go back to their homes their homes were all damaged or destroyed or when livable because at least the windows were broken the furniture were broken up and so on and this in this whole home which they called the Union house this was then our near future home how many people were left how many Jews were then assembled in this house do you have any idea I could only guess that might have been about 15 at that particular time and as I said earlier and remarks to my sister's that you still could get out in 1939 in 30 39 so where some of these people able to immigrate or get permission to go to bigger cities to move in with their loved ones in other cities or whatever the drill-down that at the end we were only five people you know I say did you the three of you have a room in this house or two rooms it was a large flat it was very crowded on the first few days when we were there until some of the people left and near the end of course there was quite a bit of room because it was a large loft so you entered this udin house it was still November middle of November 1938 right how long were you there altogether we were in this unit house until January of 1942 I think about this sometimes and I'm wondering if some of these friends my father's friends had something to do with it that we were able to remain in this city while so many people from all other cities were sent to concentration camps so much earlier we did not have to go in hiding yes there was an assessment or a rare marked or somebody was watching this house who we couldn't just leave when we wanted we need a special permission permission to to leave and yes we were permitted to do some shopping in town given times usually in the evening there were some food stamps aberrations which my parents got and but when we came to the stores I also remember we had to go to the store from the back door not from the front and of course these people knew my parents and they did the best they could to accommodate us with food so food was not so much of a question even so in general even to the people in house and I was running a lot shorter than it was before but you remember having food and yes now you you were there three years and two months well this you didn't have right and you were eleven until you were 14 you were living there I was 14 and 14 years and 2 months old when finally well let's talk about those three years okay you had food did you have an education no I had special permission to travel to a neighboring town rattling housing for in early 1939 where they still allowed a small Jewish school but the education over there was very very limited very restricted it was mostly on Jewish history my train sometimes I took a bicycle that was available to me to go to the train or I walked walking distance not that severe the distance from my train to the neighboring town was maybe 16 or 15 kilometer I don't recall exactly so was maybe a half an hour ride on the train but that was very short-lived as far as truly an education my education was very limited and obviously it really stopped in 1938 all I had is this couple of years of elementary school education were you bar Mitzvahed yes I was bar Mitzvahed I was bar Mitzvahed in [Music] in a very quiet way in this city of rattling houses there was one very prominent Jewish family whose house was not damaged they were allowed to live there they paid off a lot of people they were in the tobacco business the name was Aaron and for some reason other this man in this rather large house down in the basement he had like our world in the wall and he had a Torah si Fatah in this basement hole my bar mitzvah was done very very quickly it was my my parent's wish that I should be accepted as a man in our religion it was done on a very much on a cutie I am Not sure I don't remember exactly if we had enough on minions in this basement we probably did but I don't remember and I did my blessings and I did a reading from the Torah short reading and quickly the Torah was back into hiding and we dispersed we went back to my hometown in Houghton and lived in this Newton house did your father have an occupation during this time in these three years my father as I mentioned early he was a master butcher and sausage maker of course he was not allowed to pursue that however he he was given a job to work in a brick factory enough enough to earn enough money to pay a long sight as the food stands for the things that we needed all other monies were taken frozen confiscated including the house the house was taken of course for non-payment how could he possibly have made a Fame on mortgage or taxes or both I don't remember exactly what it was if there was no income he was not allowed to to earn money to conduct the business so there was no true cash available to him directly from a bank and he went to work in this brick factory and your mother stayed in the udin house and had access to a kitchen working with the other women right do you remember where you ate was there a very large dining room yeah the kitchen was a very large kitchen very large room there was nothing I don't recall a formal dining room and I don't even remember how these furnish it got there because most of the furniture where damaged are thrown out so I don't know if somebody set them up before they put us into the Union house or during that time was Herman Cohen the owner of the house living in the house still right with you with us in the same apartment mm-hmm I believe their eyes you showed me once a picture of Herman Cohen being paraded that's correct in 1939 when we lived in the Union house no different than my father had these good friends Herman Cohn also was a reverend and he had his friends some of his friends were farmers his one farmer I don't think there could have been a closer friendship any place then that of this farmer and Herman Cohen this farmer would come and smuggle fresh eggs bread butter and things and fruit into the utin house so Herman would be nourished he wasn't elderly president older than my parents by possibly 10-15 years I don't remember exactly what his age was but he was older he was a small person and frail and this farmer really want to be helpful well one day this farmer got caught bringing bread and food items to Herman called the SS took the farmer and put a bit big blockade over his chest and on the pocket it read these are ayah on brought round filled in Jotunheimen cone I'll translate these eggs and bread left for the Jew Herman corn and Herman corn was kind a little bigger basket and it was some bread and eggs and whatever and they marched them through the street of Houten they beat them on occasion and they announced that anybody who would help the youth juice a mutant house they would do even worse true and they could lose their lives the documentation for this also is in the archives of Houghton and it's available at this time is there anything else that you remember from the time in the udin house the other people they gradually went elsewhere were taken in in other cities you said and then is there anything else from that time or do you want to move on to January 1942 well I might just say that life of course was very restricted coming here needless to say really but it wasn't really safe for anybody to go in the streets by by themselves even and we had permission but sometimes it was necessary to do especially when it became overly 1940 and 1941 I remember being a mutant house and when after the war started and the aircraft from England came over and bombs were falling all over very very close by to this house and exploding and I remember the sirens going off at any time in the middle of the night and it was very difficult for us to hide in the basement over there yes on occasion we were able to like the SS men or the Vere McMahon that was watching the house would tell us to go down there and he would probably sometimes go with us into the basement and we were hiding over there so we experienced the attack of the Allied forces as early as then did you have radio newspaper did you know what was going was not permitted to have radios was not permitted to have newspapers however and my father worked over there and again you were able under with some help from some friends to get news and to get an occasional newspaper and was of course dangerous to carry it with you but no different than a farmer child eggs and bread for Herman Cohn a lot of things were done in such a way after all we needed to survive what happened then in January of 42 and how did it come about okay during this time while we were mutant house we were told by the city government and by some Nazi organizations that at all times we should have the release back because we would be transported to a different city that will be a Jewish City where we all only Jews would live and we could earn a living there and we would resume our normal lives there but we would not be able to take anything other than what we could carry in a suitcase in a suitcase or what we could carry so this suitcase was packed for each one of us and that order came as early as the end of 1938 and we were reminded if not weekly it was monthly if the suitcase was packed because they are going to come next week to pick you up and this how it went from late 1938 until January the beginning of January 1942 when it became true that an old school bus pulled up the some Nazi SS men and they herded the last five people that were in this apartment into this old school bus and drove us to a large neighboring town called gasification over there we were accumulated from different cities like from Dortmund and eventually after being in this big place that firmly housed the circus I don't remember through the day two or three either but we were sent from there to Riga Latvia was that interior were you inside a building a large building huge huge building I remember some places on the floor had big iron planks I don't know what was underneath possibly steam pipes or something and people were assembled there from other towns the town's from smaller towns like our town so you were there several days yeah I don't I just don't remember if it was two days or three days but yes we had the suitcases each person whatever we could carry and then what happened tell me well hold it into a cattle car that came right to this year building you know like I said that was a circus used to be a circus show the cattle cars used to deliver the elephants and stuff over there to perform so the track was right there and they herded us into these cattle cars and transported us to Riga Latvia where the cars crowded could use right ray crowded you were with your parents I was with my parents yes I was very crowded sometimes and people pushed over so tight just to keep warm so then then you had in a room in one corner to sit on the floor and there was a big bucket that was the toilet so that's how we ran this cattle car how far is that do you know now from girls and kitchen in Germany I never know I never checked out the no how many kilometres or how many miles it is that somehow any recollection how long you were on I believe it was two nights two nights no food food there was some water I don't remember any food other than what we carry with us mm-hmm like to take even from Halton I think that was probably one of the main things that I remember how the conversation how you felt how your parents what was what were you thinking I think that looking back that everybody was so stunned that the thinking you could rule out I don't think they're I don't believe that the mind could really think of anything of what to do we were truly prisoners we there was no escape we didn't know what the next minute would bring did you know your destination no we did not know our destination didn't find out until we came into the garret director we were in Riga Latvia it was a bitter cold day when we arrived there there was a lot of ice and snow remember jumping out of this cattle car and grabbing some ice to suck on and then we marched to the ghetto we're in the ghetto describe what you remember of the ghetto in Riga let me describe the ghetto the way I we collect and what I know about it it was originally together for only for Latvian Jews the Nazis sorted out all these people and took away all the women to a different camp and then hoarded all the Latvian men to one side of the ghetto and put a barbed wire empty a larger portion of the ghetto completely out this way all the transports of Jewish people from Germany and from Czechoslovakia and read from from Vienna came in to so when you arrived there were Latvian men the women had been taken away yes and and places were vacated for you the incoming yeah a great portion of the city these were apartment buildings mostly I see yeah several stories high i five-story six storey high so this is what you found when you arrived that's yeah we were assigned to one of these buildings to a loft again very crowded just hoarded into it the first three days barely enough where to stretch out on the floor to take a nap of course then the soda he came out you know we always had to come to this street to the marketplace whatever they called it and people were sorted out to go to work in different camps and what we didn't really realize that a lot of the elderly people at that time we already shipped off to different kind of camps or what I found out after liberation were marched to the forest in nearby and Riga and shot and so after a while there were a few less people in this apartment because of the sorting out but I remained there for a few months with my parents I remember the address was 36 looks as yella they called it then the disorder first roster because the Distilled of this stuff transferred was there I believe that's what it was called but in Latvia most looks us yella 36 lots of yella well there's some things that are they you know that's so deeply embedded that you cannot forget well I might not remember what I had for breakfast yesterday but these things obviously have made such a deep negative impression on me such a painful impression on me well it's very difficult not to remember because unfortunately this is what dreams are made up from you lived here you had food there was some food assigned in the ghetto yes there was some food assigned and uh not much but what what they did not assign we were able to get from reppin commanders we a lot of groups went out to work in Riga in Latvia - all kinda Simon's and my father was assigned being that they knew he was a butcher they assigned him to work in a slaughterhouse and somehow of course he was able to allow he was not assigned to slaughter or makes us if he was assigned to assault hides which is the lowest part of work and in the slaughterhouse that's the true slave labor that assigned not even usually to people that learn the butcher business to begin with but salting Heights was very very important because leather was much more important then than it's probably today you have a lot of synthetic items today and you need to be sold to them properly and that was the assignment my father's a part of the process of making hides into for curing Heights to make leather like for shoes for shoe soles and you know many times when these cowhides came right fresh from the slaughterhouse there the butchers were kind of careless and there was a little piece of meat hanging here and there and my father had a knife he would cut it out and hide it on his body and bring it home and you know like that we were able to supplement ourselves but that was very very short-lived my father developed a terrible infection in his hands there were cuts on his hands and from the salt burned into there was no medical attention available for this and after a couple of months being in Riga this infection developed into a blood poison eventually into lockjaw I remember so well my father in so much pain there was a wooden chair one of these old wooden chairs he was sitting backwards and biting into the railing of this wooden chair I can still see his teeth marks in the word out of pain and then one day he simply couldn't go to work no more I also remember the odor coming from his hands from the infections and he couldn't go to work anymore and the people are very in charge of putting together their work commander came to get him and they saw that he was not able to move that he was really already fantasizing they called some medics from this s groups before you know it my father was taken out of the apartment that's the last time I saw my father except for I could only assume that when we looked out of the window it was a lot of ice a lot of snow on the ground and for some reason they have very big sleds over there and we saw the same people that came to the apartment to get my father we saw on a sled somebody laying on a sled fully covered and they dragged him away for all intents and purposes he might have been already deceased at that particular time we were told the next day that he had passed away and they he was buried in some mass grave in sight again of Riga at the cemetery this was the work your father did you were 14 were you did you work that time yes I was already obviously past 14 almost 14 and a half my first assignment was to break up bombed out buildings in Riga where we cook bricks and cleared off the old mortar so the bricks could be reused iron beams or even wooden beams to clean them off for reusing you left every morning every morning yes we were 21 people in this particular command or what it was called and it was called commando 21 was put together from three different transports Dortmund from Vienna and I don't recall the other one offhand but what's maybe it's possible it does make no difference yeah we're all fellow prisoners and there were seven from each commander as from each district to this commander and they're called a commander 21 well you were Gelsenkirchen right I don't remember what section that came from anyway every day we marched on this icy streets that was February March April possibly into May I'm not sure time did not have so much meaning where we cleaned of these bricks and this iron bars be reused we were able to be in touch with some of the Latvian people by the way they were very rigid and extremely anti-semitic they you had to be very careful not to be sold out by them they would try to deal with you for something maybe that you might trade a watch for bread or whatever and after they got what they had they would turn you in and get back to bread or whatever they gave you anyway this of course was very legal we were not allowed to exchange anything on these workings commanders one day when we came back to the camp to the ghetto I believe it was in early May we were intercepted by a bunch of SS officers right at the gate and searched somebody obviously sold us out and they found something practically on all of us we all had to learn something to carry back to the claim to our once it was a way of life and they started to beat down on us for having committed such thing of trading and it took all 21 of us and in the ghetto there was a jail and they put us all in the jail and they told us they'll take care of you tomorrow we were in this jail and for several days I don't I really don't understand I mean they were shooting people all over the place why they didn't shoot all of us right then and there I could only assume that they were running short on help especially on useful people that were able to work and they wanted to think about if the if they could punish us this different kind of worker slave labor or something this is only an assumption I'm making we were industrail several days it had iron bars it was a basement type of jail and then iron bars on it to the outside one day I'm looking outside I saw this young lady and she spotted me looking through she came over and obviously she was this Jewish woman and again I remember a name because I'll never forget her name because she made a tremendous impact on me eventually we realized that she saved my life and it was an ideation house' and she was from the vienna transport Anna was a very vivacious very pretty lady maybe 18 also and the gods were out there and Sheba centrist I just looked at them they stepped aside and she walked straight over to to the prison and she started talking to me and this went on several times twice possibly in one day and through the bars she gave me a kiss and I didn't know where for instance you'll be all right you'll be all right rumor started that they decided to kill six of the 21 people namely two from each commander the oldest and the youngest I was the very youngest one for my commander and when this came and I saw Ella again I said well this is what we hear it's don't worry it's not going to happen I see to it I said what powers don't worry about it I don't know what she did if she was involved sexually with the SS or whatever I I really have no idea but a day later they hold off the three oldest men and they shot that and then released all of us shortly thereafter so I think she was one of the angels I went back then to my house my mother was still there Judy's 36 loads as yella waiting to be reassigned I was then assigned to go to work in a what I could only describe as brown coal harvesting they call it tough tough is in my opinion then properly processed the equivalent of peat moss but it's done harvested over there in a much different manner then we know of our Canadian peat mud it actually it's taken from inside the ground it it's black mud you stay into water waist-deep with these special shovels you dig into this black mud and you throw it on a convertible this belt takes this mud into a machine that Mills it pushes into forms some of many of our people would pick up these forms they were very heavy and run them out into the pasture turn them over in a proper way in alignment and take the mold which was out of metal off and leave this mud there to dry out by the Sun it would run back the empty moles to the machines I found out later that possibly that the way anuses saved my life was that she talked them into punishing me with special slave labor because it became known that very few people from toss would come back but you sometimes had a chance to escape if he spoke which I did but very few people came back from there anyway I worked in this year most horrendous hole the labor is so severe I cannot even describe it in normal times that is inconceivable there was very little food there was no fresh water to drink or to wash up sometimes we've got an assignment of fresh clothes they were used clothing apparently they were sterilized and came from some of our people that lost their lives somewhere our bodies were full of lies typhus broke out many times any small wound on your body would be infected from the lies it was such a terrible time I still don't understand what kind of blessing I have to have survived that particular came no this was in a small town I believe it's somewhere north of Riga or north-east of riga estonia called hatun pot I believe in Latvian they spelled it something like ice put our ice Buddha and anyway this is a seasonal seasonal item everything was in very poor condition sanitary conditions were extremely poor food was very poor the SS the people that watched over us were extremely bad they did not hesitate to kill anybody who who didn't work fast enough run fast enough it's the moles or do anything according to their needs no no there were women too yeah a lot of women carried these forms yeah the men most of the time were in the hole digging the mud and when the conveyor which of course that I don't believe that was a motor on it I remember doing some work on the career at times with a handle to turn the from rare to get that mud up oh this is very very hard work I would I would guess that in this particular camp maybe 500 people and they worked on different farms of this year the Bronco tour station after that was dried it was put into a different machine and ground down then I finally starts to look like peat moss and it was used for fuel also to put under animals instead of straw the animal manure on top of this here peat moss was then used of course for planting soil and that's what's the way of life there right when did you get back to read did you ever go back oh yes now back to Riga first from there if I recall for a short time we went to a small camp called solace pills you might do the best you can mr. spelling solace pills I believe yeah I can't there was not a crematorium in this particular can were just slave labor and I believe the reason they send us to sell us pills was really to be the louse for those who survived the torch taking we're strong enough I guess they wanted to use that those people for more labour and instead of killing us or not sending us back they send us to sell us fields where they did Loused us we come tell our clothes we got fresh clothing striped you know zebra clothes and also assigned in this game for a while I remember working on some used clothing and the these clothes obviously came from Jewish people because the lot of them had the Jewish tasks on at the morgue and of it was the red buda some of them even spelled differently I didn't realize why they were spelled differently in those days apparently they came from different countries where the word Jew was spelled differently some of them did not have the word in the adjustor star or other kind of signs and these clothes came in and they were being deloused disinfected over there and then sent to different kinds of and people like myself came in you give him fresh clothes come from there I don't remember how long I was there could have been the week could have been two weeks and from there I went back to the ghetto in Riga I went back to my apartment there were different people living this flat at this time and my mother was gone I was told that she was assigned to a different camp I never saw again having said that also being kind of gullible hoping that she was alive I believe I never gave up that I would meet officer again and I said to myself if I ever get out of this I will look for another find her and I sincerely believe that that had a lot to do with me being alive today it gave me the fight and the will to survive I was obviously a mama boy because if a son comes after three daughters and so late in life you can well imagine that her love to me was enormous from there there were different transports another transport went first to a cam coach tooth Hoth no I'm sorry Kaiser Walt sometimes get mixed up between the two camps yeah it was crazy and I don't remember if I did any working Kaiser well all I remember over there that we were in some factory type of buildings with bunk beds sweetie our high the way you see in some of the pictures and crowded together and again we illness there was very little food very little water we were ordered to come to stay at the tension every morning when a siren or whistle blew and but I don't remember working out of this camp at all accepted I was there on hold for some time was a killing camp yes that was a crematorium camp that's correct 42 I was there this was already in 43 when I was sent there yeah that that meant I was still in Riga until sometime in 43 I don't remember what kind of work we did some kind of work inside the ghetto I don't remember exactly 4243 in Kyle's about encouraged about also you know what the other guys about a lot of political prisoners there were people from all nationalities there are French soldiers that were prisoners and they didn't want to be with us with the Jewish people and they were terrible but even worse than the French where the Polish prisoners constant fights breaking out as well as political so you were in kind of out you have in your notes 42 to 43 yeah this was a concentration camp right no somehow there is a big blank in Kies about just a lot of thing at attention I don't remember exactly what kind of work we did what I was assigned to were just routine mind somehow it's kind of blank during this time and I was there and I do remember when we were shipped out from there we were shipped out on some barge and I also remember falling off that barge or being pushed off I still don't know what happened the barge was going very slow and I did not know how to swim somebody threw me a rope and put me back up and when I screamed I don't know how to swim this I'll do like a dog that's you know that's how I learned how to swim right yeah but that was an inlet yeah wasn't Inlet we were on this barge and we were shipped to another camp and I don't remember exactly it was a small camp also on the on the border of of the sea and then we were put on a big ship I don't remember what that sound was and this ship we were on for a couple of days then they took us off the ship back on a barge I don't really know the reason for it but that's what they did and with this barge eventually we wound up in dancing through the port of dancing in dancing we went to to our concentration camp called shut off where again instead of we were assigned now to different kind of work but that was by that time already was late in 43 probably was by the time I got the studio was already 44 I somehow lost track of what really happened during the time it between somehow I remember some phases what they looked like but again after all these years that's probably distorted no no I did not see them again because everybody after they were sorted out and shifted different came some even remain crematorium clips I remember that being I was so young that a lot of young men a little bit older myself seemed to watch out over me I somehow always was blessed with someone looking over me people took a liking to me quite easily of my own people even the Latvian Jews that did not like German Jews I learned to speak Yiddish and shortly after in Riga which my was not within my I didn't speak Yiddish before coming to Riga I learned right there and I think they appreciated that I wasn't speaking German to them that I spoken the English and they made me one of them and I always had the admiration and respect from a little bit older than myself maybe five years or ten years older these men somehow I was always blessed to watch to be watched over and when stood house we were then from there I was assigned to work in the shipyards of dancing in order to work there they send us to a different labor camp called Bush Garban I don't know exactly how to spell it Bush crab and that's best way I remembered if I say it wrongly well after all this time that's the best I can do no bush is a castle like something what you dig around the castle around the bush labor right the barracks over there we lived in barracks we went every day I trained was not a long ride to dancing to the shipyards where I worked as a painter on German u-boats painting where's the battle grape paint which at that time of course nobody knew that this type of that loaded paint was poisonous I was a sign being I was so thin yet strong I was assigned to work on the inside of the ship not on the outside where the fumes of this paint we're travel I was wearing a flashlight from my forehead and had to crawl into some round pipes big enough to crawl in and which there were cables and these cables needed to be painted even from the side against the wall of this pipe sometimes difficult to get to and his s came with the bigger lights and shined down along the cables god forbid if you miss the spot here and lots of trouble for one thing you didn't get your soup different sides but some very small ones to get behind in some bigger ones on my back with this little flashlight in front of my forehead and that was painting this so this was early 1944 I was doing folk from 44 this is the cam the boy from there was eventually liberated yeah because Elise T I don't remember exactly what months we came there so when were you liberated yeah in March of 1945 I was liberated by the Russian troops you work doing this work this painting for all that time until I took quite sick I got typhus diarrhea and by that time the Germans were running very short and labor and would try to isolate people with typhus even so there was no direct medication given but by isolating and some of the people overcame the typhus by killing off the clothes and the lights and so on and recuperated and were able to be reused as laborers regardless how skinny they were but it was better for them than nothing and when I took so very sick this was actually the second time around the first time i recoup tiller I just had diarrhea and back to work and then near the end I was very sick I really had I understand there are different strains of typhus some stomachs some skin I don't know what they call of what the descriptions are but they affected a person differently but all of them really came as very severe cases of diarrhea I remember myself melting from the inside out losing weight very rapidly and this was the early spring late winter of 1945 yes well I would say early spring oh yeah they'd winter early spring of 1945 I I remember in February I assumed it was February well I we suddenly heard a lot of aircraft overhead a lot of shooting and we realized that the Russian troops were coming very very close the SS and the people that watched over us also had build some cannons flag cannons to shoot at airplanes nearby the camp and when these airplanes came over they fired at the airplanes and the people the Russian people in the airplane thought that this was military camp and they really started to attack this game very very severely not with bombs but with machine guns from the aircraft whatever you call it guns from the aircraft yeah I'm not even a little what happened to me here I was in this barrack where I was recuperating hello but strong enough that I could get out of that and stand up in the upper bunk was a man who was doing a lot better already that's why he was in the upper bunk I was in lower back and I got out of the bank and I'm talking to him leaning on through the upper bunk and he's he is leaning on an elbow and looking at me and we are talking we hear the guns the machine guns and the flag the cannons and the shooting going on it already became a way of life where could we go just keep on doing what you're doing even the only time we probably stopped talking is the noise was so loud that we could not hear each other and we're talking and I have suddenly his head comes forward then I pull my hands and his head comes into my hands then I call his name nice name one time I did right now I don't and I call his name and he didn't answer me now pushed him back blood came streaming out of his mouth what happened a bullet pierced through the roof through his chest he killed him instantly he was recuperating from typhus and he was killed by what apparently was a Russian bullet strafing yes so well then after that the Russians came closer and the SS started to sort out the stronger groups and started marching people out of the camps to different camps because they didn't want no Jewish juice to reach prisoners to be taken didn't want Jews to be taken prisoner by the Russians so if they would they felt they would still need us in some factories in Germany they still didn't give up they still didn't believe that the war was lost and they just marched us out of the camp just on an endless march without a death destination I shouldn't say a state at that time they match several groups out the strongest ones at first I remain still behind then in like in the very beginning of March one day they took two groups again the ones that had somewhat recuperated like myself and they matched us out of camp but we notice the SS was not there these were all the men from the where mark people that were not assigned to fight in the front lines and they were wearing different uniforms we marched out like two groups I was in the last group and then they said we should stop they were not very rough on us or anything these people they just marched us and they make believe you know screaming a little bit and carried a gun over their shoulder rather than pointing it and we came to a forested area not far from the camp I don't know I half an hour an hour away from the camp and they said that they had to go and use the bathroom we better not move stay here you know and they all went through this forest and they never came back so somehow they found news that the war was lost or the Russians we have to close whatever these Wehrmacht people made up to burning us to fight for ourselves we were on our own didn't know what to do yeah beginning of much didn't know what to do strange everything is strange around too weak to to disoriented to think too sick to move too weak to do anything well some of us made a decision to go back to the camp because that was home besides we left some very sick people behind there and they possibly needed attention so we went back to the camp grabbin when it came back to the camp on that particular day I also remember that suddenly some shrapnel busted out right over the camp you know this these bombs that shrapnel blow apart there was this tea bagging a huge hay wagon this old-fashioned large big a wagon when I realized there was one shot no popping out right over me which I thought was very close by I'd go under the hay wagon but my toast my legs were exposed and after it's all self I knew what was burning in my legs and evening my torch and I still have scars my legs and my tush from these Shrapnel's that were later removed after my liberation and then there was this this man somke I knew this man I remember my name Sonny somke he was a Russian this when you know a Russian Jewish person strong man very strong well strong-minded he spoke good Russian good Yiddish and he a very good command and somehow he remained physically strong and there was this this bunker I could only these days relate to it that it might have been at one time one of these potato bunkers where they farmers might have kept potatoes and beets in for the winter but of a very large size it was really a very large room size okay bigger than a large basement in a house in the ground in the ground and the doors where wooden doors in the front but they were flat on the ground over a hole but they were like wooden steps going down into the hole these are the things I remember and the fighting came closer and closer and we remembered how many people got killed by the time from flying bullets like I explained before about this young man we decided it would be safer to go into this bunker even though that could be penetrated with bullets also but we felt it will be safer so we all went who ever could possibly walk and make it into the bunker typhus know typhus didn't make no difference we all went into this hole and suddenly after some time there was a total quiet there kind of quiet and after this kind of shooting could be extremely frightening it's very hard to explain after this kind of bombardment and I suddenly total love it was just as frightening as the bombing and Sunka were standing near the steps I was shortly behind him and after while suddenly we heard some phone voices outside in some cases it's Russian the doors swung open and these Russian soldiers came with their automatic rifles right into the basement and you know and started to scream to identify ourselves and some canoing Russian I think he said so I II know something which is Russian we are your own and they didn't at first believe us they thought maybe we were hiding some Nazis down there and they had to be kind of tough and they searched and more soldiers came they stood at the door a couple guys went inside looking and they saw that we are all Jewish people with the zebra stripes and the wrong end of it they went out of the bunker a little while later a big truck pulled up an army truck and here this officer this Russian officer officer comes out and some car was at the top step by this time and so some care speaks to him in Russian and suddenly I see some car looking around and breaking out in a big grin he said and he said yes I eat so this officer was a Jewish man in the Russian army and of course immediately helicopters came and and stuff to give us some supply and they did the best they could to put us in to back into the barracks for I don't know a day or two to do the best they could with us to deloused us and to give us injections or whatever they did I don't know to rid us of the typhus they really knew what to do and they had the medication of what to do then they shipped us into the city of Danzig and we are very low kated into what was a huge school at one time and it became a hospital for Russian soldiers and for some of us we were shifted to see a hospital to recuperate that really didn't take very long to recuperate once we were under their supervision the food was the food and medication was medication and we were strong enough to become helpful in the hospital and we some of us we are assigned to do certain work we were happy to do certain work at the hospital I remember some covers in charge of horses and blankets and this other guy a vote another NEMA came to me a volt owl was his name just now came to me here he he was working in a commissary somehow for food to distribute me I was assigned to the kitchen what was what was I supposed to do in the kitchen not to cook I had the night job to work at night in the kitchen all I had to do is boil water why was it so important to boil water in those days right now even you probably couldn't think of why but that was to sterilize equipment that's the days where you had to boil water to sterilize equipment for the surgeons for for the ductus and so on and besides the Russians are good tea drinkers and during their work the doctors they would call if they could have a cattle about water or three and that was my job to deliver the tea and hot water sterilized water and sterilize some towels and stuff boil them out and send them back up there so that was my job in that night yeah so we remain there for some time in this hospital and it's really odd here we're hoping to be free you're hoping what else could we be but free freed by the Russians no longer under German jurisdiction or in the concentration camp when we became strong after a few weeks the three of us were called into an office and office of the Russian army asked us please to join the Russian army thing after all invite to a tea they saved our lives and they nourish us back to health what else should we do and could do and since you can think about it then they didn't really press us openly to go ahead right now but how would you like to go in training we'll take good care of you and they'll ship you to wherever what city where you will have all modern facilities you'll be safe and all that so anyway after this meeting some car who is so bright he says to us to able the name says we're not gonna sign nothing say they are not much different than the Nazis they're gonna use us as cannon powder it's nobody gonna sign you're gonna stall stall and see maybe the whole thing will blow over and they don't need us anymore few days came we were called back to the office if you thought about it and so on we still want to think about we still don't feel strong enough and so on and then some cassettes look we gotta get out of here we cannot stay here how do we get out of here says well we'll get out the AVA brought some took some food blankets some kind of blankets horses three horses and I don't remember but I got out of the kitchen also some stuff that we packed up and he saddled up some horses at night can be rode out of their Hospital camp and we hid in the forest contemplating of what to do so anyway we had to run away from the Russians we made ourselves closer towards the border of Germany had to cross this river they were to two rivers Frankfurt a mine and another River by the same name something there was on the order nothing right and the order and was the old and we had to cross this river in order to get back into Germany which we wanted to do because we wanted to look for our parents and also wanted to reach safety we figured if Germany is defeated the war was over by that time oh yeah the ball by that Thomas oh it was done finished let's surrender you know people I was liberated much so yeah I think yeah I believe April if I'm not mistaken I was in the beginning of May when Hitler committed suicide and who was known that Hitler was there you know so so the real thing the real peacemaking probably was in May or so I did see matter of to lock up for a historian I just lived my life day by day in those days and days not always had a meaning or dates did not always have a meaning so anyway we eventually were able to cross this river it took some time because there was only one bridge to cross it and was bombed out we saw people repairing this Ritchie never just about finished on the rail world and we heard this train coming and sure enough that train crossed here so we waited we saw another train we stormed the Train oh yeah we just took probably possibly good no big guns just handguns and stuff like that be Effendi guns you could find on so many dead soldiers was not even funny you could get at that time with a band bandage the horses even a little bit before that already because we could get a Jeep or that type of vehicle that was abandoned we found another Jeep that had gas but was damaged so we siphoned the gas from there into this deep and we had there were ways of getting around if you want to live you want to fight for life you find a way getting there we didn't leave any obstacle in our way to do what we had to do including storming this train which was manned by a German engineer who was running the Train and a couple of Russian soldiers well of course the Russian soldiers didn't like one bit of each storm to train so we asked them in a nice way to leave no other comment so they left and the engineer we ordered to just go ahead and take us where's he going he said he's going to Berlin to Russian zone and Berlin fine he went with him he told us we have to get off you know he was cooperative his ass we went off in the Russian zone of Berlin and fought our way through this zone we had to go through a small part of the British zone and then into the American zone by foot we left the train in the Russian occupied part of Berlin Berlin was divided in three parts no different than Germany French English and American French and Russian I mean American no not French British American and Russian right and we left this the trains in the Russian occupied zone there were no other human beings on a train no these were empty trains they were apparently brought something their freight trains swimming someone with kara cars some of their flat cars enough to transport I don't remember any stuff in its trains and we didn't bother looking around nope we didn't see any other people so then we worked ourselves into the American zone of Berlin and we found out oh where the Unruh headquarters was in the highest in the Joint Distribution Center I don't remember which one we approached first but wherever we came and we identified ourselves they were shocked that we were still alive everybody knew of the three ungrateful Jews they did so wrong through the Russian liberators stole forces stormed the Train and whatever better catch them and your life's are not safe here or anyplace this what we were told everybody knew but they were surprised that we were still alive and how we got there I mean there was so much oh yes conn-young so anyway they hit us very nicely we cook for a few days and we felt it was too dangerous even to remain in the American zone of Berlin we wanted to get into the English or American zone of Germany of course my home town was occupied by the Brit British troops and we made our way then again we needed to fight our way out of this Berlin zone into eventually the American zone I made our way into Germany and then my story will continue on that coming - how I am sweating you

Channel: Virginia Holocaust Museum

Views: 2,625

Keywords: Holocaust, Holocaust survivor, Judenhaus, Riga, Hassenpot, Kaiserwald, Stutthof

Id: NR8Z-9gNfUE

Length: 115min 23sec (6923 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 06 2020