Following In Felix's Footsteps: Story of an Holocaust Survivor

[Music] all right man wants to destroy a whole country because of religion and believable it's important for me myself it's important that that people should know about it the energy but not knowing it's very very bad it's it's catastrophe practically there's no limit to it there's no limit to people which won't like oral there's no limit to people which kill for the for the fun or just of killing [Music] there was there's enough hurt for one person of a lifetime or maybe a hundred persons it's enough how much [ __ ] i got it they cannot hurt me anymore [Music] prisoner 143-425 felix opotowski a polish jew and a survivor 64 years after the second world war and the holocaust traveled back to revisit his past my kids think it's dead he said we know you cannot be stupid to survive what you did why do you do this why are you doing this to us we have to worry about you and i know the right but there's something in me could be a guilt maybe i have a kind of a guilt that i survived and so many didn't [Music] felix was born in the polish city of lodge here felix his parents and younger brother lived a simple life [Music] well it was like most of the families just they tried to get by day at a time my father when he was a youngster about a young young man between 15 and 18 years old his father my grandfather had a farm it's about 50 kilometers away from from lodge because you better go down there it says all the young young people going is going down there and getting a job in the industrial and then doing those field things and they're walking they're making a living but i think it's much better than farming so that's what you did you came to lodge and start working half victory we were a very happy family i was the oldest one and i had a brother which was five years young and that was it we were happy we didn't have lots of things to other people do but we were happy family we we didn't starve because my father walked double shift and and very rarely i seen him i've seen him on sundays and i was going to school and my brother was growing up and once in a while we were going to the farm visit wildfire and bring some goodies from the farm in that time in the 30s the whole world was was depression at that time especially in poland felix returned to the home where he grew up in lodge here when i was a kid you were you if you were playing cowboys and and indians and from that and from down there we were jumping we're jumping down to this place here this was the place to jump down so one day before one day before holidays my mother and my mother and my father took out the mattress to clean it out for for eastern holidays once a year you cleaned out so she took out the mattress and put it down here so i seen oh my gosh when i when we're going to jump down now it's not going to be so hard we're not going to put the mattress down here so i call all my friends in a few minutes or here we went up again and we start jumping down my mother jumps out she starts screaming and she took that would you what you would there was a russian jewish officer which ran away from the from russian army his name was jabotinsky he was the leader of all the jews and the world in that time and he came one day to lodge that was in 19 37 38 and he told them told them what's going on the mood was very bad at what he told us as a matter of fact when i came home and i told my father joe battinski said that we should all run away from where we are and if we don't have where to go we should at least go to the russian side he says what he says you must be kidding so so i says what he said so he's don't you think he was right he says yeah i know but i haven't got i don't know where to run i can't go to germany and i would like to go to russia neither i was done a few hours a few days because i cried if my friend did run away to russia as a matter of fact if you met my wife she did run with her family to russia okay they survived in siberia wasn't easy but at least you weren't threatened with guns and you were and you and you weren't threatened with a gas chamber by the end of 1939 the germans had begun organizing the ghetto felix and his family were forced from their home lots of people which don't know too much about the ghetto or even about the holocaust they think that the ghetto was a place to live yes it was a place to live but sometimes in the ghetto was worse time than in the camps in my opinion it was the worst time of my life [Music] at the beginning in the ghetto there was no food all together there was about approximately between 200 and 250 000 jews living in lodge and it was almost about 900 or a million people all together when we came into the ghetto my mother my mother took us to the place where she was born she remembered the place when she when it was holiday she used to come to visit them so so the letters in because they were already full with people inside elsewhere in portland regina the future wife of felix witnessed the harshness of anti-semitism firsthand i was standing in line to get some breath and the german people told me you cannot stay in line here because you're jewish well i tell you i convinced them that i have a italian father and mother that's why i looked up and right there over here they're gonna burn the synagogue down at the same night and surely enough i wouldn't let my family out of the house and they burn down the synagogue with everybody in them the logicator was lucky enough to have a to have uh they called it in german they called the oldest of the jews uh sort of like the like uh bilge meister you know the billionaire like a mayor like a mayor of a city that's a in german it's very meister may of the city his name was rumkowski he was before the war he iran orphanage so they came into his office just a few days after the war started and they point out to him i'm talking about ronkowski now so if they're pointing about dropping he says you he doesn't know what they mean you you you've and you're gonna you're gonna be the the chief of the jews in the ghetto lots of people didn't like him because he put the police together he put the firemen together he put them together because he needs it and but they didn't like it because they've seen they've seen the jewish police and they they thought look at that he wants to now be a big shot he has police but somebody has to do something he just cannot be the iran people cannot just run around wild on the street and and he was running together for the longest ghetto in in in history in the in the war in world war ii because varsa was only varsa was started in 1940 and they had had an uprising in 1943 so vasa was about three years but logic ghetto was four years august 1944 the ghetto was sent into auschwitz that's when it was like liquidated to hold it and and that was up just about it to privatize with the logic or is because of this one man this life was really impossible it was like a like like a such a bad dream it's such a bad time that i don't know how i i really don't know how anybody could survive and i'm talking about me and talking to all these survivors so he organized with other guys to be smugglers what did the smugglers do they're getting a little bit of jewelry a little bit money american money whatever as long as it's not polish money or german money this was not good and you jump up the fence you jump you jump defense and you're running down to polish houses and they're waiting for guys like us yes because that's that's the living that's really they can make they sell you the bread and they sell you about eating but you had to have an etipety and that's what i was going for a little while and i brought the home goodies till one day they cut us and they start shooting at us one of my friends got shot he went only inject but he got shot but i was lucky that the jewish police cut me when they were chasing us took away everything what we have they arrested us the jailer which was in charge of it was one jail in charge he told everybody or his colleagues got robert that's we gonna go on a transport in a few days or so and he says if you have a chance to tell your family so my mother found out about it she came over and a few days later we went we walked in we walked all the way to the railway and they took us by a train but we didn't know where we're going we then squished together it took about between close to 100 people are on a little thing like that you could only standing system decree room half you couldn't even fall down if you want to build that and then if you had to go you had to go stand standing because there was no there was no place to move nothing it wasn't a very pleasant driver that came with the kettle car while looking through the transport documents at the station someone in the group found felix's name on one of the lists that's me you found my oh my god your name yeah just a minute where is this stream open felix fiso official yeah so these things you know those things is not easy not easy to get through it when your body and your soul the whole thing is ready is ready it's already poisoned with these things and then all of all suddenly you see my name and from where i come from they even they even have the street in the name of the house where i where i came from in the ghetto to go on the transport under to the first camp and knew that my mother my mother's name was and my mother's name was an indifference paper when she goes to the guest chamber down there so so it doesn't do you any good i had to fight with myself a lot of faith [Music] going again to this to the bargain train which standing down there's a momentum the polish government left it for for the jews gonna come they want to make a prayer this this was the wagon it was taking these people to the guest chamber they put you in together squeeze it squeeze it tight and and that's about it i was so tensed i was a very tense doctor and beg and besides it was only one night of of we're going i have a night one night you can't imagine which is very hard for anybody a person imagine the the the hardship the hunger and the in the knowing that you're not going to survive and that's why lots of people committed suicide there was no facilities to go out there was no pails over to to do something and and besides it just on the watch was only one night but it was bad because uh before they were before they we bordered it it's quite a few hours to get and [Music] thinking of my mother my brother i'm sure that my mother and my brother or maybe or both of them or one of them probably had to spend his last few hours in this in this policy knowing no one's ready because everybody in the ghetto know if they send you to hell from here they know where they're going if they knew it already in that time oh my god and this display today is because i have never been since i was liberated so many years since i've been in the one of these i never been before again and now i know where my mother and my brother died if i died in the ghetto or here and if it's and if and if it wasn't for my mother for the rest of the jewish people which rented against him so the was with this with this train and with this wagon [Music] [Music] it was almost almost day times when we came into the camp and that was our first camp the name of the camp was the white eagle in english and polish was biawy ozawa and in german was the vice hardly i would walk in that camp was very very hurt you had to go into our events stay and deliver all day walking in the river it doesn't matter underweather till the snow came around then we then then we cleared the road from the snow and ice because of the trucks which were going to the russian to the russian front and they were dying the guys were dying left and right we came in with at least about a couple thousand of us and by the time we left almost two years later was on a few hundred either we died walking either we died from starvation or we died from from other things the liquidated the liquidator divides the outlet they took us into they took us into our shots [Music] right now i am we are just about i would say maybe five kilometers away from outside and i can feel already i can feel enemy already power the power of auschwitz which which followed so many innocent life lives which we never had a chance to to live fully swallow them for only one reason because they believed a different religion than other people there were children and there were babies there they're pregnant pregnant mothers what whatever you can visualize and whatever you think of will never be enough what really happened in these few years when i was rich and i and i can feel it right now i feel that the the powerful the powerful wind from australia which spread that right over the whole world now the whole world knows about our space that's that's the big that's the power without which is and uh and it's a good lesson for a good lesson for a lot for the for everybody i guess i think twice to think twice about the commandment where god said you shall not kill [Music] but one thing i remember i mean a few things a few times seeing children small children walking out of the train from the station holding holding toys their toys or somebody giving them toys whatever toys the bigger ones holding by the hand the little ones the singing songs jewish songs hebrew songs and the songs from their country you're singing walking around right into the guest chamber you know what you know what testosterone when i close my eyes for this i could never sleep [Music] so now we coming into auschwitz it took a little while no food no water no anything the only thing the difference was that they put a pail for the latrine because they knew it's going to be a few days a few nights because they were going from one from one camp to the another i think it was two days and three nights of vice versa we're very happy to get out we're going out and all of a sudden [Music] and a loud speaker [Music] and he says and and and it says on the last thing it says in a few minutes these talks which have you seen we didn't see any talk because at night the headlight special comes at you then these these trucks gonna put on lights and they're gonna start up the talks and and all of you have to run up to the trucks and who doesn't run up to the trucks going to be shot i would say about 10 10 12 15 trucks and everybody was jumping on these trucks to get away i'm human attendance rocks i never know whether what happened to them i don't know they were running there because i thought that was the trip to safety yeah the rest of them the rest of us which couldn't make it be the one who was supposed to be killed don't figure them out but i should know already in that time i mean in that time already years under them under the yolk of the germans not something like this and it doesn't matter what you were doing and how good you walked how hard you were and it's they had just had one goal and one goal only they live with it all the jews of europe they almost succeed it doesn't matter what somebody's gonna say you were in a good shape but who wants to die so so the talk starting up starting moving i think just pistol shattered out or something and everybody started running and i started running too and i'm coming already on to close that rock and the guys holding out the hand won't help me i can't make it i can't make one truck i can't make the other truck i was weak and so on so on the trucks gone and we stayed in behind we are ready to be executed like the gun said i mean they really don't give idol idol plans these guys and they take us on to the to the shower then we came to our shower if we getting a shower and we getting clothes we're not going to be shot so you're really happy we were just going down with the hat down we don't care what's maybe going now they line us up to get the number then and that was all prisoners which you may have given me a minute then he calls one guy nope you or so he moves out from the line and he says the german to him what is your name so he gave him the name like like everybody else so he slugs and done with the the the other side of the of the of the gun slugs him once slugs another time he fell down on the ground and he kicked him a few times to get his almost unconscious then he says to him this was not your name you are a jewish liar he showed them this is your name because we had the idea to put this on from now on this is your name and take a good look guys you mentioned do this to him to make an example of god and take a good look guys you want to look like him if you forget this number which you got the diamond on the uniform you're finished and so finally the two cut star a whole camera they called it the quarantine under quarantine you work very hard very little foot and if you survive three months of quarantine they take you back to the to the main to the main camp which is in birkenau and the main camp is number d the d came to call it and the guys would go down a little bit longer they showed you the chimney and they said that's the only way to get out of here to the chimney i couldn't understand what he's talking about because is any normal people ever heard of this before and i'm already in a year and a year and a half or two in the ghetto and that's two years then you know that wasn't enough i had to have more i had to have auschwitz so then i start little by little i start already believing in this story that story this turned that story and i think myself my gosh i thought the i thought the right division was bad i thought together was better teach my my parents when my brother was like this here how can anybody get out of this one and everybody said you can't get out of that they got your number and you can get out of that to got through a day of work wasn't easy and if it was snowing or raining you get wet where you gonna go you have to stay the foreman which which took you to walk they're coming they they're hiding someplace but they don't have to get away you get wet then you came to the barrack all wet what are you going to do you want to hang up your clothes you don't because they steal it it was about it was five between five and six guys in a bunk yeah one level i used to have the top ones i didn't mind to have my own lives to fight with but i didn't want if somebody else is with it when they're spread out on you that's an oven an oven yeah that's another one they put in the pot you make the fire down there they'll have a chimney goes out down there and then they have the same thing there as this one and another chimney goes out here my bag was what my thing was approximately after this post you see this post the first or the second because i cannot tell because of this this is close first and the second right on top with jakka batman another three guys and the guy for the i play chess was a little bit farther in the middle this place here was a house a farmhouse the germans were sealed this one to try out the gears how how much how much time how much gas they needed how long it takes to till the people die in it and at the same time while they tried this out they had a chance to kill about between two and 300 jews at one time and and and and here i crossed the street they were buried in in in in ditches that's why they call this they call this the ditch and they throw in the bodies of the ditch and of course they put other all you need uh a human being no needle with fire underneath and keeps them burning all the time this was burning all the time now while they were waiting they had screaming people being gassed in this in in this little house because because this was this was a problem they were that was a tryout so the people didn't die very fast in that one and the crematorium the difference in territories they took about between i think they say between seven and eight minutes sometime so now when they hear them screaming these people know there's something wrong so now when they when they opened them up the gas came out and the fumes coming out and this and and they seen everything was going out now can you imagine them uh several thousands of families laying waiting down their tongue to go in here so they rebelled they were built for some reason everybody didn't want to go and move so their sets came around with motorcycles and whatever it was and mowed them all down this was my work between these two wires between these two wires sometimes where double sometimes was on a single they called it the new neutral zone in syngerma newton is neutral neutral ground this this ground has to be clean from from ice and snow in winter time and sometime from weeds that shouldn't interfere with electric wires but most of the time between 20 50 and 60 maybe 100 bodies were hanging around every day and and i was the one and if i was the one who had to take the bodies up and their special were special people which going around with the wagons and put them and put them down and put them to the crematorium every day some people are throwing rocks just to check it out if it's if it's still electrified except they didn't know one thing nobody know i didn't know beginning either in daytime there was no electricity in these wires but nobody knew it i mean the only time they knew was to grab it and everybody was afraid to grab it right and at night time that's what put the electric thing on when they went up because in nighttime they couldn't see their they have light something but still couldn't see it and at nighttime when they committed suicide to give me they just went out of the barracks catch it on finita and all over the camp we were going around and doing this kind of award and because of this the polish underground volunteered me to work for them if you understand that volunteering me when they give an order you have to do it felix found himself now involved with the polish underground and with the mastermind of what would be the only armed uprising against the germans and auschwitz captured british officer charles coward also known as the count of auschwitz needed other prisoners to help transport the dynamite smuggled from the factory known as buna or monowitz a nearby sub-camp of auschwitz where prisoners worked producing fuel and synthetic rubber and soon felix was enlisted smuggling dynamite destined to blow up the crematoriums instructed us if a british opposite gonna talk to you and either you if you understand what historically it's not important but just pretend that you understand and not with your head or tell you to do something just just play along the underdog needed somebody to approach was inside i was smuggling dynamite from buna yes to the camp it's five six guys like me durranas they call it which can come in and take the package away so when i got the package when you and we went by by it and i told the foreman or that says that i have to go to the washroom well he has no choice just to let me go to the washroom so i go to the washroom took the package out and put it next to me and then a woman not a man a woman had to knock at the door right after that she wants to come in but it was only for one person at a time then i go out she comes in take the package and smuggles it into the camp this dynamite has to go into the camp knee where the chromatoms are because they though they made they made the plan was to blow up the crematoriums i don't know how long this was going on nobody told me maybe they didn't know yourself say about enough dynamite to blow up two crematoriums october 7th 1944 the uprising plan by charles coward and the polish underground took place however not everything went as planned something somewhere got wrong you know uprising to make put together not so easy and supposed to blow up all the four crematoriums because with four modern crematoriums but the other two either the dynamite didn't blow up because they were called keeping it underground hydro blob because wet or maybe they didn't have a chance thing to give it who knows blowing up the crematoriums was just one part of the plan the polish army was to attack the germans allowing the prisoners to escape yet the attack never came the polish army couldn't make him or didn't couldn't make him or didn't want to make come in they had to come in for miranda to get samuel cameron the guys in alpha there was waiting so they see nobody comes around so they ran out to the right cut the wire they ran out but they ran into the fire all the place where their around was already was iran with ss laying around on the ground or being being looked like a like a like a like a ordinary man or an environment you couldn't you couldn't get out the only way you could have got by by by power is supposed to come in and they're supposed to disarm kill the old assassins which were down there and get all the ammunition what was down there and then blow up then blow up the ammunition and burn out this thing but didn't succeed but they succeed in closing up two kamatolos one of them for six weeks one of them for two weeks number two number one was only for two or two weeks and not an order number number number two was six weeks not the northern and number three four was built on the ground then these guys which walked and then and inside they got so mad that's other blew up they burned to the ground three and four look at the ground they killed them all of course these guys really commit really suicide [Music] this is the end of auschwitz of edge bergen out see the wires there and the the guys which burned down this was this wasn't dynamite this crematorium was built down by the inmates and after they've been down they make the they went to the yes they cut the rice and they are now to the forest these people we didn't know really went around north east west south we did not around we just want to run out so they ran out and now a few there are days or later every every one of them got caught got caught in in the forest and they brought them back and they slaughtered them right right in front of this crematorium so now thanks to this two crematorium down there which one of them one of them was out number two was out for about between four and five weeks number one was out maybe for 10 days or two weeks or even less all these trains which were coming from all these trains were coming from hungary we supposed to go straight to auschwitz on the road they they derailed them to another city and they never came into our streets and these people never gonna know why they are alive they're never gonna know if they would have died they never know nothing thanks god for that must be must be maybe i would say about to have a dozen trains like this in the last few weeks thanks to these guys here which died at this crematoriums by doing that burning down the crematorium which they had to stop guessing for a little while and and at least at least was some revenge against a nazi oppression because of the efforts of felix and these brave prisoners thousands of jewish lives were spared in that sense the uprising designed by charles coward was a success i don't believe in angels and i don't believe in god and i don't believe all these things but to me charles cowart he was like an angel [Music] as a result of the uprising anyone suspected of involvement was tortured by the ss felix was hit so hard and so many times his eye actually fell out of the socket despite his horrible condition he was able to push it back into the socket and save the eye but not his vision the following round of interrogation involved the ss ripping his fingernails off one at a time felix would not offer any information and was released to his barracks in a near-death condition many others did not survive the torture the germans are not exactly dummies little by little they figured out how the day dynamite came to the to the crematorium four or five girls i remembered fight that it was five were hanged behind ten days before the russians came in in auschwitz and i was at the hanging the germans dealt swiftly and ruthlessly with those involved in the uprising yet through all of this brutality felix witnessed something strange so all of a sudden i've seen a few hundred guys i think it was two three four at least 400 guy marching out from the crematorium and a lot of germans with guns and and even even uh uh uh uh a sword over like a tank was behind them and then what didn't we didn't see this before as long as we were in auschwitz a group like this singing you get clubbing to death or have that just by talking now they sing a song and that [Music] b by this time the russians were closing in the ss had orders to demolish auschwitz and leave no survivors close to 100 000 prisoners were assembled to make an eight day journey on foot they did not know their destination or their fate upon arrival that wasn't that much from here in january january 1945 the the 17 the 1800 the 18th of january we marched out 100 000 people here and that's the time and that's yeah and we marched still down there and about hundred thousand of us and how we made it i still don't know and the bratislava was a train waiting for us to give us the first time in about 10 days hot soup and bread and they they practicing like the herrings in the in the open in the open cars so but and you took in a brother's house to my thousand so now we walked out from the train walk out from the train i'd say how the heck is brett laying on the floor how come brettling people was dying for hunger with dreaming of bread so how did it because about 25 percent of these people in the train died on the train there didn't give my chance to eat that bread but you know something i want to tell you guys something as god is my witness nobody ever took that breath and we were dying for a piece of bread but nobody took that bread because these people dying not eating nothing and they couldn't eat that anymore and so that is that that was that much and then you come then from down there they took the train took us right up to my thousand where all of you are going to see it and from lapto from the station we have to walk about five six kilometers one step at a time finally we came to my thousand they gave us a pick a pig in our shovel what's miserable in a in our mind rocks whatever did they needed the rocks no they didn't eat the rocks they need to kill more jews that we went down there and they did there was they look it looks like this but we have to we have to make pieces out of them because they because they could sell this to the contract to the contractor trucks were going out of here they could elect they go to bring machines here in three months make more we made it in 10 years we had told so not to to break him up these were a little bit too big but we are told to like half of the squad of this whatever uh first they were dynamiting the big ones yeah and then you cut it he cut it with the thomas yeah pigs hammers whatever he told yeah loaded on the trucks the trucks came around this down there down there's a road to it for the for the trucks to go out and they were talk going out for me and they were selling them and that's just pocket at the money if i ever talked what we were doing [Music] the camp at mount thousand had a reputation for being even more deadly than auschwitz many of the prisoners there were worked or starved to death yet many also died in the gas chamber [Music] how do you feel when you're in a place like this i don't feel good no i don't feel too many memories coming around [Music] does it make you think at all how close you were yes to too close sometimes too close especially when we especially when we come in from our streets from a thousand oh boy is [Music] uh how much how much can you take you know the debt march and after the debt march is my thousand and after my thousands of milk and after milk is another that much here for melting we we start they took us out four o'clock in the morning and they put us on a boat go to lynch and lindsay was assembled they assembled a few thousands and lengths and we marched the whole day vels lombard munden habens i remember these when felix arrived at his last camp a benze he was near death but still forced to do hard manual labor digging tunnels in the nearby mountains for the ammunition factories [Music] felix documents this in his book our hunger became so bad that we were crushing the limestone that came out of the tunnels and putting it in our coffee to make it a little bit thick we were still getting coffee or something hot and black anyway in all of a benze the grass was gone we had eaten the grass all the trees were stripped of bark the tar was gone from the roofs that was our only diet for the last 10 days felix you were saying that perhaps if there was only two or three more days you might not have made it you might not have lasted no two more no most i don't think so i don't think two more days maybe but i i didn't think so in two more days now two more days like what lift like two years because there's nobody there's nobody to help you there's nobody to give you a glass of water see but everybody was in the same boat everybody was dying left and right how much can you how long can you go go around breeding after after all these years when the americans came around all of a sudden i felt i felt inside me that i can do something with my life i can at least get some food so i went for a run out of some food and that was a mistake boy or boy was that a mistake [Music] oh felix we feel i don't think we can thank god enough that you're here today yes yes that's right i i'll uh i'll wake up in demonic enough my name is not in the obituary i'm very happy what can you do you know what if there is of somebody upstairs maybe i should thank him but if there isn't i'm thinking also but we did not believe in god when we were in the camps no way but then again then again you take from another side we've got things from if there's got things that do i do i only have have to serve the under the the poor one the miserable one the one which the one which cannot make it that's why they that's what it's saying goes god helps them help themselves right i think i like this one [Music] all the sea is a must great all the bodies were found and and inside there must be here been i would say about ten thousand bodies or so at least three thousand bodies where three thousand billion will die death after the liberation [Music] [Music] oh [Music] do [Music] um after being liberated felix settled and gamooned in austria after a long and interesting series of events and a continued fight for survival he met his wife regina they married in 1947 and stayed in europe until 1949 shortly after the birth of their first daughter felix and regina moved to toronto canada they still live there and have four children five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren i guess i can i can only say one more thing what is what i'm saying for them for quite a few years i was just lucky and that's all that's the bottom line [Music] you

Channel: Best Documentary

Views: 519,871

Keywords: documentary, holocaust survivor, holocaust survivor interviews, shoah, history, world war II, ww2, second world war, interview, survivor, auschwitz

Id: WiX7pGBjn7o

Length: 53min 56sec (3236 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2022