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Testimony of Fay Fajga (Letzter) Malkin, born in Sokal, Poland in 1938, regarding her experiences as a child in the Sokal Ghetto and while in hiding on the Aryan side and in Lwow
Testimony
מוסרת העדות: פיי (פייגה) מלכין לצטר
מראיינת: תמי כץ
תאריך הריאיון: 1 בנובמבר 2012
מתמללת: אביבית קדרון
מקומות:
Sokal
Sokal Ghetto
Lwow
Jaroslaw
Krakow
Ranshofen
Branau am Inn
Ebelsberg
Salzburg
Boston
New Jersey
CD Number One
היום יום חמישי ט"ז בחשוון תשע"ג, 1 בנובמבר 2012. אני, תמי כץ, מראיינת מטעם יד ושם את הגברת פיי מלכין לבית לצטר, ילידת Sokal פולין 1938. גברת מלכין תספר לנו את סיפור הסתתרותה והצלתה בידי פולנייה נוצרייה בעיר Sokal מ-1942 עד השחרור בידי הרוסים ב-1944; על שהותה במחנות עקורים באוסטריה לאחר סיום המלחמה; על הגירתה לארצות הברית ב-1949 ועל חייה שם עד היום הזה.
Q.: Good Morning, Fay.
A.: Good Morning, Tammy.
Q.: Please tell us when and where you were born.
A.: I was born in Sokal, Poland. It is now the Ukraine. I was born on April 14th 1938.
Q.: What was your name when you were born?
A.: It was Fajgale Chashke Letzter.
Q.: Fay has been your name since you got the United States?
A.: Well, yes.
My mother used to call me Fajgale. And the way they spelt Fajga was F.A.J.G.A. And in America they couldn't read it because the 'J' isn't a 'Y', it’s a 'G' – so they would say: "You have to have an American name. So what do you want to be called?"
Somebody gave me the name Francis. They said: "You want Francis?" I said: "O.K. Francis."
So I became Francis. But my mother continued calling me Fajgale. And my family and best friends from those days all called me Fay.
So at work I was Francis Letzter.
When it comes to films or Holocaust programs, I'm Fay.
Q.: It's interesting because the woman you told us who saved your life – her name was Francisca.
A.: Francisca.
Q.: Was there any connection?
A.: No, just by chance.
Q.: And Fajgale is Zippora in Hebrew.
A.: I know that.
Q.: Was that also your Hebrew name or it was always Fajga?
A.: It was always Fajga, but Zippora, I knew, was my Hebrew name. Just living in America you don't use it, unless…..
Today they don't change names. So I wouldn't have changed Fajga either.
Q.: So you were born in 1938, almost on the eve of Second World War in Sokal which is today in the Ukraine, but in those days it was in Poland.
A.: Yes.
Q.: I would like you to tell us a little bit about your family in Sokal before the war from what you know or remember.
Let's begin with your father. Tell us a about your father and as much as you know about him. I'm talking about the period which preceded the war.
A.: O.K. I would say I came to America when I was 10 years old.
And probably until I was almost 70, I wouldn't talk to anybody about it. I would hear my mother would say something or talk to her brothers or sister. And I really had no interest whatsoever in joining in the conversation.
There are things I remembered which she said, but I never sat down with my mother and said: "Tell me about it." She would, you know, (….) done talking about it. That's not an uncommon premise, it's very-very common.
And I went on with my life. I got married. I had a daughter. I then got divorced. I got re-married. I worked. And the Holocaust was in the past. So after my second husband passed away, and my mother also passed away on the same day, eventually it took on a different meaning for me, and I felt I had to talk about it and learn as much as I could.
What I remember my mother telling me is: they were in the cattle business – her parents.
Q.: So let's begin with your father first. What was his name?
A.: His name was Eli Letzter.
Q.: And as far as you know he was born in Sokal?
A.: As far as I know he was born in Sokal or in one of the towns around Sokal.
Q.: Your father's family – his parents – your grandparents – do you know their names?
A.: Yes. His mother was Dvoyre Letzter, and his father was Shmuel Letzter.
I think his father's mother was still alive in the ghetto. I think she was his mother, and her name was Miriam. She was a very old lady
Q.: Do you remember her?
A.: Not really. I kind of have a picture, but it's not clear. Even my grandmother, his mother, is not clear.
He was Eli Letzter.
Q.: As far as you know, what did your paternal grandparents do?
A.: They apparently had a lumber yard.
Q.: In Sokal?
A.: In Sokal.
That's what as much as I really know.
Q.: Do you know whether they were Orthodox Jews or religious Jews?
A.: I would say everybody in Sokal or most people were traditionally Jewish and some people were more Orthodox than others. I think everybody, from what I gather, was traditional. They all went to shul. They all prayed. They all held Kosher homes. But I think some were more.
Q.: Do you know anything about your father's educational background? For instance, did he go to a Cheder?
A.: I don't know. I don't know.
The reason I brought up my mother is - my mother was best friends with his sister.
Q.: So what was your mother's name?
A.: Her name was Lea Maltz Letzter.
Q.: And she was born in Sokal.
A.: And she was born in Sokal, as far as I know.
Q.: So tell us a little bit about her background.
A.: O.K. Her family was in the cattle business, I think wholesale cattle business. They travelled around and they did, I guess, sales or whatever.
Before that they had an inn in Sokal. And there was a fire. And I remember my mother telling me they ran out in the middle of the night just with the clothes they had on. And I never asked her more questions about it. It was like: "O.K. So you had fire."
Q.: What were your maternal grandparents' names?
A.: Riwka Maltz and Joseph Maltz.
Q.: And do you remember them?
A.: Yes. I remember them too vaguely.
In the ghetto Joseph Maltz was bedridden. He had a beard.
I think my mother's side of the family was more Orthodox.
My father had three brothers and two sisters. His brothers were: Mordekhai – and he was very Orthodox, so I was told. I remember him at the ghetto. Izak – he was not Orthodox, and I think he joined the police in the ghetto. And Artzi was the third one. He was married and he married around that time. These people were all in their twenties and thirties. And he was married – Minna was his wife.
And Artzi and Minna, I was told, had been hiding in the woods. And six weeks before the end of the war they were discovered and murdered.
He had two sisters – Hana and Hesia. Hesia was married to Motel GeIbert. I think they lived in Lwow. But while they were in Sokal, Hesia was my mother's best friend. And that's how she knew my father – they grew up in the same area.
I think the Letzter family was more secular. I think the Maltz family was more Orthodox.
My father and my mother dated for 9 years. They made up and broke up and made up and broke up.
Q. That's quite unusual for that part of the world!
A.: Right, that was very unusual because mostly the two fathers got together.
Q.: It was usually a Shidduch.
A.: A Shidduch – no.
This was a romance that was off and on and off and on. And they were fighting and making up and eventually got married after 9 years.
I know that she had difficulty in getting pregnant. I remember her telling me she went to Lwow for some medical help. And I think she was 33 when I was born.
Q.: And you were an only child.
A.: I was an only child because I was 2 years old when the Germans came in.
They lived in Sokal. And her father as a wedding gift to her bought her a confectionary store.
My father and her (I have a photo of it) ran the confectionary store. They sold confectionary – candy, ice-cream….
She told me she made her own ice-cream. She brought in Suchard Candies from Germany. From the picture I see, the candies were in these glass cases, and she made the ice-creams herself.
Q.: So they ran this business.
A.: They ran this business.
Q.: Would you say that they were well-off?
A.: I would say they were comfortable, yes.
And as far as my mother's family – she had two brothers and two sisters. Moshe was the oldest – Moshe Maltz. Schmelke Maltz was the youngest. Her next sister was Yitte, and Khaya Dvorah. Khaya Dvorah died while we were in hiding.
Q.: We will get to that.
Where in Sokal did your parents live after they had gotten married?
A.: In the same house as their store was in.
Q.: Do you have any memories of that house?
A.: No, but I was there when we went back in 2007 to make the film. It was being used for something, but that was the house.
Q.: Can you describe the house and its surroundings a little bit? Is it a private house with a yard?
A.: It's a private house with a yard. And right across from it, again, I only know that from 2007, right across from it, my uncle describes it in his diary, was his house, my uncle's house.
Q.: Moshe's house?
A.: Moshe's and Channa's house.
And next door was the post office. And the post office is still there and these two houses are still standing there. And there is a yard that goes back.
And there I saw an outhouse there. And I know they had an outhouse, my mother told me. It's still there.
Q.: But as a baby, as a little child you have no recollection of that house.
A.: No. No.
Q.: Your first memory of yourself is when or where?
A.: My first memory, I have to say, is in the ghetto.
Q.: What?
A.: Because what I'm recounting is when we were in hiding, my uncle kept a diary our experiences. We were in hiding for two years.
And it goes back to 1941 and 1942. So I was 3 – 4 years old.
My first recollection is when we were in the ghetto. And I remember my aunt – Artzi's wife – Minna – took me to a bakery. A bakery, I guess, was somebody's little room in the ghetto because people made a life there of some sort, I guess. And I remember they had pastries, and I saw this Napoleon Pastry.
And I went back to the ghetto. And my grandmother – Dvoyre Letzter - was living with us. We were all in one room – all these families. And I told her about it. And I said: "Tomorrow I'm going to take you back to this wonderful bakery," and I was so excited.
And that night was one of the Aktias – either the first or the second. And I never saw her again.
Q.: O.K. We will get to that.
Let's go back to your parents' life before the war – the house. You said your mother came from a more Orthodox or religious whereas your father came from a more traditional family.
First of all, what language did your parents speak at home?
A.: Polish and Yiddish.
Q.: They spoke Yiddish amongst themselves?
A.: Yiddish and also Polish. Polish was my first language.
Q.: Did they speak Polish to you?
A.: Yes, my mother spoke to me Polish.
Q.: Not Yiddish?
A.: No, that came later.
Q.: You mentioned that your parents' home was a traditional home. They kept Kosher.
A.: Yes.
Q.: Did she tell you whether your father had gone to school on Friday and Saturday?
A.: Yes. She said that after he married her, he became more religious and went to shul. I have a photo of them on their way to shul. And she was pregnant with me at that time. And they are dressed beautifully.
Q.: So on Shishi-Shabbath your parents went to shul.
A.: Yes.
Q.: Did she ever tell you a little bit about the way they celebrated holidays in Sokal? Were there any memories or stories about the celebrations of Pessach, Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur?
A.: I didn't ask. I didn't ask. I don't know why, but I didn't ask.
Q.: Did she tell you anything about their social life or cultural life in Sokal?
A.: Well, I know they were very close friends to his sister and Motel's family.
Q.: Gerlbert?
A.: Yes.
And she had friends, but Hesia and Motel Gelbert – she would talk about because he was in the insurance business, and he was well-to-do. And they lived in Lwow. And he had this business going there.
She told me when she was younger she had – I don't know what it was, but stabbas….
Q.: Stabbas?
A.: Yes – that's the Polish name of this disease. Maybe it was rheumatic fever, I'm not sure.
And when she recovered she went to a…..(And I have a photo of her there) I don't remember the name of the town, but it's a resort town.
Q.: Did this resort town have spring water?
A.: Yes. And she went with Hesia there.
And I remember her tell me when they were in a train a cinder got into her eye, and they ran into a doctor, and he got it out.
Horyniec, that's the town, Horyniec.
Q.: Would your parents travel to places out of Sokal? Do you know whether they travelled on vacations?
A.: I never asked. I guess I didn't want to know. I can't give anybody any other excuse that I didn't know.
Q.: Regarding business – did your parents manufacture everything by themselves?
A.: She brought in the candies, she said, some things she made. The ice creams she made. But the candies – many of them were brought in from Germany. That's why she gave me the brown Suchard which is still around.
Q.: And the clients were Jews, Poles, Ukrainians?
A.: Yes, everybody.
Q.: But you would say that your parents' social circle consisted of Jews. Did they have non-Jewish friends as well?
A.: She talks mainly about Jews, but I don't know. I don't know.
Q.: Do you know if they would go out to the theatre or to the movies? Did they go dancing?
A.: I can't answer that. I can't answer that.
Q.: Was your father an educated man?
A.: There was a photograph in the Sokal Book, the Yizkor Book that was taken in 1925. And there is a group of men – standing there in front of a table, they are all very handsome and dressed beautifully they could walk down Fifth Avenue today. And it was a Zionist group. And my father is one of them. They are not wearing hats; They are not Hasidic.
Q.: So your father came from a Zionist family. He was affiliated
A.: Absolutely. His dream was to come to Palestine.
Q.: Do you know which Zionist movement or organization it was?
A.: No, I don't know.
Q.: You don't know.
A.: No.
Q.: But there is a picture.
A.: There is a photograph in the Sokal book of him with this group of men. And it's in 1925, and to me it's like it would have been taken today.
Q.: Do you know if anybody of your family or friends made Aliya before the war?
A.: Again I didn't ask my mother. I know that family before the war – she told me that they went to Cuba – there were relatives. And then I think she had a girlfriend she told me that went to Cuba or her husband went to Cuba – he liked her. That's a little bit of the gossip that I knew because it was a nine-year relationship.
And she said she had family in Sao Paulo – the Letzter family.
Q.: In Brazil?
A.: In Brazil. They went to Sao Paulo.
I know that he had an aunt in Geneve, Switzerland. And I think there was a distant relative also. This woman was in the British Army during the war. And he had family – an aunt and an uncle that came to Cleveland, U.S.A.
And we saw them when we first came to America. But I was 10, 12 years old at the time, I had no interest.
Q.: You had no one in Palestine.
A.: Not that I can think of.
Eventually some of these people went to Israel, but I don't know if before the war – I didn't ask.
Q.: You said your father was a Zionist and he really wanted to come to Palestine.
A.: Yes.
Q.: Do you know whether your parents considered immigrating before the war at all? Did your mother ever speak about immigrating to places, such as North America or South America? Did they really consider immigrating from Poland?
A.: No, because his aunt and uncle went to America, to Cleveland. And her four aunts and uncle went to America. They lived in New York. And these were her mother's sisters and brother.
So half of the family went to America and half went to …… Yes, both sides.
I don't know…..
Q.: But your parents weren't considering departure.
A.: I used to ask my mother: "Why didn't you leave when all this was happening?" And she said: "We always lived with anti-Semitism, who would have thought?" It was unthinkable.
Life was good. They were comfortable. They were financially comfortable. Anti-Semitism was out there.
Q.: So tell us a little bit, as much as you know, about Sokal. How big was the city? There were three communities there: Jews, Ukrainians and Poles.
A.: Yes. Right.
Q.: So could you please tell us about Sokal, its surroundings and the three nationalities that lived there.
A.: O.K. I can't really tell you anything about it from before the war other than what I read from my uncle's diary.
Q.: From what you saw.
A.: What I saw I don't remember.
What I learnt about Sokal is when we went back in 2007 to make the film: "No. 4 Street of Our Lady".
Because I was 6 years old when I left Sokal, I don't have any recollection of geography. It's an hour away from Lwow which was the main city.
Q.: In those times it belonged to Galicia.
A.: Galicia, right.
And it's a rural town. Except from the photos that I have from my mother, I have about 6, 8 photos that she saved, and I'm only judging it on how they are dressed. They are dressed beautifully, very fashionably, very up-to-date.
I went back in 2007, and it's like a back order: It's peasants; there is no culture. There was culture. There was a big shul that apparently was built in the fifteen hundreds, and still the outside of it, its shell is still standing. And inside you find bottles and cans and destruction. And I guess, that's a fitting memorial. My cousin Herby was saying: "Maybe it should be cleaned up." I said: "No, this is….That's where it is. That tells the story."
Q.: Sokal is situated on the banks of the Bug river, right?
A.: Yes.
The whole town (it's a small town) is close to the Bug River, it runs around.
Q.: Which is very close to the Ukrainian-Polish border. The town switched hands between Poland, USSR and the Ukraine
A.:. Sure, sure because after the war it was a part of the Soviet Union. Then it became a part of the Ukraine. And now it's the Ukraine. It's about an hour away from the Polish border.
I wanted to go to Belzec, but we couldn't because you have to cross borders. On the comeback to the Ukraine they say it's 8 hours you are losing. So we couldn't do it.
Q.: Did your mother tell you about their connection to the Jewish community in Sokal? What do you know about the Jewish community there in their times?
A.: I don't know.
Q.: Were your parents involved in the Jewish community life? Did your father have any role there?
A.: I can't answer that.
I know he was in the Zionists' community. I have been told there were 6000 Jews there before the war. There were only 30 left after the war.
I know it was communal life, but I never asked. I guess I didn't want to know. I don't even know why I didn't want to know, but that's I'm talking to you, I'm just saying: "Why didn't I ever ask questions." And that's a very common phenomenon with everybody. And I guess I didn't want to know. It would be like putting a pinprick into a sore. I didn't want to know about this sore….
Q.: She didn't want to talk?
A.: They talked among themselves. They talked among friends in America, among neighbours, but really much more later, in the later years, not in the early years.
And to me – I felt if I talk about my father – it was something in the past. It was too painful, I just couldn't go there.
I just saw a film in New York, it's an Israeli film 'Six Million and One'. And the film maker Duddu Fisher – it was shown in the Jewish Museum – he was speaking afterwards. And he said the reason he made the film is he and his brothers and sisters never talked to the father. And now they went back to Austria where he had been in the concentration camps. The sister didn't want to have anything to do with it, but she was there. And he said that's the only reason he made the film because they didn't know anything, and that registered.
I took my daughter with me to see it. But that registered in me so strongly because I said, you know, it proved to me that I wasn't the only person who just locked it up, didn't want to know.
I'm not going to give other excuse other than that.
My mother never remarried after my father was killed. In her last year she used to cry about him a lot: "Eli!" "Eli!" "Eli!"
And again, I didn't want to….It was too painful to talk. It was like …..
Now I can talk about these things.
I just want to add. I wonder if since I have gotten involved in my Holocaust story and my survival story because I think it's important for me now to acknowledge what had happened. But I think if I knew how I felt now and was still living then, I'm still not sure, I would have asked.
I had much more of an active life. It was important for me to live my life, to you know, to get married, a child, jobs. That was a sore point. I just didn't even think about it. And that's why I appreciate that film: 'Six Million and One'.
Q.: We will get to that film.
You mentioned that your mother said when you asked her: "Did you think of perhaps leaving, immigrating from there?" and she said something like – yes, there was anti-Semitism, but they were used to it or: "it was normal."
A.: Yes. "Life was good."
Q.: Having mentioned anti-Semitism – did she speak about that? Did she say to you about the significance of living in an anti-Semitic atmosphere?
A.: No. I think it was just taken for granted. Her customers who bought candy and I ce-cream were Polish and Christian and Ukrainian.
Q.: But did she ever tell you about violent incidents? I'm asking this question because we know that in the Ukraine they were often very violent.
A.: Right, very.
I don't remember anything like that. I never questioned her. And the things I remember are things she just mentioned.
And the question – I did ask her was: "Why didn't you leave?" She said: "We had a decent life. We were financially O.K." I keep referring how they dressed - all these people. There was a culture in those towns. They went to shul; they had a life.
Q.: Did they also read newspapers and books?
A.: Right. Right.
She went to a gymnasium.
Q.: Was it a Hebrew Gymnasium or a Polish Gymnasium?
A.: I don't know.
She read Hebrew, Yiddish and Polish. She spoke a little Ukrainian. German she could read.
So because they all lived near each other, there was a need to know all those languages. They were smart people – my family.
Q.: Did she have any help at home, like a maid?
A.: Yes, she did have a maid, Manja was her name.
Q.: Polish or Ukrainian? Jewish?
A.: No.
She was probably Polish, I guess.
Q.: And she was helping your mother when you were born?
A.: She must have been in their house or with me, I'm not sure. The only thing she told me about Manja is she was their house-keeper, I guess. And they had a cat. And the cat had to have kittens. And she stepped on one of them by mistake. And the kitten grew up with its head turned to the side. And she told me she how she cried and wept of what she had done to the kitten, but it survived.
She also had told me that she milked cows.
I didn't ask any further questions.
There are moments that now you asked me, I think.
Q.: You were born a year before the war broke out. In 1933 Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany.
Do you think your parents were aware of the events in Germany? Do you know whether any German Jews who had fled Germany came to Sokal? Do you have any idea about the German Jewish refugees who came to your town?
A.: I don't know. I didn't have any knowledge of that.
Well, like I said, they were used to anti-Semitism. There was always something going on and it always passed until the next thing – who would have thought about this industry of destruction that developed. But it went on.
And the first people that came in, I guess it was in 1939 she told me was the Russians.
Q.: Right. We will get to that point.
The war broke out on 1st September 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland. But beforehand Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact had been signed. This pact divided Poland between Russia and Germany.
A.: So my area was under Russian rule at that time.
Q.: By that time you had already born but you were a baby. However do you know what happened in Sokal during the Russian regime?
A.: I was a baby. That was 1939.
The only thing I know they told me – again – I didn't ask or elaborate…
Q.: Did they still have the shop?
A.: I think it was taken over.
Q.: By the Russians?
A.: Right.
I think all their businesses were taken away. Their homes – they brought in other people to live in their homes – peasants.
Everything was taken away. Some of them went to Zolkiew. My uncle went to Zolkiew which is half hour away.
Q.: Do you know whether the Russians expelled anybody from the family to Russia, to Siberia?
A.: No.
Q.: The Russians would do it to Zionists or to Bouregeois or to rich people.
A.: They moved people into their homes and they took their businesses away. But nobody was sent away.
And some of them were sent to or went to Zolkiew. My uncle, Moshe and his wife went to Zolkiew. I don't know…
My mother said she stayed in Sokal. And all I know is when they knew that the Germans were coming in, they said: "Oh, life will get back." "We will get our businesses back."
Q.: But was there anything that they said, about those two years from September 1939 until June 1941? Did they describe how they made a living, how they managed in case the Soviets took over their business?
A.: I didn’t ask. I don't know. I didn't ask.
My uncle Schmelke wrote about it, that's how I know a little bit more what I'm saying to you. I didn't ask. I didn't ask.
Q.: In June 1941 you are years old, right?
A.: I was 3 years old.
Q.: You were 3 years old when the war between USSR and Germany broke out. So the Germans invaded Sokal.
You don't have memories of the German invasion of Sokal
A.: No.
Q.: From what you heard what had happened once the Germans were there?
A.: Well, from what they would say was – and this is as much as I paid attention to – they ordered all the men to come into the centre of town.
Q.: Was it immediately when the Germans came in?
A.: Soon after.
I would like to read to you from the chapter where my uncle in his diary describes it.
Q.: Maybe you should explain that your uncle Moshe, your mother's brother, was writing a diary this whole period.
Many years after the war that diary was published by his sons.
And he described the day when the Germans came in and took men, amongst them your father.
A.: Right.
Now they had been in Zolkiew, I think: "We are back home in Sokal, after an absence of 15 months," that's him, Moshe talking. "The following is a report of what happened here, in our home town since the beginning of the Soviet-German war this summer. The Germans captured all of Sokal on June 22nd 1941, less than an hour after the fighting broke out between the fighting armies of Hitler and Stalin.
The Ukrainian population who had pretended to be staunch communist under the Soviets welcomed the (….) of Nazi tanks with buckets of flowers and shouts of 'Heil Hitler!'
As a reward for their co-operation the Ukrainian turncoats who had run the town under the Russians were allowed to keep their jobs under the Germans.
A Ukrainian by the name of Czarnecki was appointed mayor of Sokal and immediately organized a Ukrainian militia to carry out the orders of the Germans.
On June 30th 1941 all Jewish males between the ages of 14 and 60 were ordered to report at the Tarkowitza – the open square where cattle were assembled and sold.
When the Jews arrived at the Tarkowitza, a crowd of Ukrainians was already there – waiting for them, dressed in their Sunday best as if they had all been invited to a party. Some big shos took over and announced that four hundred Jewish males were required for labour assignments.
They then proceeded to select four hundred professionals, businessmen, workers and ordinary able-bodied individuals. All had round up and turned them over to attachment of SS men. Among the four hundred selectees was Eli Letzter, my sister Leah's husband.
The four hundred were marched off to a brick factory just outside Sokal. They were shot, and their bodies – tossed into a mass grave. That is how my sister lost her husband, and my baby-niece – Fajga Chashke – her father. Some parents lost two or three or even four sons in this massacre."
Q.: So they rounded up the men, and your father was one of them. And they had them dig their own graves.
A.: That's what I was told.
My mother said before my father went out, he came in, he picked me up, he hugged me, he kissed me and he cried a lot and then went out.
Q.: As if he knew what was waiting for him?
A.: Yes, and it's hard, It must have been hard.
Q.: And you don't remember him.
A.: No.
Q.: From what your mother told you can you please tell us something about his character?
A.: The Maltz family – I didn't know them before the war – but they are very intense people. You met my cousin – Chaim. They are very intense, they are very driven, they are not fun people, though they do have a sense of humour of a type.
The Letzter people were lighter. They lived an easier life. She said she made him to more of a worker. She said he could take a newspaper and go out into the outhouse and sit and read it for an hour. She was the driving force. But the Letzter family, I think, was a much more fun family, they were lighter from what I hear. They had one son who was very Orthodox.
Q.: Could you tell us something more specific about your father?
A.: I can't say. I can't really connect to this…..I have a picture of him from the photos I have. He was blond; he had blue eyes. I look like him.
My mother was dark, like my cousin – Herby – dark eyes, Betty Davis eyes, people would say.
And I think that my mother was…. The woman that I see in the pictures from before the war - I never knew her The war totally changed her, and she never remarried and she would cry about my father.
Q.: So they took him.
At that time did your mother know what had happened to your father? Or did he just disappear?
A.: Again, I have to refer to my uncle's book. She told me that she got very sick and she broke out with, I guess, hives, I don't know, she couldn’t check it. And she couldn't get herself cured, she was totally beside herself. But what my uncle says in the book is the Ukrainians said: "Yes, they were taken away to work." And we know where they are working. And we are going to collect food and money to bring to them.
And the people in the ghetto….Well, they weren't in the ghetto yet. But in the town, in Sokal, people pulled their money together and sent them to give them to the Ukrainians. And this went on for a while. This I know from the book, not because I know from my own.
Q.: So not only did the Ukrainians kill the Jews, but they robbed them as well.
A.: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Q.: As much as you know, what happens later on?
A.: Again, I refer to this book. Somewhere the ghetto was created. Q.: Where was the ghetto?
A.: In town.
I saw it now, when I was there in 2007. It's like, I don't know, a couple of square blocks.
Q.: So your mother had to leave her home?
A.: Right. Right.
Q.: Her home was not in the area of the ghetto.
A.: No.
That's a small town, you know, small towns in Poland.
Q.: So all of them – brothers, sisters and parents – everyone moved to the ghetto?
A.: Right. Right. Everyone moved to the ghetto.
Q.: Your mother came with you. She was left with a child.
A.: Yes.
Q.: And what happens in the ghetto, as far as you know.
Your first recollection or memory s from the ghetto.
A.: Yes.
Q.: Do you remember what the ghetto looked like?
A.: I remember when they were talking about yellow stars, this I remember, I don't know the details. I can't even answer what I remember. I know we were in a room. I don't know what had been in the ghetto before the ghetto was created on this 3-4 square block area.
The centre of it was still the synagogue which is still standing there beautifully today, I mean, except for the devastation they did to it, but it's the focal point in town.
Q.: And the Maltz family lived in the same room with you and your mother?
A.: I think we were in the same room. Somehow I think the Letzter family and my mother's father – he was in bed, he was sick. I don't know what was wrong with him, he didn't walk. Somehow I remember the same room. I don't know.
Q.: From what you heard, what went on in the ghetto? Where did they get food from? How did they manage? Was it a closed ghetto?
A.: A barbed wire.
Q.: There was a barbed wire?
A.: Yes. But my uncle in the book says he would sneack out all the time to look for someone to hide us, to rescue us.
And I had one uncle who worked for the railroad – my mother's brother Schmelke Maltz. He worked for the railroad. So he was at the railroad. So he would know information about what is happening more than the others.
He had been beaten there, and he had been starved. And he mentions in the book that some potatoes he brought to the ghetto and they found him and started (….) him…..
Q.: Smuggling potatoes?
A.: Yes, into the ghetto.
Q.: Do you have first memories of hunger or starvation or something of that sort?
A.: No.
I was always a very skinny little child in those days who didn't like food. So I don't have any recollections of ever starving anywhere – before, during or after. It just wasn't an important issue to me in those days.
So food is kind of out of my realm. But I can't even answer about food, I don't know.
I know that there were people starving, people dying in the ghetto.
Q.: Was there a Judenrat, a Jewish Council in Sokal?
A.: There was, but I don't know that. Again, from the book.
Q.: Was your uncle a part of it?
A.: No.
Q.: There was a Jewish Police also.
A.: That's my father's brother, one brother. He was secular, very secular. And I guess he thought he would save himself.
And he had a girlfriend, that I found out from my 99 year old aunt, that he had a girlfriend. And I remember he was very nice looking.
They were all nice looking.
Q.: Did he survive?
A.: No, nobody did, from my father's side nobody survived. I'm the last.
Q.: Were your father's parents still alive?
A.: In the ghetto.
She was taken away. And I think he died in the ghetto. He was sick, he died in the ghetto.
Q.: Did your mother ever talk about the ghetto?
A.: No. I didn't talk to her. Maybe she talked, but I didn't talk to her.
Q.: At a certain point there were Aktias in the ghetto.
A.: Yes.
I also remember in the ghetto – everybody had typhus. I had typhus. I was 5 years old and somehow I had pictures of myself lying in a cot in a corner of the room.
Q.: How did they treat people who suffered from typhus? Was there a doctor? Were there medications?
A.: Not to my knowledge.
The only thing I remember about typhus is that at night when the temperatures went very high. During the day they lay in the room, but when the temperatures went very high - this I remember very vividly – they would get delirium they would jump around, they would scream, they would run.
My mother told me her brother Schmelke who she was very close with – he was the closer one put his arms around her neck and said: "Oh, my Schwester …..Lieb." And they had to pull up. He started chocking her. So I remember that about typhus. And I guess you either died or you survived. I don't think you survived with medicine – it's either you died or you didn't die. That was it.
Q.: Do you remember German soldiers or Gendarmes?
A.: Yes.
Q.: Were you frightened of them or they didn't make any impression?
A.: I guess I knew it was the enemy.
I mean, I grew up, I was born into this life. I didn't know there was another life, that's what I knew. I speak to school sometimes. And one of the questions that many of them ask is: "Well, how did you feel?" I say: "I didn't know anything else, that's what it was." I didn't say…. Always….. That's what life was.
Q.: So what happens in the Aktia?
A.: By the way, there was somebody Steimle who Eli and Chaim told me was the head of the ghetto. Somewhere in Yad Vashem or in the Holocaust Museum I found a copy of something that I gave a testimony after the war in Austria about the same man being at the ghetto.
Q.: As a child?
A.: As a child. I guess I was 9 at that time.
I had a German professor translate a document for me, and it said: "I knew him. I remember him. He was in the ghetto."
Q.: Was he the head of the Judenrat?
A.: No, he was a German.
Q.: He was the German commander who was in charge of the ghetto.
A.: Yes, he was the German commander. And people when they had seen Steimle, they would run away: "There is Steimle."
Q.: Did you remember him?
A.: I can…
Q.: What did you say in your testimony?
A.: That I knew he was in the ghetto, that's it.
I remember when would be walking, people would run away: "Steimle is there," because what he talks about in the book is that they would ….not just him, the others – they would shoot people on the street. He talks about it in the diary. If somebody said 'Hello' to a German officer, he would say: "How dare he say that?" And he would shoot him. But he didn't say 'Hello' to him, he said: "How dare you say that?" And he would shoot him. I have to read the whole diary.
This is how he describes it. They walk into a room where the Judenrat was, pull somebody out and shoot him, just for sports almost, you know.
Q.: Everything was random.
A.: Random.
And it was like the sense of power, an evil power that they had.
There is an incident he describes in the book where because Schmelke, his younger brother, and he was in his twenties, Moshe was in his thirties – who was working at the railroad – he came back from the railroad one day, and he (if I could find it)…..
Q.: Tell us from what you know.
A.: O.K. I will tell you because he describes it so (….). He came home from the railroad station, and the train had come back from Belzec.
Q.: Had there already been transports to Belzec?
A.: Yes, at this point because it's over a period.
Q.: Belzec was a death camp.
A.: Yes, they were gassed in that point. I don't know if anybody survived from there.
Q.: Belzec was the camp where they took the people from Sokal.
A.: Yes.
As I read in the book, he said they brought other people from small towns into Sokal and used it as a station point where he said they would bring in groups of people. He goes into pretty much detail – young people, children.
Q.: So you were saying one day he came back…..
A.: One day he describes an incident where he was talking to Schmelke. Schmelke came back from the trains and he said he looked in the train because he was cleaning out the trains. And he found torn-up money, torn-up dollars, gold tossed away, clothes, books. And he knew what they had done to these people. And he said – Schmelke came there crying and he said: "We won't survive in a world like this. I don't want to survive in a world like this that could cause this type of things."
Q.: Did they mention whether anybody managed to escape from the ghetto?
A.: I don't know. I can't answer this.
Q.: Do you know about the phenomenon of people taking their own life, committing suicide?
A.: I didn't know that, I don't know. He doesn't speak about that really. But he discusses incidents.
Q.: This is in the ghetto in 1941 – 1942. In 1942 the Aktions, the Aktias begin, right?
A.: Right.
Q.: Do you have any recollections of that?
A.: Well, I remember the Aktion – I don't know if it's the first one or the second one – we were sitting in a pantry somewhere – a bunch of us. We were squeezed in. And my mother came down. And her father was in bed. He couldn't move. And he told her: "KInderlach……" And he knew he was going to be taken away when the Germans came storming in.
And I remember the Germans saying: "We know you are here," in German, "where are you?" screaming, yelling.
I was sitting on my grandfather – Letzter's lap the whole time. And my mother was there and other people, I can't….Those two people I remember doubtly. And there was a child crying he is hungry. And the Germans are screaming: "Where are you? I know you are there!" And they were banging walls. This was somewhere behind the wall – I don't even know. And they whispered: "He has got to drink something." And his father urinated, and he drank it. And he said it was salty, and he started crying.
And then eventually the Germans were gone, and it was over.
And we came out. My mother's father was gone. And people had seen him, this they told me, and he had asked them if anybody saw his children. And they said: "No."
And my grandfather on whose lap I sat - I remember somebody even saying to me: "He got sick because you were sitting on his lap." He died soon after in the ghetto. He was sick, I don't know what he had.
Q.: So this was during an Aktia you were hiding?
A.: Yes, it was during an Aktia - this I remember.
There were three Aktias.
Q.: What does a little girl understand about an Aktia? What does it mean to her?
A.: It's part of the normal life. It's part of a normal life of a 3-4-5 year old who lives in that world, in any world, you know, (…..).
Q.: So you know: "There is an Aktia, we have to hide and I have to be quiet."
A.: Yes.
Q.: That's a basic thing.
A.: Yes.
Q.: Why? You don't understand.
A.: We are Jews. I don't know if I thought about it, it was just natural.
Q.: The fact that you are saying: "We are Jews….."
A.: They are making the yellow star.
Q.: From that stage you are aware that you are Jewish? Do you know that you are Jewish?
A.: I know I'm Jewish.
Q.: Do you know what it means to be Jewish?
A.: I'm not sure. I never thought about it. I don't know.
Q.: In the ghetto do you see anybody praying or putting on a talith or reading from a siddur?
A.: I can't answer.
Q.: Because your mother came from a more Orthodox family.
A.: Right.
Q.: Do you remember?
A.: It's like a blur. I can't, it's a blur.
The only thing I remember is – during one of these Aktias I had a little girl friend, she was 8 or 9 and she jumped from a train and she came back to the ghetto. And her eye was….I don't know – it did come out – it was bleeding, it was…..And she came back to the ghetto. What happened – I have no idea.
Q.: So during all these three Aktias your mother and the family managed to hide.
A.: Yes. The third Aktia we left. We were there in the first two.
Q.: In one of these two Aktias was your grandfather the only person who was taken or did they take other members of the family as well?
A.: My father's family, his mother.
Q.: They were all taken?
A.: I don't know if all of them because I remember when we left the ghetto, his brother Morkekhai and his brother Izak were running around, looking for a place for themselves, I remember that.
And he was Orthodox – Mordekhai, you know, he had a beard, he was Orthodox.
Q.: What do you remember of your mother in the ghetto? I mean she doesn't know where her husband is; She is left with a child.
Do you remember her explaining anything to you, talking to you?
A.: No. I didn't talk. And she didn't talk. I don't. It's a blur, there is no connection that I made.
Q.: O.K.
So the family managed to escape before the final Aktia?
A.: Yes.
At some point and again I'm getting some of this from the book and some of it I vaguely remember. Moshe had (in the book he talks) he had gone out at night, sneaked out from the ghetto at night and went to people he had business with, people he knew, Mrs. Halamajowa's brother –asked him to take his family because they were very close in that family. And he said: "No."
Q.: So Moshe, your uncle, was looking for a solution, for a place to hide?
A.: Right, Moshe and Schmelke.
CD Number Two
Q.: So you were saying that your uncles, Moshe and Schmelke, were looking for a place, understanding that something very serious is going on.
And they are looking to rescue the family and to find a place to hide.
A.: Right. Yes.
And since my uncle was working for the railroad, he knew more than, I guess, many other people. He knew where people were travelling. That's why I told you what I read here. When he came back he knew that it was a death camp they were going to. Maybe some people didn't quite…..He knew.
So they knew that this was going to come to an end. So he was working at the railroad. They worked it as a team effort.
And Moshe was sneaking out at night to find somebody who would rescue us, hide us. I guess in their hearts they must have felt that somewhere there is going to be an end to it because how….I have always felt that if I had been an adult then, I would have never survived. I just couldn't have done all that because they believed there was going to be an end, this couldn't have gone on forever.
Q.: So what happens, does Moshe find a place?
A.: Well, somehow he had a connection with Mrs.Halamajowa, Francisca Halamajowa.
Q.: Wait, before you continue, tell us. He had a connection with a woman whose name was Francisca Halamajowa.
Who was she?
A.: She was a woman who lived in the area. She had a small house.
Q.: A Polish woman?
A.: A Polish woman.
Q.: Catholic?
A.: Catholic.
She lived there with her daughter – Helena. She had a son – Velush.
But I think he was married. He lived in a different town.
Q.: How old was she?
A.: Fiftyish.
Q.: How did Moshe know her, from business?
A.: From what I have heard, he had given her a ride once. He was travelling in a horse and buggy, an she was trying to hitch a ride with packages. And he had given her a ride.
Sokal is a small town, you see. Most of these towns were small. So everything is very close to everything. And people know each other.
Q.: And where in Sokal did she live?
A.: In Sokal, maybe a mile or two away from there.
Q.: But she had a farm.
A.: I'm not going to call it a farm, but today it's a farm standard. She had a small house which was attached to another little house. She had two rooms. And in the back there was a barn. And there was a yard in the back where she grew vegetables. And, you know, it was small crammed.
My mother's house was small. But I don't know what it looked like before the war. Right now there were some work going on there , they were re-doing it.
But, you know, there weren't big distances, in Sokal. they were in different parts of town.
Q.: So your uncle – Moshe – knew her. And somehow he managed to contact her.
A.: Right.
Q.: And he asked her to take you in?
A.: Yes, to hide his family.
Q.: He asked her to hide his family.
A.: Yes.
And I think, what he says – her son told him O.K. Her daughter – Helena was living with her. Although I don’t think she was a person that anybody told anything to. She was strong.
And she said: "O.K."
Q.: And she agreed to hide you.
A.: Yes.
How she agreed – I can't answer you, but she agreed.
Q.: Do you know if Moshe paid her or offered anything to her?
A.: I don't know. I do know she didn't do it for the money. If she took money it was to buy material and goods.
Q.: Food?
A.: Food, yes.
Q.: So your uncle finds a place for his family.
A.: All of us.
This was a unit. It was for him, his wife Channa, his son – Chaim, the baby – Lipshe (at that time still alive), Yitteh.
Q.: His sister – Yitte.
A.: His sister – Leah – my mother, me – Fajga, Schmelke – who was single at the time and Khaya Dvorah – another sister – who was single (….) and his mother – Riwka.
Q.: So how many people were you? A.: Nine, I guess.
And later on the Kindlers came into this. But we will get to that later.
But somewhere during the ghetto, during some of those Aktias, I know Khaya Dvorah, Riwka, Moshe, Channa and Chaim maybe had gone there. And I think at some point my mother, me and Sam when my mother was still sick (Sam is Schmelke) had also gone there for a short period and then come back to the ghetto. And I can't give you details, I don't know why it happened that way.
Q.: But do you remember coming to her house, to the hiding place?
A.: I remember the last trip, I don't remember the other because my mother always said that she was sick and Schmelke carried her on his back.
Q.: You are talking about your mother.
A.: Yes.
Q.: But how did they escape from the ghetto?
A.: I remember going under barbed wire, at that time the Kindlers were with us. David Kindler, his wife and their son.
Q.: Who were the Kindlers?
A.: He was a very prominent doctor in our town. This was a small town, I guess, I don't know how many doctors we had, but he was probably the most prominent.
Q.: So they came to your hiding place, and you escaped from the ghetto with them?
A.: Right.
Q.: Do you remember that experience?
A.: Yes, I remember.
Q.: Were you frightened?
A.: I don't know.
I remember we sneaked out of the ghetto. At that time Moshe and the rest of them were there already. It was me, Schmelke, my mother and the Kindlers.
Q.: The Kindlers were two adults and two children, right?
A.: Yes. Doctor Kindler, his wife, Simcha who was probably a teenager and Eli who was my age.
Q.: And do you remember? Were you walking to Mrs. Halamajowa's house?
A.: Yes. Yes.
And the only way I can remember it now – it was walking along the Bug river – is we re-created the walk in the film. And I walked it again. And it's about a mile or two, I don't even know the distance.
Q.: Were you walking at night?
A.: It was at night when we left.
Q.: Did the adults explain anything to you –Where were you going? What was going to happen?
A.: What I do remember is I had been there …..
Now, this I don't remember, he mentions it in the book that I had been there for some brief period and I cried. And Moshe told Sam (Schmelke): "Don't bring her. Drop her off in front of a church somewhere," not uncommon in those days, "or a convent or somewhere. Somebody will take her."
Q.: Did Moshe say that to Schmelke because you were crying.
A.: Because I was crying.
Q.: And they didn't do that. Did your mother tell you?
A.: They talked to me, and I promised them I was not going to cry.
And I got there and I cried.
Q.: Can you describe from your memory what happens when you get there?
A.: I remember falling to a hole in the ground when we were walking at night. And they pulled me up.
I remember – it was the final Aktion, there were Germans, there was noise, there were SS men, the town was a chaos – that I remember.
I remember going into the barn, climbing up a ladder. There was a trap door on top. There was straw on the floor.
I can't give you a time frame when I started crying, but I did.
And I was 5. And I couldn't stop crying. And I remember crying. And I remember begging them.
I was close to my aunt Yitte then. And I remember calling for her. And I remember at some point they put me on the straw. My uncle describes it as liquid, I remember a pill, and I was pushing it out and begging them to take it away. And they kept pushing it in, and I remember my little fingers pushing it out. This I remember.
Q.: What was the pill?
A.: Poison, because Doctor Kindler brought poison with him in case we are captured we will kill ourselves instead of being tortured and murdered by them.
Q.: So because you were crying the adults made a decision to give you the poison because they were afraid that your cry will turn you in.
A.: Right, to the Germans and to the Ukrainians who lived next door and the Poles who lived next door – the neighbours.
Q.: But all you knew was that they were trying to shove in this pill.
Do you remember your mother saying something?
A.: I don't remember. But what she told me was she set back and she said: "I forgive you and may God forgive you."
And she said because Mrs. Halamajowa's house was right near the Bug river, her plan was o jump off when they took down my body and jump in the river.
And the rest is what was told to me.
Q.: So they give you the pill because they understand that this child is crying and it would have been a problem for them.
A.: Sure because they would have been discovered – thirteen of them plus Francisca and Helena – them all.
Q.: Right, she was risking her own life.
A.: Sure.
And he talks about it in the book. Do you want me to read you the portion?
Q.: No, don't read it. I want you to tell me what happened just from what you know.
A.: She comes there and begs them – he writes – this is what I….that: "This child has to be quieted down or else we will be killed. You got to do something about this child."
And I wouldn't stop crying.
Q.: You were the youngest there, right?
A.: Yes. Me and Eli – we were the same age.
Q.: You were the youngest.
A.: Yes, we were in the same age. Chaim was two-three years older than us.
And I'm crying. She is begging them to do something. And they come to this decision that because …..Channa – my aunt – had already given up a child who was crying in the ghetto - that's Herby's – Chaim's story.
Q.: You are talking about Chaim's little baby sister.
A.: His fourteen month old sister – I remember them telling Channa: "If anything happens you have to give her up." And this was during one of those Aktias where she climbed up some rafter with the baby and she put Chaim in a pantry somewhere. And the baby started crying.
Mrs. Halamajowa was going to take the baby. Her son talked her into taking the baby. She hadn't wanted the baby, but her son talked her into taking the baby.
And then the baby got sick, Lipshe got sick. And Channa kept her another day. That was the fateful day of the Aktia.
Q.: And they took the baby away.
A.: Yes.
She started crying, and there was a Jewish policeman and an SS man walking by. And the Jewish policeman climbed up on the ladder and saw my aunt (he knew her) and grabbed the baby. And she still had Chaim.
And he walked away with the baby – Lipshe.
Q.: You cousin?
A.: Yes.
I don't remember her. I couldn't picture her. Chaim talks about her.
Q.: So coming back to the attic where you were staying in the barn.
A.: She was beating the pigs, so the neighbours would hear the pigs crying. (….).
Q.: They wouldn't hear you cry.
A.: Right.
Q.: If she beats the pigs…..
A.: The pigs were crying.
You know, how much could she keep beating the pigs? So that was the decision they made. And I guess they felt even if I survive this, I will continue crying.
So what I have been told afterwards that I fell asleep. And he writes in the book. Mrs. Halamajowa after dark came up with a burlap bag and said: "Put the body of the child in here. Her soul is with God now." She was a religious Catholic.
And Dr. Kindler went over to pick me up, and as my uncle says, he felt my faint pulse. And I suppose if we didn't have a doctor, my uncle might not have felt my pulse. I have thought about it at times. And he said: "This child is alive."
And at that point they figured out it was a miracle, they couldn't, you know…..This was what it was.
And he says my mother took me in her arms, I don't remember this.
They do say that I said: "Mame, ich leyb." But I don't remember it, but they say.
Q.: What does it say?
A.: Mamma, I'm alive.
Q.: So do they say that?
A.: They say I said that.
Q.: Because you were aware of what was going on.
A.: I don't know. I don't know if I knew what was going on. I don't know. You know, I'm giving you my…..
Q.: What happens next?
A.: Next my mother told me they used to give me sleeping pills.
And I remember drinking coffee …..
Q.: To keep you quiet.
A.: To keep me asleep, not quiet.
And if I cried, I remember them putting a pillow on my face because we had down comforters that we brought from the ghetto that were up there in the straw with the lice.
And I can't tell you about clothing what we wore or change or anything - I don't remember any of that. But I do remember the pillows on my face. And that was terrible.
Well, I know that kept me asleep. And I was never hungry. I don't know if any of us were. She used to bring pails of food and she would take….
Q.: Would she cook for everybody?
A.: Yes.
Q.: How would she get the food supplies?
A.: You mean, how did she get them to us?
Q.: No, I mean, how did she buy the food? How did she get the money?
A.: I guess she bought. Dr. Kindler gave her the money to buy food. And I guess our family gave her as much as we had and she bought. Q.: And she would buy and cook for all of you.
A.: Yes.
You know, she grew food in the back. She would slaughter the pigs and use them in the food. It was like a little farm where she had these plus she brought food in from the outside.
Q.: She did it all alone?
A.: Her daughter – Helena.
Q.: Did you see Helena?
A.: Yes. Yes, I saw her.
Q.: They would both come up.
A.: Intermittently.
She didn’t always come up. Sometimes she came up. But I remember her looking up. You know, she would bang the thing, we would move it. We whispered. There was no speaking up loud, there was all whispers.
And there was something attached to the pail and we would bring the pail up and return it. And also with the waste – we would send it down to her and she would return it. But I remember like it was being pulled up.
Q.: What was the routine in the hiding place?
I mean there were ten adults, three children. How did everything work? You were all bent; You were never able to stand; You could never go out, right?
A.: Right, except for the incident which I will tell you about.
Q.: All of you whisper; You can't talk the whole day.
Was it totally dark in the hiding place or was there some kind of light coming in?
A.: You know, it's this kind of a roof and it's straw. The whole building doesn't stand anymore, there is half of it left because they built a house next to it. And I remember the doctor pulling out a slot to bring in some air and light.
You know, this wasn't a heavy thing. I guess during the day there were cracks…..
Q.: Between the roof…..
A.: And I remember playing Chess and I remember playing Cards of War (….). I remember drawing pictures and I don't remember anything else.
Q.: Did the adults teach you or were they reading stories to you?
You were there for almost two years, right?
A.: Yes.
Q.: How does the time pass?
A.: I don't know.
Those are the things that I remember doing. And I remember my mother delousing me. She was, you know……
Q.: You had lice.
A.: Yes, crawling with lice.
And Dr. Kindler said: "You put them in little bottles of naphtha." So I guess Mrs. Halamajowa got these little bottles of naphtha and my mother would put them in.
Q.: Did you ever wash?
A.: I don't remember. I don't remember
Q.: What about heating in the cold winter of Poland and the Ukraine?
A.: Well, we had these down comforters, I remember that.
Q.: Obviously there were no stove or anything…..
A.: No.
Q.: Because that would have been suspicious.
A.: Well, I can't answer you the other questions.
Q.: Do you remember what the adults did during the day?
A.: No. The same things…..
Q.: What were they busy with?
A.: They would talk to each other. They had split the food. I don't remember that. Maybe Herby talks about it.
Q.: Was your uncle keeping a diary all this time, also in hiding?
A.: Well, I don't remember this, but Herby said that he remembers him sitting in the corner, making little notes. I mean, he didn't have a yellow lined paper, he was making little notes.
They did get newspapers that she would send up to them.
And somewhere I remember the Germans who were stationed all around, I remember them listening to radios. So they got…..
In that area people speak a lot of languages because you are next to each other. In America you speak English. In that area so you are speaking Ukrainian a little and Polish and a little German because everybody is intermingling those languages. So I do somehow remember radios but not us, the Germans.
And she gave us information. Now, her daughter – Helena – worked at the post office. So she got information.
And what happened – this I remember, I don't have a time frame on it – is that she came to us and said that there were letters posted on her door that she has to leave. The Ukrainians, the Ukrainians….
Q.: She was Polish.
A.: She was Polish.
Q.: She was not Ukrainian.
A.: No.
And the Ukrainians, the neighbours, posted these notes: "If you don't leave, we will kill you." They wanted her house.
Q.: Did the neighbours suspect that she was hiding people there?
A.: She had one neighbour who suspected it. And again….me – I dropped the – somehow I remember it was a metal cup. It was a metal cup and I dropped it. And this neighbour had been suspicious of her – why she is carrying so much for the pigs. So he said: "I heard noise," because everything there was next to each other, and it's not….
Q.: It's small.
A.: Yes.
And she told us to leave. I remember our family sitting there very upset, you know. And they said to her….They worked it out that they were going to say that she is hiding Dr. Kindler and his family.
He wrote them a letter. But somehow I vaguely remember him going down to meet them.
Q.: Dr. Kindler?
A.: Yes, but maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. But I vaguely remember him going down to meet him.
He didn't tell about us. It was just him and his family.
And then, according to my uncle, the man left after that because now that he had knowledge, they would have killed him.
And she stayed.
Q.: Regarding Dr. Kindler - How is it he managed not to turn you in, you know?
A.: He was very prominent in our town, a very prominent doctor in this town, that you have a history with him, medical history – not.
Q.: Speaking about medical situation – before that, in the ghetto, you mentioned typhus.
A.: Right.
Q.: What happens in the hideout – are you all healthy?
A.: My mother's sister –Khaya Dvorah– I was told she had tuberculosis, I don't know, she was sick. And her mother was with her. Yes, her mother was with her.
Q.: You mean your grandmother was with her.
A.: Yes.
Q.: And what happened to Khaya Dvorah?
A.: She died one day.
Q.: Your aunt?
A.: Yes.
Q.: Do you remember seeing her dead?
A.: Yes, I do.
Q.: It's unusual for a child to see such a thing.
A.: Yes, but I lived among that. you know. It was not so unusual in my world.
Q.: She died while you were in hiding.
A.: Yes.
I remember when they were burying her. Us three children – they put us in a different corner, but there was a sheet where they were wrapping her. And I remember us, three children, sneaking a peek. Now, I remember this, I don't know whether Eli or Chaim will remember this.
And at night they took her down and buried her under this apple tree.
Q.: In the garden, in the yard?
A.: Yes. In the yard, she is still there.
Q.: She is still in the yard.
A.: Well, I was told after the war that they dug her up and put her in the Jewish cemetery, but that may have been the worst thing to do because many of the stones have been shattered. There still are stones in the Jewish cemetery, but many of them are lying in the street.
Q.: Do you know whether they kept Shiva. I mean, they were sitting there anyway, but …..?
A.: I can't answer.
Q.: And Dr. Kindler was with you. He was a doctor, so that must have been also some kind of help in a situation that you were in.
A.: Yes.
I remember getting sick once, and I don't know what I had. And I don't know what I had. I slept all day and I wouldn't eat. They wanted to give me food, and I wouldn't eat and I wouldn't drink anything.
And Dr. Kindler told my mother: "That's the best medicine to just let that…." That's an incident I remember. You know moments?
Q.: Yes.
A.: I can't tell you anything else.
Q.: That's the way our memory works.
A.: And then I remember Eli with his leg.
Q.: What happened?
A.: He said he got tuberculosis in his bones, and I presume he….I didn't know what it was and I remember his father always re-bandaging his bandages and this going on for a long time. I don't remember details, I remember seeing him re-bandage Eli's leg all the time.
Q.: You were three children quite close in age.
A.: Right.
Q.: Chaim - Herby, Eli and you.
Do you remember a special bond between you – the three children? Did you make up games? Did you have any special relationships there?
A.: Yes.
I remember playing Cards with them, but I don't remember any bond because there wasn't a bond everywhere.
Q.: As you said, you couldn't really talk, you had to whisper.
A.: Yes.
Q.: It's really tough to be together 24 hours, constantly threatened.
How did the adults manage with each other? What were the relationships like?
A.: He talks in the book - because I have no concept of it - that in the beginning, when we got there into the attic, Dr. Kindler and his wife – they were kind of considered as the intelligentsia and they looked at us as peasants. And in the beginning, right after the third Aktia he says that (and I'm quoting from him) – he says that Dr. Kindler and his wife had thought of leaving. This wasn't in their life style what they wanted.
And then when the ghetto was liquidated in the way it happened, everybody stayed.
Q.: But every day was the same, or do you remember there was some change?
A.: I don't remember.
Q.: While you were hiding do you recall whether there was any manifestation of Jewish customs or traditions? Did you know about the times holidays and Shishi-Shabbat or prayers?
A.: I don't know.
I would guess Chaim and maybe Eli know more because Eli – they talked about it in his realm ,in the book the Yizkor Book of Sokal. And there was a whole community here with Dr. Kindler as the head of this community. So there was an inter-action that was going on here . But with me – I was ….
Q.: Because you were a child and you tended to cry and because of what you told us, you were in constant tension not to cry?
A.: Yes, because they would put a pillow on my face.
Q.: So were you always scared?
A.: I don't know honestly, I don't know. All I know is that I knew they would put a pillow on my face and that was bad, I couldn't breathe. I can't even answer. I know they said they kept me drugged for a while, but eventually I guess I was….
And it was two years, I got a little older. But the only thing, as I said, that I remember that Chaim and Eli apparently don't remember is when she got the letter posted: "You must leave!" And she came….(And I don't know what time frame through all these things I'm telling you about) and said they decided…. And somewhere during this time Hela had gotten married.
Q.: The daughter got married?
A.: Yes.
And she did not tell her husband about me, about any of us.
Q.: He didn't know that….
A.: He didn't know that we were in hiding because she kept all secrets about everything here.
And what they had done was when the neighbours started threatening her – again I know this from the book – Hela was a pretty woman, she worked in the post office. So she would start inviting the Germans who were stationed there because they were quartered in the area because we were in the Russian border and the war was going on there. She started making parties and flirting with them and bringing them over.
Q.: You are talking about the Germans.
A.: The Germans, the SS.
Some of them may have been just military – some SS, whatever the Germans.
So she became the 'body' of the Germans. And she would invite them over for parties and she would talk to them and laugh with them. And that kept the neighbours away. Because Frencisca had lived in Germany at one time and they thought there was a German connection there…..
Q.: They thought she was a Volksdeutsche.
A.: A Volksdeutsche they called her.
Q.: So it was a perfect camouflage.
A.: Yes. She was just so smart, she came in with this camouflage. She had (….). She just ….
Q.: So she had these parties with the Germans officers….
A.: Yes. They were quartered in her house too.
Q.: And you heard them while they were in the house.
A.: Yes.
I remember one time they were building wires, electrical wires. And we thought they will be opening our attic. And they didn't. This I remember – everybody sitting praying that day.
But somewhere when the Ukrainians had sent her these messages, they decided maybe they can save a child. And they took Eli. He was a beautiful little blond hair, blue eyed little boy. He looked like a little shegetz.
And they took him away, and I remember this. He doesn't, but I do.
Q.: They took Eli?
A.: Yes, with Hela.
Hela took him as….I don't know what she told them. Because he was circumcised they were afraid.
They brought him back. So they decided….
Q.: Because he was a boy.
A.: Because he was a boy they decided they would try a girl. I was somebody they were scared of because of my crying or what would I say.
So in those days I spoke Polish. And they went to the priest and they told him they wanted papers for a child. And they gave me a name of a child they found – a little girl.
Q.: What was the name they gave you?
A.: Maricia Janusz.
I remember the name and I'm not crazy.
Q.: You had a false identity.
A.: A false identity.
And they taught me they called it 'pacierz', the prayers. I would say the prayers every day. And this was while we were in hiding. I would do all this practicing. And they told me all this. I don't know whether this was for a week, a month or six months this was going on.
And I remember the last night before they took me away, going over to my mother. And everybody was crying after that saying: "Mame, ich vil seen dain ponim, ich ken schtendik dedenk es."
Q.: Please translate.
A.: Mom, I want to see your face, I can always remember it.
Everybody started crying. And my mother used to repeat that story, but I remember that story. And I remember they came with a laundry basket and they put me under the laundry.
And I remember Francisca and Hela were carrying the basket and there were some German soldiers sitting there flirting with her, flirting with Hela. And she was jilting with them.
And then they brought me in the house, locked me up somewhere.
And then I remember going on the train with them to Lwow.
Q.: You mean you were going to the train to Lwow with Hela and her husband.
A.: Yes.
Q.: She is taking you….
A.: With Hela, yes…..
And then they brought me back and they kept me locked up in Francisca"s house. And I remember being in a room with…..there was like a Christmas tree and was a spider. And I remember sitting there locked up. They wouldn't let me out because they were afraid where am I going to say. And I was scared of it.
And then they brought me back, that's as much as I can tell you about it.
Q.: So they brought you back from Lwow to Francisca's house.
A.: Yes, they brought me back to Francisca's house and kept me locked up there.
Q.: And then they took you back to the hiding place.
A.: Then they took me back.
Q.: Do you remember?
A.: I remember coming back, I don't remember anything else. And I remember that incident .And I can't….I don't remember.
Q.: Was there any time when the Germans or someone else actually tried to go up?
A.: Not that I know of.
The case I remember is the one when she went down and sent Dr. Kindler down. I don't know.
Q.: And at night you never went out to breathe fresh air?
A.: No.
Because it was too dangerous we couldn't go out. Somebody will see. You whispered and you were hidden.
Q.: Tell us a little bit more about Francisca. Please describe her personality, who she was.
From your perspective today, what do you think motivated her to do what she did? I mean, she is hiding thirteen or fifteen people; She is cooking for them and most important – she is risking her life.
A.: Yes.
She is hiding more than that because when we come to the end of the war, we didn't know.
Q.: At that point you didn't know that she was hiding other people.
A.: No.
When the Russians came in, and the family decided it was safer to go to their houses than to stay in this barn. …
Q.: We will get to that.
A.: O.K.
Q.: At that point you didn't even know that Francisca was hiding more people.
A.: No.
Q.: What are your memories from Francisca's personality?
A.: I was intimidated by her, I stayed away.
Q.: Was she tough?
A.: Yes, that's how I remember her. I remember a little bit, that's how I remember her.
And here I was the kid who cried and….So with me – they kept me at a distance from her. I don't remember having these little mutzi putzi conversations with her.
Hela I remember as being pretty and easy.
Q.: What about Francisca's son?
A.: I remember him coming there. And I remember him ….
Q.: Please tell us his name again.
A.: Velush Halamaj.
And apparently he had a wife, he talks about her. I remember him.
The time I remember – I have a picture of him coming, remove the trap door. And he was speaking to us in Yiddish. I remember that, I can't explain it.
Q.: He spoke Yiddish.
A.: He spoke Yiddish.
Q.: What do you know about him? What was he doing? What was his connection to all this?
A.: Well, he encouraged her to do this. He encouraged her to take Lipshe.
Q.: Lipshe the baby?
A.: Yes.
Q.: But it didn't work out, right?
A.: Because it's…..
I know about him from the book, more than I know about him from the…..
Q.: So what do you know?
A.: What I know about him from the book is that he worked for a German company, an oil company or something. And he would bring wood and oil supplies and things to her house.
Q.: So he brought the supplies.
A.: He brought supplies, you know, big supplies, I'm not talking only about oil only. And she would trade them for goods with them. And he mentions: "If the neighbours only knew that this was going to feed Jews…."
So he would come from time to time. I used to hear – Velush is here.
Q.: Do you remember what he looked like?
A.: I remember. That one incident I remember him talking to us though he had been there several times. I remember a nice looking man. Again, you know, I can't give a feature, but he was nice looking.
Q.: So he fully supported this.
A.: Yes, yes, he was part of that.
Q.: We will get back to Velush.
But you never mentioned Francisca's husband. Where is he?
A.: According to the book, she threw him out years earlier. He was a Nazi, she wanted nothing to do with that. I think he was an Ukrainian and he was a bad guy.
When I asked her granddaughters about him, they think that maybe – rumors have been – he may have been in America at some point, but they don't know either. Nobody knew.
Q.: So while you were hiding he was not around.
A.: No, he was never around.
Q.: And Francisca's son didn't live there.
A.: No.
Q.: He would come.
A.: He would come. He lived in a different town.
Q.: In an earlier conversation you told me that Velush had had connections with the partisans?
A.: Yes.
This again I learnt from here and this is what got him killed is that he used to go into the woods and bring supplies to partisans also, sneak in.
Q.: Do you think that he was a part of the Underground? Was he working for the Underground?
A.: I don't know if he was working for the Underground or had his own connections. But since he had supplies, since he worked for the Germans, he used to bring them.
And right at the end of the war my father's brother Artzi and Minna – my mother told me – were in hiding in the woods until six weeks before the war ended and they were caught. And maybe he was part of that, but he was bringing them supplies and he was caught.
Q.: He was caught by the Germans.
A.: I think so.
And he was killed.
Q.: He was killed.
A.: I don't know the details. And when I talk to Francisca's granddaughters, Helena's daughters, they knew nothing about him because that family didn't talk about it either. They knew he had a wife. They thought he had a child. And they never talked about him. She said her mother never mentioned him – and he was her brother. She never mentioned him.
Q.: So the phenomenon of keeping quiet, not talking about what happened was on both sides.
A.: It was on both sides.
Q.: Jews didn't talk and the Poles who saved Jews didn't talk about what they had done either.
A.: No, because first of all they didn't want their neighbours to know that they did that because they didn't want to…..That was one thing.
And the other – I mean, she lost her son, she lost her home – did she want to talk about it? She didn't want to talk about it.
Q.: I have already asked you this, but I'm asking you again. Today when you think about Francisca what was her motivation to hide Jews? Why do you think that she was risking her life and her children?
Your cousin had mentioned he thought that she wanted to convert to Judaism.
A.: That's like….
Q.: You don't see that.
A.: No.
She might have been talking to my uncle about Christianity…..
Q.: Because she was a religious Catholic.
A.: Yes.
I swear that was not her motivation, that doesn't make sense to me at all.
Q.: What do you think her motivation was? How would you explain this behavior?
A.: We used to call her the Malaach – the angel. She was the angel, that's it. That's what we used to call her: "The Malaach kimt jetzt."
I saw her as a very tough defined woman. And nobody was going to tell her what to do.
They told her to kill Jews, she wasn't going to let them get away with it.
If I look at her photos, as I said, I didn't come into contact with her very much. When she had come around, I would stay away because I was intimidated by her. But I just saw her as a very strong tough woman. So one thing I would say is defiance, the other is she had a good heart.
Q.: You are saying that she was a good woman. You are saying it's a personality.
A.: It's a personality, nobody….She risked everybody's life. Her whole family's life she risked. And then she had to keep it a secret after the war. I'm looking for the photo where you will see her.
Here, this is her photo. Look at her. You see a strong….
Q.: She looks older.
A.: How does she look to you?
Q.: There is softness as well.
A.: Yes, that's what I was saying – the goodness and the defiance – both. I mean, this woman knows how to take care of herself when you look at that picture. I see it that way. How do you perceive it?
Q.: We will continue. We will take a picture later on.
A.: Yes. It's like how do you….?
She risked he daughter's life too.
Q.: And her son.
A.: And her son.
Q.: So at her approaching you said that because she would bring newspapers and because of the radio and the Germans the adults knew a little bit what was going on.
A.: Yes.
Q.: That's also unusual. A lot of times people who were hiding were totally disconnected from the world– they didn't know what was going on in different fronts.
Now you have an idea…
A.: Now she knew, she had in idea. She knew what was going on.
Q.: We are heading for 1944 that the Russians and the Allies are advancing.
A.: Yes.
And we heard the planes flying over our head. I remember them saying that if the planes are flying high they are Russian, if they are low, they are German. I don't know what that meant….
Q.: Were you scared when you heard the planes?
A.: Probably.
We would hide under the down comforters. Does that make sense?
Q.: Among the adults you would say that your uncle Moshe who was writing the diary and found the place…..
A.: Both he and Schmelke knew her.
Q.: Schmelke?
A.: But he had the connection in the train.
Q.: Would you say that Moshe was the head of the family, the leader?
A.: Yes, he was the oldest. He was the oldest.
Q.: Was he the more optimistic person who encouraged people?
A.: When I read this I know he knew he would survive. I just know it when you read the diary because he felt that he wasn't going to let them win. He was going to be as defiant as anybody. And to have survived was the only defiance you could have at that point. You couldn't do anything else really. To survive is to defy this, that's the way I see it. Now that I think of that – for sixty years I didn't think about it – now that I think of that – the only defiant thing that Jews could do was to survive.
Q.: Now we are approaching the liberation. This is July 1944.
What happens, what do you remember?
A.: I remember the battle being closer. I remember they would have these flares going off, I don't know, they had a name for it. It was flying in the air, making this noise. And I remember shooting, I remember the battle – it was all around us, the Russian soldiers were in.
And then she came to us and told us she was hiding a German soldier in her other attic. And she wanted us to take him and say he was Jewish.
Q.: Why was she hiding the German soldier?
A.: The war was coming to an end, so she was going to save him too.
He didn't want to fight for Hitler any more.
Q.: And what happens? Does the German soldier join you?
A.: No.
She wanted us to say that he is Jewish, I think. And there was, I remember, a battle raging within the family. And I don't know who said: "Take him," and who said: "Don't take him." Though I kind of suspect who did, but I….You know, it added too to the people who are involved. And I remember the battle was going on: "We can't save a Nazi, a German. We can't say he is Jewish."
I think we were morally wrong.
Q.: Today you are saying it.
A.: Today.
Well, I was 6 years old, nobody asked me. But since the time I was aware of it, not only at my age today, but since I was older, we were morally entirely wrong.
Q.: That's the way you feel today.
A.: Yes.
Q.: You thought they should have saved him?
A.: Absolutely.
Q.: So what happened?
A.: So I understand where they were coming from: "These people killed us, and now we were going to save them." But under these circumstances…..
I even have thought at times – if I knew how to write, I could see that being a play – the moral dilemma of that incident. And I even took a playwriting course once, but I don't know how to do a dialogue.
And I took it at NYU, and then I realized I probably had the wrong teacher because this …..And I had a very delayed reaction to that.
Plays that he had us reading, small plays, you know, not the big stuff. And one of them was the Rachel Corrie – there is a play.
So you see his sympathies were not with me when I tried to tell him to help me write this. But I didn't think of it, this was a few years ago, it's only later….
Q.: Rachel Corrie was in the Gaza Strip?
A.: Yes. And they did a play about her.
I said – why would he pick up that play of all the plays he…..
And then I realized the message that was given there. Maybe I will ever…. But I really think.
Q.: Maybe you will still write it.
A.: I doubt it. I can't write. Somebody will write it some days – who has heard my story.
Q.: Right.
But you are describing the great dilemma there.
A.: Yes. I see that as a play from a really good playwright – to write a dialogue. It's not, you know, I'm telling you the incident of the dialogue among people.
Q.: Eventually what happened?
A.: Then we came down. And the family decided it was safer to be in our houses.
Q.: Did you come down after the Russians had already arrived?
A.: They were still there. I remember them running. They were still there.
Q.: You saw Russian soldiers.
A.: Yes, with rifles, running. .
Q.: Do you remember a moment of happiness, a feeling of relief, of a sense that – this ordeal is over, we can go out?
A.: I don't remember anything, I remember them running. I don't remember any feelings.
Q.: Were the adults scared of the Russians or were they relieved to see them?
A.: They weren't scared. I remember my uncles – I don't remember the words how it was – but: "Long live Stalin!" was their cry.
Q.: Your uncles considered the Russians saviors, liberators.
A.: Right, liberators.
But then the three people came out from the basement – my family knew them – mother, father and son.
Q.: So it turned out that she hid another family. What was that family's name?
A.: Kram.
Q.: They were also from Sokal.
A.: Yes.
Q.: Mother, father and child.
A.: Yes.
Q.: And all the time she was hiding them as well.
A.: Yes.
Q.: Without any family knowing of the other family.
A.: Right.
She had them in a hole under the ground under her house. She had us in the barn in the attic. And she had the German in the other attic.
Q.: The German soldier was in the other attic?
A.: Yes.
Q.: This is really a very-very unique situation.
A.: Yes. That's why I say it will make a great play, not a movie, a play.
Q.: So you come down.
Do you remember the day you are out of this place after being there for two years and not being able to stand up or speak….?
A.: I remember whispering for six months. And my mother was very worried that I would never speak again.
I don't remember feelings, I just remember going along. I don't have feelings, I just went along, and that was it.
Q.: Where did you go?
A.: We went back to our house.
Q.: Do you remember the way you parted with Mrs. Halamajowa?
A.: No, I don't remember.
All I remember is running – my mother holding my hand, my uncles – with us. We are running and telling the soldiers: "Long live Stalin!"
There was a phrase they used for that.
Because we felt that our homes were safer than this barn which has collapsed….
Q.: So you went back home.
Were your homes still there?
A.: Yes, they are still there now.
I think we went into Moshe's house. I think we stayed there. And I think the Kindlers went into their house.
Q.: And what happens next?
Even though in your area the war was over, but in other places it was not over.
A.: I don't have much of a memory – it's like a blur, but something was happening. But all I remember is – there were people who survived streaming into our town, you know, here and there. And they all round up in my uncle's house or the Kindlers' house.
Q.: You said that of the 6000 Jews who had been living in Sokal before the war only 30 survived.
A.: And she saved 16.
Q.: And Mrs. Halamajowa saved half of them.
A.: Yes.
Q.: So they all wandered in your uncle's house.
A.: Yes, because, you know, the Maltzes were known.
So they came. Here was the Maltz family – Moshe Maltz alive,Schmelke is Maltz alive.
So somehow or other they all wandered through our house. I don't know if they stayed there or not, but somehow…..
But what the Russians were doing at that point is they were drafting many of these people into the Russian Army, into the front line of the Red Army.
Q.: Did they draft any of your family members?
A.: Well, we escaped for that reason, because they drafted Schmelke.
And they were going to send my mother to Donbas which is the coal mines. You see, I remember the name of the place. And they were going to send me to an orphanage. And my mother said we are leaving.
It was just my mother, Schmelke and me who left at that point. The rest of them stayed.
Q.: Where did you leave for?
A.: We went to Lwow first.
Now, I'm skipping over the part where the German was discovered.
Q.: So don't skip over the discovery of the German. Maybe you should tell us about it.
A.: O.K.
Q.: So let's go back to Mrs. Halamajowa's place.
A.: I also remember when my aunt Channa gave birth to a baby – I don't know the time.
Q.: After the war?
A.: No, during, while we were in hiding.
Since Chaim mentioned it, I'm mentioning it too.
Q.: Do you want to tell us about that?
We are going back to the period you were hiding. There is something that you want to add.
A.: I don't know the date, I can't tell you.
Q.: While you are hiding your aunt Channa, Chaim's mother….
A.: ….Gives birth to a baby.
Q.: Now, when she came to the hiding place had she already been pregnant?
A.: I guess she was pregnant when she came into hiding. Channa was always, a satiated lady. Both my uncles were like women with meat on them. I never knew she was pregnant. I was what? I was 5 – 6 years old, I wouldn't know a pregnant woman.
Q.: So she comes to the hiding, she is pregnant and she gives birth….
Was Dr. Kindler the obstetrician?
A.: He was a gynecologist.
Q.: So he delivered all of you.
A.: Yes.
And Dr. Kindler treated me. My mother always said it was Erev Pessach, and he came in and he said in…..a time I would be out. And she had a midwife, and that was it. So he was there and he treated all.
Q.: So Channa gave birth in hiding.
A.: Right.
Q.: And what happens?
A.: And that was the first I knew she was having a baby – I don't know.
I even remember them trying to have Hela take the baby. And it didn't happen.
And Chaim says they strangled the baby. That sounds very harsh to me. I remember they put it in a little box, and eventually it stopped breathing. Anything else I can't tell you. And they kept it a secret forever.
Q.: They, your mother and anybody else, never spoke about it.
A.: They never spoke about it. I didn't talk about anything. And did they talk among themselves? I doubt it. I think that this incident was so horrific that they wouldn't….
And Judy wanted to use it in the film. He doesn't talk about it in his diary.
And Chaim had made a promise to Schmelke that he wouldn't talk about it. And he says: "I'm not letting you talk about it." And he didn't talk about it in the book. And Judy wanted him because it's a part of the story. And now you heard me say. Now I feel it should be known.
Q.: In the interview Chaim told us about it.
A.: Yes.
But I wouldn't have said anything. I would be surprised if the family talked about that incident. That was too horrific to talk about.
CD Number Three
Q.: Before we continue with you and your mother and Schmelke leaving Sokal – what happened to Mrs. Halamajowa when the war ended?
A.: What the Russians and the Stalinist Communism would do is and I remember this happening to us later in Krakow – they would knock on the door in the middle of the night, come in, go through your closets, do everything.
Q.: The NKVD?
A.: The NKVD.
So they found the German when they knocked on her door.
They had done it to our family in our house. And my uncles went running because my uncle says (….) he told her to let us turn him in. And she said: "I can't turn him in, they will kill him as a German spy."
And they arrested her and they arrested him.
I don't know, I have heard that he was executed.
Q.: And what happened to her?
A.: They put her in prison. …I remember this. I wasn't with them, but I saw them running, they said: "We got to get her out."
Supposedly they executed him, but there were a number of Jews among the Russian military.
Q.: The Russian officers?
A.: The officers. .
And their attitude, and I think that they said that for saving Jews she deserves a medal, but for saving a German she deserves to be hanged.
Q.: So what was the deal?
A.: The deal was that our family and the Kindlers and everybody went begging them to let her go from prison. And they let her go. But since my family already had experienced how the Bolsheviks worked, they didn't trust the Russians.
So before she went home, Schmelke went to her house to make sure that they weren't going to re-arrest her. And sure enough there were soldiers, Russians, sitting on her lawn.
So he took out some of her clothes and she left.
Q.: Where did she leave for?
A.: Her daughter had been moved to Rzeszow She had gotten married and she was living in Rzeszow Poland. And I think she walked there. She left and….
Q.: She lived there….
A.: Till she died.
Q.: Till she died.
A.: Yes, she was there.
Q.: You never saw her again, did you?
A.: No.
Q.: You knew she was living there, in Rzeszow?
A.: Yes, because we sent them packages and we did….
Q.: After you arrived in the States?
A.: Yes.
We were always in touch with her.
Q.: Did you write letters to each other?
A.: Letters. I have some letters (…).
Q.: When did she die?
A.: In the film it says in the 1960s. And Helena died in the 1970s – 1975 – 1976.
So the tragedy was, and she would always cry about that – she lost her home and she lost her son. After all the good she did, she lost her home and she lost her son.
Q.: And she lived with Hela.
A.: Yes.
Q.: So let's go back to you, your mother and Schmelke.
A.: We left.
Q.: You left for Lwow.
A.: Right.
Q.: And you stayed in Lwow for a while?
A.: I don't know how long, but we stayed there.
I remember my mother carrying a sack on her back. My mother was tough in those days too. And she was selling things in the market. She handled. I don't know what she did.
The only thing she reminded me of (I have a pretty good sense of direction) is when she had to go somewhere, she put me on her shoulder, and I would tell her: "Go this way," "Go that way."
Chaim is very surprised. He said to Jacky yesterday: "How did she get around like this?" I always say: "My head is too empty, so I know directions."
And then we left. It became like a net work, you know, survivors would find each other. I mean, I would say: "Go here," "Go there."
One story my mother mentioned several times about Lwow. She had a friend, a woman she became friends with who had a son. I think I was 6 probably at that time, I don't know, maybe 7, maybe not even.
Q.: You must have been 6 or 7 years old.
A.: The year was 1944.
Q.: It was still 1944.
A.: Yes.
Q.: So you were 6 years old.
A.: 6 – 6.5, almost 7.
So this woman had a son, I think he was 14.
And they were Israelis.
Q.: By saying 'Israelis' you mean they were Jews.
A.: Yes, Israeli Jews from Palestine who came and they found survivors and they took their children – what did they call them?
Q.: The Jewish Brigade?
A.: Maybe. Maybe, one of those.
And they would take children after the war and bring them to Palestine, they needed people. And they wanted to take me and her son. And my mother said: "Wherever I go, she goes."
The other woman gave up her son to them. And you know, you didn't have a cell-phone to call up: "Where is he?" She said the woman went crazy afterwards. She just was…You know, she didn't know whom she gave him up to; She didn't know where he was or what he did. My mother said she was absolutely distraught. .
Q.: Did you go to school in Lwow?
A.: No. No.
I think it was one of the first toilets I ever saw. I remember one of pull-out things. You bring these things to my mind. It's a moment, I remember a picture of a moment.
Then we went to Jaroslaw. I don't even know how we went, but my mother handled her way. It was the three of us. And we lived in a shed, it was actually a shed where you pull up the front like a garage. We lived there for a little while.
Q.: What was your mother's aim?
A.: Her aim was to go to Palestine.
Q.: To go to Palestine.
A.: Yes.
She wanted nothing to do with Europe, with Poland.
Q.: The Ukraine for that matter.
A.: Yes, the whole thing because she had found out what they had done to my father and = they had taken them to the….because until then nobody knew.
So after that we rounded up to Krakow. We lived there for a while with other families in an apartment. And that's where I remember Russians at night breaking in, coming to the apartment. It was a group of survivor families. I have a picture of me with two of these women in Krakow - I'm sitting on the ground, and they are standing next to me –these women from Krakow.
And from Krakow we went to….I don't know, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, I remember. But what happened to us n Krakow Moshe, Channa, Yitte and Chaim joined us now .
They left afterwards because Moshe was working – I don't know, turning in some of these Ukrainians to the Russians. And Herby was going to school there. I remember he said he was a communist for a year. He was learning Ukrainian and he didn't want to leave.
But I remember when they had an accident, they had a drunk truck driver when they left. And trucks turned over. This is what they told me. They took my grandmother to somebody's house. And she lay down and fell asleep. When they came back and she was dead.
Q.: So she survived the war and died there?
A.: And died there.
Q.: This is your grandmother – Riwka?
A.: Riwka.
And my aunt broke her leg, and she had it fixed, I guess. I don't even know the town they were in. And I remember when my mother found out about it, Schmelke, me and her were in Krakow, and she was wailing like….I remember that.
And then they joined us. And then I don't know if we went to Czechoslovakia or Hungary – one of them was first and one was second. And that took us into Austria.
And I remember we walked thirty kilometers across the border. And we had these Israeli Madrichot – I don't know where they were from, Palestinian. They came there.
Q.: Right, Eretz Israeli.
A.: You know, who they are.
And they walked us. I remember my mother carrying me part of it. We walked thirty kilometers into Austria.
Q.: It was the Bricha Organization.
A.: Yes. O.K.
So we got to Austria. We first got into the….
Q.: A DP Camp?
A.: No, we first came into the British sector. I remember getting some mousse, oatmeal, whatever – porridge.
And then we rounded up to the American sector. So maybe I was 7 then. And we went up in Braunau am Inn which was Hitler's birth place. And we were in a DP Camp there.
Q.: In Braunau am Inn?
A.: In Braunau am Inn.
I remember the DP Camp was like a four-family house. And there was a garden at the back where we used to grow vegetables. We all lived there – each family in a different little apartment. I remember we went to get milk from some farmer in Austria up in the hills.
Q.: At that time did you know that Braunau am Inn was Hitler's birth place?
A.: Yes, I think I heard it, but …..you know, again at my age …
Q.: Were there any organized activities or the children in the DP Camp? Did you go to school?
A.: I had TB, I didn't go to school. Maybe I intermittently went to a few classes. So they put me in one of the sanatoriums. We all stayed together always.
Q.: And each one provided for themselves or there was a communal kitchen in the camp?
A.: No. In the first camp…..
Q.: What about the Joint, the UNRRA?
A.: They were involved, I guess, because in Braunau am Inn we had a garden. And we grew vegetables and fruits. And the fruits and vegetables – nothing in America or Israel taste like that.
Q.: How long did you stay there, a few months, do you know?
A.: I don't…..Then they moved us to Ebelsberg. Those were like projects, like apartment houses.
So from there we went to Ebelsberg. One of the pictures I have is in Ebelsberg. But I was in sanatoriums.
Now, somewhere in Braunau am Inn Channa had Nathan – her son. I didn't know she was pregnant. One day I walked in and I saw Channa had a boy, a baby.
Q.: It was the first baby of the family who was born after the war.
A.: Yes, in the family.
And they wanted my mother to (that made me regret it my whole life) and they wanted my mother to marry somebody from town. And I was crying: "Mommy, you can't do it." And my mother never married, ever.
And she came to America. My mother didn't deal well with America. My whole family didn't deal well with America.
Q.: So you were in Ebelsberg for while.
A.: Yes. Right.
Q.: And then you…..
A.: During that time I was in and out of sanatoriums – a children sanatorium, adults'…..There was one place that burned down. They moved me around to various sanatoriums That's kind of my worst memory of all this because I was very angry at my aunt Channa. She had this beautiful little boy, and any time I came in there, she would go hysterical. She was probably right, but it was: "She touched him." "She touched him. She can't…." And till the end I was always angry. I was recently talking to my daughter about it. She says: "She lost two kids. What do you mean?" I said: "……"
Q.: She was very sensitive.
A.: Of course, but me – I was being the kid that was rejected, that was…..That affected me personally much more than anything that happened before that because before that we were all in it together, but here I felt ostracized myself. And I feel that any angst – whatever it is the word that I experienced and anything that dropped my life after that was in that period because I always felt totally rejected.
And even when we came to America, we had to go to Braunau am Inn.
Q.: So from Ebelsberg you left for the States?
A.: Yes. We went to Salzburg. And then we went to Bremerhaven and then – to Hamburg.
Q.: But altogether your were about three years in the DP Camps?
A.: Yes.
Q.: And you never went to school or anywhere?
A.: Intermittently I went to school because I was sick, I was in sanatoriums.
Q.: You mentioned that your mother's aim was to come to Palestine.
A.: Yes.
Q.: So how come they went to the United States?
A.: Well, somewhere my mother's mother – Riwka – had four sisters in New York and one brother in Newark New Jersey. And, you know, during that time they had all these people searching for people, they found each other….
Q.: They were looking for relatives who survived the war.
A.: Yes.
And he found them. And he sponsored us: "My sister's children are alive. I have to bring them to America."
I have to tell you, nobody asked me, but my opinion was – I was happy to go to America in 1948. I knew I had just come out of a war, I didn't want any more wars – that I remember.
Q.: And you knew about Palestine in 1948?
A.: Sure. Sure I knew about Palestine.
Q.: But you were still a kid.
A.: Yes, but I knew, I mean, grew up on that.
Q.: So you were scared of another war.
A.: I didn't want to be there. I just didn't want to hear any more bullets, I didn't want to hear (…..).
Q.: You were happy that you were going to America.
A.: Yes.
I mean nobody asked me: "Where do you want to go," but I was happy, I remember.
Q.: And you came to America in 1948 or in 1949?
A.: In January 1949.
Q.: You came to New York.
A.: We arrived in Boston. And my mother's uncle's family picked us up and brought to Newark – he got us an apartment.
And then my family worked. They never made it like some refugees make it. The war knocked up all of them. And they were very good when they were running and fighting and frantic to survive and afterwards.
And when they got here, it was…..
Q.: What happened to your mother – how did she make a living?
A.: She worked in factories.
And then my uncles became butchers – they sold chickens. And she also started working….
Q.: The whole family was re-united?
A.: Yes, we all lived in the same area in Newark.
Some of them moved Brooklyn. And when they moved to Brooklyn and they got older, they became much more Orthodox.
Q.: Frum, yes.
A.: They were always Orthodox, but they became even more so.
Q.: Didn't the war undermine the faith?
A.: No.
Q.: I know that some people's faith was strengthened in the war, however the others' faith was undermined.
A.: Them it strengthened. I think it was a part of the defiance.
Q.: What about you and your mother?
A.: My mother became also more and more Orthodox. I went the other way and it's because some things didn't make sense to me, it's not because again it's the war, but some things just stopped making sense to me. So I am a very strong Jew, but I am…..
Q.: How were you received in America? And how did you eventually work your way out in this new place?
A.: It took me a long time.
Q.: How did the Americans accept you?
A.: When I came here I was 10 years old, they put me in the first grade. But then they skipped me through school.
I was always very…..I hate to use the word 'repressed'. I'm not an outgoing person, I'm very much of an inner person. So people have to get to know me to know me. But it takes a long time.
Q.: Even though the Americans joined the war, they didn't feel it. So my question is – did they look at you as a refugee or they looked as everybody as refugees?
A.: Yes, they looked at us as refugees – (….).
Q.: Was there empathy? Was there interest? Did anybody want to hear what had happened to you?
A.: I guess there was, there was. Her family did…..
Q.: ….The teachers at school?
A.: No.
Q.: I'm asking this question about the Jews and the non-Jews, the Americans.
A.: No, I didn't do anything with it until the last six-eight years.
Q.: But when you came to school…..?
A.: I didn't tell anybody.
I wish this film were shown……
Q.: I'm not talking about the present, I'm talking about your arrival in the States in 1949 – you didn’t tell anybody in school about your past.
A.: No. I didn't talk to anybody.
Q.: You spoke Polish, you didn't know English.
A.: No, and I learnt it. Yiddish – I spoke Yiddish.
Q.: Did you go to a Jewish school?
A.: In the beginning I did, but later on I went to a public school.
Q.: Do you adapt in a certain point, I mean, do you become American?
A.: I never adapted well, but that's me – I'm not outgoing, I was always an inner. We lived surrounded by other survivors. We lived in a Newark in a neighbourhood.
Q. And did the survivors talk?
A.: They might have talked among themselves, but, you know, I was a teen-ager.
My best friend lives in San Diego, she lived across the street from me, I met her here. I don't know her story. Recently she told me she was saved by a farmer, her father left her there. But the farmer sexually abused her, so she won't talk about it. And her father picked her up after the war. Her mother was killed, and he re-married. That was it, we didn't talk about it.
My other friends – I have no idea where they were. Some were in Russia, I think. But we lived surrounded by war survivors.
Q.: As we said, when you came out of the war you were 7 or 8 years old.
When did you actually learn and understand the whole picture what had happened during the war to your family and millions and millions of Jews and non-Jews who were killed, gassed, murdered?
You learnt it in the States?
A.: No, current. I'm talking when I started talking. I think nobody talked about it. Maybe the adults talked about it among themselves.
Q.: At school did they study about World War Two and the Holocaust?
A.: No. I went to school with Jewish kids – no, nobody knew, nobody talked, nobody…..It was like its own community these were the survivors, we all lived in an area, we didn't live with the Americans.
The adults were friends with each other. They would talk about their experiences – who was in a concentration camp. Us kids we didn't talk about it, we just didn't…..
Q.: And you wanted to become an American? That was your ideal?
A.: I never thought of it that way, I just wanted to go on, to go on – that's all.
You know, people have asked me: "Did you live up to your potential? What ideas or dreams or things you had?"
I didn't have any, I just was…..I kind of …..
A friend recently said it to me because I said it to her first: "I think I turned out better than anybody expected." She said: "Yes, you are right, you turned out better than anybody expected," because I didn't fit in. I have never really fit in, I'm kind of a loner. And I have a few friends, I do have a lot of acquaintances.
Q.: And you went to school, and eventually to high school.
A.: Yes.
I was very unhappy in high school. I went to a very yuppie Jewish school. I didn't fit in, I hated high school. So I never went to college. I just wanted to get a job.
I took a business course in high school. So I became a secretary, and I hated it, I was always fired from my jobs. And I thought there was something wrong with me, but I hated it because you can't be yourself in those days, I don't think they have secretaries now. But I felt trapped in a place.
So somewhere I got married.
Q.: With whom?
A.: His name was Sandy Schonberger (like the storm) Sandy Schonberger.
Q.: He was American.
A.: American.
It probably shouldn't have been. He is a very nice person, but all my friends were getting……In the green community……
Q.: We won't go into that.
A.: I just want to say – everybody was getting married at 17, 18, and I didn't fit in.
So by 25 my mother started pushing me: "Get married!" "Get married!"
O.K. I got married, and it wasn't the right thing, I knew I would get divorced one day.
Q.: Did you have children with Sandy?
A.: I had one daughter with him.
Q.: When was she born?
A.: In 1966.
Q.: What is her name?
A.: Debora Michel Pierce now. She was Debora Michel Schonberger.
And I knew it wasn't right. And then I got into real-estate with one of the refugee women, and I liked that very much. I sold commercial real-estate and I did pretty good at it and I did that until maybe six years ago.
Q.: So that was your career.
A.: That was my career and I did well with the company because I could be me, I didn't have somebody dictating a letter to me.
Q.: When was the second time you got married? And whom did you marry?
A.: I got divorced, I split from Sandy in 1976. We were married in 1963. Debby was 10 years old at the time.
Then I met Milt in 1978. We got married in 1983. His name was Milton Malkin. And he was twelve years older than me. He was American. And he had been married, and I had been married. And he had had some really difficult children. We had some difficult times, but it was a good marriage.
And he died in 2003, after my mother died on the same day. She is buried on Har Hazeitim.
And Chaim flew to Israel with her. She was buried there. And then we came here for the unveiling. And I have been coming to Israel every year and staying with Chaim for a few weeks.
Q.: During all those years have you ever gone back to Poland, to the Ukraine, did you visit?
A.: We went for the film. I always wanted to go.
Q.: Could you please describe the film and its production in a few sentences?
A.: O.K. The film is "No. 4 Street of Our Lady". Chaim like in 1993, I think, after his father died – he had a diary, and he and his brother Nathan decided to get the diary translated to English and had it self-published – this book.
Q.: Your uncle, Moshe's diary.
A.: The diary of Moshe Maltz. It's called: "Years of Horror, Glimpse of Hope". I think it's a terrible title. It's The Diary of Moshe Maltz – that what it should be.
And he gave these diaries out. He had hundreds of them, he gave them out to everybody.
And then Judy, his daughter, Judy Maltz – she came to Israel like twenty years earlier. And she went to be a journalist. She had gone to Columbia and she was a reporter in Israel.
And then she and her husband got positions at Penn State and they came back to America. And she took a course in film making. And it suddenly hit her up on reporting other people's stories – "This Is My Story" – the book.
So she called Chaim. He said: "I don't want to go back." I said: "I have wanted to go back for years." I wasn't going to go by myself, I was scared.
And finally we convinced him. And she contacted Eli. And we all made a decision in 2007 to go back.
Q.: Let's clarify – Chaim and you lived in the States. Eli Kindler came to Israel after the war.
A.: Yes.
And we went back for a week. At that time they had this…..On Wednesday you flew from Israel to Lwow and then you came back.
Q.: We are talking about 2007.
A.: 2007.
Q.: Judy decided to make a documentary film about your story.
A.: Yes.
Q.: So you all flew back to Sokal for the first time.
A.: Yes.
Q.: How was it for you to go back there?
A.: The brick factory was…..I will never free of that. With the rest I was O.K.
Q.: You will never be free of the brick factory because that's the place where they killed your father.
A.: Yes.
Q.: So you went back to see it.
Is the brick factory still standing there?
A.: It's in the film. It's falling apart, but it's there. It's a big brick factory that's abandoned.
Q.: When you went back to Sokal did you recognize anything?
A.: No.
Q.: Was there something registered coming to you?
A.: No. Nothing.
We stayed in Lwow and we had a bus. There were nine-teen of us. And we would go to Sokal every day to film.
And my daughter who at that time had a five month old baby, a little girl, she wanted to come. She couldn't come to Israel and there, she couldn't leave her for that long. She said: "I'm coming directly."
And I was going crazy, I said: "I don't want you to fly by yourself to the Ukraine," I was…..Even the newspapers this week – they just voted…..
So I was like: "Don't come!" "Don't come!" But she didn't listen, she came. And I was glad she came.
So she was with us and then she flew back home. And you see her in the film. I'm glad she is a part of it.
Q.: So the film tells the story of your families and Mrs. Halamajowa.
A.: Yes.
Now, somewhere in 1986 – because I didn't write to anybody – my mother got a call – a contact from Grace, Helena's daughter.
Q.: Could you please explain to us. You mentioned that after you had come to the States you kept in touch with Francisca's family.
A.: Yes, with the family – Francisca and Hela.
Q.: You would send them packages and letters until Francisca died.
A.: Yes.
Q.: And what happened after Francisca had died?
A.: We continued with Hela.
Q.: What happened after Hela had died?
A.: It was over.
But first her daughter, Jolanta, came here.
Q.: When you say: "Yolanda came here," you mean she came to the States.
A.: Yes.
She had had a boy friend who came to America.
Q.: You are talking about Francisca's granddaughter.
A.: Right.
And then when Helena died, her daughter – Grace – and they have a brother – Tadeush – they came here, to the States.
Grace found a letter from my mother and she contacted my mother.
And then the family got together with them.
Q.: You are talking about Francisca's granddaughters.
A. Yes, and the grandson.
Q.: Who live in the States.
A.: Now they live in Hartford Connecticut.
Q.: Did they know the story?
A.: They knew bits and pieces of it, but she said they didn't know because they didn't talk about it. They were little, they were children, it wasn't something…..
They would get gifts and they would say: "Who is sending us these gifts?" But you know…..They got if from the Kindlers.
Q.: So when Judy Maltz decides to make the film and Eli, Chaim and you go there…..
A.: Right.
Q.: She also takes Francisca's two granddaughters. They come along.
A.: Right, they met us there.
Q.: Was it also their first visit to Sokal?
A.: To Sokal – yes.
Q.: In Sokal.
A.: Yes.
Q.: So for them it was also a trip back to their roots.
A.: Chaim paid for them to come here when their mother and grandmother were inducted into the Righteous.
Q.: So they were inducted by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.
A.: Yes, that was in 1986.
Q.: Francisca and Hela were inducted as Righteous Among Nations, right?
A.: Yes.
Q.: So they came for the ceremony?
A.: The daughters, yes.
Chaim paid for them.
Q.: And now they came to Sokal with you to make the movie.
A.: Right. Right.
Q.: This is quite unique because both sides meet.
A.: Yes, both sides she had there. That's what makes this. I think it's a very good movie. It has been shown in a lot of places. So yes that's …..
After my husband – Milton – died and I had another good friend who also died – I lost, I just couldn't work anymore. I could, but I couldn't – it just wasn't there.
And somehow there was a college (….) university that had a…..I found an advertisement - if anybody wants to write about their story as Holocaust survivors.
So I went and started writing a little bit. And they cut out an anthology – I gave you my portion of it.
And then they asked me to join their board and then I was becoming more and more involved with the film. And my past became a very important part of my life for the first time – I guess I was turning 70.
And this took on me….
Q.: So things started to open up? You said that you didn't want to talk or hear about it.
A.: You know what – I don't feel bad about it because…..
Q.: This wasn't my question. I was asking whether things started opening up for you after you hadn't wanted to talk or hear?
A.: Yes. I felt I had to share it because I'm the only one left from my father's side of the family. I have to remember the Letzters.
Q.: No one survived.
A.: Nobody.
I have to remember the Letzters.
And now I have two grandchildren, two little granddaughters. I have to…..
People say: "Do you feel bad talking about it?" No, I don't because I prevail them here. About five years ago it hit me. I was reading an article about the Israeli consulate in Berlin. I said – Hitler is dead, I'm alive and I want to go with a Jewish tour. And I did and then we came to Israel. And that was very important.
And again at the end of it they said: "O.K. How do you feel about Berlin?" We did Jewish Berlin – all the places - I wanted to see them all. I said: "I felt good, I'm here, I prevailed. Hitler is gone, I'm here. I'm here to bear witness, I'm here to tell people what happened. And to have survived is to have stood up against it. There was no other way of standing up against it. The only way I could fight it was to survive."
Q.: And when you think about the fact that you are the only survivor from your father's side. From your mother's side there were people who survived and people who didn't survive.
A.: Yes.
Q.: How would you consider your survival. Is it a matter of destiny, God's will, a miracle? Is it your uncle's intuition or capability to see and take care of the family?
A.: All the above.
Q.: All of them?
A.: All of what you just said.
It's, I think ….I have started to believe that things are pre-destined. I went to Chabad after my husband died. And I said you know, they teach the Kabbalah, and I said O.K. I don't have control. But the control we had was that my uncles fought so hard to survive. Take them…. They used to say 'Nekkamah'. "They had swept us. We have to survive to….."
As a matter of fact, my uncle Schmelke found in Austria this mayor Chornetsky and he round up beating him up. The man died eventually.
Q.: Nekkamah.
A.: Yes, Nekkamah.
Q.: Revenge.
A.: Revenge.
That was their biggest drive: "We have to survive to bear witness and to have a revenge." And so if you have done it, you have accomplished something because to have survived this…..
Q.: When you think of the what you went through, what in your opinion helped you to survive?
A.: My family.
I was a child, I wouldn't have survived. I can't imagine as an adult surviving this, I just can't. I was dragged along.
Q.: On the other hand, you told us a very moving and touching story of a child crying and the adults having to make that, I can't even imagine, that decision – what they went through.
Is it something that you held back against those adults all the years?
A.: No.
I held back against them when they treated me with Tuberculosis, I held that back against them all these years – how they treated me when I had tuberculosis – I was ostracized, pushed out. I was backed out. I didn't know why I was backed out
Q.: Did you also understand why the adults behaved to you that way?
A.: Yes.
Q.: Now that you are an adult you understand their fear of spreading it
A.: Now, yes, the fear of spreading it.
Q.: But then you didn't understand.
A.: I was looking at it then as an 8-9-10 year old girl. I wanted people to like me, I didn't want to be thrown out.
Q.: So as an adult you understand this behavior.
A.: Yes, now I do, but it left a scar that stayed with me. And it's crazy. That's how I feel I have more pain from that than I do from the hiding. I don't know, we were all fighting for survival, whatever.
Q.: Do you dream about the years of the war? Do pictures of the attic come back to you?
A.: I don't remember. I know I have had dreams where I have woken up four years ago running or chased, but I don't remember. When I wake up, it like goes blank. So I don't…..
I'm just grateful I have my daughter and my grandchildren, somebody remained from the Letzters.
Q.: When you think about your childhood, you say that you didn't have a normal childhood – for instance, children grow up to parents, they go to kindergarten and then to school. Children have toys, they are protected. You are supposed to be protected.
And here, you said that that was what you knew, that was normal.
Do you feel that there is a black hole, that you are deprived of your childhood?
A.: I was deprived of a father – that was the biggest black hole. My mother never came out of it. When she came to America, once nobody was killed in my family, they were in peace and they just were happy to survive on a daily basis.
Q.: And while you were growing up you had to deal with yourself and with your mother.
A.: Right.
And she was always terrified anything should happen to me. And I was always independent and it was tough.
Q.: She wanted to protect you.
A.: Yes.
It was a tough relationship, we did not have a good relationship.
Q.: It was tough because she was constantly probably afraid of losing you.
A.: Yes. Exactly.
And it was just very difficult to deal with that. I wasn't close to her. I was a very responsible daughter. I wasn't a loving daughter.
And I always felt if my father had lived, we would have had a….I use the term 'lighten' in the film. I just that…..there would have been another person there to lighten the burden that was there. If he had only lived, he would have….you know, he would have been there to hug me, to comfort me, to comfort her. So she wouldn't be so much – I mean ….That's how I felt. He became a focal point in that area more.
I round up marrying an older man and having another relationship with somebody who is even an older .
Q.: Are you eluding from a fact that perhaps you are looking for a father figure?
A.: I was looking for somebody, you know, exactly.
Q.: In retrospect when you think about the years you were hiding, is there a certain moment or event which you think was the hardest thing?
A.: I guess when I cried.
Q.: When you cried, that was….
A.: What propelled me to do that – I don't know and I had (….).
Q.: Now there were other children with you – Eli Kindler and Chaim your cousin (we had a joint interview).
When you see Eli and Chaim today do you feel that you share something in common that other people can't really understand or even realize what you and those boys went through together?
Is there such a feeling?
A.: No.
I wasn't really….I mean, with Eli I was out of contact for years. And Chaim – I wasn't very close to.
Q.: You were in touch or you weren't in touch?
A.: No, I wasn't.
With Chaim I wasn't really close until my mother died, his father died, my uncle died – till everybody started dying, and then we became close.
Q.: It was affected by something from the past that was so meaningful that you share together, and other people….
A.: With Chaim – yes. With Chaim – yes, now it is, but for fifty years we were on our separate ways and nothing was discussed.
I haven't added this. Until recently I actually resented Eli. I don't know if I ever told him, I might not, because I remember when we left the ghetto my father's two brothers (….) running around, looking for where to hide. And Schmelke didn’t take them, he took the doctor.
Q.: So you always held it against him?
A.: I didn't dwell on it, but it was something I resented.
Q.: You resented it because he took the doctor instead of taking someone from the family.
A.: Right, my family, my father's family.
Q.: So it's not Eli personally.
A.: No. No.
Q.: It's the situation where they chose somebody and not….
A.: Absolutely. Yes.
That he was impressed by a doctor who tried to save him. Now in time the doctor wound up saving us because we would be captured and a lot of other things. You know, different things would have happened, but it was something that was always on my mind. And you know, I didn’t dwell on it, but….
So I didn't try to get in touch with Eli, I always said this….But now I'm alright with it because my uncle, Schmelke, was always impressed with the doctor, always.
Q.: Fay, along the interview you mentioned a few things that I can see how those years, experiences during the war have affected your life and your personality.
Do you see other ways how it affected who you are today, perhaps the way you brought up your daughter, your outlook, your view of the world. Do you see any connection between the little girl who went through what you went and who you are today?
A.: Yes.
It's the same kid. It's the same kid who is kind of repressed. And people, I have people tell me after they get to know me years later: "Well, I didn't see that part of you." "I didn't know you were like this." "I thought you were…."
My husband, Milt, used to joke about this: "I have always you were this little stille Kind" And he says: "You are not, you got a big mouth."
And it takes me a while to warm up to people to open up. I'm very cautious.
Q.: Because of your suspicion because of the situation?
A.: I don't know. I don't know. I don't have…..
Q.: You don't trust people because of what you went through?
A.: Maybe I'm cautious. I don't know. I kind of say, you know: "Guard yourself. They are not going to get to like you. They have to get to know you."
Q.: Do you have anxieties and things like that?
A.: I live with it my whole life.
Q.: From then? Do you think that's the road to it?
A.: How can you differentiate? You know, it's all a part….We are all little things. How can you differentiate?
But as I said, the biggest loss was my father in his absence.
Q.: Perhaps now it's the end of the interview – I want to ask about Francisca Halamajowa.
I mean, we know that in different countries there were the local people: the Poles, the Dutch – whoever. Some collaborated with the Nazis and did the work for them. The Ukrainians turned in people, murdered people whereas other people did all they could to save Jews, risk their own lives like Mrs. Francisca.
What do you think about that? What makes the difference? Why does one person who lives next to you from the same nation or nationality or background or religion and collaborates and murders whereas the other person will do everything to save a human life and even risk his life?
Do you think it's a matter of personality? Is it a matter of education? How do you see it?
A.: I don't know. It's an answer nobody can really give you. It's something in the person – bravery, defiance, love of human beings. It's…..I don't know. I don't know. And it sits all over the world, it's universal because when I go to speak to some schools or places….
I have had from Rwanda people – their neighbours killed them, their best friends.
Q.: Right, the Tutsies and…..
A.: Yes, they were neighbours, they lived next to each other. And they went in and slaughtered them with (….).
I think people are, you know, they call it 'starting' – I say it sometimes in schools with bullying. So bullying is step one – everybody wants to be a part of the crowd. So if you are Hitler – he made them feel they were part of a crowd.
I saw a clip of a film and of course I took where….An Israeli, I think it was Robe Wistrich – he is a professor – had gotten a hold of a clip of a film: "Berlin 1939 – 1941". It was a May day, it was some gorgeous May day. And they had a kind of all this beautiful – people are running around and singing, dancing – it's a carnival – playing with rides, doing all this…..And the weather is perfect.
And he brought some of these people. He found them years ago I guess, when they were still alive and brought them together to watch this film – what they think.
Now, they were Germans. And this is always stuck in my head when I say this, one of them says: "It was such a beautiful day. We called it Hitler weather." And some stood up and followed him.
Q.: And this also explains the evil, where evil comes from?
A.: It didn't. It didn't matter, they had to follow him. He followed them into their own destruction really. But they had to follow him. He made them feel: "Outside it's a beautiful day. It's Hitler's weather, it's ours. We are so special, we are chosen."
I think that's why people followed bullies because: "Hey, they accept me this person." It's bad, that's my little thought on it, I can't…..And I think it's human nature. In Rwanda? Why are they doing it in Sudan? Why have they done it in Cambodia? Everybody wants to be on the winning team. And my main weakness, I never felt that I was a part of the winning team, I always felt I was on the losing team.
Q.: But?
A.: But prevailed.
Q.: And you said that's the way you won, you prevailed.
A.: Yes.
Q.: So at the end of this fascinating interview would you like to take this opportunity and say something to your daughter and granddaughters based on your own experience? Would you like to pass something on to them?
What would you say to them?
A.: "Stay strong!" "Prevail!" "Go on with your life! Don't let it get you down. Always stand up to whatever," because basically that's what I have learnt when people didn't even expect it. That's the only good thing I could say. I know I should say: "Be kind," "Rescue people," things like that. But right now this is what I feel. I mean, you know, I know them, I know their personalities. You have to survive in this world and stay strong in that belief, otherwise the goodness, I guess, the families whatever – that should come naturally. But this has to be…I will probably think of something after this…..
Milt used to call me: "You are not Mutzi Putzi."
Q.: You are authentic, and it's right.
I want to thank you very much.
A.: Well, thank you.
Q.: On behalf of myself and on behalf of Yad Vashem for sharing with us this extraordinary story. We wish you all the best.
A.: Thank you.
Q.: And we wish you Nachath from your daughter and granddaughters. And thank you for being with us.
A.: And I wish my family had been alive in all this but the lost years.
Q.: Thank you very much.
A.: Picture number 1: These are my parents – my mother – Lea Maltz-Letzter and my father – Eli Letzter in Sokal, Poland probably in the 1930s.
Picture number 2: That's my mother and father in their confectionary store in Sokal, Poland. They sold candies and ice-cream. And you can see in the cases behind them chocolates. It was taken, my mother was pregnant with me then. And I was born in April 1938. So it was taken somewhere a few months before that – Lea Letzter and Eli Letzter.
Picture number 3 and Picture number 4. On the left (picture number 3) is a photo of my mother – Lea Letzter – and me – Fajga Letzter. And I was, I guess, somewhere between a year and two years old. I started walking at 9 months.
And on the right (picture number 4) is my uncle, my mother's brother – Schmelke and Chaim Maltz – my cousin. And I think that might have been taken in Austria.
Picture number 5 and picture number 6. The photo on the left (picture number 5) is Helena and Francisca Halamajowa. I believe this was taken in their later years, when they were in Rzeszow Poland. They saved us during the war.
The lower photo (picture number 6) was taken in Ebelsberg. I'm one of the people there, and many of them are my family members.
Picture number 7 and picture number 8. The top photo (picture number 7) is the brick factory in Sokal Poland where my father and 400 other Jews were murdered by the Germans in 1941.
The lower photo (picture number 8) is me on the left, my cousin – Nathan Maltz who was born in Austria after the war and my cousin – Chaim Maltz.
Picture number 9 and picture number 10. The top photo (picture number 9) is me in Austria. I guess I was about 8 or 9 years old.
The bottom picture (picture number 10) was taken in 1986 when Francisca and Helena Halamajowa were inducted into the Righteous Gentiles. That was taken in New York at the Israeli Embassy. On the bottom row from left is me – Fay Letzter-Malkin, my aunt Yitte Nachfolger, next row left is my uncle Schmelke Maltz, next to him is Channa Maltz – my aunt, next is my mother – Lea Letzter and next is Moshe Maltz. In the rear there is Jolanta Steron – Francisca's granddaughter, Ted Liniewsky – her grandson and Grace Kucharzyk – her granddaughter. And next to her is Chaim Maltz – my cousin.
Picture number 11: That photo is of my husband – Milton Malkin and me to the right. That was taken around 1980 – 1981 in California.
Picture number 12: This is a photo of the film we made: "No. 4 Street of Our Lady." It was filmed in 2007 in Sokal, the Ukraine. That's a photo of Francisca Halamajowa – the woman who saved us.
Picture number 13: That's a photo of my daughter – Debby Schonberger Pierce, next to her is her 5 year old daughter, my granddaughter – Maggy-Rose Pierce, next to her is my other granddaughter 3.5 – Jessica-Eli Pierce and next to them is daddy – Derrek Pierce. Taken in 2012.
Testimony of Fay Fajga (Letzter) Malkin, born in Sokal, Poland in 1938, regarding her experiences as a child in the Sokal Ghetto and while in hiding on the Aryan side and in Lwow
Life before the war; life during the Soviet occupation in 1939; German occupation in 1941; her father is killed in 1941; deportation to the Sokal Ghetto in 1941; they find a hiding place during the "Aktions"; escape from the ghetto with her mother and her mother's family; they find a hiding place above a pigsty in the home of a non-Jewish woman named Franciska Halamajowa in 1942; life in hiding; attempt to murder the witness with a poison pill due to her crying; transfer to Lwow with Hella Halamajowa (the daughter of their Polish rescuer) and Hella's husband; transfer back to the hiding place in the Polish woman's home in Sokal in 1943; death of her aunt while in hiding due to typhus disease; liberation by the Red Army in 1944; escape to Jaroslaw with her mother in 1944; escape to Krakow in 1944; move to the Ranshofen DP camp and Braunau am Inn DP camp with help from the Bericha organization in 1945; move to the Ebelsberg DP camp in 1945; tuberculosis disease and hospitalization in 1946; emigration to the United States in 1949; move to Boston; move to New Jersey.
Details
Map
Hierarchical Tree
item Id
10066958
First Name
Fajga
Fay
Last Name
Malkin
Maiden Name
Letzter
Date of Birth
14/04/1938
Place of Birth
Sokal, Poland
Type of material
Testimony
File Number
13798
Language
English
Record Group
O.3 - Testimonies Department of the Yad Vashem Archives
Date of Creation - earliest
01/11/2012
Date of Creation - latest
01/11/2012
Name of Submitter
מלכין פיי Fay Fajga (Letzter) Malkin
Original
YES
No. of pages/frames
119
Interview Location
ISRAEL
Form of Testimony
Video
Subjects
Dedication
Moshal Repository, Yad Vashem Archival Collection