Testimony of Leon Goldstein, born in Przemysl, Poland, 1933, regarding his experiences in Przemysl, the Przemysl Ghetto, in hiding in Dubiecko, and in Krakow and other places

Name of Interviewee: Leon Goldstein

Name of Interviewer: Tami Katz

Cassette Number: VT-9677

Date: April 30, 2009

Name of Typist: Cheryl Balshayi

Names:

Przemysl

Dubiecko

Krakow

Modena

Bologna

Roma

New York

Q: (Hebrew) Today is Thursday, ו' ב'אייר, תשס"ט, April 30, 2009. I, Tami Katz, am interviewing for Yad Vashem Mr. Meir Goldstein, born in Przemysl, Poland, 1933. Mr. Goldstein will tell us about the German occupation in 1939, about the change to a life under the control of the Soviets, 1939, about the German occupation in 1941 and the expulsion to the ghetto, about the escape from the ghetto and his hiding with a Polish family during the years of the war under liberation in 1945 by the Russians, about the transfer to the DP camps, to Italy, to the United States and about his life there after the war.

Good morning, Mr. Goldstein. Could you please tell us where and when you were born?

A: August 3, 1933.

Q: In?

A: Do you want me to continue? We lived in Przemysl, Poland.

Q: Before we talk about the family, do you have any memories, visual memories of the town, of Przemysl?

A: Yes, sure.

Q: Could you tell us about it? What it was in those days?

A: We had about sixty thousand people that lived in Przemysl, of which about twenty-six thousand were Jews. And my father was in business in Przemysl.

Q: Do you have any visual recollections of the town?

A: Well, I remember the streets and I remember the street where we lived.

Q: And the house?

A: The house? Of course.

Q: It was a big house?

A: It was a big apartment building, yes, and we had a very nice apartment, two flights up. Our building was a kind of building where you could go through from the street that we lived on, which was (?) street, No. 13. You could through, there was like a passage. You could go through from one street to the next street. It had like a huge lobby.

Q: ?

A: Where you could go through from one street to the other street, and right next to our building there was a big shul. It was called Shabat Shul, I think.

Q: The building that you lived in, there were mostly Jewish people that were living there or both Jews and non-Jews?

A: I don’t really remember if they were all Jews. I think there were probably Jews and non-Jews. There were a number of apartments, maybe, I would say, two or three apartments per floor, so we had one apartment.

Q: It was a big apartment?

A: A big apartment, yes. And my grandparents also lived in Przemysl, from my father’s side.

Q: Okay. So let’s talk about your father. What was his name, your father?

A: Samuel. Shmuel Goldstein.

Q: He was born in Przemysl?

A: Yes.

Q: And who were his parents? What were their names?

A: Also Goldstein. My grandfather was Yomtov Libe Goldstein, and my grandmother was Basha Goldstein.

Q: Did you know them?

A: Sure. I remember them.

Q: And what was your grandfather doing in Przemysl?

A: When I was a kid, when I was about six years old, even younger, even three years old, my father had a business…

Q: I am asking about your grandfather.

A: I will, I will. All I remember is that my grandfather and my father were working together in the store, but I don’t know what he did before he was working together with my father.

Q: They owned the store?

A: My father owned the store. They didn’t own the property, but they owned the business.

Q: What was the business for?

A: The business, my father was an importer of raw materials from Japan, from Czechoslovakia, from all different countries, of raw materials for candy factories and chocolate factories, like flavours, syrups, all different…

Q: Sugar?

A: Sugar, yes, sugar. Not only that. That was his main business, the import business of different…Not only that, but he had like an exclusive for the entire territory, that any factory that needed to get these items…like a monopoly for a certain district, for a certain area. Also, aside from that, he used to sell chocolate and rice and sugar, but in bulk. Everything came in sacks, and people who wanted to buy flour or sugar or rice or whatever, he also was able to sell.

Q: So he supplied also other stores?

A: No, no. The flour and the rice and sugar and different items – I don’t remember exactly how many items he had – but mostly all these other items he sold retail. All retail.

Q: And your grandparents from your father’s side, the Goldsteins – they were Orthodox Jews?

A: Orthodox Jews. My grandfather had a beard, sure.

Q: And your father, he went to cheder?

A: Sure. My father wore a kapota and a streiml before the war. Sure.

Q: Very Orthodox.

A: Orthodox. He was a chassid.

Q: Chassidic. Which Chassidic lineage? Do you know? The Sadigura? They were close to you.

A: Rizhin (?) dynasty. That was Sadigura As a matter of fact, the Sadigura Rebbe lived in our city.

Q: Right. That is why I am asking if there was any relation.

A: Yes. The Sadigura Rebbe. The father of the present rebbe, who is in Bnei Brak. He used to be in Tel Aviv. Now he is in Bnei Brak. So the Rebbe, the father, used to live in our city and many times I would go with my father on Shabbat for the service there.

Q: To the tisch?

A: Not to the tisch, but to the services on Shabbat.

Q: And did your father go to the…?

A: But mostly my father used to go pray in the shteibl, so I used to go with my father to daven in the shteibl.

Q: And Rosh Hashanah would he go to the rebbe also?

A: No. I don’t think so.

Q: Or your grandfather?

A: We used to daven…my grandfather, I’m not sure where he went. Of course he used to daven, but I’m not sure what shul he went to. But I don’t think we went to the same shul.

Q: Were you close…did you hear the stories of the Chassidic tales or things like that?

A: At times, yes. My father used to tell me about…even in New York my father davened in the Beyane (SP?) steibl, which is the same dynasty, Rizhin. And my father used to be Mawly chassid…they called the rebbe the Shottene Rebbe. My father used to travel from Przemysl to (?), to the Shottene Rebbe, which was all part of Rizhin, the Rizhin dynasty. Sadigura, the (?) Rebbe, the Shottene Rebbe – that was all part of Rizhin.

Q: When did he go and hear (?) Rizhin? Rosh Hashanah?

A: On holidays, yes.

Q: Like once a year?

A: Yes, like once a year. Occasionally.

Q: He would take you along also?

A: I don’t think so. I was too young. He didn’t take me along.

Q: But you heard stories.

A: Yes. He would go, occasionally he would go to the Rebbe.

Q: And who was your mother?

A: My mother’s name was Sala Goldberg. Her maiden name. She came from a little town called Zagorz, which wasn’t far from Przemysl.

Q: And who were her parents? What were their names?

A: My grandmother from my mother’s side, she passed away very young.

Q: So you didn’t know here.

A: No, I didn’t know her.

Q: But you know her name? Do you remember?

A: I think Frabel (?). I think. And then later my grandfather remarried and I didn’t know my grandmother…after he remarried I don’t remember her at all. My grandfather from my mother’s side was deported to Russia.

Q: We will talk about it. What was his name?

A: His name was Hersch Zvi Goldberg.

Q: And he was also Orthodox?

A: Yes. With a beard.

Q: Also connected to one of the Chassidic…?

A: I don’t know what Chassidic movement he was connected to, but I know he was very Orthodox, with a beard.

Q: Do you know what he made a living of?

A: My grandfather was involved in trading in lumber. He used to mainly trade in lumber and he also had what you can call a small department store where he would sell different merchandise out of the store, like clothing and different items. I was never in the store. I don’t remember the store.

Q: This was in his town?

A: This was in his town, in Zagorz, which is not far from Przemysl.

Q: And your mother got a Jewish education also?

A: Yes, my mother was also…

Q: But she got a Jewish education…?

A: I am really not so familiar with my mother’s education, but I am sure that…she probably went to religious schools – Beit Ya’acov and the different kinds of religious schools.

Q: And your father? He went also to a yeshiva?

A: Sure.

Q: Which yeshiva? In Przemysl?

A: In Przemysl. That was when he was very young. I don’t remember exactly what yeshiva he went to, but I’m sure, when he was a young man.

Q: So your mother came to Przemysl when she got married?

A: Yes. After they married.

Q: It was a shidduch?

A: It was, in a way, a shidduch. My grandfather, my mother’s father, used to come, occasionally he would come to my father’s store and when he met my father he was very impressed and he told my father he had a good shidduch for him.

Q: His daughter.

A: Yes. So he made the shidduch, my grandfather made the shidduch. Eventually they got married.

Q: So they lived in Przemysl.

A: And they lived in Przemysl. My mother moved to Przemysl and they lived in Przemysl.

Q: Okay. And you were an only child?

A: No, I have a sister.

Q: You were the first one born?

A: No, my sister was the first one.

Q: What was her name?

A: Miriam. She is alive.

Q: And she was born in…?

A: Przemysl.

Q: In what year?

A: 1929, so she is about four years older than me.

Q: And so you were two, two of you?

A: Two children, yes.

Q: And I would like you to describe your life before, as a child. What language did you speak? Yiddish?

A: Yiddish and Polish.

Q: At home?

A: At home.

Q: Your father – he was also a product of the Austro-Hungarian period.

A: Nothing to do with Hungary.

Q: No, Austro-Hungarian. Your father.

A: I am saying. My father.

Q: When he was a young man.

A: After we were born?

Q: No, I am talking when he was young.

A: When he was young I don’t know. He wasn’t in the army. He was not in the army, so I don’t know how the Austro-Hungarian empire related to my father. I don’t know.

Q: He spoke German?

A: He spoke German. He spoke German, he wrote German, he wrote German, he spoke German.

Q: And he was familiar with German culture also, you think?

A: My father was very up-to-date with all…he was very much interested in all political developments and he followed all political developments and he was very well read. He used to read, he used to follow the political developments. He was very intelligent and he was very good in math. And always when he had to calculate different cheshbonim in his business, he was very, very quick in calculating. In business he was very bright, very intelligent.

Q: So economically speaking, they were well off.

A: So we were, I would consider, an upper middle-class family. We had a sleep-in maid before the war. We had a sleep-in maid.

Q: She was Polish?

A: She was Polish. She was a gentile.

Q: She lived with you?

A: She had a separate room in our apartment, yes.

Q: And she took care of the kids, the kitchen?

A: She took care of the cleaning. Because my mother worked with my father in the business mostly, so she would clean the house and help with shopping and help with whatever was necessary.

Q: Can you describe…you were an Orthodox family. Can you describe the Shabbat, shishi, Shabbat? How it was before, when you were a kid?

A: Was Shabbat like in any other Orthodox family.

Q: Shishi you would have Kiddush?

A: Of course. We used to go to daven.

Q: To the shul?

A: To the shul, Friday night, Shabbat morning.

Q: Your mother as well?

A: My mother as well. My mother also came from an Orthodox home.

Q: But you would go to shul.

A: I would go with my father all the time, when I was old enough to be able to go.

Q: You used to have guests for Shabbat dinner?

A: Sometimes yes. I remember every Friday my mother used to send me to my grandparents to bring some food, some cake, some cookies for them.

Q: And there were nerot Shabbat?

A: There were nerot. Like a normal Shabbat in any Orthodox family.

Q: Could you describe the holidays, how you celebrated the holidays?

A: Same way. I mean, we used to go to daven at shul, Friday evening, Shabbat morning.

Q: And what about the holidays?

A: Festive meals on Shabbat and on the holidays.

Q: Can you describe how Pesach was, for instance?

A: Pesach would be pretty much the same procedure.

Q: Talking about your home.

A: Yes, yes. We made Pesach at home, had to kasher all the dishes. And as a matter of fact, I think my mother had a separate set of dishes for Pesach, but whatever had to be kashered, they kashered, and whatever had to be done. And the holidays were celebrated.

Q: Do you remember the Seder at home when you were a kid? Do you have any recollection of that?

A: To some degree.

Q: What do you remember?

A: I remember we had a Seder.

Q: With you grandparents as well? Or it was just your family.

A: I don’t specifically remember. Maybe with my grandparents or without my grandparents. I don’t really remember specifically.

Q: Matzos? They would make them at home or they would get…?

A: No. The matzos I remember were mostly baked by hand, but not in our house. They were baked in a different bakery and then my father would buy the matzos. They were selling them.

Q: Do you have memories of the Afikoman? Things like that?

A: Yes. Used to steal the Afikoman to get some presents. That was the general procedure.

Q: The High Holidays? Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur? What do you remember?

A: Pretty much the same concept. We used to go to daven.

Q: He would wear the kittel?

A: My father wore a kapota, bekecse. We called it a bekecse.

Q: And then on Yom Kippur the kittel, the white kittel?

A: Oh yes. Even I wore a kittel on Yom Kippur. I am Modern Orthodox. I am not a Chassid.

Q: But he was a Chassid.

A: He was a Chassid. I am not a Chassid now. I am Modern Orthodox. So my father wore a kittel and he wore the black coat and he wore a shtreiml.

Q: And when you went out of the house, you wore a yarmulke as well, as a kid?

A: Sure. I wore like a cap.

Q: And peyos also?

A: No, I never had peyos, I never had peyos.

Q: Did he?

A: He didn’t either, but he had a small beard, like a trimmed beard. He had a beard, he wore a shtreiml, but in the business he didn’t wear a shtreiml. He wore more modern clothing. A suit or yarmulke or a hat, a regular hat.

Q: Not a kippa.

A: Not a kippa.

Q: And do you remember also celebrating other holidays like…?

A: Maybe even a yarmulke. In the store he wore either a hat or a yarmulke.

Q: Do you remember also Chanukah, Purim?

A: Yes, yes. All the holidays. I don’t remember specific details, but all the holidays were celebrated in the same manner, with the Chanukah candles and Purim and all the different holidays were celebrated in more or less the same manner.

Q: And did you have close connections with the local Jewish community, organizations?

A: Well, there weren’t really, in those days, that many organizations that I remember.

Q: Okay. I meant the Jewish community. Big Jewish community.

A: There was a big Jewish community. We were twenty-six thousand Jews in our city. Some Jews were Orthodox, some Jews were not Orthodox, some Jews were Modern, some Jews were…they were not affiliated with anything.

Q: But your father was affiliated.

A: Of course. He was a Chassid, so he always attended shiurim and services.

Q: He was studying also? Gemara.

A: Yes, sure. Gemara, of course.

Q: And was he involved also in charity and in other tzedaka, things like that?

A: Yes.

Q: Because Przemysl was really a Jewish…orphanage.

A: They used to come in an ask for money and certainly he would donate money to whoever came in to look for tzedaka. To the store or to the house.

Q: He was also himself one of the…in the Jewish committee or any kind of organization?

A: No, he was not involved in any political organizations or any…but we had a lot of friends and neighbours and family and my grandparents, so…

Q: Very connected.

A: Yes, well connected. From the shul, he had friends and neighbours, but most of his friends and family were mostly religious people, similar in hashkafa like my father’s hashkafa.

Q: So you, as a small child, was there anything such as a kindergarten or you were at home? As a small kid.

A: I remember when I was three years old, from the age of three I went to cheder. My father sent me to cheder.

Q: Can you tell us what your memories of the cheder are? Please share it with us.

A: I remember that the rebbe was very strict with the children. And when I was maybe three or four I already knew how to read the siddur and then I started studying the Chumash, so I remember that they made me a whole big party when I started studying Chumash. They made me a whole big party and my papa gave me this gold watch.

Q: How old were you then?

A: He didn’t give it to me. He just gave it to me to wear it at the time.

Q: How old were you then?

A: About three or four.

Q: Did you study in the cheder also Hebrew, also just lashon kodesh?

A: Mostly lashon kodesh and Chumash and siddur, the prayers, the davening. What you normally study in cheder. Not Hebrew.

Q: Not Hebrew. You went to school or you were too young to go to school?

A: I was too young to go to school. I was three, four years old. I couldn’t go to school. Only to cheder.

Q: Your sister went to school?

A: My sister went to school. Jewish school.

Q: Not the Polish school.

A: Not Polish. It was strictly under Jewish auspices.

Q: Something like Beit Ya’acov, but Beit Ya’acov was for older girls, I think, for high school girls.

A: I’m not sure whether she went to Beit Ya’acov, but she went to a Jewish school, a more modern Jewish school, like where they taught Hebrew a little and secular subjects, like math, how to read, how to write. She had to start school when she was six or whatever. When she was six, I was two.

Q: Any recollections of friends from the cheder, or you were too young?

A: I was too young. I don’t remember any friends from the cheder.

Q: From that period.

A: From that period I don’t remember any friends. I had friends, but I don’t remember any of them.

Q: Do you have any recollections of things you played with as a kid?

A: Probably friends with the guys in the cheder that I went to.

Q: Toys, things like that, as a kid?

A: I probably played with the guys from the cheder, but I don’t remember any of them.

Q: Who were the neighbours? They were Jews and non-Jews?

A: Where? In our building, where we lived?

Q: Yes. What were the relationships?

A: I’m really not sure. I think most of the people that lived in our building were Jewish. Most of the people. There may have been some gentiles, but for the most part, I think that the occupants of the building were mostly Jewish.

Q: Did your parents have relationships with them, with the neighbours? Non-Jewish? Do you think they had any kind of interaction?

A: Yes. My father dealt with many gentiles in the business. In the business he dealt with a lot of gentiles.

Q: Good relations?

A: Excellent relations.

Q: And where you lived, I mean the neighbours, were there also relations, you think, between the families. Do you know?

A: Where we lived, in our apartment? He knew the people in town that he used to do business with, but to say that we had very close friends among the gentiles, we really didn’t because there wasn’t much of a relationship socially between the goyim and the Jews.

Q: Socially it was his religious friends.

A: Yes, religious environment. But businesswise, he had relationships with Jews and gentiles.

Q: You stressed very much the Jewish life and background, Orthodox Jews, but were they close to other culture besides, the Polish culture or German culture besides the Jewish culture? Were they reading Polish literature or newspapers?

A: The newspapers, I think that my father read mostly, were Jewish newspapers and sefarim, religious sefarim and non-religious sefarim. There were different books because in those days people were pretty much self-educated.

Q: Autodidact.

A: Orthodox people were self-educated. They didn’t go to a formal school. And maybe in my father’s days there was not even probably a regular Jewish school.

Q: You said he went to yeshiva.

A: He went to yeshiva, but in the Orthodox community, there was no…so most people were self-educated pretty much.

Q: So that’s what I was wondering. Your mother also – was she reading…?

A: My mother was also very up-to-date in terms of what was going on in the world. My mother was even more business-oriented than my father. She was like the motor behind my father.

Q: But was she reading Polish literature?

A: She used to work in my grandfather’s store, so she was very business-oriented.

Q: Did she read Polish literature?

A: Oh, sure. My father read Polish, my mother read Polish. They spoke Polish, they read Polish. I don’t know about literature. I don’t think the Orthodox people were too much interested in the Polish literature.

Q: Did they go out, for instance, to theatre or concerts, things like that?

A: Yes, for sure. Shows, Jewish shows. Everything was Yiddish. Yiddishspiel.

Q: Do you remember also as a kid, did you go, or just your parents? Would they take you with them?

A: I don’t remember if I went, if I didn’t go. That I don’t remember. But I remember that on Shabbat, in the afternoon, there was like a big park in Przemysl, like a huge park, and in the afternoon I used to take a walk with my parents, used to take us to the park and they had all kinds of facilities for the children – swings and all kinds of things – so we used to play in the park, me and my sister. We all used to go Shabbat afternoon or holidays to the park. In the park you would meet a lot of people from the Jewish community.

Q: Did you go to see movies also? In those times?

A: I don’t remember if we went to movies. I don’t remember if my parents or even the children went to movies. That I don’t remember. I remember we used to go to the park on Shabbat afternoon and holidays.

Q: You don’t remember seeing Shirley Temple as a kid?

A: No.

Q: Did you have a radio at home?

A: There were no televisions, but I believe we did have a radio at home.

Q: Now, you mentioned that your father was interested politically.

A: Very interested.

Q: Polish politics also?

A: International politics.

Q: And also Jewish politics. There were a lot of Jewish organizations in Przemysl.

A: He wasn’t involved.

Q: There was Aguda, Mizrachi.

A: My father wasn’t too involved, I don’t think, in any of the Jewish organizations. He was busy with his business during the week and on Shabbat we celebrated the holidays and Shabbat.

Q: What about Zionism? Was he connected?

A: Zionism in those days…

Q: There were a lot of organizations.

A: Yes, but I don’t think we were too much involved in Zionism.

Q: He wasn’t a Zionist? Or he was?

A: He was a Zionist to a degree. My mother maybe was even more so of a Zionist, but it wasn’t an issue in our house.

Q: He wasn’t affiliated with any organization.

A: I don’t think he was affiliated with any organization.

Q: Hapoel, or something. Mizrachi.

A: No. He was mostly running his business and he was busy with the business. And he used to travel quite a bit in connection with the business because he was dealing with different countries like Czechoslovakia.

Q: So he would travel out of Poland?

A: Out of Poland, he would travel, in connection with the business, everything connected with the business.

Q: Did you go on vacations also?

A: Oh sure.

Q: In Poland?

A: In Poland. I even have pictures at home in New York. I have pictures where we used to go to a place called Iwonicz, which used to be like a resort area.

Q: What? Bathing, like baths?

A: Baths. And they even had some mineral waters in that area, which were supposed to be very healthy for people to drink. So I remember we used to go to this place, Iwonicz, and some other places that I don’t even remember the name of the area. But we used to go on vacation.

Q: Zakopane also?

A: Zakopane, yes. That rings a bell. I remember Iwonicz specifically. We used to go frequently to Iwonicz and Zakopane and maybe some other places, some other resorts.

Q: Also out of Poland?

A: No.

Q: In Poland.

A: Everything in Poland.

Q: Okay. Coming back to Zionism, as I mentioned, you said they weren’t affiliated, but there was an awareness.

A: There was some feeling of Zionism.

Q: What did you know about Eretz Yisrael, Palestine, as a kid? Did you know anything?

A: In those days I knew very little about Palestine.

Q: Did you have the kupa at home, the blue kupa, the Keren Kayemet?

A: No. Maybe yes. I don’t remember.

Q: Any recollection of what Eretz Yisrael meant for you as a kid?

A: In those days?

Q: Yes. Not much.

A: Not much.

Q: Was there anybody in the family that made aliyah before the war? That left Poland to Eretz Yisrael? Friends, family?

A: Did anybody make aliyah? Yes. Yes. As a matter of fact, my mother’s younger sister – she was the youngest and my mother was the oldest, because there were quite a few siblings. So my uncle, my aunt’s husband, he was in the printing business in Poland, in the printing line. Or the family was in the printing line, maybe two generations or whatever. So my uncle decided to make aliyah in the ‘30s to Israel, to Palestine in those days and I know that he got substantial nadan from my grandfather, money, and they went to Berlin to buy printing equipment, machines, in Berlin. And they took all those machines here and my uncle established a big printing house here.

Q: In Jerusalem?

A: In Jerusalem. Called Eshkol. They print all the chumashim, sefarim, all the religious books.

Q: This was from the’30s?

A: Yes, in Jerusalem. It is very well-known, the printing house Eshkol – chumashim, siddurim, all that. They used to print from the 1930s on. I never knew my uncle. In those days, before my uncle made aliyah, I didn’t know him at all and I didn’t even know my aunt too much, my mother’s sister. I didn’t know her too much because they didn’t live in our city. But I knew they made aliyah.

Q: Where were they from in Poland?

A: Zagorz. My aunt was from Zagorz. Her husband, I don’t know exactly what city he was from, but I assume he was somewhere in that vicinity, in that area.

Q: So your mother – do you think she ever had thoughts of following her sister, or not in that period?

A: Did my mother think of going to Israel?

Q: To Eretz Yisrael. When her sister did this.

A: Only from the family, from my mother’s side, her sister was the only one that I know that after she was married, they made aliyah.

Q: I understand, but I am asking if it had any effect, any influence on your mother, do you think? At that point.

A: I don’t think so.

Q: They weren’t thinking about it.

A: See, you have to understand that all the Jews that were economically well-off, it didn’t come into consideration even to leave a comfortable home with a maid, with all the facilities, a comfortable lifestyle, to leave that and go looking for other places to live. It wasn’t a consideration even in those days. However, in 1939, there was the World’s Fair in the United States and my father, as a businessman, he saw already…Hitler came into power in 1933.

Q: We will talk about that.

A: There was already…my father, being that he was so politically involved and well aware of what was going on…So my father wanted to go to the World’s Fair in the United States, because he realized there was trouble brewing.

Q: We will come to talk about that in detail, when we get to ’39. But at that point, were there other family members who were…besides Eretz Yisrael, besides Palestine, anywhere else in the world? Did you have family in the States, in South America?

A: My father had a second cousin that…I’m not sure exactly if he was born in the States or if his parents, if his father or his parents came to America and he was born in America, but I know that this name was the same as my father’s name – Samuel Goldstein. And he was an attorney, he was a lawyer in the States and that’s the only family member that I know that lived in the United States from before the war. From before the war. And how he got to the United States, I believe that his parents went to the United States and I think that he was already born in the States. That was my father’s second cousin.

Q: But at that point they felt firmly comfortable in Poland?

A: Very comfortable. Everything was fine and until 1939…

Q: Did you, as a child, or do you know if your parents or your sister encountered anti-Semitism as a child?

A: All the time.

Q: Can you tell us about it?

A: I remember as a kid, I used to, for example, walk the streets and many times I used to go to my friends or whatever, so the shkocim (שקוצים), the gentile kids would stop me and kick me and search my pockets, see if I had anything of any value on me. That was later, when I was older already, when I was five, six.

Q: Did you understand why?

A: Sure I understood why. Because they hated the Jews.

Q: Did you understand why they hated the Jews? Did you have any idea?

A: No, I didn’t know why, but all the Poles hated the Jews. There was a lot of anti-Semitism and the Jews felt anti-Semitism.

Q: It was on the rise.

A: The hatred of the goyim towards the Jews.

Q: I am asking of your own experience or your parents, your sister – you all encountered it?

A: We all encountered. It.

Q: Was it something talked about at home?

A: No, not really. But we knew that the Poles disliked the Jews.

Q: But you said that on the other hand, that there were good relations…

A: We knew that the Poles were talking about the Jews killing Polish children and using the blood for some religious ceremony, which was totally crazy.

Q: You remember this as a kid?

A: I remember it as a kid.

Q: Did you feel insecure going in the street or it didn’t stop you?

A: No, I didn’t feel insecure, but many times when the gentile kids would catch me in the street. Especially if I was alone – that was later already. It wasn’t so much when I was a little kid. When I was older they would start up with me, so to say. Sometimes they would punch me, sometimes they would search my pockets, especially if there was more than one, so they overpowered me, so to say, but they didn’t…

Q: Call you names or something?

A: I don’t remember specifically. I don’t think they called me names so much. Mainly they wanted to get something of value. They would search my pockets to see if I had any money on me and things like that. And they would give me a kick or a punch or something, and then I would run away, of course. I would run away from them.

Q: It was something that you spoke about with your father? You would share that experience?

A: Yes.

Q: And what would he say to you?

A: You have to watch out when you walk the streets, try to avoid a bunch of shkocim (שקוצים) when you see them in the street. You have to be careful where you go, what street you take and to walk, and so on and so on. But all that was closer to the wartime, so it wasn’t so much when I was a little kid.

Q: Before we move on, any other recollections from childhood, of the Jewish community in Przemysl?

A: Basically, I remember my grandparents very well, the grandparents that lived in our city, in Przemysl, from my father’s side, and I remember my grandfather from my mother’s side, but I really got to know my grandfather from my mother’s side later on.

Q: You have good memories? You were a happy child? Content?

A: Yes, like all other kids. We had everything we wanted. As a matter of fact, our maid, that we had in the house…

Q: Do you remember her name?

A: No. But I remember, as a kid, as a little kid of three or four, I was very, very fussy how I was dressed. I was always very, very particular as far as being dressed, so the maid used to iron my father’s shirts and she used to put like starch in the collar, to make it stiff, so I used to go to the maid and tell hert hat I wanted my shirt collars done the same way as my father’s collars.

Q: A young gentleman.

A: Yes. My mother used to tell me that I was driving the maid crazy, because I was very, very fussy, ever since I was a little kid, how I dress and how I look. My mother used to tell me that I was very, very particular.

Q: Very aware.

A: Very aware and very particular, very fussy. Not only that, but my mother used to tell me – I don’t remember – I used to come to my father’s store as a little kid, maybe three, four, and there was a like a little stoop to go into my father’s store and if I didn’t see any customers in the store, I would go outside on the top of the stoop and yell at the top of my voice, “Customers, come inside.”

Q: Advertising.

A: Advertising, yes, to promote the business. Yell at the top of my voice for customers to come inside the store. I was very, from childhood on, I was also very business-oriented.

Q: You were born in 1933.

A: That’s correct.

Q: That’s the year in Germany Hitler came to power.

A: That’s correct.

Q: You said your parents were very well aware politically what was going on in the world. So as a child, you were a small boy – was there a resonance for this at home, for what was going on in Germany? With the Nazis? Did you hear the name, as a child, Hitler? Did it mean anything to you?

A: Yes, yes, sure we heard the name Hitler. We heard the name Hitler and my father many time would talk about what was going on in Germany and with Hitler. As a matter of fact, Jews became fearful. With that in mind…

Q: They were aware of it?

A: Yes, of course, of course. My father for sure. He used to talk about it in the house.

Q: Okay. Do you think that, as far as you know, that he thought this was something happening over there, to the Jews in Germany? It was not going to touch you? Or was he afraid that…?

A: With that in mind, my father realized that it was bound to affect our lives too, so that was exactly why he wanted to go to America because there was no way of getting out of Poland in those days. It was very difficult to get out. But people were able to go to the World’s Fair that was taking place in America.

Q: This was already ’39.

A: ’39.

Q: But before that.

A: Before that there was no intent on my family’s side…

Q: When there was in ’38 the Anschluss in Austria or the Sudetanland, there was an agreement about Czechoslovakia – was he thinking then also?

A: Well, my father was very well aware that this was bound to have an effect on our lives at some point in time.

Q: He felt insecure?

A: He felt insecure, right.

Q: And he was considering emigrating?

A: He was considering going to the World’s Fair in the United States.

Q: Palestine was not considered?

A: Palestine…there was no way of going to Palestine or of going anywhere. There was only…if anyone wanted to go to the World’s Fair in the United States, they could go. That was the only way to get out of Poland at that time. So my father, with that objective in mind, he wanted to go to the World’s Fair and my mother discouraged him.

Q: She didn’t want to.

A: She didn’t want to.

Q: Why? Do you know?

A: Because we had a comfortable lifestyle.

Q: She didn’t feel threatened?

A: She didn’t feel threatened, right. So my mother sort of discouraged my father from going to the United States, to the World’s Fair. That was the only way you could get out in those days. So we didn’t go.

Q: Were there any German Jews, refugees, coming to you? Do you remember?

A: There were no German Jews. What happened…

Q: German meaning also Oustjuden Jews.

A: No. They weren’t German Jews. What happened – we had relatives because in 1939, when Poland was occupied by the Russians and the Germans…

Q: We will get to that.

A: That is what I am talking about. So we were on the Russian side.

Q: I am talking about earlier on, when things were happening in Germany…

A: We didn’t see any German Jews coming to where we were.

Q: They did come to other areas.

A: We had no contact with any German Jews.

Q: No refugees. You didn’t see any.

A: We didn’t see any refugees at that point.

Q: And you, as a kid, hearing these things – you were a small kid. You were five, six. Did you feel anything or it didn’t really concern you?

A: I wasn’t so involved politically and I wasn’t aware at that age.

Q: You were very young.

A: Very young. I wasn’t aware at that age to see if it was going to affect us in any way, if it was not going to affect us, what was going on. We heard the discussions about Hitler coming to power. My family, my parents used to discuss that issue, but me personally, I wasn’t aware as to if it was going to affect us, when it was going to affect us. I wasn’t focused on that issue at all.

Q: So we get to the 1st of September, September 1st, 1939. Hitler invaded Poland.

A: That’s correct.

Q: The World War began. You were about six years old at that time. Any recollection of that specific day even? As a child?

A: I don’t remember…I wouldn’t remember the day. All I remember, that at one point in time, during that period, all of a sudden we saw the Russian army coming and taking over our whole area.

Q: You didn’t see first the Germans?

A: No. Not at all.

Q: Because they did arrive also in Przemysl. Mid-September, the river (?)…

A: The Sun (?) river divided the German side from the Russian side.

Q: And you were on the Russian side.

A: And we were on the Russian side.

Q: You didn’t see the Germans.

A: Also the Russians came, okay, so now we were under Russian occupation, but it didn’t affect us economically or otherwise.

Q: Maybe we will mention that…

A: As a matter of fact, we learned to speak some Russian because of the Russian occupation.

Q: Yes, we will talk about it right away. Maybe we should mention that Russians were occupying that area under the agreement, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Agreement, where they…

A: Well, whatever agreement. I don’t remember the specifics, but anyway…

Q: They kind of split Poland between the Germans and the Russians. So you came under the Russians…

A: We were on the Russian side.

Q: Do you remember the day that you saw the Russians?

A: No. I know it was sometime in 1939…

Q: No, no, but do you have any memories yourself, as a child, seeing the Russians?

A: No. I saw the Russians…

Q: Russian soldiers?

A: Soldiers, Russian troops, occupied our side of Poland, our side of Przemysl.

Q: There was panic, scare, or they were happy?

A: No. There was no panic. So now it’s Russian, so it’s Russian. But they didn’t persecute the Jews. They didn’t cause any trouble for the Jews.

Q: They didn’t cause any trouble in the sense, but they did limit the cultural…you couldn’t be a Zionist under the Russians.

A: Well, there was no question of Zionism. My parents weren’t that Zionist-oriented publicly. There was no Zionism in our family.

Q: Right. But on the other hand, your father was a merchant, bourgeois. The Russians were collectivizing everything. What happened? They allowed him to have the store?

A: My father was still running the store.

Q: That is surprising.

A: Because in Russian eyes he was considered like a small merchant, not a big corporation or so to say.

Q: No, because they did expel a lot of merchants.

A: They didn’t bother my father.

Q: They took over…

A: Maybe so, but it didn’t affect him at all. During the Russian occupation he wasn’t affected at all.

Q: Maybe they needed him. As a supplier, you think?

A: Maybe they did some business in his store. Maybe yes, maybe no, but specifically I wouldn’t know.

Q: So the Russians, they were occupying for two years.

A: That’s correct.

Q: Is it time that you went to school? You started going to school, or not yet?

A: Not yet.

Q: You still went to the cheder? Or they closed the cheder?

A: I’m not sure.

Q: Because Russians and religion don’t go together.

A: Yes, yes. But the Russians didn’t bother even the religious people, non-religious people.

Q: You kept on with your traditions, going to shul, to the shteibl?

A: Yes, we kept on going. That’s correct. We kept on going with the tradition, even during the Russian occupation.

Q: But you don’t remember going to the cheder?

A: That I don’t remember.

Q: Do you remember what you were doing as a child those two years? You were home?

A: I really don’t remember. I wasn’t going to school. I know that. Regular school or religious school. I wasn’t going to any school. Maybe I was still going to the cheder. Maybe. Maybe I was going to some yeshiva. I don’t remember that part of my life.

Q: They did allow Yiddish. They did not allow Hebrew.

A: Hebrew wasn’t an issue with us. But Yiddish, my parents spoke Yiddish like they always spoke Yiddish with my grandparents and in our house.

Q: So for you, in a sense the Russian occupation was a continuation of life.

A: Didn’t have much of an effect on us.

Q: Not economically, not culturally, not religiously speaking.

A: No, just that in order to understand what they were saying, we were sort of forced to learn some Russian, which we did, but not too much because we didn’t have that much of a contact. They occupied our area, but we didn’t have too much contact with the troops, with the Russian troops. As a matter of fact, they were nice to the Jews. We had no problem with them.

Q: They didn’t expel any of your father’s friends or anyone else in the family?

A: No.

Q: To Siberia?

A: Not at that time, not at that time. What happened was that all our relatives that lived on the German side of Poland, the Germans expelled the Jews into the river, into the water, and they told them to cross over to the…they didn’t want the Jews on the German side, so we had relatives, so the Germans expelled them to the border to cross over to the Russian side. My grandfather, my mother’s father, came then. My mother’s brother came and my father’s sister came and family members came from the German side to the Russian side. They stayed with us, they stayed with my grandparents. We found some accommodations for them, where to stay, and all of a sudden, the Russians issued a decree that all the people that came over from the German side had to register if they wanted to stay on the Russian side or they wanted to go back home to the German side. It was a kind of a threat.

Q: It was a very tricky loyalty test.

A: That’s right. It was very tricky. So one night all the people that registered that they wanted to go back home, they deported…the Russians considered them as German spies and they all were deported to Russia, to Siberia. So that’s where my grandfather and my uncles…they were all deported to Siberia. So it was like Tisha B’Av.

Q: The family took it very hard. They thought that was end.

A: That’s correct.

Q: You thought you wouldn’t see them again?

A: That’s right. We thought we’d never see them again.

Q: And so this was your grandfather?

A: My mother’s father. My mother’s father and my mother’s brother and his children. My mother’s family, I mean the brother. They were all deported to Russia. And my father’s sister. So they all went to Russia and we were all very upset.

Q: Okay. We are taking a short break. (end of side)

Q: Okay, you were telling us about the Russians, explaining that your family came from the German side of the Sun (?), expelled the family to Siberia. This was basically your mother’s side of the family.

A: And my father’s sister was also deported to Siberia.

Q: And your grandparents from your father’s side? They were still alive?

A: My grandparents on my father’s side were on the Russian side, together with us.

Q: And you were Polish citizens under Russian occupation?

A: That’s correct.

Q: That was your status?

A: Yes. We were Polish citizens. All through the Shoah, we were Polish citizens.

Q: Right. Except for those who wanted to accept the Russian citizenship.

A: I don’t know if the Polish people even had a choice of being able to accept Russian citizenship.

Q: It was a big question.

A: I’m not sure they had the choice.

Q: There was a big question about that.

A: That’s correct.

Q: What did you understand of all of this as a kid? You were six years old. What did you understand was going on. You were still at home.

A: We knew there was conflict…we understand there was conflict between the Germans and the Russians and we didn’t know at the time if this was going to be a permanent arrangement or this was going to be a temporary arrangement or what was going to be the outcome of all this. We didn’t know. But the Russians settled in our area.

Q: But you said that you felt quite safe with the Russians.

A: We felt safe with the Russians, yes.

Q: But there was unease about what was going to be the future.

A: What was going to be the outcome of all this. Right.

Q: But I am asking you specifically of your memory as a kid, because you were a young kid when all this was happening. You were not an adult who understood all these politics. What did you understand? You saw the family being sent. Did it make sense to you as a kid?

A: Well, these were very sad events for us when we saw all the family members being deported, so that was a very sad event.

Q: Did you know where they deported them to? Was there any contact?

A: Well, they came from the German side.

Q: No, no. I understand. I am asking did you know where they were going to?

A: We had no idea.

Q: And did they establish any connection after with you? Were you in touch? Were there letters? Did you know what was happening with them?

A: I don’t think we were sure exactly where they were. In other words, in the beginning there was no contact between them and us. And then later, when there was real fighting between the Germans and the Russians, then we lost complete contact with them.

Q: But at that point, before the war with the Germany…

A: I don’t think that my parents had any idea where they were.

Q: Did you know what was going on in Poland at that time? We are talking about ’40. ’41. They were starting to have the ghettos, the concentration camps.

A: That was later. That wasn’t when the Russians were still on our side.

Q: But did you know what was going on the other side?

A: No, we had no idea.

Q: Did you hear anything of what was going on?

A: Maybe my parents knew. I didn’t know what was going on the German side. We had no idea, I had no idea what was going on.

Q: Okay, and you think, when they were under the Russian occupation…

A: We were under the Russian occupation.

Q: I am talking about your parents. Was there any talk of trying to leave somewhere or there was no such consideration or possibility?

A: To go with the Russians?

Q: Yes.

A: There was no inclination in our family to go with the Russians.

Q: So the next thing is that the war between Russia – we are talking about 22nd of June, 1941, the war between Russia and Germany broke out. What happened?

A: Well, all of a sudden the fighting started between the Russian side and the German side and there was shooting.

Q: In that street?

A: In our town because the Germans were right across from the river and they were trying to come over to this side and take over.

Q: Do you remember this? You were at home?

A: Sure. I remember that clearly.

Q: What do you remember?

A: I remember that we were home and I remember the shooting started right in the centre of our town.

Q: Did you go into hiding in shelter?

A: I think we went into the cellar of the building, into the cellar.

Q: There was panic?

A: Well, there was some tumult, like we say, which was sort of a panic, and I remember that the apartment that we lived in, when the shooting started between German…a shell from a cannon went right through our apartment, so right from the beginning, when the shooting started between the Germans and the Russians…the building wasn’t destroyed, but our apartment, the shell went right through our apartment and our apartment was destroyed. Right in the beginning, when the fighting started.

Q: And what happened next?

A: So when the fighting started we went into hiding. We went into the cellar. And then eventually the Germans occupied the entire town. Not only our town, but they went further and they occupied the whole country.

Q: Okay. Do you remember them coming in? Did you see them?

A: Sure, sure.

Q: What did you see?

A: We saw the German troops.

Q: Marching?

A: Marching and fighting, shooting and trying to get rid of the Russians, kick out the Russians and take over the territory.

Q: The Russians – they were running?

A: They were withdrawing.

Q: When they were withdrawing, did they put buildings on fire?

A: No, not really. I mean, there was shooting. As a result of the shooting there was some damage in the town, like our apartment.

Q: But in certain places they did burn the city.

A: They withdrew because the Germans were, I guess, more powerful and so the Russians withdrew.

Q: And there was no consideration to withdraw with the Russians? You don’t know.

A: I don’t know. My parents left and they didn’t leave with the Russians because if we had left with the Russians, then we wouldn’t have had the experience that we had later.

Q: Of course. I am trying to find out if you remember or you know if there was any thought or attempt to do that.

A: I don’t think so.

Q: So the next thing, you saw that the Germans were entering.

A: That’s correct. The Germany army. Now we were under German occupation.

Q: The business was closed probably.

A: The business, in the beginning the business wasn’t closed yet.

Q: Even during the fighting?

A: Well, during the fighting nobody went anywhere. Nobody left the house. But after the fighting subsided and things were quiet, I think the business was still functioning to some degree.

Q: Did you feel any shortage of something? Of food, supplies? At home.

A: At home, no. At home, no, but maybe in the business my father may have had some difficulties in obtaining some merchandise from overseas.

Q: The war.

A: The war, yes. So he may have had some difficulties obtaining certain merchandise.

Q: So your family, your parents and your sister and yourself. Also your grandparents are with you in the same apartment?

A: No, my grandparents lived in their own apartment, not too far from us. I used to go there every Friday afternoon.

Q: And what happened during the first days of the German occupation? Life went on routinely?

A: In the beginning? Pretty much. In the beginning, pretty much life went on routinely. Shortly after the German occupation, they made a decree that all the Jews were only allowed to walk the streets till ten o’clock in the morning or after five o’clock in the afternoon.

Q: Curfew.

A: They also made the Jews to wear the armband, with the Magen David.

Q: Do you remember that?

A: Sure.

Q: What did you think? Do you remember your feeling?

A: But only Jews over ten had to wear the armband. Kids up to ten did not have to wear it. So I didn’t have to wear the armband. Only my parents, my sister, everybody had to wear the armband.

Q: Do you remember any reactions to that?

A: Well, we considered it a discriminatory act, to make the Jews be different from everybody else. So everybody had to wear the armband except me.

Q: Because you were young.

A: Because I was young. I was less than ten. (?)…my father was still going to the store. The store was still functioning and my mother used to send with me food because I was walking during the day. I was walking the streets because I didn’t wear the armband.

Q: So you were more safe in a sense.

A: A little more safe, yes. I used to take food to my father to the store. Lunch or whatever. I used to take food and that’s how we stayed, that was the procedure. So that was that.

Q: And all this time you were at home? You never began school?

A: I never began school and I was home all the time.

Q: Helping also your father in the store?

A: No, not much. I was very young.

Q: Yes, but you were already eight, nine.

A: That was ’41. I was already about eight.

Q: What did you do with yourself? Do you remember?

A: I think that my sister started teaching me.

Q: In normal life kids your age go to school. What did you do?

A: My sister, I think, was teaching me how to read, how to write, some math.

Q: She was home with you?

A: She was home with use, so she used to teach me.

Q: She couldn’t go to school either. Everything had stopped.

A: Everything was stopped. Nobody was going to school.

Q: How was the relationship between you and your sister as kids?

A: We were like brother and sister.

Q: Well, you know, brother and sister…

A: We were fighting, as kids we were fighting this and that, but basically we had a good relationship.

Q: She was teaching her?

A: She was teaching me, yes.

Q: Your mother was also at home, or she was helping your father in the store in those days?

A: I don’t remember exactly if my mother at that point was still going into the business. Maybe yes. Maybe on a part-time basis or something.

Q: Now, at that point, when the Germans occupied Przemysl, were you aware, you knew of what was going on outside Przemysl? What was going on in the war?

A: I’m sure my parents were aware because they would listen to the radio.

Q: You still had a radio?

A: Yes.

Q: The Germans didn’t take the radio?

A: No. The Germans didn’t go into the homes to look what people had, what they didn’t have. They didn’t go to the houses to check.

Q: You didn’t see them at all.

A: We didn’t see them at all. They occupied the town and the area, but we…

Q: In certain places they would enter and they would place soldiers to live with families.

A: In our case that wasn’t the case. So we would listen to the news, my father used to read the papers to see what was going on. So my parents were for sure aware what was going on at that point. But it was shortly thereafter when the Germans made the ghettos.

Q: Before they made the ghettos, they started the Judenrat even before the ghetto. Even before the ghetto.

A: I don’t remember if it was before the ghetto or during the ghetto.

Q: It was a little bit before.

A: Yes. Maybe shortly before the ghetto they made the Judenrat.

Q: Did you know something of that? Did you know the people? Was your father connected?

A: No. We knew the people that were in charge of the Judenrat and all that, but…

Q: And they started also taking men to forced labour from the streets.

A: Not that I remember. At that point they weren’t taking men to any labour as yet. Not as yet. They weren’t taking, in our town at least, I don’t think they were taking any men to labour yet.

Q: Before the ghetto, did you have to give them your valuables, like jewellery, things like that? Do you remember?

A: No. I don’t think so.

Q: Fur coats?

A: No. To the best of my memory. I don’t think so.

Q: So the next thing that you remember is the ghetto really?

A: The next thing that I remember is when they passed a law that all the Jews had to move to a certain confined area, to the ghetto. That was drastic move that the German made.

Q: It was already July. We are talking summer.

A: We are talking about 1941, ’42. Sometime in ’41. I think that was in ’41.

Q: The ghetto was already, I think, in ’42.

A: Maybe ’42, maybe ’41. Somewhere between ’41 and ’42. That’s when they started the ghetto business.

Q: And before that you didn’t encounter any riots, violent encounter with Germans or Volkesdeutsche or Polish?

A: Not to the best of my memory. We didn’t encounter any violence when the Germans made all the Jews move to the ghetto, which was a limited area in town.

Q: Was it the area that you lived or not?

A: No. Not at all. It was a different area completely.

Q: So what is your recollection? You got this decree that you had to move?

A: All the Jews had to leave wherever they were living.

Q: You had how much time to organize?

A: I don’t remember exactly how much time. It was within maybe a month or two months. A limited period of time.

Q: So you understood that you had to leave your home.

A: We had to leave our house. As a matter of fact, my parents knew some people that lived in that part of town where the ghetto was and I think that my mother arranged with some gentile people that, I think, either we were going to give them our apartment and they would give us their apartment. Some kind of exchange. Because I remember that we moved to the ghetto at that time, we left our home.

Q: Do you remember the day that you left?

A: Not the day. The day I don’t remember.

Q: You don’t have any recollections of leaving your home, closing the door, leaving?

A: I would follow my parents. Whatever my parents did, I would follow my parents.

Q: Do you remember what they took with them?

A: I think they took all their personal belongings and maybe even some furniture, maybe even some furniture, and we all moved to the ghetto.

Q: Did they explain anything to you as a kid?

A: No. We understood. At that point we understood on our own what was going on.

Q: Did you think yourself that you were leaving your home temporarily until this would pass? You would come back?

A: We were under the impression that maybe this was all temporary until things settled down and then we would be able to move back to our home where we lived before.

Q: You didn’t think it would be the last, final situation.

A: Permanent situation. We didn’t think it would be a permanent situation at the time.

Q: So where did you live in the ghetto? Can you describe?

A: Well, I don’t remember the name of the street, but we moved into a relatively nice apartment.

Q: Only your family, or with other families in the same apartment?

A: No, no. My parents, me and my sister, we had our own apartment in the ghetto.

Q: And also your grandparents moved to the ghetto?

A: Also my grandparents moved. Everybody moved.

Q: But not together. Not in the same apartment.

A: Not in the same apartment, but we all had to move to the ghetto. So all the Jews moved to the ghetto.

Q: And you father had to, at this point, close the…?

A: I think he had to close the business at that point.

Q: Did they take it over, the Germans?

A: At one point, I think they pretty much confiscated all the merchandise that my father had in the store.

Q: You owned your apartment?

A: No. There was no such thing as owning an apartment. People owned a house, but like condominiums or co-ops, there was no such thing as we have nowadays, that people own.

Q: But what I am asking is, did your parents own any property?

A: No, I think we were renting our apartment. My parents were paying rent for the apartment.

Q: So they confiscated what he had in the store, the merchandise.

A: I’m not sure if they confiscated all the things that he had in the store while we were still living in the city, or after we moved to the ghetto. That I’m not sure of. But I know at one point they confiscated everything that we had in the store. Not only that, but they thought that all the bottles of syrups and flavours that my father had in the store, they thought it was liquor or whiskey or whatever, alcohol, and so they confiscated everything with that, more so with that objective in mind than realizing what the things really were.

Q: So what is your recollection of living in the ghetto? How long did you live there before the next step? A few weeks, a few months?

A: No, it was more than a few weeks. I would say…and then eventually the Germans made the Jews in the ghetto do different tasks, different jobs.

Q: Forced them.

A: Forced them to do different jobs, like they assigned, for example, my father was working on the railroad, cleaning the tracks and loading wagons. What do you call it? You know, the cargo trains, loading cargo and cleaning the tracks. And my mother…

Q: Then he would go out in the morning and come back in the evening to the ghetto?

A: Yes. He would go out in the morning and come back to the ghetto sometimes late in the day.

Q: The ghetto itself was closed?

A: The ghetto was surrounded by a fence and the Germans would have guards to watch the ghetto.

Q: Was there also a Judenrat? Did they also have a Jewish police there?

A: Yes, sure. Within the ghetto there was a Jewish police. In the ghetto. They called it the (?). Yes.

Q: How did they treat you?

A: The Jewish police didn’t do us any harm in the ghetto. And my mother was taken to work with other women to sweep the streets in the city.

Q: In Przemysl?

A: Everything in Przemysl, yes. So we were in the ghetto.

Q: And what were you doing, the kids?

A: We were taking care of the house. My sister was doing maybe some cooking and preparing meals and things.

Q: Did the Judenrat, did they organize other things? Do you remember?

A: I remember the Germans made the Judenrat deliver to the Germans certain amounts of money, so I think the Judenrat imposed certain taxes on all the people in the ghetto, that they had to pay certain taxes to the Judenrat.

Q: And did they also organize the life in the ghetto?

A: Not the Judenrat. They just imposed taxes on the people.

Q: That’s all. But they didn’t organize the school for kids or any…? Were they supplying food?

A: No. Everybody was…

Q: Public meals?

A: No public meals. I think everybody was pretty much on their own to arrange for food.

Q: Medical aid? Anything of that sort?

A: I don’t remember specifically. I think that pretty much…there were no common meals, there were no community meals.

Q: No public kitchen?

A: No public kitchen in the ghetto. I think everybody was pretty much on their own to buy food.

Q: Where did you get the food?

A: I think maybe there were some merchants in the ghetto that were able to…

Q: Now, your parents were taken to forced work. They weren’t paid anything. What were they living on? Savings?

A: Savings. Mainly savings.

Q: Did you feel at that point the ghetto, was there hunger, was there a shortage of food?

A: We really didn’t feel much hunger in the ghetto.

Q: Your family had enough?

A: Yes, we were comfortable to be able to afford to buy food.

Q: Do you remember what were the conditions of other families around you?

A: Well, some families were better off and some families were worse off, like even under normal conditions.

Q: But was there help among people? Were people helping?

A: Yes. That was people that she knew. People that she knew that needed help. Sure. The people that were better off would help the people that needed help. There was close cooperation between the people in the ghetto.

Q: How were your grandparents managing? Do you remember? You saw them in the ghetto?

A: Of course. I think my parents were helping my grandparents. My grandparents were also relatively comfortable, so they were able to manage somewhat on their own and somewhat, I think, we were helping them. I don’t remember exactly the exact specifics, but I think that was pretty much the story over there.

Q: Any recollections what you were doing with yourself? You had to do something with time, you know.

A: Yes, do something with time. So again, we were busy with the house, we were cleaning, we were cooking. We were doing housekeeping work, my sister and me. And basically we used to read, we used to spend time studying. Whatever material we had. We didn’t have libraries and things in the ghetto, but whatever material we had, we had to deal with that material that was available.

Q: Now, we know that at a certain point, the Germans were sending some of the men to the Janovska labour camp near Lvov. Did you know of that?

A: No. What I know is that after a certain period of time in the ghetto, the Germans starting organizing what they called aktias. And little by little…

Q: There were three big aktions.

A: Well, I don’t remember exactly how many, but I knew that people who lived in certain streets had to report to the aktia, to the square where…they had the Jews gather in a certain square and eventually they deported all those people to Germany or wherever. We didn’t even know where they were going.

Q: They were going to Bel (?) in the beginning.

A: Wherever they were going.

Q: You didn’t know of the camps.

A: We didn’t know about the camps yet.

Q: You thought they were going to labour camps?

A: They were going to labour camps. That’s what we thought.

Q: And you were not called to these aktias.

A: Not yet, because they started doing section by section, so one section, certain streets, had to report to the square on a certain day and other sections…

Q: The first aktia was in August of 1942.

A: I don’t remember the specific dates, but then subsequently, another section of the ghetto had to report to the square.

Q: So there was a lot of tension? When you would be next.

A: That’s right.

Q: People were hiding? Trying to avoid the aktia?

A: People tried to hide, people tried to do different things in order to avoid going to the aktia.

Q: What about your own family? What did they feel about it? Did they feel that…?

A: Well, sooner or later we felt that it was going to be our turn to go to the aktia. But in the meantime there was also such a thing as…the Germans gave the Jews certain documents – kingcard (?), or whatever they used to call it.

Q: So…to work like… (?).

A: So they had certain seals, so people that had that seal were able to last longer in the ghetto. That was considered like they were doing strategic work for the Germans.

Q: They were needed.

A: They were needed. So they didn’t have to report at that time to the aktia.

Q: The one that took care of that was the Judenrat? They gave those permits?

A: No. The Germans themselves gave the documents to the Jews.

Q: It was not through the Judenrat?

A: I don’t think it was through the Judenrat I think it was the German forces that were giving the documents to the Jews with the seal. So people who were doing so-called important work for the Germans…

Q: I don’t know if you were aware of it or you knew it at that time or you are aware of it now – there was even a very famous incident where the Wehrmacht…

A: The Wehrmacht, the German police.

Q: No. The German army freed Jews whom they needed for work and saved them. The Wehrmacht itself, which is quite extraordinary.

A: The movie of Schindler’s List talks about that issue.

Q: There was even…

A: Where Schindler himself really saved the Jews because he said he needed them.

Q: Right. But this happened also in your ghetto. There was a German commander from the Wehrmacht who saved some of the Jews and he was later on, after the war, even recognized as Chassid Omot Olam. You know what that is?

A: Yes. Righteous. One of the righteous Germans.

Q: Righteous of the Nations.

A: Yes. I don’t remember that particular case where the German was saving…

Q: His name was Bettel.

A: I don’t remember that.

Q: But it is exactly what you were talking about. Those permits that saved some of the Jews.

A: Yes. He gave these seals in order to be able to save the Jews. But we were not involved with this German officer that saved us. We didn’t know anything about it even. I don’t think we knew anything about it. But we realized that sooner or later our turn was going to come. In the meantime, we had a neighbour in the ghetto and her husband had a big factory in town, outside of the ghetto.

Q: What were their names? Do you remember?

A: Not really. Anyway, they had a son my age, this boy my age. But during this whole time while we were in the ghetto, the Germans took this man outside of the ghetto. It was considered they were taking him to open up his factory so they could confiscate whatever he had over there. And as soon as he left the ghetto and the Germans were following him, they shot him, right outside of the ghetto, so he was one of the first…

Q: You saw this? Or you just heard it?

A: I didn’t see it, but we heard about it.

Q: It was shocking?

A: Very shocking.

Q: It was the first time you encountered…

A: He was the first korban, victim outside of the ghetto and our neighbour. That was our neighbour’s husband.

Q: And you knew his son. He was a friend?

A: Of course. They were like next door to us. He was my age, the boy. So the lady, all of a sudden she had to report to the aktia, the lady had to report to the aktia because she didn’t have a seal, still to be able to stay. So she left the boy with my mother. She said to my mother, “Whatever is going to be with your children…” – his name was Genek. “I am leaving my Genek with you. Whatever you do with your children, do with Genek.”

Q: He was an only child?

A: I think he was the only child, a boy my age. So my mother had the responsibility now to take this Genek. Meantime, this Genek had an uncle that was doing important things in the ghetto. He was a policeman in the ghetto, the Jewish police in the ghetto. So my mother figured that if we were going to take care of this Genek, it would be helpful if we could get the uncle with us, that there should be some family member to take care of this boy. So at that point, my mother was sweeping the streets outside and she started making contact with different gentiles that my father knew from before all these problems. And eventually she found a lady outside of the ghetto that was willing to take me and my sister to hide.

Q: During those days with the aktias, the pressure of the aktias, what was the mood at home?

A: Well, the mood was very depressing in the ghetto because we didn’t know what was happening with these people. We supposed that they were taken to work in Germany. We didn’t know exactly what was happening in Germany.

Q: There were no rumours what was really going on?

A: No, there were no rumours whatsoever. So my mother realized, my parents realized that we had to get out of the ghetto in order to survive. So my mother was trying to make contact with different people while she was sweeping the streets. She would slip away to talk to this person the other person, to see if anybody was willing to take us into hiding.

Q: They still had means, money?

A: I guess they had some money, yes. So eventually my mother found a woman who willing to take me and my sister, the two children she was willing to hide. And this uncle of this boy helped us to smuggle our way out of the ghetto.

Q: Do you remember that day?

A: I don’t remember exactly how it happened and how we smuggled our way out of the ghetto.

Q: Do you don’t have memories of leaving the ghetto?

A: I remember leaving the ghetto and going into hiding to the lady in town.

Q: How did you go? You walked?

A: We must have smuggled our way through the fence.

Q: But you don’t have any recollection?

A: I don’t have any recollection, specific recollection of how we managed to get out of the ghetto. I don’t have a specific recollection, but somehow we smuggled.

Q: Did you have to dress as…?

A: I don’t remember the specifics. That’s what I am saying. But I know that one way or another, this uncle was helpful in getting us out of the ghetto, me and my sister, and we went to that lady that was willing to hide us. Her name was Mrs. Kaminsky, whatever her name was. I remember her name.

Q: And you had no false documentation or anything.

A: We did have false documentation.

Q: You did have?

A: Our name during the war, after we ran out of the ghetto…my father arranged in the ghetto to get false documents, kingcarten, whatever they called it, with the German seal, and our name was Gursky, not Goldstein.

Q: The whole family?

A: The whole family was Gursky. Gursky was a Polish name.

Q: And they changed your first name as well?

A: No, no. The first name was the same. Leon is a very popular name in Poland.

Q: So you remained Leon, but…

A: But my last name was Gursky, not Goldstein. And we had phony documents that my father arranged somehow in the ghetto, so when we went out we already had papers that the name was Gursky, not Goldstein.

Q: Okay.

A: So me and my sister went into hiding with this lady that took us.

Q: She was Polish?

A: A Polish woman, gentile woman.

Q: She was how old, would you say?

A: The woman? I would say she was maybe in her late forties, maybe early fifties.

Q: She had a family or she was on her won?

A: She was on her own. She had a family, but she didn’t have the family with her.

Q: How come?

A: She had a daughter, a grown daughter. The daughter lived in Krakow someplace.

Q: And the husband?

A: The husband – I don’t think she had a husband. Maybe he passed away or whatever. She was living pretty much alone.

Q: And what was she doing for a living?

A: I’m not exactly sure. Maybe she had some kind of a job. Also, my parents paid her for hiding us, some money,

Q: And when they smuggled you out of the ghetto, the parents…

A: Sometime during the beginning, I would say, 1942. 1942 we were already smuggled out of the ghetto.

Q: So it was the end of 1942.

A: Middle, end. I don’t remember the date.

Q: Because the ghetto was already July 1942, so it must be…

A: After, after. We were all in the ghetto. I was in the ghetto with my parents.

Q: Before they smuggled you, what did you parents explain to you? What was the scenario that they told you?

A: Well, they didn’t have to explain anything because…

Q: But the thought was they would follow you? That she would hide them as well?

A: No. We didn’t know who would hide who. We didn’t know, but the concept was that they would follow us at some point and find a place to hide.

Q: That you were going first. She wasn’t able to take the whole family?

A: For the moment, no, but later she had the responsibility of us, so she knew that she arranged some place for my parents also to come to hide, then it would be helpful that that parents were out and we were out, so the parents would take the responsibility for us. So she got her son – she had a son that lived in Przemysl also.

Q: But before that, when you went to her – she lived in a small apartment?

A: She had a comfortable apartment, yes.

Q: And you and your sister got there.

A: That’s correct.

Q: With also the little boy that was left with your parents? He was with you?

A: Not at that time.

Q: Okay. So you went there. She hid you.

A: No. We were in the apartment and she treated us as if we were gentile children.

Q: Relatives?

A: She didn’t hide us, like hiding us in the cellar or someplace, but she treated us as if we were gentile children. As a matter of fact, she took us to church.

Q: Oh. You went out?

A: We went out.

Q: Not that you were staying only in the house.

A: No, no. She took us out to go to church and we had to get on our knees and continue and pray.

Q: This was a Catholic church?

A: Catholic, of course. All Catholic.

Q: You were a religious boy, Jewish religious boy.

A: We already understood.

Q: You learned the prayers?

A: We made belief we knew the prayers.

Q: How did you feel when you were doing this? Were you torn? Or you were just doing it automatically, that you had to survive?

A: In those days you did what you had to do in order to survive, and we understood that.

Q: As a kid you understand it.

A: Of course.

Q: It didn’t create any conflict within yourself? You understood.

A: We knew we had to run, we had to hide, we had to do whatever needed to be done in order to survive.

Q: When you were going out with her to places…

A: To church mainly.

Q: To church mainly. Were you afraid that someone would know you?

A: Yes, sure we were afraid. Sure. So we had to act like all other people in the church in order that we shouldn’t look suspicious.

Q: And were you talking…were people talking to you?

A: Not really.

Q: Actually, why did she take you?

A: I don’t know why she took us.

Q: If it was dangerous, why take you?

A: What was her reason for taking us? I don’t know, I really don’t know. Nor did I understand at that time why she was taking us. But now I remember that we went to the church with her and we attended the services and we had to act like everybody else in order not to look suspicious, that we were not…

Q: Which brings me to the question I wanted to ask you. Before you left the ghetto, while you were living in the ghetto – you were there for a few months. Were you able to maintain Jewish life? Was there any kind in the ghetto?

A: Yes, there was Jewish life in the ghetto. Of course.

Q: Could you tell us about it?

A: Well, I don’t remember very much from the ghetto. I knew there was…I think even the Jewish paper in the ghetto. There was…in other words, life was going on. There were like even services in the ghetto. Life was going on in the ghetto as if it was a little village, like a little city. So life was going on in the ghetto.

Q: And your father would go to prayers?

A: Yes, but not anymore with the…he would go in the regular clothing. Not anymore in Chassidic garb.

Q: He would pray every morning?

A: Pray every morning, yes. I don’t know if he went to services, communal services or he would daven at home. That I don’t remember. Most likely he davened at home.

Q: Did you celebrate any holidays during that time in the ghetto? Do you remember? Do you have any memories of that?

A: No, I don’t remember. We kept Shabbat and holidays, yes.

Q: You were able to keep kosher as well? Or not really.

A: I think we did. I think we were able to keep kosher in the ghetto even.

Q: And keep Shabbat.

A: And keep Shabbat.

Q: He wasn’t taken to work on Shabbat? Was he forced to work?

A: Clear details I really don’t remember. If he was taken to work on Shabbat or not, I don’t remember. But certain other aspects I remember clearly and certain faces I don’t remember so clearly.

Q: Were there also cultural activities in the ghetto?

A: Maybe there were some Zionist organizations.

Q: Youth movements?

A: Youth movements.

Q: Your sister, was she involved?

A: No, I don’t think she was involved.

Q: You were home?

A: We were all home. We were at home. Me and my sister, we were home.

Q: You weren’t involved in any of the…?

A: Any of this forced labour or anything. We weren’t involved.

Q: No, but I mean, not also in the cultural activities in the ghetto.

A: I don’t think we were involved. Maybe we had some friends that lived close by. My sister may have had some friends that lived close by. I probably had some friends that lived close by.

Q: So you were in hiding with that Polish woman, how did she treat you?

A: Very nice. She treated us very nice.

Q: She cooked for you?

A: She cooked. She didn’t cook kosher of course. We had to eat whatever she made. And we were aware of that. Not kosher, no nothing. So we had to act like gentile kids.

Q: How long before your parents were out of the ghetto? How long did you stay with her?

A: So she realized she had the responsibility for two children and she tried to do her best to get my parents also to come out of the ghetto.

Q: Did you have any contact with your parents while you were there?

A: We didn’t have any contact with nobody. She had some contact with my parents through her son. She had a son that lived in Przemysl, a married son, and she made up with the son to take my parents into hiding also. So she got her son to take my parents and my parents smuggled their way out of the ghetto. Exactly how and what, I don’t remember, but they smuggled their way and they went to the son to hide.

Q: How long after you left the ghetto?

A: Maybe a month and a half, two months.

Q: And you knew about it?

A: Oh, we knew that my parents went to the son to hide.

Q: But you didn’t see them.

A: We didn’t see them. We didn’t see anybody.

Q: You just knew that they were hiding.

A: They were hiding by the son. We knew that.

Q: You said she got money.

A: I’m sure she got paid.

Q: Do you think that was her motivation?

A: I would say, to a substantial degree.

Q: But still she was putting herself in great danger.

A: Yes, she did. Every Pole that was hiding Jews put himself in danger of getting killed if the Germans would catch him. So she did put herself in danger.

Q: But you think her main motivation was…?

A: I’m not sure. It could have been a combination of both, financial compensation and maybe some human considerations.

Q: You felt she was a good woman.

A: A good woman, yes. But…

Q: And they took the kid as well? The little boy was with them?

A: At that point I think…that wasn’t an issue yet. The little boy and the uncle were not on the table yet, were not an issue yet because the ghetto was still in existence. You understand? The uncle and the boy were together, was still in the ghetto with the uncle. But my parents knew that sooner or later they would have to get this boy and uncle out also.

Q: And what about your grandparents?

A: Oh, my grandparents were taken out by the Germans. Deported. The older people…

Q: In the first aktia?

A: In the first aktia, or maybe outside of the aktia. The older people were taken out of the ghetto.

Q: And they shot them?

A: We believe they were taken to a forest or something and they shot the older people. In the ghetto even they cut off their beards. The older people, they cut off their beards and we believe the older people were all shot outside the ghetto.

Q: Did you have a chance to say goodbye to them?

A: No. That was it.

Q: Not knowing, though, what was their fate.

A: Not knowing what was their destiny. Where they were going or what was going to happen.

Q: Did you ever find out after the war what happened?

A: We knew that all the older people were shot.

Q: These were your father’s parents.

A: My father’s parents, yes. And my mother’s father was deported to Russia.

Q: They were in Siberia.

A: We didn’t know where they were, what was happening with them. So in the meantime, this lady where we were hiding had a daughter in Krakow and she was a nun. A nun. And the daughter was coming to the mother for Christmas or whatever it was, holiday, some kind of a holiday. And the mother was scared of the nun, of the daughter, to keep us in the house while the daughter was planning to come to the mother. So she was really very scared that the daughter, when she came home, she would be very upset that the mother was hiding Jewish kids and the mother didn’t trust her daughter. The mother didn’t trust the daughter and she was in touch with my parents by the son, that we really had to get out of there. We had to get out, so it was very problematic now. So my mother used to get dressed up like a farm woman at night, in the evening, because during the day she was afraid to walk the streets. So at night, in evening when it was dark outside, my mother used to go to different gentile people that we knew from before the war, to see if she could make some contacts of anybody that would be willing to take us into hiding.

Q: You could not come and hide with them? With your parents?

A: Well, the objective was to get all of us should go into hiding in one place. That was my mother’s objective. So my father couldn’t go out because for men it was much more dangerous because they could tell who was a Jew, who was not a Jew, so my father couldn’t go out. He stayed put and my mother used to get dressed up like a farm woman and she used to go out at night among different gentiles to see if she could find somebody. So she finally made a contact with some gentile that she knew, that my parents knew, and she explained the situation and he said, “You know, I have somebody coming to me from a little village about thirty kilometers from Przemysl maybe tomorrow. He is not entirely kosher, this guy, himself. I’ll tell you why. And maybe he would be interested, he would be willing to take you, the four of you, into hiding. So sure enough, he told her, “Come back tomorrow night and he will probably be here by me tomorrow night and I will talk with him and you can talk with him and maybe he will agree.” That was a town called Dubiecko, which was about thirty kilometers from Przemysl. And he came and my mother spoke to him. And in the meantime, he was illegal. The gentile was illegal because he himself ran away from a German labour camp. He was taken to a German labour camp to work.

Q: Polish?

A: Polish, yes. A goy. And he was taken to a German labour camp. He ran away from the camp and he came back home, so he was illegal. He couldn’t work. If the Gestapo would find him, they would shoot him on the spot, so his life was on the line, his life was in danger. So he had no means of making a living.

Q: He needed money.

A: He needed money. Desperately he needed money.

Q: And he went back to his own home?

A: He went back to his own home in Dubiecko. The family – his wife and the children…

Q: He wasn’t scared that they would find him there?

A: Well, maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know exactly, but he came back home. Initially he came back home.

Q: And he had a family?

A: He had a family. A wife and two children.

Q: How old was he about?

A: The daughter was about my age, the daughter.

Q: And he was in his forties?

A: No. He was probably…yes, I would say early to middle forties. And his wife and the two children. So agreed to take us.

Q: What was his name?

A: Krayzarek (sp?). So we made up a certain time and a certain date when my parents and us, the children, we would all come to that fellow’s house and he would come there too and he would make arrangements with a horse and buggy or something to take us to his house over there in Dubiecko. So in the meantime, my parents were in touch with this uncle and with the boy, so when we got over there to the house, we already had more or less a certain degree of permanency because we knew…

Q: Do you remember going to the town?

A: Sure I remember.

Q: It was at night?

A: I remember we went with the horse and the buggy. I’m not sure. It was like maybe twilight. It wasn’t at night. It was in the middle of the day we were going.

Q: But with your regular clothes or you were dressed in some way?

A: Well, I had the pants and the shirt and the sweater or something or whatever.

Q: And you saw your parents after you haven’t seen them for how long?

A: I hadn’t seen them maybe a couple of months or something. Maybe two or three months – something like that.

Q: It must have been also exciting.

A: Yes, of course. It was like a family reunion. So he picked us up, he took us.

Q: You got to the village.

A: We got to the village.

Q: Okay. We have to take a break. Are you up to continuing another hour or is it difficult for you? Do you want to split?

A: No, I could do another hour.

Q: Another hour?

A: Yes, I could do another hour.

Q: Or do you want us to split? If we are going to split, then we can do it. Split now and come and do…

A: I don’t think we have that much longer really. I think maybe an hour, an hour and a half and we can finish what we finish.

Q: With the interview. Okay, because we wanted to speak also after the war.

A: Maybe two hours. I would just as well get finished with it because we are pressed for time. We are only staying here another two weeks. We have different things to take of, so…

Q: Okay, no problem. If you feel…

A: But maybe we’ll break for like for half an hour to get something to eat, so maybe we’ll break like for a half hour, if that is okay with you.

Q: That would be more difficult, to take a break.

A: Or fifteen, twenty minutes.

Q: You are pressed for time.

A: Yes, because we are only going to be here less than two weeks.

Q: The one possibility is to continue now and finish, but we can’t take big breaks now. I don’t know. Maybe you are really hungry and it’s hard for you.

A: I’m not that hungry. Maybe I’ll just take a small bite for ten minutes.

Q: The other possibility is to speak with Yad Vashem and perhaps, if you have time, maybe next week, to finish it and do the whole thing. Do you want me to check with them?

A: I would prefer we finish everything today. Is that okay with you guys?

Q: Yes. If you feel that you can…

A: You want to get something to eat or anything?

Q: I am fine. (end of side)

Q: Okay. So we were talking about…

A: Going into the village to hide. Going in the village to hide. So we got to the village. The family was literally starving from hunger. The wife, the children – they were all starving from hunger. There was no food, no wood to heat the house for the winter. Nothing.

Q: It was a private house?

A: Private house, yes. Nice size, but they had nothing, they had nothing.

Q: And where did they put you up?

A: They put us up initially, in the beginning, in the house.

Q: All of you in the same room?

A: Not in the same room. Like spread around the house Me and my sister maybe in one area, my parents in another area.

Q: He had a wife and two children.

A: A boy, a young, little boy and a daughter my age.

Q: And what did they tell them who you were?

A: I don’t know what he told them.

Q: Like you were relatives?

A: I think the daughter knew that he was hiding Jews. I think that the daughter knew. They knew. I think the daughter was smart enough. She was already – this was 1942, so the daughter, she was my age. She was about nine or ten, whatever. She realized that the father brought Jews to the house.

Q: But neighbours?

A: Nobody. Only the immediate family.

Q: And you didn’t go out?

A: We didn’t make a step outside.

Q: And people didn’t come into the house while you were there? Now you tell us how it worked.

A: So when we got to the house my mother realized we had to do something with the boy and the uncle. So she spoke to the goy to see if he would be agreeable if we would make arrangements for the boy and the uncle to come join us, from the ghetto.

Q: You are talking about the neighbour’s boy whom you mentioned.

A: Yes, yes. The boy that the lady left. Genek. And the uncle, that he was (?). So the goy agreed to take them. So he had to go back to Przemysl and they had smuggle their way out of the ghetto and they joined us. So the boy and the uncle also came to our place.

Q: Do you remember the uncle’s name?

A: Yes. His name was Frankel.

Q: That was his last name.

A: Last name. Okay. That is a story in itself.

Q: So you are now six people hiding.

A: Six people hiding – us four and this uncle and Genek, the boy, so we were six. So all of a sudden my mother and father gave the goy money to buy food, to buy wood to be able to heat the house because in those days they didn’t have the facilities that we have now – ovens and air-conditioning, whatever. And all of a sudden – they were very poor people, right – so all of a sudden, the lady, the wife started wearing jewellery that my mother sold, the gold jewellery and nicer clothing and everything.

Q: And people noticed.

A: And people noticed in the village. We were like maybe two blocks away from the police station, right in the centre of the village, in the house. So there was a rumour going around that he, the goy, is in the Polish underground. There was a Polish underground fighting the Germans. So there was a rumour going around that he was in the Polish underground and he snuck into the house, he brought money to the house and he disappears.

Q: They didn’t know he returned from the camps?

A: Nobody knew where he was, but the rumour that started going around…

Q: And he was in the house, hiding with you?

A: He was in the house, hiding with us, because if anybody knew, and the Gestapo used to come to search the house for him. Every two, three months the Gestapo used to come to look for him.

Q: And what did you do when the Gestapo came?

A: So let me continue. So after the uncle and the boy came, my mother and my father, they realized that we needed to have a place where to hide in case the Germans came, in case somebody came to the house. We needed to have a place where to hide. So my mother was very creative, so we decided…when you walked into the house, there was like a big hallway, a very big, deep hallway. So trick number 1 – we made like a double wall in the hallway, like a double wall, and from the living room, the so-called living room, we cut out a hole in the corner in the living room to be able to crawl in there in case somebody came to the house, so we could crawl into that space between the two walls. So that was one hiding place we made. And then we made a cover for the hole, painted like the wall, and she would put like some kind of piece of furniture up against the wall so nobody should see it. That was one place we built to hide.

Q: And what would be the warning? How would you know?

A: We would know. Many times somebody would watch…we were like on the ground floor, so we would watch from the window to see if anybody was approaching the house.

Q: You kept watch?

A: Yes, somebody from the family kept watching, or from the other people. Somebody kept always watch. The goy was in the house and he kept watching to see if anybody was getting close to the house. Sometimes neighbours, friends would come. So we had this place, so if somebody would knock on the door, she would lock the door to that living room and we would all have a change to crawl into that space. And then my mother had another idea – to do the same thing, like a double wall, in the cellar. There was a cellar in their building, so we made like a double wall in the cellar and the floorboards in the small village, in the country – they didn’t have parquet flooring. They had big boards. So we made up one of the boards, like up against the wall, one or two boards we could lift up and climb down to that double space in the basement and we would hide over there, depending on who was coming. And sometimes she had like a water (?) that was standing on the corner. If just some neighbours came, then some of us would hide behind the closet until this neighbour left. Okay, so we had like different possibilities where to hide.

Q: And how was the day-by-day? What did you do?

A: And other times, when things were quiet, we would go up to the attic. There was a big attic and we would pick up the step ladder all the way up – there was like a step ladder to climb up – so nobody could get up there. While we were up in the attic we pulled up the step ladder up into the attic so nobody could get up.

Q: And what did you do with yourselves during those days?

A: What did we do? She would get a newspaper or sometimes if we were downstairs and nobody was coming, we would listen to the radio and read the paper.

Q: There was a radio?

A: There was a radio in the house. Yes, they had a radio in the house. So they had the radio.

Q: She prepared the food for you?

A: She prepared the food for us.

Q: All of you ate together or each one separately ?

A: I don’t remember exactly. I think we all ate together, I think.

Q: How were the relations? You were like ten people there. Altogether.

A: Well, with this family and us, we were like ten people. But they would eat on their own and we would eat by ourselves.

Q: You got along? There was tension?

A: Yes, we got along pretty much. We got along.

Q: There was a bathroom there?

A: Oh sure.

Q: You could wash?

A: There was a bathroom. On the main floor there was a bathroom. We could wash and take a shower, whatever, yes. We could wash. And she would bake bread. She had like an old uncle or grandfather. I don’t know who he was. There was like an old man in the house. Also a family member.

Q: You had nothing with you. Just your own clothes.

A: We had nothing. Just our own clothes.

Q: The whole time you were with the same clothes?

A: Well, little by little my mother had better clothing, so we started selling the clothing, selling the jewellery that my mother had. My father had a gold watch. Selling everything. Little by little we started selling everything – my mother’s rings. Whatever we had.

Q: That was the way you paid for staying there.

A: That’s how we paid for hiding, yes.

Q: And for food.

A: And for food. So my mother also had a robe all the way down to the floor and every button in the robe had a gold coin hidden in it. A gold coin. So we used to sell the coins, and that’s how we were paying the goyim for hiding us and getting food.

Q: They were nice people?

A: The goy was drunk, of the first degree a drunk. If he was legal and he would have been able to walk the streets, we couldn’t stay there for more than ten minutes maybe, or fifteen, because he would get drunk he would give us all away. He used to get drunk in the house, right in the house, in front of us. He used to get drunk something unbelievable.

Q: Become violent?

A: No, he wasn’t violent, but he would want to do crazy things when he got drunk. For example, like we were on the ground floor in the village, he would want to climb out from the window into the square and sing the Polish national anthem.

Q: So how did you keep him from trouble?

A: So we grabbed him by his legs and pulled him in, not to allow him to get out from the window into the square because he would give us all away.

Q: A lot of tension.

A: A lot of tension, a lot of pressure, a lot of tension.

Q: They were religious?

A: Who?

Q: They. Catholic?

A: No. He couldn’t go anywhere. He couldn’t go anywhere and she was religiously oriented, I should say. I don’t know if she went to church, didn’t go to church. I don’t know.

Q: And did you and your father keep praying?

A: No, no.

Q: You couldn’t maintain anything.

A: No. There was nothing going, no praying, no nothing. A little praying maybe, silently, without a siddur, without nothing.

Q: And you said you got a newspaper from her. That you read the newspaper.

A: Yes, she kept getting, buying papers, newspapers.

Q: Did you have any information of what was going on all the time?

A: Yes sure, sure.

Q: You weren’t totally disconnected.

A: No.

Q: You knew what was going on?

A: We knew what was going on. The Russian invasion we knew. They liquidated the ghetto, we knew the ghetto was liquidated in Przemsyl.

Q: You knew about the liquidation?

A: We knew. We knew everything. That the ghetto was liquidated and we knew that that Russians, the big fighting between the Germans and the Russians.

Q: You heard of Stalingrad?

A: And who was winning the war and Stalingrad, where the Germans had a setback and the Russians started a new invasion and the America joined the war effort with Russia.

Q: So you knew all this?

A: We knew all this, we knew all this. Every time we heard the Russian army advancing, getting closer a little bit, little by little…

Q: Around that village were there partisans?

A: No, there was a Polish underground. That was the partisans.

Q: Kriova?

A: “AK”, they called them. “AK”. The Polish underground.

Q: Did you have any contact?

A: No, we had no contact with them at all. At all. None.

Q: Armia Krajowa.

A: By us they called it “AK”, the Polish underground.

Q: But you had no contact?

A: We had no contact with them.

Q: Any contact with anybody?

A: No contact with anybody. No contact.

Q: Nobody knew that you were hiding there?

A: Nobody knew that we were alive. Okay. So we built these bunkers and we were hiding there and the Gestapo kept coming, looking for him because he was supposedly the Polish underground and they were trying to catch him now because he was illegal and if they found him they would shoot him on the spot. So his life was on the line, his life was in danger.

Q: When the Gestapo would come you would go into hiding?

A: We would go down into the cellar into the bunker to hide.

Q: Did you hear anything?

A: Sure. We would see the Gestapo, the army approaching, so we would have enough time, a few minutes to get into the bunker and she would put the couch or whatever on top of the boards that we opened up.

Q: And did you hear them?

A: Oh, we heard them like they were next door. Behind the wall we would hear. They were walking on the floors with their boots. We would hear them walk on the floor, we heard them talk. We heard everything, whether we were behind the wall or we were downstairs in the cellar – we heard everything. Even what they were saying to each other.

Q: Was there any point that you were optimistic that this was going to end one day? Was there a feeling at a certain point or you were just desperate?

A: No. We were optimistic that this was sooner or later going to come to an end, especially once the Germans had that setback in Stalingrad and the Russian army started advancing, then we knew it was the beginning of the end.

Q: So you were optimistic?

A: All the time we were optimistic that eventually this was going to come to an end.

Q: And that you were going to make it.

A: And that we were going to survive. Unless, during the time – because our lives were hanging on a thread because the Gestapo kept looking for the goy all the time.

Q: How often would they come?

A: They would come like every three months, every four months. They would come and search the whole house. They would look all over and our lives were hanging on a thread. If they would find us…

Q: And he would hide with you?

A: He would hide with us.

Q: How did she manage?

A: One time, this boy that we had with us, the boy my age – he had what they call “cockruge”, the disease. He was coughing, cough disease and the Germans came in to search for the guy, so we wrapped him up in blankets and pillows and whatever we had and he almost suffocated because we (?) if anybody would hear any noise from the other side, we would all be finished.

Q: How did the Polish woman deal with the Gestapo?

A: She didn’t know where her husband was, she never heard from her husband, she didn’t know nothing and that was the end of the story. She didn’t see him, she didn’t hear from him.

Q: So you were saying that he was drunk.

A: A drunk of the first degree.

Q: What kind of person was she, the woman? Can you tell us something about her?

A: She was a stable person, relatively stable, and she was calm.

Q: She was nice to you?

A: She was relatively nice to us, yes.

Q: There were any signs of anti-Semitism?

A: No. She was relatively nice to us. Okay. Anyway. So we stayed down. We were six people with the bunkers, with the two bunkers and the attic. And many times we stayed in the attic. We pulled up the step ladder and we stayed up in the attic. When people came in nobody would see us, nobody would hear from us, and we had to whisper. While we were hiding there we had to whisper because if anybody heard us outside to speak, then they would start getting suspicious that something was going on.

Q: You said that the girl who was about your age, you assumed that she knew.

A: I am sure that she knew.

Q: You weren’t scared that she would say something?

A: Yes. She went to school and everything.

Q: Even unconsciously say something?

A: Yes, she could give us away, she could give us away, but she kept quiet, she kept quiet, and she also knew her father’s life was in danger and everything else, so she understood.

Q: Did you become friends with her?

A: Yes, we were friendly with her, with the girl. And they had a little boy, maybe two years old, three years. A little boy, three years old. Anyway, so we stayed there. And at one point this uncle, the uncle of the boy, got some kind of information that some friends of his, or family members, whoever they were, who were in another place hiding and they had to get out from where they were. There were four people involved, four adults. So he spoke to our goy if he would take these other four people into hiding as well. So sure enough, he agreed to take the other four people, of course for more money and everything. So they came to our place, four Jews. Now we were ten people hiding there. But all those other people, including the uncle and the boy and the other people that came…

Q: Who were they?

A: I don’t know who they were. They were all different names.

Q: Do you remember them?

A: Yes, sure I remember them.

Q: Adults?

A: All adults.

Q: Men, women?

A: Mostly men. Mostly men. I don’t think there were any women.

Q: Four men joining you?

A: Yes.

Q: And you knew them from before?

A: Never.

Q: But they were from Przemysl?

A: No, no. They were from different areas. Nothing to do with Przemysl. They were from different areas. They were hiding somewhere, but the uncle got the message or I don’t know exactly. A letter or something, that they were in danger. They had to get out from where they were, so he arranged for the goy to get them to come to us. Okay. None of them was religious. None of them. Okay. So we were there. Fine.

Q: Got along?

A: We got along, yes. We weren’t exactly “buddy-buddies”, but we all got along.

Q: You had to survive.

A: We had to survive, absolutely. We were all in the same situation.

Q: Same boat.

A: Same boat. So we stayed there for approximately two years in hiding, but during that time there were problems developed where our money was just finished, maybe three, four months before we were liberated. We were completely out of money, out of everything. Our clothing, everything was gone. And they still had money, those other people had money yet.

Q: Were they paying for you as well?

A: No. They did nothing for us. So at one point we were so desperate, we were desperate to pay the goy because he told us, “If you don’t pay me, I’ll kill you like dogs.” That was his attitude. So at one point my mother…decided to leave the house and to go back, try to get back to our town, to Przemsyl. We were like thirty kilometers away. Maybe she would hitchhike or whatever, get a ride, and try to contact different goyim that owed my father money because my father used to give merchandise on credit and people owed my father money. So she would try to contact some of the people that owed my father money.

Q: I get a picture of a very strong woman.

A: Yes. My mother had a lot of drive, tremendous drive and a lot of guts. A lot of guts. If it wasn’t for my mother’s determination and drive, none of us would be alive today.

Q: A very brave woman.

A: Very brave. And very determined. So anyway, she decided to leave the house to try to get back to Przemysl and try to collect some money so we could pay the goy. In the meantime, the other guys realized that if the Germans caught my mother on the way, they caught my mother and they tortured my mother, my mother may give us all away. So they sent the goy’s wife after my mother to try to get her to come home because they realized it may create a big problem if my mother got caught by the Germans.

Q: And so they were swilling to pay for you?

A: They didn’t pay. They didn’t pay. As a matter of fact, at one point these other Jews, the uncle and his group, his friends, so to say, were antagonizing the goy against us. In what way? My mother once passed by and she overheard a conversation that they were talking to the goy that religious people like my father didn’t deserve to survive. So there was a stove nearby with a pot of hot water. My mother took the pot of hot water and poured it down on the guy’s head, the guy that was antagonizing the goy against us. A whole big fight started where they tried to beat up my mother and my father got in the middle to protect my mother…

Q: And you witnessed this?

A: We witnessed it all. So my father tried to protect my mother, so they beat my father up. Right in hiding they beat my father up. That was Jews against Jews under those conditions. They beat my father up and my father was injured and everything. Anyway.

Q: What did you do as a young boy?

A: What did I do? What can I do? I’m going to go fight with those guys? I couldn’t do anything really. What could I do? But anyway, my father was so scratched up, this and that, but that was the end of that. But they were antagonizing the goy against us because we were religious, they were not religious, so we didn’t deserve to survive.

Q: But you said you still had…

A: And we brought them really into hiding. And we generated initially the place to hide. So somehow my father promised the goy that once we got liberated my father would arrange to pay him, give him some property or whatever, because my father owned some property, this and that. My father made some arrangement with the goy that we would pay him, because we knew already at that point that the Russians were not too far away and that it was only of maybe a few months till we got liberated. We knew already.

Q: So you think the goy, the drunk – he had nothing to lose.

A: We were there anyway. What was he going to lose? He had to give us some bread? You know, when we used to get a piece of bread, we used to…

Q: That explains why he didn’t do anything against you.

A: That explains why he didn’t do anything against us.

Q: But it must have been so painful, being under the pressure of not being caught and yet this fight among the Jews.

A: It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable that Jews under those conditions could fight each other because we were religious and they were not religious. That was the whole issue. That was the whole issue, that they were antagonizing the goy that we didn’t deserve to…he shouldn’t keep us. We didn’t deserve to survive.

Q: Do you really think that’s what they were saying?

A: They were very anti religious people. They were very anti religious people. You understand? When I finish the story, you will understand what I am talking about better than you do now. So anyway, there was a whole big fight among the Jews, them against my parents. So anyway, we managed to stay there, with the bunkers, with everything, even though the Gestapo was looking for him and all that. And at one point we realized, we looked to the cracks in the attic, in the fence – the Russians, all of a sudden…before that even happened, we saw the German generals and the army trucks and everybody, because we were watching the main road from where we were, and they were withdrawing, constantly withdrawing, so we knew already that it was the beginning of the end.

Q: This was, do you remember what time?

A: ’44. So we knew already that the liberation was about to take place.

Q: And you were there for about three years?

A: Two years. Approximately two years.

Q: From ’42 to ’44.

A: ’42 to ’44. So at one point, in the morning, we saw, even though the Germans were withdrawing, and all of a sudden, the Russian cavalry, on horses, all of a sudden the Russians came marching in to our village and went to all the houses and they fortified their positions behind the houses. And they came into our house and we told them, “Ivrei, Ivrei”, which in Russian means “Jew”, so they didn’t do nothing to us. They just wanted everybody to know who they were, what they were – if it was German, if it was Polish, if it was Jewish. What was going on. So the Russians already were in the village, occupied the village, and the Germans didn’t know from that side and from this side, the Russians were already in between. The Germans were still withdrawing while the Russians were still in the village. So a whole big fight started between the Germans that were withdrawing – the general staff and all – with limousines and everything – they were going back – and the Russians were already in the village, so a whole big fight started.

Q: And you were in between.

A: And we were in the house. So a whole big fight started between the Russian army and the German…

Q: There was shooting?

A: Shooting. They were shooting, the Russians were shooting, but the Russians were much stronger because they were already fortified in the village. The shooting subsided. I forgot to tell you that while we were there in hiding, this little boy, the son of the goyim that were hiding us – he was about three. Many times when she used to bake and cook things, he had like an apron, he used to wear an apron. He would take cookies and different things and climb up to us when we were in the attic or wherever and bring us food. It was unbelievable. And many times, when somebody would come to the house, he would come and tell us, “You should keep quiet.”

Q: The little boy?

A: The little boy.

Q: He warned you.

A: He warned us to keep quiet or go into the bunker or whatever because somebody was in the house or coming to the house.

Q: Do you remember his name, the little boy?

A: I think Janek. So that took place and the Russians were in the village and we still didn’t go out, but once the shooting subsided, the German limousines were still in town. Everything was at a stop. The convoy was at a stop, and the goyim started running to these limos, to the German limos, hoping they would get money, find money, find gold, whatever. So our goy, with the little boy, also went to the limos over there – We were still in house – hoping that they would find some treasures over there. Meantime, the Germans had some important documents in there, with them in the cars, and they notified the German air force to come and bomb this convoy, that it shouldn’t get into Russian hands. So all of a sudden, the German planes came in and they started bombing this whole convoy and a lot of people got injured. Our goy got injured and the boy got killed.

Q: The little boy.

A: The little boy. So we were saved. It had to be some mallach (angel) that was watching us and once this mission was finished, he disappeared. He disappeared. The day we were liberated was the day he disappeared.

Q: The little boy.

A: The little boy. So anyway, so we were liberated and we went out from the goy.

Q: Do you remember the feeling, knowing the Russians had come? Did you understand that meant the war was over?

A: Well, the war wasn’t over yet. The war wasn’t over till 1945. But we were liberated.

Q: I mean, for you.

A: For us the war was over.

Q: Any kind of expression of happiness?

A: Well, happiness. I could barely walk because of being cooped up in the bunkers and cooped up, not having any exercise. My legs wouldn’t walk. So all of a sudden we met the high officer in the Russian army who was Jewish and there was a river in the village. There was a river. He told me I should soak my legs in the river and the legs would regain their energy.

Q: You were also undernourished?

A: We were all undernourished because we didn’t have food and we didn’t have money to pay, so we were all undernourished – my father, my mother, my sister, me, everybody. So finally we left the goy.

Q: How did the Russians behave? We know today…

A: The Russians didn’t give us any problems.

Q: But we know in other places they were raping women.

A: No, no. In our situation there was no problem with the Russians. They were nice to us. And my father still something of an old watch that he wasn’t able to sell even, that didn’t work. “Chassee”. The Russians called “chassee”. That’s Russian. So my father gave this watch to some Russian officer, whatever, and the officer gave him a pair of boots, leather boots, as an exchange. The later, the leather boots, my father sold the leather boots and that’s how we got some money to be able to manage. Not to pay yet. To be able to buy some food, to be able to do something.

Q: You stayed there?

A: We were all still in Dubiecko, still in Dubiecko, in the village.

Q: And where did you live?

A: Not the same place. We went out of that place, we went out from the place and we rented some farm. My father took some farmhouse.

Q: Were there any other Jews hiding there?

A: Yes. There were some other Jews hiding in our vicinity, in the area.

Q: Did you know?

A: We knew that Jews were hiding there and they knew that we were hiding here. They knew.

Q: What happened to the other four men and the…?

A: Everybody went different ways. Everybody left.

Q: You had nothing to do with them anymore.

A: We had nothing to do with them, nothing to do with them.

Q: It was just your own family now?

A: Yes, just our family. We stayed in this farmhouse and the Russians or the Germans or somebody, when they were fighting, they left some barrels of marmalade in the field, so we picked up this marmalade and I was eating marmalade because we had no food, no nothing, so we picked up this barrel of marmalade. And then eventually, we left this town.

Q: Were you thinking of going back to Przemysl?

A: We went back to Przemysl, right, and we rented an apartment back in Przemysl.

Q: Did you ever go back to your own apartment?

A: No, no, no. We never went back to our apartment. marmalade because we had no food, no nothing, so we picked up this barrel of marmalade. And then eventually, we left this town.

Q: Were you thinking of going back to Przemysl?

A: We went back to Przemysl, right, and we rented an apartment back in Przemysl.

Q: Did you ever go back to your own apartment?

A: No, no, no. We never went back to our apartment. Never went back. There were goyim living there and we didn’t go back to our apartment. We didn’t have any connection with where we used to live. So we rented an apartment and my father started doing some business with the Russian troops, like buying some merchandise from them and selling it on the open market.

Q By this time, did you have any idea what had happened to your mother’s family in Siberia?

A: No, not yet.

Q: Not yet. You thought they were not alive?

A: We didn’t know where they were or what happened to them. We didn’t know,

Q: No idea?

A: No idea.

Q: Any other relatives returning to Przemysl?

A: No one came. We didn’t know nothing yet. That was in the right in the beginning when we were liberated. We didn’t know nothing.

Q: You didn’t know yet what had happened?

A: We didn’t know what happened. We didn’t know where they were. We didn’t know nothing.

Q: And did you hear already about the camps, about Auschwitz?

A: Oh, we knew about Auschwitz and Mauthausen. We knew already the whole story. We knew everything.

Q: About the war?

A: About the war.

Q: About the Jews in Poland.

A: We figured that most of them were killed and we knew already the whole story. So we stayed in Przemysl and the Pollacks were telling us, “If Hitler didn’t kill you, we will kill you.” After the war already.

Q: Anti-Semitism.

A: Anti-Semitism, right.

Q: Were there riots also?

A: No riots. No riots. We didn’t have any riots in Przemysl.

Q: Like in Kielce.

A: No, we didn’t have any riots. A lot of the Jews that survived went down to claim their properties, their houses or whatever, and many of the people after the war got killed when they came to claim their properties. Well, we didn’t claim any property, we didn’t claim nothing. My father just tried to survive.

Q: What did you do, the kids? You were at home?

A: By that time, ’44, I was already eleven, so after we got settled, after we got ourselves together and organized a little bit, I was telling my parents that we have to get out. That we have to get out.

Q: Out of Poland?

A: Out of Poland.

Q: You were telling them?

A: I was telling them because I have pretty much my mother’s personality. I am very driven and very determined and I am very much like my mother.

Q: And you felt it, that what?

A: I felt that there was a danger, a danger to stay. A danger of the possibility of getting killed. A lot of persecution by the goyim against the Jews, so whatever Jews there were, the few Jews that were, I started to tell my parents, “We have to get out. Even we all get out or I go.”

Q: And you were at home the whole time?

A: Home with my parents.

Q: There was no school, nothing?

A: No school, no nothing. Everything was hefker. No Jews.

Q: You actually were eleven years old and never experienced what it means to go to school.

A: That’s right. So I said, “Either we all go or I go.” So my father realized that I was going to go. So he decided we all go. So we moved to Krakow. We got out of Przemysl, we moved to Krakow.

Q: Going, meaning…?

A: We were going towards the Polish border with Czechoslovakia.

Q: But the intention was going to Palestine?

A: We had no intention of nothing. We just wanted to get out of Poland and to what was going to be later. Just to get out. So we moved to Krakow. We stayed in Krakow for about…we tried to get closer to the Polish border. We moved to Krakow. We stayed in Krakow for about three months. We rented an apartment, a temporary apartment.

Q: Did the Jewish community there, the Joint, help you?

A: Yes, the Joint and UNWRA were sending packages, giving packages, giving food.

Q: Helping you in Krakow.

A: Yes, and once we got to Krakow, the Joint and UNWRA, they were all helping the refugees, all the displaced people. So we all got some packages, some food, I remember…so forth and so on.

Q: Now, on the one hand you had your mother’s sister in Palestine. Right?

A: My mother’s sister in Palestine.

Q: At this point did you renew contact?

A: After a while we renewed contact. Not yet, not yet. Everything was…

Q: And you also had relatives in the States.

A: My father had some second cousins in the States. Everything was like upside-down because we were not properly organized yet. So finally we went to Krakow, we smuggled our way from Poland out to Czechoslovakia, Humenne, Czechoslovakia.

Q: Who helped you?

A: The objective was to get to the Allied zone.

Q: And who was helping you?

A: No one was helping us.

Q: On your own?

A: All on our own. We were not part of a group or anything.

Q: Not part of the “Bricha”? You know the “Bricha” movement?

A: No, no. We were all on our own. Everything on our own.

Q: Not the “Bricha”?

A: Nothing. Nothing to do with the “Bricha”. We had no contact with the “Bricha”, we had no contact with nobody.

Q: Because they were organizing smuggling Jews.

A: Yes, but in Krakow there was no “Bricha”, there was no nothing. So we went to Humenne, Czechoslovakia, whatever, and eventually we moved to Prague, went to Bratislava, to all different places.

Q: This was already ’45?

A: ’44. ’44, ’45.

Q: The war hadn’t ended yet.

A: The war hadn’t ended yet, but we were liberated already. Poland was liberated by the Russians. Or parts of Poland were liberated.

Q: So from Prague where did you go to?

A: All we were trying to do was get to the Allies’ side, so we stayed in Prague for awhile, maybe two, three months or whatever, and then we eventually we kept moving towards the Allied side.

Q: How did you manage? How did you have food, money?

A: Well, my father was a businessman, so every place we went, he tried to do a little business with troops, with this, with that. You know, (Yiddish). You know what (?) means? So he made some money on the way. Every place we went he made some money. Came to Krakow, he made some money in Krakow. We came to Prague, he made some money in Prague. No big money. Some money, enough to be able to survive.

Q: So eventually where did you end up?

A: So we ended up…once we ended up on the Allied side…I remember we came to Pilsen and then from Pilsen we went some other place and then we tied up with the chayalim (soldiers), with the chayalim from the British brigade.

Q: The Jewish brigada.

A: The Jewish brigada from the British army. Once we tied up with them, they had the camps for all the refugees, all the displaced people, and we stayed in one camp and then we went to another camp.

Q: You are talking about the DP camps?

A: The DP camps, right.

Q: In Germany?

A: In Germany, in Austria, Germany, all different camps.

Q: Do you remember names of the camps?

A: No, I don’t remember. The last camp I remember was Modena, Italy. That’s where we wound up, in Modena, Italy, eventually. We wound up in Modena, Italy. And the concept was that all the people were going to go on Aliyah Bet with the chayalim to Israel.

Q: To Palestine.

A: Yes.

Q: So you were thinking you were going to make…

A: Well, the goal was to go with the chayalim, to get on a ship and to go to Aliyah Bet to Israel. But the travelling conditions at that time on the trains and everything were so crazy. Everything was crazy. No tickets, no nothing, and the people were travelling on top of the trains, literally, the young people. On top of the trains, and it was very dangerous. And my father was thinking what to do here because the situation was terrible. We just came out from one fire and in the meantime the war of 1948 was brewing in Israel, the war of liberation, so my father said, “We just got out from this gehinnom and we are going into another gehinnom,” as if to say. You understand what gehinnom means?

Q: It’s not the yet the Independence War because you are talking about ’45, ’46.

A: I am talking about when we were moving from place to place in order to get to Palestine. So we were already on the train to go to Bari in Italy, to the ship, to go to Palestine. So the train was passing through Bologna, Italy. My father said, “We are getting off. We are getting off the train.”

Q: Why?

A: He was not going anywhere.

Q: Because he had mixed feelings about going to Palestine, Cyprus with the British, with all the trouble. He had had enough. He had enough, up to here. So the train stopped in Bologna. Us and another couple got off of the train and train went, and we remained in Bologna in the railroad station. So we didn’t know where to go, what to do. We didn’t speak the language, we didn’t know anything, and all the Italians looked like Jews, so my father went around. You know, the Jews used to identify each other. Amcha, the Italians said, and didn’t know what he was talking about. Finally, he found his way somehow with his fingers and his hands to the Jewish community, that there was a Jewish community building in Bologna. Every city, major city had a Jewish Communita Israelita d’Italia, they call it. I speak fluent Italian because I went to school in Italy. That’s another story. So my father found his way over there and he explained to them that we were here with the railroad, we had no place to go. So they gave us a room in their building.

Q: In the Jewish community?

A: Jewish community. “Bring your family. We’ll give you a room. We have no furniture, no nothing. We’ll give you some mattresses – you’ll sleep on the floor until things improve.” So my father met some Jews over there. Also other Jews had come there, some other Jews were there.

Q: From Poland?

A: From different places. Some other Jews that came there. And we stayed there for a little while in that Jewish community building and eventually…Yes. My father met some officer from the Polish army. There was a Polish Brigade in the British army, under General Anders. So this officer was a friend of my father’s. He was a doctor, so my father knew him from before the war. So he came to my father and he told him, “Listen. My wife is still in Poland and I need to get my wife out of Poland to here, to me.” And he offered my father, to pay some money, whatever, to take the risk to go back to Poland, to smuggle his way back to Poland to get his wife and to smuggle her out of Poland and himself and come back to Italy to connect them together.

Q: And your father did that?

A: My father did that.

Q: Why did he do it? He needed the money?

A: Well, he needed the money, yes.

Q: And he wasn’t scared of doing it?

A: Well, he was scared, but he did it anyway.

Q: And your mother didn’t object?

A: I guess not, because he did it. So he smuggled his way back to Poland, he connected with the doctor’s wife and eventually – it took him quite some time. It took him a number of months until he came back to Italy with his wife and the doctor paid him some substantial amount of money for getting his wife out of Poland, whatever. And eventually we rented our own apartment in Bologna. We rented a private apartment. Nothing to do with anybody.

Q: Thinking that you were staying there?

A: Thinking that we were staying there for a while until my aunt in Israel, my uncle, sent us certificates to be able to come to Israel like normal people.

Q: Legally.

A: Legally. Not with all the trouble with Cyprus and everything else. So we stayed in Bologna and there were a few other Jews in Bologna and there was like a little square and the Jews used to deal with the soldiers, with the chayalim – with the British soldiers, with the American soldiers, with the Polish soldiers. And my father used to do a little business with them. They used to buy everything in the P-EX – they had the P-EX in the army camps and in town, after the war, you weren’t able to buy anything because there was nothing available. So my father used to buy some stuff from the P-EX – whiskey and all kinds of things and cigarettes and chocolates and all kinds of things and sell it on the open market. So that is how we were able to survive. So the Jews were like (?).

Q: There was like a local Jewish community as well?

A: Just the Jewish community building. The Jewish community building. That was an Italian organization. Nothing to do with the Polish Jews or the Italian Jews.

Q: It was local.

A: It was a local organization geared mainly to Italian Jews, whatever Jews…

Q: How many Jews were there in Bologna at that time?

A: Italian Jews, I don’t know how many, but the refugees, displaced people – there were maybe fifteen, twenty…

Q: But I am asking, the local Jewish people were helping you?

A: The local Jewish people, we had no contact with them. Not much contact with them at all because they were very assimilated, the Italian Jews were very assimilated. For example, when they passed by a shul, a synagogue, they kissed the wall and they walked. So anyway, fine. So now we lived privately and they opened up, the chayalim opened up another refugee camp right in Bologna, so my father got some tutors, some young men, to come to teach me…

Q: At home?

A: At home. Rashi and chumash and all that, to try to get me…

Q: And also general studies?

A: No. That was a separate issue. Then my parents started looking around for somebody that could help me study secular subjects – math, history, all that.

Q: And for your sister as well?

A: My sister was already…she was like self-educated. She used to read a lot in different things, so she was pretty much self-educated. So they found a schoolteacher, an Italian fellow, and I had to study the language, everything from scratch, because I didn’t know a word of Italian or nothing. So this fellow offered to tutor me in secular subjects and the language and everything else. First the language, and then school subjects. And he loved me like as if I was his son. This Italian teacher. He was unbelievable. He was like a mallach (angel).

Q: What was his name? Do you remember?

A: Yes, I remember. Munyatsi. Professor Munyatsi. He had two daughters. One daughter was a medical student and one daughter was my age, about my age. Julichila and Adrianna. I remember. So anyway, he used to teach me and he used to love me. He didn’t know what to do with me. And his wife was very religious. She used to pray all the time to Yossel. She used to pray all the time and he laughed, he laughed at the whole religion. The teacher, my professor, used to laugh, joke. He said, “Look how much smarter Jews are. If one Jew was able to fool four hundred million people,” meaning Yossel fooled four hundred million people. That’s what he used to say to me. So he laughed at the whole thing, the Catholic religion.

Q: We have to take a break because we have to change the cassette.

A: I remember a lot.

Q: You remember very well. Very well.

A: It’s not so easy for me to talk about these experiences.

Q: Yes. It is very emotional. I can understand, but I keep telling you how important it is to hear this.

A: I never told the story to my grandchildren.

Q: I will ask you about that.

A: I never told them the story.

Q: So now they will be able to see it when they grow up.

A: My son has a good idea of what, my experiences. Not entirely, but he has a pretty good idea, but my grandchildren don’t know. I wanted at some point to take them to Poland and show them…

Q: Don’t tell me. I want to talk to you about it. Okay? I want to have it on the cassette, so I will ask you about it.

A: I’m fine. I had a bite before. I am fine. They wanted to divide the interview into two times. I said I would just as well get it finished today, so we don’t have to deal with all this another day.

A2: Did you tell them what the Polish people told you after?

A: Yes, I told them everything.

A2: That they would kill you?

Q: And they did kill some people. It is amazing how people survived it. Unbelievable.

A2: How do you feel about it?

Q: It is amazing, it is just amazing and it gives me a lot of koach (strength). I think we are so spoilt. I mean, what they went through.

A2: Yes, I had it good.

Q: It give me a lot of proportion, to appreciate other things. We don’t realize how lucky we are. We complain about life…

A: Our children were born already with a silver spoon in their mouth.

Q: So was I. (?) You really learn to appreciate.

A: We come from what they call “the school of hard knocks”.

Q: Life.

Q: Yes. You went to the real school.

A: And our children don’t realize.

Q: Yes.

A: See, we have a lot of life experience and our children don’t even have any idea what we went through.

Q: I don’t think people can really understand it.

A: Unless you were there you cannot understand it.

Q: Even if I hear the story, I try to, but I can’t picture.

A: It is very difficult to understand from the story because the feelings and the fears were just unbelievable. (end of side)

A: Do you all the interviews of Holocaust survivors?

Q: I’m not the only one.

A: I’m sure, but you hear a lot of stories, right?

Q: And each story is very moving. I get very…

A: You can write a book about all the experiences that you hear.

Q: One day maybe.

Q: We are in Italy, in Bologna. You were trying to catch up with your schooling.

A: Catch up with my schooling, my Jewish studies and my secular studies and the language. That was the key. So after a year or so, I mastered the language pretty well.

Q: Your parents were learning Italian as well?

A: No, no, no. My parents were picking up Italian from the street, more or les..

Q: How did they feel in Italy?

A: Fine, fine. That’s all coming. The Italian people treated us…they were angels to us. The Jewish people weren’t nearly as nice as the Italian goyim. The Italian goyim were mallachim. Like my father used to do business, buy merchandise and things, and many times, even Italian businesspeople would give my father merchandise to sell, like jewellery or different things. They didn’t even know his name or where he lived and they trusted him with merchandise to be able to sell to make some profit in order to be able to survive. They didn’t even know where he lived or his name or anything. They were just unbelievable, the Italian people in Bologna. They were fantastic. Even the tutor, the Italian professor that was teaching me – I don’t think he even took much money from my parents to teach me.

Q: You made friends?

A: In Italy?

Q: Yes, you.

A: No. I had some friends among the Jewish families that were in Bologna. I had some friends in Bologna.

Q: They were mostly from Poland as well?

A: Well, my friend was from Poland, yes.

Q: At home you kept on speaking what? Yiddish? Polish?

A: With my parents I used to speak mostly Yiddish.

Q: Also in Italy? At home?

A: All over. We spoke mostly Yiddish. At home. And with my sister, I used to speak Polish a lot with my sister.

Q: And in Italy your father, the family started again leading a Jewish life?

A: Not much of a Jewish life because the facilities were very limited. There really wasn’t much of a shul even except…

Q: And at home?

A: Talking about in Bologna. There wasn’t much of a shul even except for the Jewish community building, had a small shul.

Q: So he went to pray?

A: Yes, we went to pray, but it wasn’t any more what it used to be. My father didn’t wear the Chassidic garb or anything like that. No more. That was all gone already. The Chassidic garb that my father used to wear before the war.

Q: You think the war also undermined his belief? Your belief? Or it didn’t. Or it strengthened. Some people, you know, the Holocaust…I’m not talking about religion. I am talking about belief.

A: In some people it undermined their belief totally. In other people, I don’t know if it strengthened, but they managed to hold onto their belief.

Q: I’m talking about your family. I’m talking about you.

A: And in some people it created a lot of doubts.

Q: What about yourself?

A: Me? It created a lot of doubts.

Q: It did?

A: Yes.

Q: Can you elaborate on that?

A: What were the doubts? A Chassidic guy once asked me this question in America. “How could somebody that went through the experiences that you went through, how can you still believe in G-d?” A Chassidic guy asked me that. I told him, “I should probably believe in G-d due to the fact that so many people were killed and I am alive.”

Q: The fact that you were saved after all.

A: That’s right. So maybe G-d was watching me. Maybe we had some special zochut (right) that G-d watched us, that we should survive. So maybe that is the reason that we are alive and other people got killed. So in one way it creates doubts and in another, it strengthens your belief.

Q: Do you think that’s what happened to your father as well, this kind of dichotomy?

A: I’m sure one way or another everybody had certain doubts, how could a tragedy..?

Q: Is it something that you ever spoke about with our parents?

A: No.

Q: Everyone to himself.

A: Right.

Q: And if we are speaking of the family, you went through really a lot together as a family. It was really abnormal, not normal

A: Not normal

Q: What did it do to you as a family?

A: No, it didn’t do much to the family. The family stuck together all the time, the family stuck together all the time.

Q: It brought you closer? You were more dependent?

A: We were always close, we were always close, so during the hiding times, after we were liberated, after we came to Italy, after all that – we were always a close family.

Q: And yet also it was not normal in the sense that you as a kid had to see your parents in very difficult situations. Your father was beaten at a certain point. They had to struggle. You had to become almost like an adult yourself.

A: That’s right. We had no youth, we had no youth. We went from being kids to becoming adults. We had no youth because we realized our responsibilities in the ghetto – when we escaped from the ghetto, when we went into hiding, when we were liberated. So we had no youth. We went from being kids to becoming adults. That’s what it really boiled down to.

Q: And how long did you stay in Bologna, Italy?

A: We stayed about three years.

Q: Three years. Was it kind of a healing time for you?

A: Well, the life was normal.

Q: Yes, but was it also a healing process for you?

A: Well, maybe it was a healing process, maybe you can call it that, but the fact that life was normal again, more or less sort of normal, and the mere fact that I had to study a new language and everything and do everything in a new language was very difficult.

Q: At a certain point were your parents considering staying there?

A: No, no, no.

Q: Or still the background of Palestine, Eretz Yisrael?

A: No, no. The objective at the time was to wait for my aunt to send us papers for us to be able to get to Palestine. All this time. In the meantime, we met a friend in Bologna that was going to Ecuador, another Polish Jew, and my father told him, “If things in Ecuador are relatively stable and the economy is good and there are some opportunities, business opportunities, send us papers. We’ll come to Ecuador.” My father told this friend. The friend went to Ecuador and he established himself over there and eventually he sent us papers to come to Ecuador. So my father was hesitating what to do, what not to do, to make a decision, so eventually he decided to go to Ecuador. So he sent my sister to Roma to pick up the visa from the Ecuadorian consulate and by the time my sister got there, the visa expired. The visa expired and we never went to Ecuador. In the meantime, my sister was getting older. My sister was becoming a young lady, so my father was very worried that unless we got into a Jewish community, a larger community, she may wind up with some goy or whatever, and my father was very worried, so as a result of which, we moved from Bologna to Roma. In the meantime, in Bologna already I had finished substantially the schooling with this professor that I had. He was wonderful. And we moved to Roma and again, my father hired an Italian tutor for me and there was a much larger Jewish community already in Roma and there were shuls and we used to go to daven. A lot of Polish Jews were there.

Q: And he was making a living from exchanging things?

A: Dealing with the troops and dealing with the Italians and dealing with the market and so forth and so on. So anyway, we were in Roma and eventually Truman became president. When Truman became president, he signed the DP Bill of Rights. And when Truman signed the DP Bill of Rights, my father registered to go to America. So eventually, after two years of being in Roma, our turn came.

Q: You were studying at home?

A: No. I was studying with tutors.

Q: In Roma?

A: In Bologna and in Roma.

Q: You didn’t go to any school?

A: No, but every time I studied a certain program, I would take the State exam. In Bologna already I started taking the State exams. Let’s say, finish elementary, let’s say in one year I did five years or whatever of elementary school – the teacher, the professor made me take the State exam. After I finished the high school program, the professor made me take a State exam. So once I passed a State exam I was already qualified. You understand? In Roma too the same thing, so by the time I was finished with all the exams and all the schooling, it was equivalent to what they teach in America in high school. So my father registered to come to America with the DP Bill of Rights and our turn came to go, so in 1950 we came to America because my aunt never sent us the papers. I don’t know. She never sent the papers.

Q: To Palestine. To Israel.

A: To Israel. By that time it was Israel already.

Q: So you didn’t really need the certificate after ’48.

A: No, after ’48 we didn’t need in Israel, but my father realized after the war and all the problems and making al living, being able to make a living, and he had no profession, no nothing…

Q: So he changed his mind.

A: So he changed his mind to go to America. So we came to America in 1950 and then everything started all over again from scratch.

Q: You came to New York?

A: We came to New York, right.

Q: And settled in New York?

A: And we settled in New York.

Q: You had any acquaintances there?

A: No. My father had a second cousin. I mentioned to you.

Q: She was in New York?

A: We were in touch with them already from Italy. We were in touch with the second cousin.

Q: And they were living in New York?

A: They were living in New York, yes. As a matter of fact, he was an assistant district attorney or something. He was a lawyer and an assistant district attorney. Whatever. So we came. Would you believe? When my father wrote letters to him from Italy or wherever we were, he wanted some proof, some identity, proof of identity that we were cousins, that my father was his cousin. He didn’t believe at first, so my father had to tell him who the parents were, who the grandparents were, how we were connected together, what the family roots are. And then he started believing that this was a real second cousin. It was unbelievable. So anyway, so we came to New York.

Q: This was 1950?

A: 1950. I was seventeen.

Q: How did you feel about going to America? You were happy about it? Did it make a difference that you were not going Israel?

A: No, no. I forgot one aspect. That while we were still in Italy, the chayalim established like a youth place in the mountains called Salvino, near Milano, not far from Milano. So the chayalim established that place, so when we were in Bologna, my father sent me to that camp with the chayalim. That was mostly youth, all youth. Boys and girls.

Q: It was like hachshara?

A: Like boys and girls of different ages. The chayalim wanted to train the boys and the girls for the aliyah.

Q: Hachshara.

A: Hachshara. Yes, whatever. That was the objective. So I also stayed in that Salvino with the chayalim for about six months.

Q: You became Zionist?

A: I was always Zionist. As I became older. I was Zionistically oriented. All the time.

Q: But the fact that you were going to America and not to Israel, were you disappointed?

A: I was always Zionistically oriented, whether we were going here or going there. Once I was taken to that place with the chayalim, I became even more Zionistically oriented.

Q: So that’s why I am asking were you disappointed that you were going to America and not to Israel.

A: No. At the time it didn’t matter to me much because I figured if I want to go to Israel eventually, that was my decision, if I want to go to Israel, and nothing to do with my parents at that point. And my sister was with me too, in that Aliyat HaNoar, whatever.

Q: So you came to America.

A: Yes, after Italy we came to America and eventually we rented our own apartment. The organization HIAS helped us get established in New York. They put us up in hotel in the beginning and they helped us with food, and UNWRA and the Joint and everybody was helping all the people that were coming. And eventually we rented our own apartment. My father got some kind of a job and my mother got some kind of a job and then eventually my father bought a grocery store in New York and he had a like a little business already. And my father wanted me to go to yeshiva to continue Jewish studies and I was very ambitious. I was very, very ambitious, and I also started learning the language. I went to yeshiva during the day and to high school at night and I took like different courses of English in order to learn the language fast. So I spoke English already fairly well, so I went to Brooklyn College and I told them that I just came here from Italy, that the education standards in Italy are very high and what I studied in Italy was probably at a much higher level than what the kids that graduate high school. So they told me, “Go back and learn some more English for another six months and come back to us after six months.” So that’s what happened. I went back to study English, some more English and I was going to yeshiva and then I went back to Brooklyn College after six months and I told them, “Okay, I think I am ready to go to college.” So they told me, “Okay. Number 1 – we will send you to all the different departments to test you to see if you are qualified.” And they gave me right away foreign language credit because they knew that I spoke fluent Italian at that time. So they gave me credit for a foreign language and they sent me to all the different departments to be tested to see if I qualified. And after that they gave me conditions – if you come to college with us without a high school degree, you have to prove a B average in two semesters. You have to prove a certain average. And you have to pay. College was free, city colleges were free. So I had to pay like seven dollars a credit, whatever, in order to become fully matriculated. I had to do this for two semesters. So I did the two semesters at night. I was going to yeshiva during the day. And I proved the average, the B average. I had to prove a B average and pay the two semesters, seven dollars a credit, and I became fully matriculated. And that after I went to yeshiva for three years. So I said to my father, “I am not going to be rabbi. I am more interested in finishing my college education so I can go on with my life.” And my father said, “Okay. At this point, you go do what you want.” Okay, fine. So I switched to day college and I continued my studies in college and then in ’56 I had already my B.A. in economics, business administration, economics, all that. And I used to love economics, investment and finance – I used to love all that. And then when I finished college it was very difficult to get a job because especially I had two strikes against me because I wanted to go into work for a securities firm, stock firm, to be a security analyst or something related to securities. I wanted to work, so when I came to apply for the job, I had three strikes against me. Number 1 – my name was Goldstein. It wasn’t some Anglo-Saxon name. Number 2 – I refused to work on Shabbat. And number 3 – I spoke English with a foreign accent at that time, so it was very tough to get a job. Okay, anyway, so I realized it was difficult to get a job, so I knew some friends of mine were teaching Hebrew in Talmud Torah and different things, so I happened to meet a rabbi in New York that was recommended to me by the Mizrachi. They had like an employment agency or something. So they sent me to this rabbi from New Orleans. The rabbi came from New Orleans to look for a Hebrew teacher. So I went to meet this rabbi and he was a very nice man and I told him that I was never a Hebrew teacher, but I studied Hebrew with the chayalim over there in Salvino, so I knew some Hebrew and I knew how to daven, how to daven. He was looking for Hebrew teachers. So I told him, “Look, I am very confident that if you give me a chance, I will be able to do as good a job as any other teacher. He liked me, the rabbi liked me, and he said, “Okay. I’m sure you’ll do a good job.” He gave me a job. That was just about the time I met my wife. Anyway, so I told my wife what was going on – we just started going out – that I had this opportunity to go to New Orleans. My objective was to teach Hebrew in the afternoon to the Talmud Torah and go to graduate school in the morning. That was my objective because I figured if I got a more advanced degree it would be easier to get a job in my field, if I got a Master’s or whatever. So my father said to me. “You have to go four years to college or five years to college to become a Hebrew teacher in New Orleans?” I said, “I am not going to be a Hebrew teacher. It is just a means to an end.” So fine, so my father didn’t want me to go. He was afraid if I would go out of town, with the shiksas, with that, with that, I would not be religious anymore, I wouldn’t keep kosher and all that, so my father refused to let me go. And in those days, you know, the kids respected the parents. If the parents didn’t give you their haskama (agreement), you didn’t anything against your parents’ wishes. That’s how we were brought up. Our generation is different. The younger generation. So anyway, I was thinking what to do to get my father to change his mind, so finally I had an idea, to get my father to go meet the rabbi. So I said to my father, “I would like you to come meet the rabbi and then you’ll decide if it is okay for me to go or it is not okay for me to go.” So my father said, “Fine. I’ll be happy to go meet the rabbi.” So we made an appointment, my father went to meet the rabbi. He was a very sophisticated Ph.D., highly educated, the rabbi, Orthodox. He knew already what the problem was, so he said to my father, “Mr. Goldstein, I understand you have some concerns about your son coming to New Orleans.” That he was going to be a goy, become a goy, he wouldn’t keep Jewish traditions and all that. So he said, “You have nothing to worry about. Number 1 – I am a rabbi of a very large congregation. We have an Orthodox congregation and we have the Talmud Torah with a lot of children. And I am setting up your son with a kosher family, with a religious family, with room and board and everything. He is going to live in their house, with a separate room, a private room, with kosher food, with everything, so that issue is solved. So you don’t have to worry about kashrut.

Q: Jewish life.

A: Right. And he said, “I will keep an eye on your son anyway because it’s not hefker. I mean, he is teaching in my school, so it’s not like he is running around with shiksas or whatever. And besides, he wants to go to graduate school.”

Q: Your father agreed?

A: Yes, my father agreed. He said, “Whatever you want to do, fine.” So eventually I went to New Orleans and I was teaching Hebrew in the afternoon. I registered to go to Tulane University, in a New Orleans graduate school, and that was going on like that.

Q: Generally speaking, how did you feel as an immigrant in the United States?

A: Fine. No problem at all. I met friends, I went to yeshiva, I went to college, I made friends, this and that. And also, we had a group of tzofim in Roma. We already had that chevra of tzofim, boys and girls. A group of tzofim. So I joined the tzofim also in Roma, before I went to America yet, and we had a whole chevra. We used to go on tiyulim and all different things.

Q: Also in the States?

A: I am talking about in Italy. I joined the tzofim. In the States there was no time for tzofim anymore. There were no tzofim, number one.

Q: There were.

A: Maybe there were. I wasn’t any more connected…

Q: You were older also.

A: I was older. I was busy with the yeshiva, I was busy with college, I was busy all around.

Q: When did you get married?

A: I got married in 1958.

Q: And tell us the name of your wife.

A: My wife is Tzipporah, maiden name is Krouman, is married to me. We met about maybe…before I went to New Orleans we met already, so we were writing letters to each other. Every day we wrote letters to each other.

Q: So you were married in ’53?

A: ’58. And then we were also in touch with each other like…she used to work for an office Hadoar. There was a Hebrew newspaper in America. Hadoar. So she used to work in that office as a Hebrew/English secretary over there.

Q: She was born in Israel?

A: She was born in Israel, sure. She came to America in 1953.

Q: And when were your children born? And can you tell us their names?

A: My son was born in ’61.

Q: What is his name?

A: Ilan. And my daughter was born in ’63.

Q: And her name?

A: Dana.

Q: And eventually you came back and lived in New York and worked in New York?

A: Yes, since we came to New York, we stayed in New York.

Q: After New Orleans.

A: Yes. I was still single at that time. We weren’t married yet.

Q: But when you married you live din New York?

A: We lived in New York. We had our own apartment and everything.

Q: You still live in New York.

A: I still live in New York.

Q: And you worked?

A: And I worked all the time in New York, right.

Q: You had your own business?

A: No, no, no. I didn’t have any business. I didn’t have any business. It was still hard to get a job in my field, so I continued teaching some Hebrew in the Talmud Torah in New York, and I went to graduate school in New York. I wanted to go back to New Orleans for one more year with my wife because she had a degree as a Hebrew teacher already from Stern College in New York, but she didn’t want to go. She said, my future is not to be a teacher, and she was right because my future wasn’t to be a teacher. I was always very business-oriented. So I taught some Hebrew, I went to graduate school and eventually we got married in ’58.

Q: Yes, you said that.

A: Then I had to get a job with an insurance company, Metropolitan Life. I worked for them for five years. In the meantime, I was getting all my licenses – my real estate broker’s license, my insurance broker’s…

Q: We’ll cut it a little bit short. Eventually you went into real estate.

A: Eventually you went into real estate, right, with zero money. And eventually, little by little, I built myself up in the business and I am still in the business of real estate. To this day.

Q: I want to ask you a few questions and then we will wrap it up. 1960, in Israel, they caught Adolph Eichmann.

A: Yes, yes. I know the whole story. They caught him in Argentina, and the trial.

Q: Did you follow that story?

A: All the time. Not only that story. All the stories in Israel. I was very interested in following all the stories.

Q: But I am talking specifically about Eichmann. Did you follow the trial?

A: Sure.

Q: What did it do to you, as a survivor?

A: Well, I was very happy that they caught the guy, number one. And he deserved whatever he got for all the crimes that he committed against humanity, and against the Jews specifically.

Q: Did it open your own wounds?

A: At that point, I was detached from all the persecution problems that we had in Poland and during the Shoah and all that.

Q: That’s what I am asking.

A: But we were happy that the Mossad was able to catch this guy and put him on trial.

Q: But following the trial, did it bring up all your memories of what had happened?

A: Well, the memories stayed with me all the time.

Q: All the time.

A: Sure.

Q: Did you talk about it in America? Did you tell people, when you met people?

A: Well, there was a convention of Shoah survivors…

Q: No, I am talking about in the beginning, when you first came. Did you talk with the family?

A: No. I was very busy with school, I was very, very busy.

Q: People around you. The American Jews.

A: I used to stay up till three o’clock in the morning to do homework.

Q: American Jews. Did you tell them? You were a refugee. You were a survivor. Did they know what you went through?

A: No. Did they know? I doubt it if they really knew. They knew, of course they knew that so many Jews got killed. They knew.

Q: No, but did you tell your own personal story? Your family story?

A: Not really. Not at that time. We had no family. My father had a distant cousin, a second cousin. I wasn’t really…didn’t have a close relationship with him.

Q: No, no. Did you tell people around you the story of your family? What had happened to your family during the Holocaust. Friends, people around you?

A: No, no. Even among my friends we didn’t discuss that issue.

Q: When you met your wife, did you tell her, did you talk to her about it?

A: Yes, I did.

Q: And your parents and sister – was it something that you spoke about? What had happened to you? When you were in America. Your own family.

A: My parents knew what was happening with me.

Q: No, but did you still speak about those times?

A: No.

Q: Was it a subject that…?

A: Among the family we didn’t discuss it anymore.

Q: And when your children were young – did you tell them? Did you talk to them about it?

A: Not when they were small. When they reached a certain adult level. I discussed the experiences with my son to some degree. Not in any detail, but to some degree. My son has a general idea of what we went through. My daughter too.

Q: Did you go back to Poland?

A: Never.

Q: You never went?

A: Never went back to Poland.

Q: You did not want to go?

A: I had bad feelings about the experiences that we had in Poland, so I really wasn’t too interested in going back because we had bad memories.

Q: Did any of your children or grandchildren go to Poland?

A: Yes. My sister went to Poland with her husband and she still was able to meet the wife of the goy that hid us and they met and they spoke about different issues.

Q: Can you tell us again what was their name?

A: Who?

Q: The wife of the goy.

A: Krayzalek.

Q: That’s the last name. What was her name?

A: I don’t remember her first name.

Q: So your sister met her after.

A: My sister met her after the war. Recently, maybe a few years ago. She went back to Poland. And I know that my grandson – he goes to a yeshiva in Beit Shemesh. The whole group of kids – he is seventeen now – just recently, before Pesach, they went to Poland, a whole group, for about one week.

Q: Yes, Mitzad HaChaim.

A: Yes. They went, the whole group, to Poland.

Q: Did you talk to him?

A: I didn’t have a chance to discuss it with him too much. I asked him about his experiences, his impressions, and this and that. To a minor degree, because he is in school and we only see each other on Shabbat.

Q: Would it be possible for you to tell us the names of your grandchildren?

A: Yes, sure. My grandson is Moshe Shmuel. We call him Shmulik.

Q: You are talking about the children of your daughter or son first?

A: That’s my son’s children. My daughter is still single.

Q: Okay. So tell us.

A: So Shmulik – he is named after my father. Moshe Shmuel. And our granddaughter, the older granddaughter – she is about fifteen now.

Q: What is her name?

A: Her name is Nechama. She is named after her mother’s family. Then we have another girl, eleven. She is named after my mother – Sara Esther. Esti we call her. So we have Moshe Shmuel and Nechama and Esti. Three grandchildren.

Q: Three grandchildren.

A: That’s correct.

Q: And one that went to Poland.

A: My grandson just recently went to Poland, yes.

Q: We talked about the Eichmann trial. I want to also ask you. In Israel there was a big public debate during the ‘60s about the question about the compensation money from Germany. Did you know about this?

A: We knew that Israel received a substantial amount of money from the Germans as compensation for all the Jews that got killed in Germany.

Q: What did you feel about that issue?

A: I felt that whatever money the Jews got, it wasn’t enough money. They should have gotten a lot more money than they got. But whatever they got, I felt it was helpful to the State. If it was helpful to the State, take whatever you can get.

Q: And what is your attitude towards Germany today? Did you visit?

A: I didn’t visit. I never drove a German car. I never drove a German car. And I feel about the Germans the same as I feel about the Poles, because they were cooperating with the Germans in killing Jews. So I feel about both of them pretty much the same way.

Q: Did it ever come into your mind in those days or later on, did you ask yourself the question why did they do this? Why do people do such things?

A: Why do people do? Because Hitler was crazy. He believed in the Rheine Russe (sp?), the clean race, the White race, so with that objective in mind, he killed all the Gypsies, whatever Gypsies he was able to kill, he killed the Jews, and he wanted to have a clean race. So with that in mind, he was totally crazy, but that’s aside from the point. And as a matter of fact, during the Nazi times, there was even an attempt to kill Hitler himself. Some high German officers were looking to kill Hitler and they didn’t succeed, obviously, but eventually they say Hitler committed suicide. That’s the end of the story.

Q: And the fact that you, even yourself, you encountered during the war good people, bad people. Some people helped.

A: Oh yes. When we got to Italy, the Italian people were extremely helpful to us.

Q: But even in Poland. Even though you paid, people helped you.

A: Well, they hid us, yes, but I missed to say…two things I missed to say during the interview. Number 1 – the gentiles that hid us, they did it strictly out of financial considerations and not for humane reasons. Number 1. And Number 2 – if he would have legal, a legal resident, I’m not sure he would have done what he did. If he was able to work and earn a living like other Poles were working.

Q: You told us that.

A: I’m not sure he would have done it. That’s that issue. But nevertheless, after the war my parents were sending packages and money to the goyim that hid us. In spite of everything, my parents were sending money and packages, and after my parents passed away, my sister and I were sending money to the daughter. The boy got killed, like I told you, so the daughter is alive and she is my age, about.

Q: You have contact?

A: My sister is in contact with her. She keeps writing letters to my sister and my sister writes her letters and she keeps asking for money all the time. She needed heart surgery or housing or whatever, so we keep sending money to the daughter, to this very day.

Q: The fact that you survived – you had mentioned before you see it as a nes. You see it as nissim (miracles), as luck. As what? The fact that your parents were smart, they knew what…

A: It’s not a question if they were smart. It’s a question that we had some special zochut to survive, to live because many other people were maybe…also many other people, hundreds of thousands of other people probably deserved to live and they didn’t lived. We were twenty-six thousand Jews and about a hundred and fifty out of twenty-six thousand survived the war.

Q: Do you have any connection with survivors from Przemysl?

A: At one point, in New York, I did belong to some organization that dealt with survivors from, I think, our area or more other areas, but then after awhile I lost contact with that organization.

Q: And today, do you sometimes find yourself dreaming or thinking of the times, the periods you went through during the war? Was it something you put away?

A: It is impossible to forget about.

Q: But you dream about it, for instance?

A: No, no. I don’t dream about it, but it is impossible to forget about it.

Q: Do you think about it, it comes up a lot?

A: Well…

Q: Nowadays more than before? For you, personally.

A: Well, it is constantly with you. It is constantly in your mind, but I don’t talk about it that much, I don’t discuss it that much, but it’s part of your life experience.

Q: When you think of that time, what do you think was the hardest thing for you? During all that period. What would you say was the most difficult period you went through?

A: The hiding times were the most difficult experience.

Q: Because of the fear?

A: Because the fear. Because our lives were hanging on a thread. It is easier to fight a war than to be hiding from the Nazis and when they catch you any minute, you get killed.

Q: The feeling of helplessness?

A: Helplessness, right.

Q: That’s what you are talking about?

A: Helplessness. Our lives were every moment of the day in danger of being executed and so that is something that you just cannot forget.

Q: And thinking of who you are today, at your age, your experience, your personality – in what way do you think that that experience during the war shaped your identity – the way you think, the way you act today? To what extent did it affect who you are?

A: Well, I think that what I am and where I am – I think what I am mainly – was more or less in the genes, and more so my mother’s genes than my father’s genes, because my mother was a very determined, hard-driving person, and so am I.

Q: But do you see also the effect of the circumstances on who you are? Not only the genes? Specifically the war period.

A: The circumstances probably…it made me mature at a much earlier age than I would have normally matured.

Q: And the kind of person you are, the kind of education you gave your children, the way you look at the world today – was it affected by those years, do you think? Or life?

A: I don’t think the fact that I gave my children the best education – my son is an attorney, a lawyer. He went to Yeshiva University, high school and college and then he went to Fordham University law school. My daughter also went to private schools, from kindergarten up.

Q: So what from that period, the war, your childhood, what really left its stamp on you until this day? That affects your life until this day. The way you think…

A: Well, I am always very Zionistically oriented. The declaration of the State of Israel…

Q: Was important to you.

A: Extremely important. That was another nes that I consider in my lifetime. I am very proud that the Jews were able to defeat our enemies and accomplish what they did. I am very concerned about all the problems that Israel is facing and I am well aware they are facing many problems and enemies who are looking to finish the State of Israel, especially this meshuggene in Iran., Ahminejidad, who I think is the greatest danger to Israel in our days. So the creation of the State of Israel…for me is one of the big miracles that I experienced in my lifetime. And we have a very strong sense of attachment to the Jewish people and the State of Israel. That’s why we love to come here, spend time here. And my son made aliyah, so he also has similar feelings towards Israel. My daughter also was raised in that environment and she has strong Zionist feelings. So you could ask me how come I didn’t make aliyah. You could ask me. Right?

Q: I am not asking.

A: But you could ask me.

Q: Would you like me to ask?

A: No, no. I am saying, you could ask me why I didn’t make aliyah if we have such strong feelings towards Israel, because no one can appreciate Israel like the survivors of the Shoah. Because no American or any foreigner can have the same feelings for Israel like a Shoah survivor. But due to the fact that I am established in business in America and…so it is difficult to pick yourself up and disconnect yourself from your environment and your business and connections and your (?) in the business and just go. But nevertheless, I am getting older and I think that down the line I may come to live in Israel.

Q: We have come to the end. Is there anything you would like to say?

A: Another thing that I would like to add…

Q: To tell your children, grandchildren?

A: Yes. I would like to add something about myself and my wife. The week after we were married, I got sick. One week sheva brachot on Shabbat and I developed the chills and I got a high fever and I got sick and the doctors told I had a cold, that I had a cold. It was nothing, nothing, nothing. In the meantime, it developed to be hepatitis. I had hepatitis one week after we were married. So the end result was that my wife…we had an apartment already of our own, but my wife went back to her parents, I went back to my parents. First I spent six weeks in the hospital. Six weeks in the hospital. And then my wife went to her parents, I went to my parents because I had to recover from this sickness. So we had no family life, nothing, and eventually I recovered from the illness and we resumed our family life, but it was a very difficult period in time because her grandfather was here with this chaver Knesset, his brother, and everybody thought what a sick guy that the granddaughter married. And the parents thought, ‘Who did you marry? Look at all the problems you have. And G-d knows when he is going to get well. And how sick he is, and all the problems.” Like my (?) father asked me, “When are you going to make a living? How are you going to make a living if you are sick like that?” I said, “Let me get well and I will worry about how I am going to make a living. You don’t have to worry about me. When I get well, I will be fine. You don’t have to worry about me making a living.” And then I got well and everything was reinstated and we established our own lives. Thank G-d, that due to my determination and my business…motivation, I achieved a certain degree of success in my own business and I was able to provide for my family a nice standard of living. And I was able to give my children the best education possible. And I am very proud that I was able to do that.

Q: So I want to really thank you on behalf of myself and on behalf of Yad Vashem, for doing this interview.

A: Thank you very much. I have to thank you for taking the time and the trouble for coming to join me.

Q: Thank you very much and I wish you all the best. All the health and nachat.

A: Thank you very much. Amen.

Q: Thank you.