שמואל ברוך טאובה

Name of Interviewee: Samuel Baruch Taube Name of Interviewer: Yehudit Soloveitchik Date: May 22, 1996 Cassette Number: VD 1223

Place Names Zelow Lackenbach Wien Paris Mattersdorf Lyon Nice Brides-Les-Bains Drancy Auschwitz Fuerstengrube Grenoble Trelleborg ChamberyQ: I am interviewing today Mr. Samuel Baruch Taube. You were born in 1914. A: 1914. Q: Where? A: In a town called Zelow. Its in Poland near Lask and Lodz. Q: How many Jews lived in that town? A: I wouldn t know. About five hundred families, three to five hundred families. But it was about fifteen miles, thirty kilometers from Lodz. In those days, when I was little, there was no cars, no trains. The train, in order to get a train to go to Lodz you have to go to Lask - its about fifteen kilometers - and from there you take the train to Lodz. And most people ride with horses, wagons with horses. Q: What can you tell me about your family? A: Our family is Taube. My father is from Warta, a town called Warta. In Yiddish it s called Dewort. Its not far from Cheradz, also not far from Lodz. My father was born there, my grandfather was born there, my great-grandfather was born there. My grandfather, Yona Taube, he was the chazen-shochet of Warta, Dewort, and before him, his father, Yisrael. My father left Poland in the year 192 - not me, my father. By himself. My mother was already in Zelow - later on I ll speak about my mother. And he went to Israel, to Eretz Yisrael in those days, with a few friends. He managed. He had no parnassa . Many of the young hasidic families struggled very hard to just to have bread to give to eat to their children. So he went to Eretz Yisrael with a few friends and they managed to arrive. My father didnt find anything on which he could work or make a living. He was a very gifted man, very wonderful golden hands, but he had no profession, so I ll tell you a little anecdote, theres a little thing. By chance, by looking on his coat he found something inside, hard - it was sewn in a few hundred dollars which my grandmother, his mother, did it without his knowledge. So in case, he was the only son. G-d knows whats going to be, if he need it. He found this. With these dollars he managed to go back, not to Poland - it took him a few months because he had to get another passport because with a Polish passport he couldn t get any visa of any country in the world. He bought a passport in Israel and with this passport he went through Greece and arrived in Vienna. It took a few months. In Vienna my grandfather from Poland wrote a letter to the shochetim to teach him to be a shochet because a Talmid Chacham he was, wonderful hands he had, but they didnt want to teach him and he went to Mattersdorf - you probably heard the name of Mattersdorf. Is one of the shiva kehillas. And there, after six weeks he knew schita in theory and in practice and not long after, a few weeks after, he got a job as a shochet in Lackenbach, also one of the sheva kehillas. This is a town where Reb Sholem Charif was the rav, the same time when the Chasan Sofer was the rav of Mattersdorf. Reb Sholem Charif was in Lackenbach and they were both candidates to be rabbonim in Pressburg. As soon as he got this job he made come the family, first my two younger brothers, the younger brothers, and then, a year later when they d settled down in Lackenbach, my mother got already a passport in Vienna from the Polish Consulate where the two names, my sister and I, were written in and she went to Poland - that was in 1926. In August we arrived in Austria and we came to Lackenbach and in Lackenbach I went to school and it didnt take me long, I knew German perfectly, was the best at school. And at the age of fourteen, two years later, I went to learn in the Mattersdorf yeshiva and I learned there until the age of nineteen and a half. This is in short. Q: Now still something about Zelow? A: Yes. Zelow was where my mother was born. My mother s family name, maiden name is Myrantz. Actually, she was born in Kalish. Kalish is a town also not far from Lodz, not far from the German border, and the family was very well known, the Myrantz family and my grandfather, the grandfather, her father, in Zelow, his name was Heinach, but I was named after my great-grandfather. His name was Bendett Myrantz. Bendett is Shmuel and Shmuel Baruch Bendett - Baruch Bendett sometimes goes together, like Bendett Spinoza was a Bendett. Bendett is a translation of Baruch - Benedict, Benedictus. This is my mothers family. Q: So you grew up till you moved...? A: I grew up, as I said, in Lackenbach and in Mattersdorf. Q: In Zelow. A: In Zelow, yes. Q: You went to school there or cheder? A: I went to cheder and in cheder a teacher came in to teach heshbon and language and Polish and till the age of twelve I was in Zelow. Before that, before my father went to Eretz Yisrael, we lived in Lodz. There also I went to cheder of course. We lived also in another town, Zunskavolla. Also went to cheder and I knew Polish quite well. I loved it, I loved the Polish language at the time. Q: At the time then, did you encounter any antisemitism in Poland? A: No, not as far as I remember. I was too young. Listen, papers we didn t read. The "Warshwer Hajnt" or the "YiddisheAguda Zeitung" which came out in those days, but it wasnt customary that every family had a newspaper in the morning coming to the house. And the radio and television also not. So probably we were very ignorant of the facts of life about antisemitism in Poland. In the bigger towns, I m sure, they were much...yes, one thing I remember. I have a cousin, the only surviving cousin of the whole family in Poland, who came after the war when he was nineteen years old - he went through all the ghettos, Warsaw ghetto, Lodz ghetto. A story like this. Thats the only surviving cousin. He came to France because he knew that he had a longie in France, he knew that my father was the brother of his mother and when his mother got married - I was maybe then ten years old or nine years old - I went from Zelow with my parents to the wedding to Warta. On the train - I dont remember if going there or coming back - on the train from Lodz, antisemites broke into the train. They were called hallerchekas. Why? There was a General Haller, a big antisemite, and he made it his business, with his people, to break into the travelling trains, moving trains, to cut off the beards of people. So - I remember, I was a very little boy - they came in the door and immediately everyone took out his knife and standing with his knife to attack them, so they ran away. This is the only thing I remember about the antisemitism in Poland. Q: So at the age of twelve you moved to....? A: At the age of twelve we moved to Austria - Lackenbach, which is part of the sheva kehillot in Burgenland. And at the age of nineteen my voice started to come out - I was always singing as a boy. I was a mezzo-soprano, very high mezzo-soprano, and I sang already in Gerrer-shtebl in Poland with a melamed who was at the same time the baal tefilla in shtebl , so I sang with him and then when I came to Lackenbach I sang with my father because my father was a chazen-shochet , so I sang nigunim on Rosh Hashan and Yom Kippur during davening. And I never stopped singing, but you know, there is a break of a few years, but at the age of seventeen I davened already the High Holidays in smaller places in Austria. And then I went to Vienna. For a year I was studying and learning by Oberkantor Emanuel Fraenkel who was an outstanding man. He was the Oberkantor of the Polische shul, which was very famous for their services - shabbos you could hardly go in when you came late - and he was a great cantor and on top of it he was a great musician, teacher and the choir was out of this world, boys choir naturally, and they sang long, long compositions. The service finished around one o clock shabbos morning and Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur it finished at four oclock and so on and Friday night, with choir, not only in the morning - a thing which is completely forgotten today. I was chazen in America and Canada where I never conducted services Friday night in shul, only I made kiddush if I wanted to. And these services in the Polische shul were known all over. Their system was from Galitzian because the majority of the Viennese Jews - Im not talking about those who were born in Vienna before, or long before, but since after the First World War, first of all Austria and Galicia was one country. There was no Poland. Half of Poland was Russia and the other one was Galicia. That s why in Galicia they spoke German, like in Lemburg and Cracow and so on. So in Galicia were the services with big choirs like Zeidel Rovner and Nissim Belzer and big choirs and the same idea they brought in to the....by the way, I heard, if I may interject. In Australia was a lot of people who came from South Africa lately. So the South Africa had also liked choirs, so they got the choirs, they made choirs in Australia. Anyway, its all a system, every country has a different system of life and the same in the shul also, the services. Q: You mentioned you were Gur hasidim at home? A: All, the whole family from both sides, my father and mother, were Gerrer hasidim. Q: You ever went to the rebbe as a child? A: I went to the rebbe before I came to Israel and after I came to Israel, yes. Of course, I remember Reb Avroham Mordechai. When he came to Vienna he was staying with the family Moishe Schreiber and I went to give "sholem" and my grandfather wrote me from Poland I should write him exactly what the rebbe said, word for word. Q: During that year you were in Vienna, you were staying in Vienna or you were going home the whole time? A: When I was learning, Ididn t have a position, I went home for certain shabbosim , or when I was in yeshiva. I went home for shaboosim and for "bein hazmanim". But after I got a position in Vienna, my first position in Vienna was the Montefiore shul in Traubestrasse 38. By the way, I was there four years ago. There is no sign that there was ever a synagogue and the Polische shul which was in the Leopoldgasse or the (?) Temple, all destroyed except the Seitenstetten Tempel which happens to be inside, not in the front of the street, so they couldnt destroy it without damaging or destroying other buildings, so they left the building intact and of course after the war it was rehabilitated and beautified and now it s a very beautiful place. Thats the only shul officially of the Kultusgemeinde, is the shul of the Kultusgemeinde, the Stadttempel. Q: What year did you get the position? A: I got the position in 1935, or by the end of '34 because I came to Vienna in 1934, the beginning of '34 and I was learning, studying with "Oberkantor" Fraenkel music, reading music and "chazanut" and everything and immediately I got this...it was a small shul, but it was well known because before me there were great "chazonim". From there, that was a stepping stone to advance, but as the laws were in Austria that my father had a right to work, but the children didn't. This is the law. I couldn't get a big position in Vienna. It would have been very complicated. First of all, it's a small country and there were only a certain amount, say fifteen or twenty big synagogues all over Austria and they were all occupied with "chazonim", you know? And even if one were free, it would be complicated for me to get a position though I was gifted and had all the qualifications to be a good "chazen" in a great shul. Because in those days to be a "chazen" was a serious matter. A "chazen" he had to know music, to be able sing with the choir. He had to be examined by professors, sing professors and musical professors and so on and so on. But if the times were normal I would have probably gone to Germany because Germany was six hundred thousand Jews and there were synagogues of all colours - everyone could find - but from the year '33 they were cut off from Germany, so I wanted to go to England and there was no possiblity for me to get a visa. I was refused wherever I went. First in Vienna, I was refused to get a visa or whatever, and then I tried later in Strassbourg - Strassbourg on the way - I couldn't get a visa, so I got myself a visa to Belgium which I wasn't interested to go and a transit visa to Switzerland because to go to France, to Belgium, you needed to pass Switzerland and France and you couldn't pass it without a transit visa. People today are not aware of what the laws were in those days. Q: For whom were those laws? The Jews? A: For everybody. At least with a Polish passport. I don't know. Maybe with an Italian passport, a British passport it was probably different. The only country you could go without a visa was Italy. Polish passport. Anyway, I was stuck in Paris and I arrived in Paris with a friend of mine - also a "chazen" who now lives in England - and he had a Czech passport. He could go to England, he could go anywhere without a visa - for a visit. They gave him a month or two, whatever. So I couldn't, so we came to Paris and at the Gard du Nord we arrived, we didn't know where to go, so a man comes to over to us, "I see that you are looking for something." I said, "Ir redt Yiddish?" "Yes. What do you need?" "I want to go to the Jewish area." "I'll take you." He told us where to go. First we arrived at the "Platzel" in Paris, which is an older Jewish area and then it didn't take me very long. I became the "chazen" a few months later - so at the beginning of December, 1936 - I didn't mention before. It's 1936 in June that I left Vienna. Q: And you got a job there as a "chazen" where? A: In the Rue de Montevideo, Paris. This is the sixteenth district in Paris, very elegant, expensive. It's not a big shul. It was a new shul and very fine, intelligent, rich people lived there and I became the "chazen" right when they heard me first time. And of course I wasn't married. I lived in a hotel in the same street. In Paris it's like that. There are small hotels - you rent a room for a month. And I was having my meals on "Platzel" by a family and that's how...I was there till in 1938 when Austria was occupied by Hitler. Q: I want to go still back to Vienna. Those years in Vienna - can you tell me still a bit more about where you lived? Did you have contact with other people? Was there antisemitism? A: Yes. I stayed with a family. I rented a room together with this young man - we lived in a family - and to tell you that I noticed antisemitism, I didn't. I didn't come across because first of all I never mixed with goyim, non-Jews. My life, because I am a "chazen", my dealings were only with Jews. You understand? So I didn't notice, I never heard any remark or any antisemitic remark in Vienna in my life. Q: Were you part of any party, any organization? A: No, I wasn't part. I went to "Agudas Yisrael" and I attended the "Daf Yomi Shiur". They had in the "Malzgasse" a building only for "Agudas Yisrael" - we came together there, learning, hearing lectures. And of course I stayed in contact with my parents. My parents sent me a parcel and so on and my father came to visit and so on. There were little concerts. Vienna is a very big city. The opera house I went very often - I like opera and classical music very much, and also I was busy already in those days - I was twenty, twenty-one years old - I was writing music for people because I was very good at that. Up till this day I write, I copy from old recordings and especially in those days, don't forget, there were no copying machines of any kind. If I have wanted a composition from somebody, I had to ask him to give it and I had to write it down by hand. And I have a book at home with all compositions all written by hand. They don't know what a "Gan Eden" they have today with. There was no recordings, no tape recorders of any kind, of any kind. Tape recorders came out after the Second World War, first on a wire, then on a tape. Q: Do you still have something to add from the time in Vienna? A: Vienna was a wonderful Jewish town in every respect. It was quiet and everyone could find his own style of Jewish life. There were haredim, too, but they didn't express themselves like today, they didn't call themselves "haredim". You understand? There were "shtiblach" of all kinds. For instance, "Gur" wasn't so well-known in Poland because, as I said in the beginning, only the "Galiciani" hasidim., "Sadigur", "Kapishnitz". What is the other called? I forget. These rebbes were concentrated in, or they stayed in Vienna, they didn't go back to Galicia after the First World War. And there was "Vishnitzer Shtebl", which was a very popular "shtebl". As a matter of fact, I don't know if you ever heard about Joseph Schmidt, the famous international singer - he was an opera singer, but he was very tiny, very small, and he died in Switzerland in a camp they put him. I don't want to go into - this is not the object of my video - and I davened sometimes in "Vishnitzer Shtebl" and sometimes in other shuls. There were all kinds of shuls. I don't know any town which is built in this way today. Q: Why did you want to leave Vienna? A: Why I wanted to leave Vienna? I told you, because I had no "Aussicht". Q: To get a higher position, no way of finding a higher position. A: I have no chance to get a higher position and get married and to live. And altogether it was a poor country compared to countries like England or France, you understand, although I didn't speak English, I didn't speak French, but Paris is a different character altogether. You want to talk about Paris? Q: Yes. A: Now as I said, I came to Paris in June, 1936. A few months later I got a position in Rue de Montevideo. Forgot now the name. Anyway, it was very well know, I was very happy there for awhile, until 1938 when my parents, my father, they were driven out from Burgenland, all the Jews, they had to leave everything and they went to Vienna. They found an apartment - you know Vienna - in the "Praterstrasse". Eventually my father was arrested, the Gestapo took him, together with my youngest brother who was then fourteen years old, and they took them to a concentration, no camp, but a big school or whatever. Thousands of people. And they beat them up and they cut off their beards and they let them go. My father had a nervous breakdown. He was sick for a few weeks, he lay in bed, and then they decided whatever comes, we have to leave Austria. So I was the first one of my family who emigrated away from the parents. I was in Paris at the time already, so I heard from people and the papers and telephone that my father was arrested, I couldn't help him, couldn't find any way from Paris to help him, but, thank G-d, he wasn't there a long time and he got freedom and they found a way to emigrate and they came...my brother came before to Paris and then he went back to Vienna. I helped him to go back to Vienna to learn "chazones". I sent him money. And then with his Polish passport went through Italy - because he was a single man, was a young man of eighteen. He was eighteen years old, not even. So he went through Switzerland and after a few weeks in Switzerland he got to France, to Paris, and we stayed together and then my parents came. So our house was in the hotel first, but the French government - in those days I think Leon Blum was the Prime Minister - they didn't allow foreigners, new immigrants to stay in Paris. Of course, it was before the war. It was too dangerous, so they said, and they were permitted to live in the area near Vichy - Vichy, Clermont-Ferrand, which is a bigger town - and they lived there. So Hitler...in 1939 the war broke out. I was in Paris with my brother. The war broke out and we were two young people - I was twenty-five years old - and it wasn't nice for young people to walk in the street without going to the army. It's true I was a Polish citizen, but you know how it is. So I volunteered, my brother and I. We signed. We weren't aware exactly what is what. We were with the Foreign Legion which is Africa and so on, but things were so fluid and so irrational in those days, when the war broke out people started running. Even if I wanted I couldn't place a ticket in a train, to go somewhere, so I stayed on. So I went to the army and it was "Shmini Atzeres", 1939. I said, "I'm not signing, I'm not signing." He understood, but we went by train to Lyon, the middle of France - Lyon - and there we got a few thousand Jews and non-Jews, mostly Jews. Of course everything was there food and I didn't eat of course meat and food and wine and everything and then everyone had to go to pass a commission of doctors, two doctors. One was a Jew, one was a non-Jew. I went to the non-Jew - happened to be. He asked me my profession. I said - didnt say I m a chazen . First of all, word cantor didnt exist in France. A cantor is ministre officien, the one who conducts the services. So I said, Je suis chanteur. Im a singer. Ah, vous etes chanteur. Chantez quelques chose. I should sing something. Opened my mouth, young I was, and I sang an aria from Carmen . He said, L arme (?), ce n'est pas pour vous. Its not for you. He gave me a paper. My brother was also freed, we came back to Paris. First of all, my conscience was clear, I didnt have to...that was in 1939. Then 1940 came - that was the year, they call it in France, Le drole du guerre. The funny war. Why? Because nothing happened. Things were quiet. They were busy preparing against Russia, you understand? As soon as they started attacking Belgium and Holland, and France thought they were protected by the Maginot Line, La ligne Maginot, and it took them a few days to surround the Maginot Line and occupied France. It was a great shock. It was a great shock. I was still in Paris until...when the war broke out between Russia I was still in Paris. That was when Jews had to start wearing a star, the yellow star. Q: You were still chazen in Montevideo? A: I was still chazen in Montevideo. I lived next door, a small apartment. I had a very high up aapartment. I was afraid to live in shul - there was also an apartment there - I was afraid. Suddenly one day from nowhere, the Germans sent out letters by police, papers by police, forms, and they came looking for people. They didn t warn them. They came looking for people, and they told them, Take a few blankets and....and come. That was in 1941...or 2. I m a little bit....these few days I dont remember exactly. I generally remember. Anyway, they were arresting people, the most prominent French Jews who always thought it can t happen to them. Privately I will tell you more stories about this. They thought they were Frenchmen, they fought Germany for France all these wars before and couldnt happen to them. Then they started arresting the most prominent Jews. I felt something. I didn t stay in my house - we had developed a certain sense for protection and I slept in shul - there was a small apartment there. And next day I went over to the concierge - you know what a concierge is? - and, Tell me, they were looking for me? He said, Oui, ils etaient la avec un paper vert. Ils ont demandҎ ou vous etes. J'ai dit: "Je ne sais pas, il est parti peut0etre." "Yes, they came with a green paper and were asking for you. I said, "I don't know, maybe he left.". So they left. They didnt go in deep to it. Those who they found, they found, those they didn t, they didnt come out for a second time. Q: And your brother was together with you? A: My brother then....no, he was already on the other side of France, he was already on the other side, in La France non-occup. The border was not far from Lyon - St. Etienne. So after this, and Jews had to wear the star, I remember I went to the opera - that was the day, the 22nd of June, 1941, when the war broke out against Russia, when they went into Russia - I had a ticket, Sunday afternoon they played opera. The opera Alceste by Gluck and I couldn t stay more than one act, so nervous was I. Actually we were hoping that they would break their necks in Russia. And then also once I was in the opera to see Samson et Delilah and by the end when Samson sings " " I thought maybe - full of German officers there, crazy about music " ". But otherwise, in the street we didnt notice. They were going around, the Germans, and emptying out all the stores with their paper money, you know, their printed money. So we arrived in 1942, sometime in 42, and we paid someone, a guide - a few got together, twenty people, all kinds of Jews. We paid a guide and he took us, by train we went, by a merchandise train. We were on the bottom lying very quietly and upper were full up with paper, newspaper, paper, printing papers, and we passed the border in St. Etienne. The SS were walking outside and we heard them, but we were holding our breath and Baruch HaShem, we came through alive, we came to Lyon. Lyon wasn t occupied, it was free, so we got immediately....I had a French carte d identit, you understand, I had no trouble to stay there, so I stayed there a few months and then I tried the south of France, Nice. We were told there were going to be ratzias. During the night I took a train and went back. Whilst I was on the train they arrested thousands of people in Nice, so I went back to Lyon. Then a second time I tried again in Lyon, from Lyon to Nice, and I settled in Nice, became the chazen. Q: But you said it wasn t occupied yet? A: No, it wasnt occupied yet. The Italians were there, occupied by Italy. Nice had a different administration than Lyon. Lyon was occupied by the Frenchman, but part of south of France occupied by Italy. And I became the chazen - there was a building there in Boulevard du Buchage, had several small shuls and one bigger one - I became the chazen there. Not the main shul. The main shul was in the city with an organ and mixed choir. You understand? As a matter of fact, I was then later deported together with the chief rabbi of Nice. As soon as Mussolini capitulated, I remember shabbos morning I went to shul and they had a news agency there and they wrote down with white crayon the main news. They announced that Mussolini capitulated, blah, blah, blah. We knew the troubles, big trouble. We started running like chickens, all kinds of tricks. So we were afraid to go out into the street. They were arresting people, whoever was suspicious they arrested. So how long can you rest? You must eat, you must buy something to eat. So I decided I have to take a chance. Took a train to Savoie, not far from the Swiss border is Grenoble where my parents were near Grenoble. Near Grenoble I managed, Baruch HaShem , there were no control on the way - not every train was controlled by the Germans - so I arrived there. It was before Rosh Hashanah. My father lived there in a place called Brides-Les-Bains, and there were maybe a hundred families from Belgium and Holland and all kinds of religious people. Q: When did your father get there? A: My father was a shochet. Q: When did he get there? A: My father, he was always an alien, he wasnt allowed to live in Paris. Since they came to France. Q: In Clermont-Ferrand he was first? A: This is not too far. From Clermont-Ferrand, they lived in Clermont quite a number of years, but when they started running Clermont became too dangerous. They ran there, they ran to Grenoble, near Grenoble. My brother was there, was working as a watchmaker with a different name. My brother was specialized in making false carte didentitՎs. He was a specialist in making any stamp you want, from a consulate, from a prefecture du police, and he made me a false carte didentitՎ. We davened Rosh Hashanah, we had a minyan. The shul was packed, maybe a hundred people, maybe a hundred and fifty people. And after Rosh Hashanah, trouble. Started arresting people and we were running away. My father was providing them with kosher meat, he was a shochet. He was dressed like a goy, with a beret, with a moustache, without a beard, and with an overall - he should look like a goy - and we started running. So we rented a place by a peasant which was not protected - the house was standing like in a field with the main road nearby. In straw we slept and Yom Kippur we went, my father and I, to the forest, a little forest on the other side of the road. We stayed there all day with the machzor and fasting and davening, ourselves. Q: And the rest of the family? A: My mother was home. My sister was already in a different place. My sister was in Clermont-Ferrand. Q: And your mother? A: There. We were in the forest and she stayed. And we were looking, between Yom Kippur, we were looking for a place where to live, where to run away. So my brother stayed in another place - Ive forgotten now the name - a few kilometers away. He was working as a goy. He changed his name. Instead of Taube he changed it to Raubek. On the T he made an R and at the end a K - Raubek. He didn t look particularly Jewish, French he spoke like a goy and he found an apartment somewhere by goyim - my parents lived there to the end of liberation. So we decided - that was on Hoshanah Raba , 1943... Q: 42 or 43? A: 43. Q: So how long were you in Nice? A: In Nice I was probably a year or more. Q: So Hoshanah Raba, 1943? A: We decided I will go down, I had with me money for a year or two to live in case I have to run from somewhere and decided... Q: Without the yellow star? A: Without the yellow star, of course. There wasn t the yellow star. That was in Paris, under German occupation. You know, the star, it took a little while to organize these sorts of things. I dont know how it was in the south of France - after Italy probably also had to wear stars. So he found an apartment by a goy in Moutier, the place is called Moutier. One was Brides-Les Bains. Moutier was a little bigger, a little town. And we decided that I will go down, together with another Jew from Alsace - his name was Unger. Came up to the house. We had Lebensmittelkarten (food ration cards) , false or not false in case and money and we will go there to see the "dirah" and my father will go down ten minutes later on a bike and we will meet them there with my brother, you understand? He will tell us where the apartment is. We started walking straight. There was no place to run away into a house - there was no houses. Main road. Suddenly we see a car coming towards us. He said, I think there are German officers there. So I said, So what? They dont stop at every person in the street. They make stop arrests. And whilst I said this, as I remember as it is now, they made demi-tour on us and I turned around and saw they are coming in a rush, seven SS Sicherheits police run out of the car and "Zeigen Sie mir die Papiere!". I take out my carte d identit. Ja, wowohnen Sie? Sage ich: Ich wohne nicht hier. I wasnt prepared really what to say. I dont live here. Vielleicht haben Sie Angst, vielleicht wohnen Sie mit Ihren Elton und Sie haben Angst, wir sind nicht interessiert in aeltere Leute. But I couldnt tell him where I live, so I said, I dont live here. Where do you live? I just came from the south of France. Ah, Sie kommen jetzt von Suedfrankreich. Wo haben Sie Ihre Valisen? I started mumbling. "Alright,you'll speak later on. The other fellow started going to the car. He put his hand in my pocket, took out the money....before he told to go into the car, he smacked me up, I thought I see stars and pittom, my father comes along. This took us only a few minutes, this, what I just told you. My father with his bike as we arranged, you know, and he turns his head - I can still see him - turns his head and sees exactly what s happening. He started running. They didnt see him. They arrested everyone, they asked papers everyone, they didn t see him. He went to my brother and told him the news. My brother understood I must be at the police station. They took me to the police station, local police station and they whispered him something to the police chief and I was sitting there together with this other fellow, sitting on a bench and my brother comes in. The SS left already. Qu'est que ces gens la? Who are these people here? So he said, Two Jews. You know how the Germans, the SS brought it in." "Jews? You? You're a Frenchman, aren't you?" "You do what the Germans do?" "Je suis responsable." "I am responsible and I can't do anything. Forget about it." He had to leave. This French collaborator, this chief of police, he was shot as soon as the French occupied the place, the Maquis came in, they killed him. He was the first in town to be killed. So I stayed at the police in a little room downstairs for special arrests a whole night and four oclock in the morning an SS man came with a gun like this, said, Come with me. Dont try to run, I ll shoot you right away. Nothing will happen to you if you behave, he said. We went by train to Chambery, a big town, Chambery, the Olympics were once in Chambery, and he took us to the Gestapo, the official Gestapo. First they kept us for hours in the basement, in a small room, we could hardly move. And then they took - never together, two people. One person. He asked me questions, he gave me a receipt for the money. Gave me a receipt. "Ordnung muss sein!" Oh yes. A receipt for the money and watch. And then they brought us to the prison, to the local town, the prison of the town. Big new prison with all kinds of "verbrecher" and ganovim and this sort of thing. Of course we were Jews, we were treated differently. We were Politische Arrestierte and we were allowed twice a day to go for a walk in the yard, we were talking. Q: You couldn t meet other prisoners? A: Only could meet with the Jews, the political prisoners, not the general. And we were ten people, they took us to Paris by train and in Paris, near Paris was this place, Drancy - probably you heard about it - where all the Jews in France who were arrested by the Germans were first brought to Drancy. Drancy was a police quarters, unfinished building with three floors and there were a few thousand people probably each time and every week or second week was a transport of a thousand people, twelve hunded people. And we gave concerts there and so forth. Q: How were the sleeping conditions there? A: It is France - it wasnt in Germany, it wasn t in Poland, you understand? They treated the people differently in France than they did in Poland because the general population, there were plenty of Nazis, but the general population didnt collaborate with the Germans, you understand? Q: So that means that when you were in Paris with a yellow star you didn t have any problems? A: First of all, very little time I was there with the yellow star. As soon as the yellow stars came out I left. I left Paris, you understand? I didnt stay with the yellow star. When I went to the opera I didn t wear a yellow star. The atmosphere was not yet...at that time we didnt know things we know today. You understand? Otherwise people all ask, How could it happen? Why didnt you fight? If those people who ask the questions would have lived then, they would have done the same thing which we did. The only thing we know about Paris, what happened when I was in Paris, that from time to time they killed a German, an officer, so they killed fifty Jews. They didnt take them from the houses, they took them from Drancy or from...they killed, fifty names they killed them. But that didn t show so much in the streets. The people know what happened, but it didnt show. Q: Coming back to Drancy, can you tell a bit about how the camp looked like, how it was organized. A: Drancy was a rather large place. Nobody did anything, there was no work for anybody. As a matter of fact, the leadership, later we heard there was a certain leadership who organized it and amongst them were also Jews, you understand, to keep order, so to speak. (end of side) People were deported in this transport. This transport consisted of twelve hundred people. Q: Every transport? A: This transport when I was deported from Drancy to Auschwitz. Q: How long were you in Drancy? A: From two to three weeks, I don't remember exactly. Three weeks because there were sometimes, not every week - we didn't know, inside we didn't know exactly what happened outside. Amongst the people were two people, two Jews who were not so young anymore. Most of the people were young, between twenty and thirty. I wouldn't say that. No, that's not true. The youngsters were eliminated, the older people were eliminated right away on arrival there in Auschwitz, but two people. two of these people, one must have been, one was named Captain Dreyfus. He was a nephew of Alfred Dreyfus, the first Alfred Dreyfus. Alfred Dreyfus was the brother of his father. The other one was a Colonel Blum, also over fifty. He probably, he looked to me between fifty-five and sixty. That was considered in those days a very old man. He was also in that transport because they found some irregularities in that camp so they deported the leadership and amongst the leadership was this Captain Dreyfus and Colonel Blum. They were real Frenchman, from generations back. When we arrived in Auschwitz, on the way to Auschwitz a few people managed to run away, they broke up the door, because they probably knew more than we did, you understand? Q: You didn't know anything? A: We didn't know where we are going. Nobody heard the name of Auschwitz, nobody heard the name of Mengele, nobody knows. The SS man who arrested me and brought me to Chambery, he saw on my face that I am completely... besides me, he said, "Why are you so afraid? Don't be afraid," he said. "The Fhrer himself said that everyone has the right to live. You're going somewhere where you will work and everything will be okay." Probably this SS man didn't come from Poland. You see, they worked it out in such a way that the SS who worked in France didn't know what is going on in Auschwitz. On the way to Auschwitz I remember we passed Prague. We were underneath a bridge, going the train - some were open, some were covered - and on top of the bridge in the morning about eight o'clock were people going to work, so they throw in their "Jause", their sandwiches, throw into the train and people caught. We arrived in Auschwitz, Birkenau in the middle of the night, the beginning of November, 1943. Q: In Drancy itself were you "misshandelt"? A: No. We weren't mishandled. No, no. I don't remember anything. Otherwise the people would be afraid already, what's coming. They tried everything to quieten the people they should not revolt. Q: There was no tenseness in Drancy. A: It was worked out in universities, in schools how to kill people, how to kill a few million people. It's not such an easy job as people think. To kill is also a very hard job. Anyway, we arrived in middle of the night. Everyone had valises with the best things - they encouraged people to bring good shirts and suits. Immediately, "Out!", shouting from all sides, "Out!" "Raus, raus, raus!" People here and all the valises on one side. Nobody had anything anymore except like this, except a ring or a diamond people had hidden away. Nobody had anything. Then they called out by loudspeakers and it was by the end or the middle of November where snow was already on the floor in Poland, in Auschwitz, people, women, pregnant people, old people, sick people, children or people accompanying older people, they should go on this side because they are going by "Lastautes", "masayot". They are going to the camp, it's five kilometers to walk. It wasn't true. It was barely two kilometers, maybe, maybe less. Because they wanted to eliminate as more people, so some people, why should they have to walk five kilometers? They can go by car, you understand? So I saw young people going this way. An hour later they were all dead; they didn't know. And the rest, about six hundred, seven hundred were here. Immediately they separated men and women. The women went somewhere else. And we were standing here about five hundred men, four or five hundred men. "Aufgehen zu fuent!" ("Make rows of five!") A whole commission came, headed by Mengele. Q: This was already in the camp, after those five kilometers? A: It was outside the camp, by the train, where the trains arrived, where it said, "Arbeit macht frei". These are the pictures in Auschwitz. There outside. And he started looking at the people. We didn't know Mengele, we didn't know nothing. I noticed that he asked people their profession, so before me, a few people before me "Was ist Ihr Beruf?" "What is your profession?" "Ich bin Schneider." "I'm a tailor." This side. The next, "Was ist Ihr Neruf?" "Kaufmann." " A merchant." This side. I wasn't prepared what to say. He came to me, he didn't ask a question. Miracle, "ness". If he would have asked me I wouldn't have said that I am a "chazen". I would have said that I am a singer, a singer. What did they need singers for? I was very thin. So they were sent away. We didn't know... Q: He sent you to the other side? A: We were sent to the camp, to the camp. No, not right away. First we were all naked. No, that was on arrival, not yet. Then we were sent to a washroom, to a "miklachat", "Dusche", and not warm, but cold water. We were given summer clothes, these stripes in the winter. In the winter they gave summer clothes and in summer they gave winter clothes, heavy, heavy stuff. A coat also, a very light coat with stripes. We didn't recognize each other, with "solche Muetzen" (such caps) with stripe. First they cut off all the hair, all the hair from everyone. We got our numbers. Q: What's your number? A: 164637. Q: What shoes did you have? A: Shoes. They were wooden shoes with wood underneath, wood. Two left shoes, two right shoes, it depended what you got, it was very fast. You got a coat, it's three sizes over you - it was a terrible thing. Anyway, we arrived in the camp. We started walking. An orchestra was playing there. Women. Imagine, we went out after the shower, naked, from the block to another block to get the numbers, this was another place. Naked, in the winter, on the snow. And an orchestra was playing, women, sitting on small wooden benches with violins and playing march music. So we were dressed up. We didn't recognize each other because people looked different with hair and we didn't have any hair nowhere, and we finally got a soup. A meal is a soup, no more. Not two parts. Meat or potatoes. Soup, whatever you find in the soup, this is the meal. And we started walking. We walked to Birkenau. I was in the Block No. 7. Q: So on the whole way you didn't get anything to eat, on the way from Drancy to Auschwitz? A: We had a bread, they gave us a bread before we left, and from this we had no meal, nothing, nothing, three days without meals. Q: And water? A: No, nothing. When we arrived there the people started drinking all day. Anyway, we settled down in a block and soon we went to sleep so to speak - you saw the pictures, one on top of the other. Not beds. I'd say eight or ten people, one next to the other, were lying on a wooden "Brett". So one of the inmates of the people who were there from before - they were French Jews and they heard a transport came from France. They came to see if there are not some people of their family. So a man came in. He was in there, in Birkenau, he was a "Blockaeltester", the chief of a block. A block means a big, that was a "refet" - how do you call "refet"in English? A "Scheune" in German. Q: A stable. A: A stable. It used to be a stable for cows or animals, and it was fairly large and on both sides were so-called beds, what you call. In the middle was an oven which wasn't used, from one end to the other. There was room in that place for five hundred people, six, seven hundred people. And so this man came in and passed by my place, where I was. He said, "You are a chazen!" I said, "Yes." "Don't you know me?" I said, "I don't remember." "Remember we ate together in a restaurant in "Platzel" in Paris a few times." He recognized me. One of the inmates there from before, he was a "Blockaeltester". He was later on hanged in another place where I was. It's a different story. So the people around me, they saw that this man speaks to me nicely.They wanted to know, "Tell me, what happened to my father?" "What happened to my mother?" "My sister?" "My children?" "We came together. What happened to them?" So he said to them, "You want to know the truth or you want to hear a story?" They said, "I want to hear the truth." He said, "I'm sorry to tell you that whilst you were on the way here, all of these people were dead already." Can you imagine what happened, crying, shouting. So the man, this "Blockaeltester" from another block told me, "Listen, later on you'll you be hungry. Come over to me, I'll give you something to eat." Of course, at the time we weren't hungry yet, you understand? We still had....A few weeks later I walked over to his block. He was in Block No. 5, something like that, shabbos morning, Saturday morning. In his block they were so quiet, you musn't talk loud, the people had no right just to walk around. Everybody was inside, in the "Loecher" waiting for their dead. And suddenly I walk and I hear davening. Davening, shabbos morning. I started walking and I hear better and better. They didn't daven loud, it wasn't permitted. And I still remember to this day of the "niggun" they sang for "Kal Adon" shabbos morning. I stopped, I davened with them. Q: In that block? A: In the block, quietly. They all come down from the three beds, three "komoth", and I see, I waited till after "shmonei esrei", and I see there was one man, a little, tiny fellow sitting on the third floor, hanging with his feet and I saw, without beard of course, and I could see a "talmid chochom", I could see a "rav". I went over to him, I said, "Shalom aleichem. I am so-and-so. I just came not long ago from Paris and I am a "chazen" in Paris. Who are you?" He said, "What's the difference?" So I spoke to the people. They told me he is a "rav" from a small town in Galicia - they were all from Galicia. I walked further. Another fellow recognized me. He was the brother of the "shochet" of Mattersdorf. He was from Vienna and his brother was the "shochet" of Mattersdorf. His name was Gruenhut. Later on he was in New York. And he used to come for "shabbosim" to Mattersdorf. He knew me because I was always singing, davening and singing. So he looked like a "Muselman" - you heard the expression "Muselman"? So he asked me - first of all I didn't tell him I don't recognize him. He wasnt recognizable at all, but you musn t tell him, a person like this that you dont recognize him. That means that he is a Muselman. He asked me, What do you think? Im alright? Oh, of course, I said to him. You ll be alright. And then a few days later, like in the story with the "Sar Hamashkim and the Sar Haofim" Bod shloshet yamim, the hat will take off of the sar haofim . The same happened there. I went into the block. There was a seleczia - you know what a seleczia is. And all these people I spoke to, all the rav and all the people who davened a few days before, there wasn t one soul left. Everybody was killed. By the way, before a seleczia Mengele came into the block - everybody knew that - a day before, or him or his people. "Hat jeder eine Decke, bekommt jederseine Ration?" ("Has everyone got a blanket, does everyone get his portion?") We knew that something is going to happen tomorrow. They did it, you see, to quieten down the nerves of the people, that they should behave, it should be easier for them to kill them. At the last seleczia I was, from nine hundred people they wrote down seven hundred. All nine hundred people stand naked and Mengele was there and every person who went through it in dread, to look if he has still some flesh on him. You understand? That he is not a Muselman . His name is not his name - nobody had a name. His number was written down and we were sleeping together with the people who were not written down. The people who were not written down, like me, my number was not written down, I was sleeping together with the people, with a few people their name was written down, they knew that tomorrow at this time they will be dead. A fellow was near me, the whole night he was talking to himself. He said, I don t understand. I, Im thirty years old. I come here to die? This is a time to die? I heard already of a man of seventy, eighty dying. This whole night I heard this story from him. Next day they called out the numbers. It was Blocksperre . Surrounded with SS, called out all the names. The trucks were waiting outside with the SS on the sides with machine guns, they were all brought on the trucks to the gas chambers. I stood there and looked out. No, no. First they were brought to a separate block, all these who written down the names, and they didnt give them the ration anymore because the people who brought them the so-called food said, Why should I give them food? Theyre going to die tomorrow anyway. So they sold the food for cigarettes, you understand? This has nothing to do with the SS. And they were fighting. I was there in the block after they were killed. It was like a battlefield, glasses and whatnot on the floor and all over. Q: To take away what they had? A: Yes. They were fighting. They fought between them because they were so hungry. One fellow was there, I saw him lying dead outside, before all were taken to the gas chambers. This was a fellow by the name of Hershkovitz, a Jewish, Yiddish actor from Vienna, a famous actor. He helped me to make up a little bit before a concert. In there. He was a man over fifty and his name was written down at that selectzia . I told you we were all together. Next time I met him in the toilet, we were sitting together, and he started talking to me. He said, Taube, what do you think? No more Hershkovitz, he said. Tomorrow at this time there will be no more Hershkovitz. There was once an actor, a famous actor, and he spoke like an actor, with the name of Hershkovitz and everybody knew him. No more Hershkovitz. I didnt know what to say. I had to say something, so I said, Who knows whose turn it is? He said, Maybe you want to change with me? I want to bring out the idea that as long as you live, even if you think, you know that next day or next hour you are going to be shot, as long as you live you hope. A miracle will happen in the last second. This is life. This is what I saw. The men knew exactly so when they were separated already in this block and they were just waiting for the trucks to take them to the gas chambers, I went over to the SS. It was a name I ve never forgotten. Rottenfҟhrer. They had special names. They don t have the general or colonel or captain . They had different names: Haupscharfҟhrer, Unterscharfhrer, Rottenfhrer. He said, Do me a favour. Shoot me, he said to the SS. I want to be shot. I dont want to die in the gas chambers. Leave me alone. And he insisted because he knew him before. He used to come when they played theatre. And he said, Okay, run. He started running and he shot them down and I saw them lying there outside with another ten, fifteen people, one across the other. This is Hershkovitz. So when they were all going to the gas chambers, a half hour later the door opens inside the camp and the truck comes back with fifty people. From the seven hundred fifty people came back. Who are these fifty people? Made mistakes with the numbers. They dictated the numbers - instead of 7 they wrote another number, so they sent them back. You understand? "Ordnung muss sein!" Q: So they checked again the numbers? A: They checked again the last minute. Some had a trial coming on. If you have a trial you cant be killed. Who will go to the trial? Maybe somebody was married to a non-Jew. You had also, he was not to be gassed yet. Came back. They came into the block - I happened to be there. The Blockaeltester was a Jew, a Czech Jew by the name of Miller. Took a stick and shut his eyes and knocked whoever he came across. He shut his eyes. He said, You? You came back because you had a trial next week? You came back because your father was married to a shiksa ? You came because....and the other taire Jiden , the other fine people, they are all dead already, they were killed in gas? Though he saw so much, the man, he saw before...He invited me to "Zuenden Chanukalicht in his room - he had a special room, the Blockaeltester . Gave me latkes. And the SS came in and said, Was ist das? He had a menorah on top of the door. "Was ist das! Das sind unsere Weihnachts kerzen.". Candles. Q: And they let him? They didnt say anything? A: Didn t say anything. If he is not sent by somebody, he is an individual. An individual has moments....I wouldnt condemn...there were Germans who were menschen. Q: You were saying something about concerts and theatre? A: We had concerts there, we had concerts inside. As I said, they let people do to be quiet and we had concerts. Q: In the block? A: In the block, in the block. Q: Just your block? A: I didn t come yet to it. I saw this was ein Vernichtungslager, Birkenau. There was no work except sometimes they carry stones from one place to the other, but there was no useful...from time to time the different, smaller camps, coal mines and so forth, needed people so they sent. They said they want a hundred people. There came a few people to choose a hundred people from this camp, from Birkenau. This was the D lager. I stood there. Q: You volunteered? A: Volunteered, yes, because from here I want to leave. As a matter of fact, there was a young man, a little bit older than I am. He was a violinist. He lives now in Hawaii of all places. He was a violinist., a "Jungermann" from Warsaw, he studied in Paris. He was a good violinist, professional violinist. He was a little bit sickly, he was not well. I helped him a lot. And wherever I went, he went with me. If Taube goes there, I go there. And so I was standing there in line to volunteer, he stood with me. We went. That must have been probably in February in 1944. Q: After two or three months. A: After two months, three months. I dont remember exactly these dates. Some dates I remember forever and sometimes I don t. We arrived in a place called Fuerstengrube. Fuerstengrube is near a town - Kshanov, a shtetl. .....in Galicia not far from Auschwitz, Oswiecim. In Yiddish its called Kshanov and in German they call it Krenau. And outside this town they had a coal mine, old-fashioned coal mine. They called it Fuerstengrube. There were about a thousand people working in this place and I was one of them. We arrived a hundred people in the winter. The sun happened to be shining clear. Went out and stood. The Blockaeltester comes out, the Lageraeltester, a friendly man with a smile. He said, Ja, wie geht's? Wer kann singen?" Ten people lift their hands. I didnt. I knew my turn will come. It did. Na, singen Sie mal etwas!" So one said, Listen, this fellow can sing. So I sang Dein ist mein ganzes Herz. You know that song? From Lehar. This is one of the songs that saved my life. The Lageraeltester said, Sie koennen alle gehen! He sent them all away with an SS man to bring them to different places, so I said, "Entschuldigen Sie Herr Lagerfӟhrer." Not Lagerfҟhrer, Lageraeltester. A Fhrer was only an SS man. "Ich habe einen Freund hier der ist Geigenspieler." A fiddler. Ja? We need. We went into the music Stube. In Fuerstengrube. Full with violinen and "Trompeten an der Wand. Suchen Sie sich aus welche Violine. Sie wollen, Kommen Sie!" We went to the kitchen. In the kitchen was sitting Hauptscharfhrer Moll, a man about thirty years old, he looked like fifty. Fat, with yellow hair. "So ein richtig Deutscher Verfressener, Versoffener. Herr lagerFӟhrer ich habe Ihnen 2 Juden gebracht, einen ist ein Saenger und der andere sagter ist Violinist. Lass mal was hoeren!" I sang again "Dein ist mein ganzes Harz" and he played the "Czardas". He sent us both a piece of cake, streuselkuchen and the smell - he was sitting there - the smell of the real coffee went to our noses. We didnt feel that for weeks already. Then he said something to the Lageraeltester and he took us both to a block, asmaller block, where the "better" people were. He said to the "Blockaeltester" he should take care of us. Be careful of these two people because otherwise hell have to do with me, he said, Be careful. And we both were designed to work in the kitchen instead of going down to the mines, and there was also a company Humboldt working outside in buildings, you know, with metal, shlepping big pieces of metal. We were working, peeling potatoes and so we had consequently more to eat, soup. Q: And the sleep accommodations were better than in Auschwitz? A: I had better condition, yes. We slept together with the kapos. Q: You had a bed on your own or again these...? A: No, no, a bed on my own. There were two floors, but a bed on my own. One day I was walking shabbos afternoon on the Lagerstrasse . Every second shabboas afternoon we didnt work, only afternoon. Every second shabbos. There was a hanging procedure, to hang people, also shabbos afternoon, we shouldn t lose working hours, you understand. So one Saturday afternoon I was walking the Lagerstrasse . An SS man came, he caught me from behind, Come with me. His name was Berger. He was one of the border SS man, the Polackim who became Germans, you know, Volksdeutschen . He gathered a few people, ten people, and brought us here and another fellow with machine gun like this and we walked. We walked to a forest and there were trees which were cut off and we had to dig out the roots because the gas chambers were overfilled. The furnaces which burnt the corpses who were gassed, there werent enough, so they took these roots on a field, put over the people, the dead people and poured over gasoline and burned them. This we should help. As one who is not used to this type of work I didn t even know how to hold a shovel. I didnt know how to hold a shovel because a shovel you don t put into the earth with your hand. You must...like this. Somebody told me that after that. I didnt know. So this Berger was watching me, how I work. He didn t like it, he didnt like my work. He said, Come with me. First he gave me a few smacks on my face, I thought I m seeing the "Malach Hamoves". I will teach you how to work. And then again he called me, he gave me a push, and there was a river there, a small, and I managed to jump on the other side. I had a nervous breakdown for a few days, I was completely broken up. I changed my bed from the top on a bottom bed and again I carried on. That was all in the year 44. Q: The Lageraeltester didn t know about it? A: No. The Lageraeltester was in the Lager. Q: When you came back? A: You think they tell them everything? Whatever you do to a Jew is not punishable by anything. As a matter of fact, this Lageraeltester was once...a few months later a transport came with Dutch Jews. A few of them were from Amsterdam. And because people gradually died or they were sick, they brought new people. Q: They were taken back to Birkenau? A: They were taken back to Auschwitz to get killed, to be gassed.And one of thesenew transports, also he was asked who can sing, they needed singers for a choir, and a fellow by the name Weinberger - he was chazen in Holland. A tiny, small fellow, very fine adele mensch . They introduced him to Hauptscharfҟhrer Moll in the "Musikstube. We were rehearsing there a choir. "Ich habe Ihnen einen neuen Saenger gebracht." The purpose of a neuen Saenger is not just in order to bring the old singers to the coal mines. If they wanted to get rid of me, so they think the new singer, so he sang a song. I still remember what song he sang, an Italian song. So the Lagerfhrer said, "Er wird gut sein fuer den Chor." He will be good enough... Q: For the choir. A: For the choir. Wo ist du Taube? Anyway, we were continuing.... Q: So how often did you have to sing there? A: No, that wasn t...sometimes once a week, once in two weeks. It depends on the occasion. Sometimes visitors came to visit, so they showed him. So we were run by the SS, not by the German army, the army of Germany. Q: Not by Wehrmacht. A: Not the Wehrmacht. The SS was a competition to the Wehrmacht. It was like a government in a government, you see? They ruled the Wehrmacht. They didnt like it, the Wehrmacht didn t like it. So we had to have a room in order, the beds should be made nicely, so when a commission came somewhere from abroad, they should see how beautiful it is. We never told them what really happened. Q: Appell there was every day? A: Yes, every morning was appell and once after they decided I should go to the coal mine. After two months working in the kitchen, its enough, you can go to the coal mines. I didnt know why, I didn t know what. An order, a piece of paper by the Schreiber , the secretary who was a Czech Jew. Tomorrow morning at four oclock. I went there. This is a very old coal mine. We walked like this in very narrow, very, very deep and water running from the walls. Until two days later they took me again up. I didn t ask for anything. They want a concert and they saw that if I continued to work in the coal mines my voice will suffer, do you understand? They needed me. One day, one managed to run away going to work in the evening. There were three shifts a day: in the early afternoon, in the late night at ten oclock and in the morning, so in the evening shift they went to work, to the coal mines, it s a little walk. One managed to run away and they didnt catch him.There was a forest. So they immediately ordered all the people to go back to the camp, all were woken up in the middle of the night, and in a hurry they took five Jews by chance and they shot them down. On the snow. With a speech. One day, in the middle of the night, one of them woke up, he was only wounded, but he was unconscious. It was quiet in the night, nobody. He had to go to the secretary because there was no way how to run away. There was a big wall around the camp. Went to the secretary and he said, You have to go to the SS. The SS phoned up, they phoned already up that six people ran away, five were shot, one managed to run away. You understand? So he was already supposed to be dead. They shot him again. Got the idea? One day I came home from work and I see near the entrance inside six people, six or eight people were standing like this. Try how long you can stand like this. You can stay a half hour. Awful. We knew nothing, why, what. Took them away and we found out that one was a doctor, inmates. Dr. Goldstein from France. So they said - we are not one hundred percent sure if the story is true - they were digging under a block a hole to run away outside the camp and the doctor gave these people free, he made them sick so they could have time when to dig. Anyway, they were caught and two months later, two months, they came back and they hanged them in the camp. I was maybe twenty yards away from that tliya . Before they were hanged, we were exercising, Muetzen ab, Muetzen auf. And I was really nervous and heartbroken because some of these people I knew personally. I knew personally. One was a gibor , you know, he was a strong man. He could break....And I hear my name, standing there a thousand people. The Lageraeltester - I stood there and cried. Taube, was machen Sie, Wissen Sie nicht morgen nacht laben Sie zu Singen? Part of an operetta by Lehar. The main song of it......(singing) "Freunde, das Leben ist lebenswert." Friends, life is worthwhile living. That starts with a very high note and I knew that next day I will have to sing. You know, we had concerts, I sang Schubert songs and I was made up like Schubert with glasses.... Q: Who made that for you? A: We had people who knew everything. You know, we didnt have all the music. We had a lot of printed music, but we wrote down ourselves, we had fantastic musicians there. Musicians who remembered everything by heart. Instrumentalists from Holland, trumpetists and violinists and cellists. What not? Q: For who was this concert? A: Inside, for the SS and sometimes the Wehrmacht also came in. Q: And the inmates were allowed to come, too? A: Yes. They came, too. Q: So you were standing there and they were being hung? A: Anyway, I quietened down and suddenly they came with a truck with the eight people. The table was prepared already with eight slings, you know. They put them on the table, all the eight people, and Jews had to hang Jews and Polacks hanged Polacks. I witnessed once also a ceremony of hanging with Polacks, but the Polacks started talking Polish, The Polish army will pay you back. But they hanged them just the same. And they were hanged. They were hanging for hours and hours on the tliya . I went into the dining room and I sat like I sit now and where you are sitting there the eight people were hanging, the SS men were standing there and playing around with their bodies, shaking them and taking out the pencils from the pockets and we were eating. I still remember what we were eating. These things you remember because it is in consequence with something. We had beetroot soup, beetroots. That was in the summer, 44. Q: They didn t talk, anything? A: That was in the winter of 44. Yes. 45 the war was already towards the end. We didnt know. You remember, I mentioned Captain Dreyfus. Captain Dreyfss - they were a very assimilated French family, but still Jews. He was a member of the community in Paris. He told me he would have probably never have spoken to me before. I never had the opportunity of speaking, they were an aristocratic family. He was a high grade captain in the French army. And he told me, he asked me a favour, "If you survive - I know if the war lasts longer than three, another four or five months I will not make it." And he didn't make it. He got diarrhea and he died there, not from the gas chambers, he died. But he was very quiet and very understanding. He asked me to go to the "consistoire" in Paris and speak to Mr. Jusmar, who was the secretary of the "consistoire", "and tell him that you met me and tell him what I'm telling you now, that he should report to my family." His family was already intermarried with some of the royal family of Spain, he told me. He told me. With Colonel Blum I didn't have any dealings. I'm not even sure, he wasn't in my block. This Captain Dreyfus was so naive. When he came there he pulled out a letter from his pocket, which they gave him in Paris before he was deported, to show that they should treat him well. He also didn't know what Auschwitz is. And the SS man there, a Ukrainian, beat him up, beat him up terribly, terribly, just because he gave him the letter. There was a different psychology, a different role. So the time came, it was after Pesach. No, it was before Pesach. It was towards the end of April, 1945. Q: And you were the whole time in the kitchen? A: Yes and no. Yes, mostly I was in the kitchen, yes. The time came and we felt.....you know, we knew the news a little bit because those people who worked in the coal mines, they were together with Polacks and they came with newspapers, in German and in Polish. Old newspapers, from yesterday from last week, so we knew when they wanted to kill Hitler in Germany in 1944. We knew everything what was happening. We knew how far he went. Radio nobody had. So one day we were told to stand up in line, we were going somewhere on wagons. We stopped at a certain place, not far, and we started walking. Walking. A whole night, a day and night. The snow was coming down and the winds. People died and they fell, they shot them on the way. People had blankets with them and....you see the pictures, the golus-pictures. This exactly what it looks like. We walked and walked and finally we arrived in a place - Gleiwitz, a town in Germany on the border of Poland, not far from Auschwitz. There was no light. It was dark, middle of the night. We were told to go up on trains and we heard shooting right and left, shooting all the time. The wagon I was in it was full of Polacks, goyim and Jews. Finally we moved. Food - nothing, nothing. Snow, we got a little bit of snow from the air to wetten our....We drove a long, long time by train, trains, open wagons, open wagons. And when it was snowing we were happy because we could have something to wetten our lips. We arrived in Germany in a place called the "Dora", but in between we were near Kln, at different stations, train stations. At one of these stations - I don't remember exactly when, which station - one of the boys of our camp was trying hard....sobbing. He was together with "antisemiten". Q: Polish? A: Polacks. They wanted to kill him, so he wanted to go into my wagon. I helped him before already with little things. A young man, eighteen years old, seventeen, eighteen. Q: Like what? A: With food, a little food here and there, leftovers and this. Listen to this story. It was in the station in Germany. Steht SS: ''Herunter, herunter ich schiesse!" Somebody shot him dead in front of my eyes. In front of my eyes. Q: When he was already in your wagon? A: I was in the wagon. Q: Where was he? A: Outside the wagon, down. He wanted to go up. (end of side) This young man was killed in front of my eyes by an SS man, was shot. After my liberation I came back to Paris, I was invited to "daven" Shabbos in Metz and I came there and Shabbas I stayed with a young man who was the "shochet" of the town and we were talking. That was right after the war, everybody was talking the same thing. He told me stories and I told him. And I told him the story, I saw this young man die in front of my eyes. Suddenly he jumped up and he said, "That's my brother!" "How do you know it was your brother?" What is your name?" I said. "Lipshitz." Yes, I remember his name was Lipshitz. "Was his grandfather a Nadvorner Rebbe, "Yes." "He knew six hundred Blatt Gemorra when he was bar mitzvah?" "Yes." And he started crying terrible and so on and so forth. So now I come back to the camp. After we were walking and many people were killed on the way, we arrived at a place in Germany not very far from Luebeck. In the morning, those who couldn't walk - because we were at night a few hours sleeping in a place on straw and in the morning their legs were swollen that some couldn't walk, they shot them. We were then told that we are going to be liberated. Liberated? We were...I lost my language, I couldn't speak. And suddenly we saw the International Red Cross and we were told we will go to Sweden and that's what happened. Of course, it didn't go so fast as I told you because we were terribly, terribly, terribly surprised, we couldn't believe it. And eventually we went by boat to Sweden. Q: There were no air raids on the way? A: A good question. Some of the boats - we weren't the only one - were air raids and this Herschel from Kln - I told you, the kapo - he was killed in one of the boats. There was a lot because the English thought they are Americans, the Americans thought they are Germans - they were all mixed up. Anyway, we arrived in Sweden. Q: From where? Where did you get the boat? A: From the north of Germany, from Luebeck, from Hamburg - I've forgotten already the name of the port there - we arrived in Trelleborg. That is southern town of Sweden and after a few days we were brought to a school and we recuperated. The Swedish government paid for everything because actually they had a bad conscience, they thought that the Allies are going to pay them because they let the German army go through from Norway to Russia in the north. Anyway, they took in, there were mostly women by the end, but the Folke Bernadotte, the one who was killed in Israel later on, he was the president of the International Red Cross and negotiated with Hitler to liberate these people, mostly women, who find themselves in north of Germany. Q: Where did these women come from? A: Oh, from different camps. Q: You just met them actually there...? A: I didn't...a few thousand. And so by the end they said, "Okay, take the few men, too." I was one of the few men, a few hundred men. You understand? Most were women. And we arrived in Sweden, we were there, we recuperated. We were a few different places and mostly in Jnkping - if you heard the names. There's a Norrkping, Jnkping. And we were treated very well - we had radios and music, but we didn't go out. We stayed inside and recuperated. And eventually, the 13th of July - why do I remember exactly the 13th of July? Because the next day was the 14th of July which is National Bastille Day, "le quatorze juillet", dix-neuf cent quarante-cinq. The boat left, the "Drotningholm", the luxury boat from Gteborg to France, and I, as I came from France, I was evacuated to France. Now here I must interject a little, very important thing. On Friday - you know, Friday in France, the 13th, vendredi treize is a lucky day. Q: A lucky day? A: A lucky day. This vendredi treize changed my life. Why? I came on the train, together with a friend of mine, to Gteborg from Jnkping. He was also a singer, he couldnt sing in the camp, but he was a Polish, assimilated Jew - I couldn t find him later on, he married a shiksa and so. I told him, arriving in Gteborg I told him - it was eleven oclock in the morning. We were supposed to be at four o clock in the afternoon in the boat, and once you are on the boat you cant leave anymore, you know. Next day. You know, I heard there is a Jewish community here in this town, an old Jewish community - I haven t seen a Jew, a community in two years, I would like to see a synagogue. He said, Okay, if you wish. We took a cab, we stopped at the main synagogue of the town. And the Jewish community in Swedish is "Mosaiske Versammlungen". Went in the morning, eleven oclock Friday - nobody there. A goy was cleaning the place, so I spoke to him German - they all understand - and he said, Ill give you a phone number. Go into the office and phone up the rabbi. Phone him up, a Rabbi Karlberg, also a German refugee. I said, My name is so-and-so and I am a chazen and I come... You re a chazen? Write down my name and address and come immediately. We need a chazen. Took a cab, he received me like a king. In those days, everything for me, for us was a sensation. He phoned up the president, said, Theres a young man here. He says he is a chazen and you know we need a chazen. The chazen just passed away a few months before. He was there forty-five years before that. They had a teacher who was also a baal tefillah , but they needed a chazen. He said, Tell the chazen he should come Friday, tonight, to daven, to conduct services in the shul. In a small room, but... I said, Yes, but I have to be four oclock on the boat. He said, Don t worry. Well send a policeman with papers and everything. He will bring you and take you. Don t worry. The policeman took me. Six o clock we davened in the shul. Immediately, You should come in the morning, too. The port is not very far away from the town. You know, its not such a big town. I came in the morning, davened, had a meeting after the davening. Youre our chazen. Im the chazen. I said, Very nice, thank you very much, but my parents and family are waiting for me in France, sent telegrams and... Ah, I understand. Go. We will send for you. I went home, I davened in my shul where I used to daven. Q: Where? In Paris? A: In Paris. And Paris wasn t Paris in those days like today. Everything was rationed and it was dirty and you didnt find the people, didn t come back yet from America, from all the places, many people were killed. It wasnt the same. And I was young, I wanted a little bit of adventure, so I decided...I got a letter between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, 1945, with tickets, visas and money, everything. It was November until I settled all my things and decided I would go. My father didn t like the idea, but....My parents lived in Aix-les-Bains at the time. I arrived, they were waiting for me in the airport in Stockholm and they brought me to Gteborg and I became the chazen. I became the chazen, I had my meals with a family, an almona whose husband used to be the shochet in Gteborg - and she was a very fine woman, two daughters and two sons. They were all young yet. She was also young. And everyday I went there together with the other chazen, the other baal tefillah , the teacher. We had our meals there. One day on Shabbos - you know, most of the refugees were girls, from Poland, from Hungary. All types - assimilated, not assimilated. A lot of them married Swedish goyim, you know, and a lot later divorced - terrible situation. So the families, the frum families invited girls for Shabbos. So it came Shabbos with the family, there was a girl there. She was a friend with their daughter, with her daughter. A beautiful girl. Started talking Hungarian - shes Hungarian, but speaks French and German. We spoke German and French. A girl who went to university, went to the school - knew German like I do, better even. She knew the history of Germany with the "Lied von der Glocke". And we started going out together. A few weeks passed by, I got a phonecall in Gteborg. Hello, who is speaking? Mr. Rosenberg from Paris. Moishe Rosenberg? Yes. What are you doing here? I m a businessman and now its after the war, we need everything, so I brought something to sell and I heard in Paris that you are in G՚teborg, so maybe you find for me a place where to eat Shabbos. I said, Yes, dont worry, I will do it. I phoned up to my lady and I told her and she said, With pleasure. Bring him up. Came up Shabbos. This girl was invited again. This girl, same girl. He started talking Hungarian right away. Meantime, we were getting very close and a few weeks later got a phonecall again from this Mr. Rosenberg from Paris. Again the same thing, he asked me if I could get him Shabbos. I said yes. He said, By the way, I want to talk to you, very important things. Come over to the hotel. Went over to the hotel. He said, Listen, I know you from Paris. Remember that girl that was there on Shabbos? A girl from a Jewish home, a beautiful girl, too, intelligent girl. I think that is a shidduch for you. I said, Thank you very much. We are going to be engaged in a few weeks. So this is my wife. My wife was arrested in Holland. A different, big story, what she has to tell. She was there nine months and I was eighteen months. So after they heard me, I became the chazen there, but it didnt take me long. This, I believe, I am a maamin , thats why I had to go to Sweden, to find my wife. And after a few months I found that s not a place where I want to have children and bring up my children. Mostly assimilated and so on, and I decided to go back to Paris. I convinced the president to let me go for Pesach back to Paris, not the same shul, not my shul. The Rashi shul, its called. It was a shul full of immigrants after the war, that came from all over the world, from all over Europe, and I became the chazen there. So that was Pesach and after Pesach I decided to leave. That was in May, 1947. I came back, I came there November, 45, and May, 47 I went back to Paris. In Paris I lived above the shul. It was very difficult to get an apartment in those days in Paris. And we went first to visit her family, my wife s mother who was still alive in Hungary, and a sister - we went to Budapest and so on, to different places, and before the Yomim Tovim - I stayed two years in Paris, just over two years, and my son was born in Paris, the first son was born in Paris, she was pregnant when we came to Paris. He was born in 47 in November, so when he was a year and a half we went to Budapest in 1949 and a few months later we went to London. I became the chazen of the Hendon Synagogue in London. In London we were nine years. In 1958 we went to Washington, D.C. Q: Why did you leave London? A: A good question. An adventure. America. I m not sorry I went. If you would know London today you would understand me. You never lived in London, so you dont know what London is. It is good and bad. I like very much London. We stayed five years in Washington, from 1958 to - exactly five years - 63 I went to Montreal. There I worked twelve years and in the end, November, 75, we came to Israel, Rehovot. The older children were here already. My two children were here and my son, the second son - I have two sons and a daughter - he came with us at the same time and my daughter was already married here in Yavne and my son was living at the time in Kfar Etzion. He lives since then in Kfar Etzion. Since 1958, no 58 we came to Washington. He was bar mitzvah in Washington. He came here, hes been here twenty-five years now. Q: Have you ever been back to Poland? A: To Poland, no. I knew with me, with myself what to do. I came to the conclusion, I m still thinking: What would I find? I wouldnt find anything. I would see the house I was born, I would see the place where my father grew up, where I was with both grandparents, so when we were by ourselves, my sister and I, I was with my fathers parents and my sister was with my mother s parents. So I would go back, but.....I spoke to people who were there and all came back heartbroken. We were in Hungary, four years ago, we were in Vienna. I was standing crying to see the shuls who didnt exist anymore. Mattersdorf, Lackenbach - we have a stone there which the Jewish community in Vienna put up to tell - that was only a few years ago - to tell that there was a synagogue once. So all the places that there was once a synagogue, most of them don t exist. There is a plaque that here was a synagogue once. Thats all. The only thing that is there is Seitenstettentempel. Q: Did you tell your children what you went through? A: Yes. I told them. Our children know exactly what we went through and as a matter of fact, on the Spielberg video - I didn t get it yet - but at the end, all the three children came and everybody made a statement. Q: Now, what happened with your parents, your sisters and brothers? A: My parents were in France. They were hidden and they didnt catch them. My sister and my brother, the only brother who lives in Manchester - he died a few years ago. I am the oldest in the family, and my youngest all passed away. My sister was barely fifty years old when she passed away and my brother died also thirteen years ago in Paris. He was sixty-two when he passed away and my youngest brother, he was about seventy. He died about two years ago, three years ago in Manchester. Q: But they were all together, hidden in the south of France during the war? A: The one who was in England was in England. No, my brother Eli wasn t in the south of France. My sister also. My sister was in Clermont-Ferrand. Q: Hidden there. A: Hidden there, yes. My parents were a long time in Labrobor and places and in Clermont-Ferrand. One day they were nearly arrested and they jumped out from a back door and the police didnt like it. The Frenchmen couldn t understand after the war, Why did you run away? They didnt understand. Q: But the whole time you didn t have any contact whatsoever? They didnt know about you? A: They didn t know. My parents didnt know that I am alive. They got some news with somebody, but they didn t know it was something positive. Only after, they got a phonecall from me or a telegram after the liberation. Q: Where did you find them? A: From Sweden. Q: How could you find them? A: I called them in France. I lived ten years in France so I know a lot of people. I know a lot of people in different places where I...Clermont, I dont remember where. Paris. Q: What do you feel in today s situation? Do you see antisemitism rising again? A: We came here twenty years ago, just over twenty years ago. After living in eight different countries, in spite that I never had dealings with non-Jews, with goyim, I felt that was the best country I ever found. Not only is the mezeg avir is wonderful here after living in Canada, in Montreal, where I have seven months heating in the house with winter, but altogether, to live amongst Jews and to speak Hebrew - I knew Hebrew before I came here. The reason why I didnt make the interview in Hebrew because I m not so fluent in Hebrew because I live up till this day in an English-speaking community in Rehovot. I daven in an American shul, everybody speaks English. The children already know. But when I came here I knew Hebrew better than my children. And up to this note, I knew Hebrew since probably the first word I pronounced when I was born, after I was born was Hebrew. And I always had a Hebrew newspaper in my house, if its not a daily, it s a weekly or a monthly, magazine and so on. And Ma ariv I read already before I came here, since the Milchemet Sheshet Hayamim I read every weekend, I had the weekend Maariv" Erev Shabbos. So Hebrew was to me a wonderful thing. To listen to the sound of Hebrew, to this day I enjoy Hebrew. And especially at the times when Begin was the Prime Minister. There was so much hope and so much joy and so much....I don t know what to say. Since especially in the last four years I became a little bit pessimistic. Unfortunately, these people who run the government havent been in the Shoah, didn t go through the Shoah and they dont realize what could happen, what is...you know, if people tell people who were in the Shoah, Why didnt you run away? Why didn t you shoot back? Why didnt you fight? you can tell them, If you have been there, you would have done the same thing. Who would believe that because some person wrote a book, that this will be true, it will come true. So Hitler wrote a book, Mein Kampf , hes going to kill the Jews. So you re going to tell me that because Im a Jew you re going to kill me? I remember I met a Frenchman during the war when I was still in Paris when the occupation, before, a Frenchman who had been several generations born there. He said, You know how they speak. "C'est mon pere qui a fait la guerre de 1870." He made the war - thats the way - he made the war of 1870. "Et moi j'ai fait la guerre de 1914-1918, qu'est-ce que vous voulez?" I can tell you stories. But I don t have "ta'anoth" to these people, especially people who wereinfluenced by the goyim, they dont know any other way. But they are going to kill me because I m a Jew? Ive been together with Jews who were not Jews anymore, who were Jews who were not circumcised. They hardly knew anything about Judaism. They died and were killed just the same as others. And now we are in our country, and I feel I walk in my own country which G-d had given to us. And here, this is the reason between us and those who call themselves hilonim. We believe that G-d has given us this country. It is ours. How many times is it written, "wi hoyo ki savohu el ha aretz. In trouble are those people that don t believe that G-d has given this country. They actually in more trouble than us. By the end they will all emigrate from here. If they continue giving this kind of education to their children - they dont teach them religion, belief in G-d, in the Torah. They don t teach them nothing. Humanism, so-called humanism. Judaism they dont teach them. They teach them Eretz Yisraeli, whatever that means. You ask any non-Jew What is a Jew? You ask a Jew from France or in America or in England or anywhere and they ll tell you they are Christians, they are Protestant, they are Moslems, and they are Jews! Believe that the word Jew , Yehudi is a religious term. Yehudi hiloni is a contradiction in terms. There is no such a thing. This is our troubles. And I pray to G-d, G-d should open their eyes and defeat these people, they shouldnt be at the helm of the government, of a Jewish government. A Jewish government who has ministers who are anti-religious - this is impossible! That can t be! It will not be! B ezrat HaShem. Q: Thank you very much.