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Play MovieFebruary 3, 2008 - Part 3 of 6
Section below transcribed by: Talia C (2010)
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When you were living on the Russian side, did you know what was going on the German side?
Well, sort of but not really. When they began isolating the people, putting them in ghettos and began taking away the businesses and putting yellow stars on your lapel and killing others, yeah it sunk in right away and I grew up instantly.
During those two years of Russian control, did any of those restrictions happen during those – can we stay on those two years for a minute? Did any of the restrictions, ike the yellow star, under Russian control?
No, no, no, no. Which is the Jewish faith and Hitler called us "Jude" which was a dirty word. So no, there was no anti-Semitism under the Russians that we were aware of.
In your book you mentioned a lot of times where you had to grow up really fast, can you describe what it was like for you to have to age really quickly, under Russian command? What year?
'41.
How did the Russians treat the Jews?
Well, I had no contact with the Russian army or the rules or the adults did that. But there was no problems, as long as we did what they said, if you were a spy you were shot, if you weren't a spy and you accepted communism, everything was fine. As a matter of fact, it was very good. I remember in school, they gave us red scarves with a ring that you put on it, and we belonged to a group, we were called pioneers, and then a Russian communist leader-it's like boy scouts-would teach us about the government. Would teach us about how good it is to be a communist, and how bad it is to be a capitalist and have all those people starving and all those people being fed and having a lot of money and we're all the same. So all of us wore the same scarf, wore the same clothes, nobody was different nobody was rich and nobody was poor.
Did you like being in communism?
Yes, it was a good thing to be because we didn't know any different. We were being trained just like in Iraq, some of the kids are being taught to hate the West. To hate the Jews, and the Muslims, and Catholics and that's how they grew up and they do that. But I was ready to become a communist, I had nothing. I had no money, I had nothing I had to give away, things were a bit better. Things were better, because there was more food available, so that part was good.
Did you see any propaganda posters?
Oh yes, used to have red flags with a sickle and a hammer and Lenin and all patriotic songs. I still know some of the Russian patriotic songs.
Can we hear it?
[sings Russian Patriotic song.]
That was a marching song?
It was a war song about soldiers going to fight.
Did the family life at home change when the Russians took over? Did anything change in your household?
No, no.
You talked about how if you followed the orders from the Russians, you would be okay. Were there a lot of instances in which people would be resilient towards the Russian forces?
No, no, no. Anything would be worse, I mean they were life savers for us.
How did it affect you, not really having that time in between becoming an adult and your childhood? You said you had to grow up quickly, how did it affect you, do you think?
How did it affect me, becoming a child in early life? Actually there was no choice. It was either die, go with the children and die or begin thinking, how am I going to stay alive? What is it going to take? Do I have to do this, do I have to do this? What options do I have? Can I escape? Can I not escape? And those are the things that you think about, you just start thinking to stay alive one day, that’s all. And then the next day, you think again, what do you have to do to stay alive the next day? So you learn how to analyze the situation and react quickly. I always kind of analyze everything. What would be the best place for me to be? How can I get out or how can I get in the fastest and the best way? And then it becomes part of you. This is part of me even now. I always look for the best opportunities. If a whole bunch of people are running this way, I will stop and analyze, why are they running this way? Would I be better off running that way?
Can you describe when Germany attacked Russia? What your experience was.
My experience was just a few bombs, and soldiers going through town. And before we knew it we were under German rules. Now, what happened afterwards in Stalingrad and Moscow we didn't know. I mean, they were fighting a big war over there but we didn't know it, we just had SS troops. We had no food, we had no clothing, we had no heat. The Germans would dismantle everything. In the churches they would remove all the metal. The bells, the gates, iron gates, anything with metal that they could send to Germany to make more weapons. They would pull up all fences. There was a ghetto and when people left they sent everything to Germany, all the furniture, all the houses, all belongings, personal belongings, Jewelry, everything went to Germany. All the art, from everywhere went to Germany. Chandeliers from the synagogue. Anything went to Germany. Churches became bare and everything was downgraded and marginalized. Until we were taken and put in ghetto's and taken away.
Will you describe that? When you were taken away and put in the ghetto?
Well, the German's began passing certain laws and some of them didn't affect us, but some of those were to empty all sanitariums to kill all people that were sick with Tuberculosis or other incurable diseases. They took on the old ????? people that were well. They just got rid of them because they could be of no use and then they started eliminating the seven-day Adventist’s and Jehovah’s Witness's, got rid of them. And then we got rid of the gays. The homosexuals. Then we got rid of the gypsies, all the little groups, and all that was left was the Jews. So, the first thing was to put them in a ghetto, isolate them, starve them to death. 1000's died in just the ghettos because they turned off electricity, they turned off the water, and you just had to live with what you had. And then systematically they put them on trains and transport them to crematoriums, death camps.
What year was this?
That would be '41, middle of '41.
Can you describe the physical lay out of your ghetto? Where things were positioned, where you stayed?
[drawing on paper]
If this is the city Grodno, the ghetto was in a small corner of the town. Now we happened to be in the Jewish part, so everybody-I don't want to write on here-everybody from all of this here had to move in here. And our apartment was-other families had to move in with us-everybody was very crowded. During the winter, I think we had to burn all the clothes and all the books and all the furniture just to keep warm and stay alive. So here was the ghetto, sort of like this [draws picture of ghetto]. There was one gate here and there was a street here and then the Germans used to just go down the street with their guns, they weren't afraid of anybody. And the dead people would be taken out on wagons and people would push the carts. They would take them over somewhere, out of town and they have a mass grave and would bury them. And then, there was a train that was right over here they would seal of a street, all the houses. Everybody had to get out of the houses and they go to the train, which was over here. All going to the train, the train would drive away. Five days later the train would return, take another group of people from different houses, put them in a train. They would drive away, and everybody thought they were going to Germany until the war was over. Because the Germans kept saying "we need you here because our soldiers are fighting the Bolsheviks, the communists, and we are protecting you so we need your work. Nobody believed what really happened. And then, when this was done, they moved on to the next section and then wagons used to come in and collect all the clothes and all the furniture, put them on wagons, take them out through the gate, put them on trucks and send them to Germany. All the clothes, the glasses, the books, all the furniture was taken out and sent away. Then, the whole thing was completed, and when the whole thing was completed, everything was gone. We were able to maneuver by being diligent and clever, to be some of the last few people in the ghetto. And they put us in the synagogue and we weren't enough for a transport. So that’s when outside the ghetto, where my uncle had a bakery, there was a hiding place, a cellar. This is where my father and I one night escaped form the synagogue and when to the cellar where we stayed for a few weeks.
Can you describe how you managed to escape and go to the bakery?
How I escaped to hide here? Well, we were in the synagogue one evening, it was snowing. We climbed out through the back window the ????? was kind of up maybe about eight feet from the ground. I think there must have been a basement below because you had to go up steps. So we jumped down. And then we walked to here [points at drawing] and then we climbed in and my uncle had a lot of big loaves of bread, stacked up on a shelf this big [gestures with hands]. Because he was a baker! And then we had a big barrel of water and we had a barrel for sanitation and there was a place-there were mattress' where we could sleep-we had candles. So when-and there was also in the ghetto-there was in the ghetto.
The bakery was in the ghetto?
It was within the ghetto, yeah. It was in the ghetto. So then at night we start taking away all the people from here and everybody was gone. Polish workers used to come and go into the ghetto and move all the furniture from the houses. And when they came into our house we heard it. So we had to be very quiet. Because if we made a sound they would have found us and we were in the ghetto. And then, everything was empty, everybody escaped, there was no one here, and we were by ourselves. No where to go, we couldn't live there forever. So we walked for eighty kilometers to another city called Bialystok. There were eighty Jewish people there, then the same thing began. And they began taking everyone away. We managed to be the last ones again. And then we had to go. The rest is history.
Can you describe the transport camp Kelbasin?
In our case, they took a lot of people from the Grodno ghetto and then put them on trains right away. They wanted them to the ghetto quick so they put them in a big camp a few miles out of town and it was eight miles we had to walk through there. I think this is what happened. When we left here, we went to Kelbasin and we escaped and then we were in the forest for three days and then we walked to Bialystok. So in Kelbasin it was just a horrible camp. And I was able to escape from there through the wagon, I think you remember that, that was already covered. I know that that was covered. But it was very miraculous, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to go.
Can we go back to the ghetto for a minute, I just want to-did you have friends, Jewish friends from school, did they move into the ghetto as well?
Well, they lived there.
They lived there to? And did you still play with them? Did you still play soccer with them?
