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Szymon Binke - June 16, 1997

Do you remember any of the Jewish police or any of the Jews that worked for uh, the Judenrat there?

I remember their names, some of 'em probably.

Did you ever see Rumkowski?

Yes. Yeah, Chaim Rumkowski, yeah.

Tell me your feelings about Rumkowski.

I, well at the time uh, well I was a kid. But now I think he tried to, to, to, to do, you know, he tried to uh, keep the ghetto going as long as he could.

And what about the Jewish police who worked?

Some of 'em were bad, others, you know, like, uh...

You told me about a man named Targovnik?

Targovnik, yes.

Tell me that story now.

He was a, he was a, well he was one of 'em. There were, there were plenty more. But I know him because uh, he told on my father and my uncle. He would uh, he worked for the Kripo, which was criminal, criminal police. And uh, they had a building inside the ghetto, it was fenced off and uh, he would uh, give 'em names of people that were uh, uh, semi-wealthy before the war and they figured they had hidden jewelry or money or whatever. And he'd give their names to the German criminal police and uh, they'd call 'em up and they'd take him in their room. There were four or five of 'em around, he'd, they'd put the person in the middle and start asking where the money is. If he wouldn't come out with it, they'd bea...beat him constantly for days and days.

That happened to your father?

Yes. My father was, twice or three times. Yeah.

And he was beaten.

Beaten, yes. Badly.

Um, what happened when he came back home?

He went back to his, to work.

You didn't talk about this, that he...

Oh yeah, we knew about it. I, in fact uh, we knew one of, we knew a driver, I think it was a driver that drove the horse and carriage that those guys used to go around and I'd, I'd take a, a, a sandwich or some food to my father once in a while, you know, whenever they'd allow me I'd ring the bell and hand it to, to, to somebody and hoping that my father would get it.

This is while he was in jail.

While he was in the, criminal po...yeah, inside there. And once in a while I'd uh, I'd walk by and see him work the field, because he knew how to uh, do farming and...

And was there money? Did he give up money?

[sigh] I, the first time I know he did. I don't know the other times. I don't remember. The first time, yeah. Because they took him back where we lived before the war and uh, I guess they had some, something buried. But he never, he never told me what or when. But I know he went back to where we lived before the war, so apparently he did uh, give up.

And what happened to Targovnik?

He came in, in the same transport we did, in, into Auschwitz and he was beaten all night long. He was beaten to death.

By whom?

By the uh, people that worked the uh, bath house.

Jews.

Jews, yes. Oh well, not all of 'em of were Jews. Some of 'em were, they were all uh, uh, uh, prisoners. But uh, some of 'em might not have been Jews. There was some uh, non-Jews that were in concentration camps, there were political prisoners, there were criminals. The political prisoners had a, they had a triangle sewed onto their, the political was a red triangle, the criminal was a green triangle, ours supposedly was supposed to have been a yellow, but very few of us had it, you know, by the time we got in. Well, everybody knew what we were in for.

So you think other Łódźers, people from Łódź, beat him, Targovnik?

Not, not the people that came in on our transport. Maybe some of our people told those people who he was. And uh, I remember when we first, when they first undressed us, you know, you went into this building, it's a bath, they take all, everything away from you and you wind up naked and uh, he came out to my father, says, "Aaron, let's try and stay together," and my father just walked away from him, because he knew what he did to him uh, in the ghetto. And that's, then after that, that they started beating on him and in the morning he was dead, he was all black and blue, I mean from head to toe. Just kicked him and beat him and with sticks and...

So you saw him?

Oh yeah. I saw him. I saw him being beaten to death. Yeah. Took hours. We were just laying down.

Anything else about the ghetto, that, as it, as it got smaller? Did you, did you...

The area didn't get smaller.

But the number of people did.

The number of people got smaller, yes.

Now you said you started out with twelve people in one room.

Right. Then we, then we found a room where just uh, our family lived in the room. Because the building started to get uh, empty. So we took another room.

Did, did you have any idea where these people were disappearing to?

Well, a lot of 'em died, a lot of 'em were being uh, uh, uh, displaced into, you know, they picked 'em up. We didn't know. No, we didn't know where they were going.

You never heard of Auschwitz?

No. We didn't hear of any of the camps. My uncle, the, the one that's in Israel, he went, oh way at the beginning probably, 1941 or '42 maybe, he went to a work camp to Czestochowa. And we heard from him maybe once or twice, wrote letters and then he, we didn't hear from him and uh, he wound up in Buchenwald and survived. But those people, they, well, they took him because he was a baker. Apparently they needed a baker and they, they took people that had a trade.