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Szymon Binke - June 16, 1997

Do you remember what happened when they began to liquidate the ghetto?

Oh, then they took everybody, whoever they could.

How did that, that come about?

Well [laugh], they came to a house and emptied it. To a building and they, they just emptied it, went room, room by room.

The Germans did.

Yes. German and Jewish police.

Jews.

Yeah.

So where were you when they were...

Well, a lot of times I was hiding in this field like I told you on this uh, where my father used to work, here. They had, they had corn growing. No, not corn. Rye. Rye is tall and I'd get in there and hide. Until, I don't remember, like I told you before, I don't remember where we were when we got caught. That whole day is a blank to me. I don't remember gettin' on the train. I remember being on the train from Łódź to uh, Birkenau, Auschwitz. But I don't remember gettin' caught or gettin' on the train. So I don't know where we were when we got caught.

You knew enough to hide.

Oh yeah!

Rather than be taken...

We must have been hidden someplace. But they, they, [laugh] they found us.