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Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998

What happened to um, to Shabbos?

Oh, the Shabbos, believe it or not, it was Shabbos. Whateverwe had it was Shabbos. We did all the prayers, we sang and we pretended it'slike before. We didn't have any challa, no.

All thirteen people?

Uh, no. They were—we were only our family. They—sometimesthey joined us. It, it wasn't, it wasn't easy to live in that—you know,the, the atmosphere was very tense. So it was, it was hard to be with otherpeople.

Were there. . .

We slept on the floor. We didn't have any—we couldn't bringour beds.

Were there they discussions about what was going on?

Naturally. But you know, it, it's, it's so hard to explain. WhateverI'm saying now, it's—I'm barely scratching the surface, because thereare so much feelings involved in it. I mean, how do you—how do you livefrom day-to-day and know that someday it'll end, your life will end? Can youimagine? See, it's—even for me now, I can—I'm looking at my ownvideo and I can't believe that that's me talking. It was, it was—thecircumstances were so bad, you had to discuss death in the open, the—whenwe are going to be killed or when the end will be. We are standing by thegate and observing people walking down the street. You know what a feelingit is to know that you cannot have your freedom? Why? For what? What did wedo wrong? What did my two little sisters do wrong? What did my grandmotherof eighty-three—she was also killed—what did we do wrong? I mean,it's, it was, it was incomprehendable. It's, it's hard to explain. It's sohard, I can't put it in words. There are no words to describe it. To know—youknow, there was a rumor, all of a sudden there is a rumor—by the way,our ghe. . . ghetto was liquidated two, two weeks before the uh, uh, uh, ourRosh Hashanah uh, New Years. So the, the Shabbat prior to Rosh Hashanah iscalled Shabbastsuva the Shabbat of repentance. And everybody said, "This iswhen, this is when we'll be redeemed. This is when something will happen."And you know, it's a false prophesy. And people—you know, you start believing,oh, maybe on that Shabbat something will happen. What could happen? What couldhappen? And you couldn't—let's say okay, so I esca. . . I ran out ofthe ghetto, where to? Into other murderer's hands? They assisted them so muchthat it's um, it's hard to describe how they assisted the Germans.

The Poles?

Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't—actually, it was a mixture ofPoles, Ukrainians, White Russians. It's, it's—I can, I can see it andtalk—you know who I talk to and we understand each other, is somedaythat went through the same thing. You remember little episodes that are socruel uh, so horrible, that—the guy that was in charge of our group whowere working at the scaffolds of the bridge, he had an eye on a, on a, ona Jewish girl and he sort of like uh, befriended her. He always kept her—shewas a beautiful girl. He always kept her near him. She was—if he wasin the—he had a little car, she was sitting next to him. Do you knowthat he was the first one to shoot her that night when we had to report? Heshot her. She was his first victim, this little and so pretty Jewish girl.Or, another guy that was a guy from Czechoslovakia, a Jewish guy who was theinterpreter, he knew German very well. He befriended the—the—theman that was in charge. That night when we were supposed to uh, report tothe, to the center of the city, he ran to him for shelter. He shot him, thefirst one. How do you explain this kind of behavior?

This is a German?

German.

Do you remember his name?

No, I don't know his name. I'll tell you what, when we had the,the break, there was also a group of Germans that assisted, that were calledTodt Organization, T-O-D. They were the older, senior citizens that they mobilizedto do the road work and all this kind of things. So we sat down—I'llnever forget it—and we sat down to rest like was our break. And he wassitting and he was talking in German. He says, "Furchtbar, furchtbar, horrible,horrible. Why are people so mean to one another?" He, he, he understood thesituation.

This is a German civilian?

German. He was a, a civilian, yes. There was a—in the, inthe—a civilian in the army, that helped them, helped them do the war.I, I don't remember, I don't remember seeing—well, I didn't—I wasn't—Ididn't encounter Germans, so this was my practically uh, uh single encounterwith a German, that he was talking and he was criticizing his own Germans.This a not—it's, it's—I don't know how to express the feelings.How do you express feelings of being with your family one night and the nextnight you're, you're not? Or, or, or listening to your mother crying and saying,"See, now that I can live it and and have a little bit of an easier life sowe have to be killed?" Why? Who do we ask this questions? God had forsakenus, I'm sorry to say. But that's the way I feel. That's—we are the chosenpeople, for what? To suffer. Out of the six million that were killed, we wouldhave been a nation of probably eighteen million. I sit and I look at the picturesof my, my sisters, my—I don't even have a—I have a picture of mymother, I don't have a picture of my father. I, I look at my uncle and I picturehim. I don't—and the picture that I got, I found it in America. I hadan uncle that lived here, who mailed—the family mailed the pictures tohim. I was looking through an album yesterday and I thought to myself that—whathappened to all the pictures that we left at home? It all went to the garbage.Not one single thing was saved. [pause] And when you tell a story, this sortof story, how do you, how do you tell people when they ask you, how wouldyou answer, Why didn't you escape? You know, you become speechless. You havenothing to say. I mean, how could I explain it to them? [pause]

Your um, questions about being forsaken by God, things likethat, had you talked ever—when you were living in the ghetto, when yourfamily was still there?

Yes.

Did you ever talk about that?

We were discussing it. Nevertheless, my father prayed—stillprayed three times a day. How can—how do you do this association?

Why do you suppose he did that?

Well, because that—you know, he was brought up with that.

So. . .

It was embedded in him.

So were you.

I was—I—but I was still—I was only sixteen andI saw the injustices that was being done. Where is God? Why?

And you came up with no answer?

I didn't come up with an answer.

And have you since?

No. I still don't have an answer. Although some of survivorsthat I know turned real religious. I don't know. I don't know how to explainit either. Well, what they will say is, Well, don't you think it was a miraclethat you survived? Yes. It's a miracle. I didn't work for it to survive, itjust so happened that I survived. And do you know what? I think I told youthe first time when we talked, I live a life of guilt. I feel terribly guilty.[crying] Why did I have to run and and and leave my mother and my two sisters?I mean, why, why me? Why I was I saved? Okay. So I brought—fine, I'm,I'm happy. I brought children into this world and there's another generation.Okay, I'm happy about it. But I do—I still feel guilty. And and I—my,my literature is uh, the things that I read is, is mostly it's about, it'sabout this life, it's about the survivors, it's about, it's about this, thiskind of literature. And then in and I have an answer for it. This is—youknow why I'm doing it? This is my monument. This is the monument that I putup for my family.

Speaking.

Uh, reading and speaking and living it and speaking for sure.I urge every survivor should tell this story. The world has to know. Although,there are a lot of people that say it's a hoax, that it never happened. Imean and we are the witnesses. We are the ones that could give the, the testimony,that there was something like this.