• Contents
• Map
• Audio

Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000

So you went in the direction with your father.

Father. The direction which-to work. And we stayed in Auschwitz.Now they put in the shower you know, and they give us the, the, the, the clothingwith the stripes. And we stayed there, we stayed there-they give us some food.Uh, we stayed there less than a week in Auschwitz. Everyday, everyday theyhad several times they selected people. First I remember they selected uh,craftsmen. We need this, we need uh, different craftsmen. And we were notcraftsmen. But some people uh, they told they are craftsmen, you know. Theythought that craftsmen you know, different uh, craftsmen uh, they-better chance.But you know, my father was photographer, they don't know and we are children.So in the sixth day, I think we put on-us on a train from Auschwitz and theytook us to Warsaw. And Warsaw is a very interesting thing. Most of the peoplethey don't know anything about Warsaw. On the territory of the ghetto-whichthe uprising was a year before, in '43-there was only ruins everything. Nothingjust, you know. So there were two camps, two concentration camps. One wasa old camp, a smaller. And they built recently a big camp and we-when we arrivedthere was almost nobody there. This for us, Hungarian Jews. Mostly HungarianJews. Very, very other, a few others. And uh, our job was to work and to cleanup the mess, you know. We cleaned up the bricks from the mess and cleanedand put together and put on the small trains that were there. So that wasour job. The circumstances-no, the food I can compare with after that, thefood was relatively good. I mean, not good but uh, with that food-for awhilewe could survive. The treatment was bad.

Was it different than in Auschwitz, the food?

Better! In Auschwitz, Auschwitz we didn't work, they give ussome food. Here we worked.