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Emerich Grinbaum - January 8, 2001

The following is a continuation of an interview with EmerichGrinbaum at his home in Farmington Hills, Michigan on the morning of January8, 2001. The interviewer is still Sidney Bolkosky.

Okay uh, let's-we're going to go back to talk a little bitabout um, a little bit more, more about your experience in Warsaw uh, afterthe, the death of Mr. Ringler who had discovered some jewelry there. And thenI'm going to ask you more about the Revier, the hospital that you said yourfather was sent to the...

Oh, that in Dachau.

That was already in Dachau, okay.

Yeah, mm-hm. That was in Dachau. After, then, after we arrived,after you know, that was a long, uh.

Yeah right.

That was a long trip when we-we left Warsaw, as I said, beginningof August when the uprising started already.

Right. The Polish uprising.

The Polish uprising. And then the Russians were close and weknow that they were there for several months, they didn't want to interfere.Uh, they want to let bleeding the uh, non-communist uh, uprising and, andthey succeeded. But we left Warsaw first on-I think I already...

Yeah, yeah.

talked about, on foot and then on train. So took us, I don'tknow how long. We arrived finally, uh...

In Dachau.

Dachau. And a great deal of people died during this trip. Wereshot and died, starvation. So we arrived to Dachau.

Let me stop you, before we get back to Dachau, which is wherewe, we, we just began uh, you just began to talk about Allach when we finishedlast time. Um, you, you saw this man Ringler beaten to death.

No.

You didn't see it.

No. Somebody told, told me. We were not together in-we were notin the same wa...wagon, in the same. But they told us, they told us. Becausethe Kapos knew that he-they-he found some jewelry and they suspected thathe still had. I doubt if he, he, he had. At that time, we were concerned aboutto have some, some uh, water or food. He would have given uh, immediatelyif he had had. But they thought that he had, had something.

And the Kapos you said you thought were German criminals.

Most of them.

Most of them.

Most of them, most of them the green, green...

Green triangle.

triangle.

Um, so this is now the second train trip, box car trip.

Yes. The first was from Munkacs to Auschwitz. No, the third one.First one from Munkacs to Auschwitz.

Then from Auschwitz...

Auschwitz to Warsaw.

to Warsaw. And now back to Dachau.

Back. No, from Warsaw first we were walking on foot for five-sixdays. And then we arrived to somewhere in Poland. And they put on cattle car.

And at this point you were what, sixteen? How old were younow?

I was fourteen.

Fourteen.

1944.

Uh, uh, okay '44, it's amazing that you survived this farat, this far at such a young age.

Matter of fact my brother was thirteen. We were together, asI said, with my father. At that time we were together. But as I say, explained,we were tall and originally and we were told that to, they, we told that I'mseventeen and he's sixteen. So that's why we survived.

Do you remember, you'd, you'd uh, witnessed at this pointin just a few months an awful amount of, of what might have been traumatizingviolence. You had seen people killed, you had seen people beaten.

Uh, I tell you, not until we were walking uh, uh, from Warsaw.No-we saw in Warsaw some, some violence, beating up people. But I did notsee in Warsaw killing people at that time. First of all, we were working,we were working. And we were relatively still strong , I mean. And some peopledied, but not too many in, in, in Warsaw. Uh, during the uh, August uh, marchon foot a lot of people died and then they left behind-they couldn't get inand the SS shot them. And the p...the most of the people who died, they diedin the train after awhile because it was hot, no water, no nothing. And theydied. I know that when we, when we arrived we were half, half, half dead also.And as I said, we arrived to Dachau and there was some miracles, a miraclehappened.

You said some minor miracle, miracle...

You know, so we-they took us to a, to have a shower. They gaveus clean uh, gar...garment. And even those who were very sick, they took tothe Revier.