Irving Altus - June 2, 1982
Arrested by Germans
So that was--you were arrested and what happened then, where did you go?
Took us to jail, to labor camp. They try any place. To another little city and another city. And then we wind up in Königsberg in Germany. One day, I don't remember, we didn't know what day it is, what year, what, you know. We wind up in Königsberg in Germany in '42 and we worked there a little bit and then they took all the Jews from Königsberg, Polish Jews, German Jews, all kind of Jews and we, they brought us to Auschwitz.
Do you know when this was?
This was in '42, I don't remember the month. I have the number, according the number. But it, it's a matter you know, not part of--so they got together the rest of the Jews from Germany--Königsberg used to be a German city--and they brought the rest, the rest. Like they say, here a few, here a few. Because the, the cities were already liquidated, I mean, it was no more Jews. When they brought us in it was the rest of the Polish or whatever, from camps or even other Jews, I mean, from the...
From the time you were arrested to the time you went to...
'Til '44.
Auschwitz, you were under close watch the whole time.
Close watch. Just like a prisoner.
You were a prisoner.
Right, right. Just like a prisoner.
So they didn't--it wasn't a question when they took you to Auschwitz as to what they told you. They didn't have to tell you anything, now that you were...
Nothing. No, no, no. Even they took us from, like from Milawa to Pultusk to Plock from--to Germany. They didn't have to tell us nothing. They just came in, lined up ten, twenty, a hundred. They have here too much or too little and you didn't know where you're going 'til you came to the place. You start talking to somebody, maybe then you knew where you.
Where you were...
Otherwise you wouldn't even know.
Where you were even.
Absolutely. I was in a place for three months and I couldn't find out where.
Sounds...
No. No. I did not know.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn