Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Szymon Binke - June 16, 1997

Liberation II

And did you encounter any Germans while you were wandering around?

Yeah. Mm-hm.

What happened then?

They were afraid of us, because uh, we were wild, like I told you. We were like animals.

Did you do anything?

Personally, no. Some people did probably.

Did you say anything to them?

I don't know, I know, well I remember this one uh, that was probably the first or second day, walked into a bakery, an open bakery and see all this bread and cakes and I pointed and told her to give me one of those and she gave it to me and I just walked out. I guess she expected me to pay, but I don't think she did, because she knew what I, that I was, I didn't have any money.

This is in Seeshaupt?

Pardon?

In Seeshaupt?

In Seeshaupt, yeah.

How long did you wander around?

Well, it must have been a week or two maybe and then my father got sick and we wound up in a hospital in Bad Tölz.

Your father got sick and you went to the American troops? Is that what happened?

Probably. I can't remember how we wound up in Bad Tölz, yeah, must have been. Yeah, he had typhus after the war. Lucky.

And did you stay with him in the hospital?

Yes.

For how long?

Time didn't...probably two, three weeks. And then we went to Feldafing, which was a DP camp.

But when you were in Bad Tölz, did they give you food and clothes?

Oh yeah, yeah. Food was no problem. After the war, if we didn't get it, we took it.

How about clothing?

Who cared about clothing? I guess we had something, I don't know. We didn't have the uh, we got rid of those right away.

The striped uniforms.

The striped uniforms, yeah.


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