Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Larry Brenner - December 13, 1981

Now that afternoon the rumors were going around that they seen this German officers in civilian clothes and abandoning the camp. And the rumors spread real fast and all of a sudden--this started around maybe around two, three o'clock in the afternoon--and all of a sudden, you see people running back and forth and the camp is getting less and less people in there. By mid... by nine, ten o'clock we knew that the Americans are in there... Not in the camp, but because what happens, they put bonfire on the camp inside. And there were not more than about twenty percent of people left in the camp. So, we knew that the camp is open and there are no guards because there's no other... It couldn't happen. So, we... Everybody had some kind of a gang, in other words, friends. You know, we, we kept together. Maybe it was five or six close friends. So, we had a little meeting among us, what should we do. The war is over, we said. Should we leave at night or should we wait in the morning, because... So the conclusion was, let's stick the night out because if we start to, middle of the night you don't know what the remnants of that SS around there in the camp outskirt, we don't see, it's dangerous. So, decided we stay there at night. In the morning, early in the morning, as soon as the sun came out, we took whatever is left for u... I don't think, yes, it was sun it was uh, we still have a rucksack and, and I had my blanket, nothing else I think. Start walking. The whole, we, we, we, we get to the highway, believe it or not, we see American army truck uh, they're moving with big trucks back and forth. Naturally you could imagine the feeling what goes in your mind. That was our liberation. Uh, we start walking. Now, I never had the feeling I'm going to take a Nazi and kill him or thing like that, the revenge. But my first thought was survival. So, hungry like hell, dirty like hell. So, we said to ourself, let's stop to the first uh, German home which we could see, and let's ask for some hot water to wash ourself up and ask her for some food. So, it just so happened we, we walked maybe a couple of miles, we arrived to a German farm home. And we went in there, we said we are liberated from Gunskirchen from this camp and please, could you let us have some hot water to wash up. They were so friendly, you would think that they love the Jews. They gave us hot water, they gave... And all of a sudden, where the food came from, they gave us eggs, I don't know where they got it from. Hot... They made out uh, they made us a big fiesta because maybe they thought that if they don't, we're going to have their upper hand.