Maurice Chandler - October 3, 1993
Getting False Papers
To get to Łódź.
Yeah. Sidney, I don't, you know, if you live 150 years, and you win all the lottos in the world--billions--everything that is available to you, would never mean this much as what this piece of green paper meant to me the day I got it. And I went in--I had to go back again. And the fear the second time was so frightening because I figured: took four weeks, they'll have had a chance to check the veracity of it and then I would be walking right into a trap. I'm sure you heard me tell the story how I walked back from the city to the village. It was like 40 kilometers on a winter day, and I don't remember walking it. I felt like the uh, men, you know in the Chagall paintings, where he floats in the air, you know. These are the characters that float--I never really touched ground. I felt like a--I mean how does one--was one suppose to feel that was just to be executed or had the noose around they're gonna hang him, and then somebody cuts the rope? What is that--what does feel like? They say, "Okay, go." How does it feel? How do you describe the feelings? This is what--it was unbelievable. This is uh, later when I lived in France.
Forty-seven?
Yes. This--on the ship coming to America, this one.
This one?
Yeah. This is a soldier in Uncle Sam's army.
Where was this? Where was this taken?
In Fort Riley, Kansas. This is a picture of my mother that uh, somebody gave me here.
She had blue eyes.
Mm-hm. My father was very blond, on my father's side. This is my brother, standing in the, in the courtyard in the Warsaw ghetto.
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