Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Maurice Chandler - October 3, 1993

Oh, anyway, I remember I came by a village near Treblinka. Oh, yeah, this was with that task--when I got that task in '43, I went to Nasielsk. It was earlier--no, no I had two trips that--oh wait, maybe right after I left these people, I got--I went to Warsaw. Yes, I went to Warsaw and I remember riding around the streetcar on the outside on the parameter of the ghetto. And I looked up and I could see that the, the uh, windows were open in all the buildings, you know, were broken windows, above the uh, wall line. So, I remember I was riding around all day in the streetcar, you know, trying to see if I can see anything, you know, because my parents lived a little away from the wall--to see anything to get an idea of what's going on, you know. And I remember curfew started setting in and I got to uh, these people in the Saska Kępa camp, you know, where this woman said, "If you need help, go to her." And I went there and she wouldn't let me in. And I pleaded with her, I said, "It's late, it's night, I got no place to go, I'll be shot, it's curfew." She say, "I don't care, get out of here." So, I left and I remember on the Aryan side, I found a hotel to stay overnight and I stayed there overnight and I remember all this with this flimsy little piece of paper. I mean, mind you, it's Warsaw--it's, it's crawling with Germans--Gestapo agents, all over. You know this--when I look back at it, it's such foolish things. I walked in there voluntarily because I wanted to see what, what was happening in the ghetto. Anyway, I stayed overnight. The next morning I went to the main uh, train station. It was ???, the central station.