Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Maurice Chandler - October 3, 1993

Nearly Getting in Trouble with SS

The head office?

Yeah, the head office--the Amtkommissariat Szepietowo. And they occupied like a little chalet. I remember a rounded building, you know, with a courtyard and a fence--a big fence and a German outside. So, they bring us up in a truck. There were three or four of us. And they opened the big gates and we come in and I thought ??? this is it. I mean how do I--I tripped up. We're knocking already on 1944, the Germans are moving back and its, I mean Meshiach is coming and I'm holding out tooth and nail everyday. I'm counting the days, the minutes, the hours, what am I going to say now? This is a major interrogation. We come in--again I tell you, Sidney, these got to be miracles. We come in and they bring us in and a German opens the door and an orgy's going on. There were a couple of girls running around, you know, without tops, you know, and their shorts and the commandant is drunk and is chasing them around. And then, we come in and he says to them, you know, they didn't understand--I understood what he said, "I brought a couple of partisans, you know, we think that they are partisan and we should interrogate them and we brought them in." And the commandant said--looks at them, and says, "You take these Polish Schwein out of here." He says, "I don't want to see their ugly faces. I don't want to hear about them. Get that smutz out of here. Raus!" The guy excused himself. He said, "Raus, raus!" So out we went and we're going back to the gate, you know, this guy is standing at the gate and he said, "Where are you going?" He said, "I'm getting these scums out of here." So he says, "Lassen die leuten gehen," you know, "Let them go," and off we went. We came back to the village. I couldn't believe. They thought, "How did you get back?" So that was one of the close calls. Well...


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