Simon Cymerint - June 8, 1982
Resistance
Can I ask you a question...
Yeah.
about Starowicea [Starowice]? Um, were you ever involved in loading trains? Ostbahn trains, freight trains at all? You just worked in the Herman Göring Works?
Yeah.
Did you hear of any sabotage going on?
No. Maybe sabotage was going on the underground from uh, uh, Polish underground. When the Germans stepped in, a lot of went to the forest.
[interruption in interview]
Yeah.
Was there talk of resistance in the, in the factory or the camp that you worked in? Did anybody talk about resistance or escaping?
We talked and uh, we did because they said in Starowicea [Starowice] that we going to Auschwitz, and Ausch...Auschwitz is uh, elimination, I mean, ovens. So, we took that chance and the minute we started out, a lot of got--that night was a massacre. A lot of from our people got shot by the gate because the uh, the uh, what do you call, the, the posts, you know, they stay on, uh...
Watchtowers.
the watchtowers. They always with reflectors, you know, all around the uh, the gates. And the minute they saw by the gates, we got already organized that we shouldn't go in groups, but singles, you know, whatever. And we're going to cut that wire, and the minute the wire is cut we go through in, in the, in the forest and we get together with the uh, underground, with the Polish underground. Didn't work. They spotted us and they started to shoot, you know. And everybody who was still alive run back, you know, in the, in the barrack. And the next morning--in that, the same night, what they shot a lot of 'em, in the same night they were calling for more guards and they surrounded the uh, the whole camp and the next day trucks came--they didn't want to take no more chances, you know--and they took us and straight to uh, Auschwitz.
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