Albert Fein - February 19, 2005
Massacre at Kamenetz-Podolsk
Um, you mentioned in August there was a massacre...
Yes.
...in Kamenetz-Podolsk. Were you there during that time? During the massacre, were you there?
Yes.
Tell me what happened.
See, my both sisters, they were beautiful girls. My oldest sister was there nineteen yeah, nineteen, uh, the younger was seventeen. My brother was fifteen, I was thirteen. There's two years in between us. So they was very good-looking girls and they were talking to mother, you know, they were talking German. And one of the Germans--he heard German language, so he start to talking to them. So they start to ask what was--because we didn't know what was going on. This was a mountain--not a mountain, it's a little thing higher, and there was down--we didn't see it but there was so much noise we didn't hear even shots so they ask...
What did you hear? What were you hearing?
What?
What were you hearing? You were--you didn't hear any shots...
No.
...but what were you hearing? Just screaming?
People screaming. You can imagine, 15,000 people. Everybody was screaming. So they was asking this German what is going on. He says, "What you are doing here? You are speaking German." My mom says, "Yeah, I am from Austria." So he ask, "You are not Jewish?" And mom says, "No, we are not Jewish. We're German." So they was, you know, he was mixed up. He didn't know what to do. He says, "You know what? I will make a report to, to the general," who was off seeing the, the execution. He didn't say what--this is my, my uh, no. His, his boss, yes? "And I will ask him what to do with people if they are not Jewish." So he, he left. In a while he came back and he said, "He want to see all of you." I had my--on myself a ???. You know what a ??? is?
No.
Tallis kaftan. You can imagine?
Yeah.
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