Eugene Feldman - July 15, 1991
Knowledge of Persecution
When um, when did you start to feel that there was going to be trouble? After the war started or before?
I never felt. Like I say, maybe I was too young. I don't think... In fact, one time, well that was already during the war. At that time--don't forget, where we are, from 1939 to '41 we're in the Russians. While in Poland the Germans were there already. So we sort of had a lot of Jewish people running from Poland because, running away from German, from the Germans and coming to our area. Because we were on the Russians. The Russian didn't kill no Jews, the Germans were killing 'em, supposedly. So they would come to our village or actually, just go through it. They--what are they going to do in the village? They were going, I guess, to Russia. A lot of Jews survived going to Russia. So they would come to our village and tell stories. But nobody believed them. They would say "They're killing the Jews, they're killing." So they would say, "What do you mean they're killing. Why would they killing, why would they kill 'em?" I mean, we couldn't accept that. I mean, it's, it was uncomprehensible. Why would somebody kill somebody for no reason.
Do you remember any of these stories?
I couldn't--we couldn't accept that. We didn't believe them.
Did you hear the story when they came to your village? Do you remember meeting any of those people?
Okay, when the Germ... You mean the Germans?
No.
Oh, those people that were running away?
When the Polish Jews were coming.
Yeah, but we didn't believe them. We would s...we would say, I remember heard 'em saying, they must have been doing something wrong. Some crime committed or something. You don't go just killing a person.
Did any come to your house? Did they stop at your house?
They would just drive by. They might have, but I wouldn't, I would not remember.
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