Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Eugene Feldman - July 15, 1991

Let me go back for a second. When you came back from the labor camp did you see your sisters?

I'm not even sure about that. I cannot even be sure about that.

Do you think they had already been taken away?

That's a--that's something that's missing.

Do you think they'd already been taken away?

Oh no, no, no, no. Nobody was taken away. That was done one, one, which, whi...at one time, that one day. Probably the date you mentioned. That's the day. Because I don't know the dates. But there was only one time that they killed all the Jews. And then, of course, the stragglers I'm sure they killed 'em, uh.

So when he came up and said let's go, you just...

Yeah, we came down and we took, we took our sort of personal belongings. My ta...my dad took the tallis and tefillin. That's what he took.

What did...

And so did I. I took the tallis

Same...

And I still got that tefillin here from my, from my bar mitzvah. The tiny. I just--that's all it. Yeah, now my dad died, I took--I got his tefillin. And that's how it is. That's all he took really. I don't think of anything else he--maybe a coat, I don't know.

So you had the clothes on your back.

That's it.

Tallis and tefillin. And the four of you ran where?

Went back to our village.

Through the barbed wire. When you saw the dead bodies, what ran through your head?

Nothing.

A twelve-year-old.

Didn't phase me. Just continued going. I didn't look though. I didn't look to see who it is or whatever, you know. Because pro...I might even know that person, I don't know. I just--like now, the, the fence was only maybe thirty yards from you know, where our house. So it was just, it just happened to walk into a body there, you know. I'm sure there's uh, bodies all over the place down there.

So you got back to your village and then what?

We wen--okay, what I, what I sense out mostly is uh, we went to our village really. We went uh, my dad says to me, "You see this barn?" He knew who it belonged to. He says, go out on the roo...on the top of the barn where the hay is, on the haystack down there and lay there. We'll go see if we can get some food and cooking utensils, whatever, I don't know what he wanted and we'll come back and pick you up. He went to see--he knew everybody there, let's face it. That little--that village was what, a hundred people there or whatever. And he knew everybody. So did I. So he went to see the ones that he was closest with. And it took him a long time. I could hear dogs barking and I, I said to myself--at that time I guess I realized the danger we're in. Because then I says, "Oh, what if they caught 'em. Caught dad and mom. What am I going to do?" I had no idea of what to do. I says, "I'll just have to go over and give myself up to the Germans." That was in my mind. I say, "If they don't come in the morning, I guess I'll just have to go to the Germans."

You were still...

You still don't realize that they're going to kill you, you know! You just cannot accept that fact.

You were still with your cousin.

But they came back about two, three hours later. It took him a long time. He had some food and he says, he told 'em where to go. I guess he told dad where to go. And, because know, dad knows the woods there, so he says. So that's where we went.