Hannah Fisk - January 24, 1983
Befriending an SS Officer
Not going to say nothing. She used to be miserable, mean. She hit the girls, terrible, without mercy, without nothing--for nothing. I used to cheer them up by saying, "Girls, it will stop, it will go away," and stuff like that. In 1943, we had Gestapo already watching us outside the barracks at night. So, for some reason, a guy recognized me--an SS. And he came over to me and he says like that, "Are you--is your name Monczyk?" And I thought, "Okay, oh brother, I am going to Auschwitz." He says, "Don't be afraid. Haben Sie kein angst." Can I talk German here, too?
Yeah. It would be better if you could...
German?
[interruption in interview]
...he says, "Don't be afraid, I know you." I says, "You know me? How do you know me?" He says, "I am from Chorzów. Your brothers sold suits for me." They were tailors. I had four brothers. They were working together. And he recognized me, and he was good to me. And he says to me like that, "Too bad that I cannot contact this girl here. She will tell you." He says to me, "Listen, I'm going to be here twice a week. When I come, you can go to the grave there and get some potatoes for the girls." And what they did, they had like a little uh, from the soup--the cans? And I put in a can a little water with the potato, and they took it to the factory. Because the women, the German women, used to warm their lunch. So it was cooking there long enough that they could eat potato.
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