Hannah Fisk - January 24, 1983
Death of Father
Interesting. Can you tell me um, how your life changed when the war started? When the Germans invaded?
Well, first of all, my sister--the one I described, what lived in O?więcim. She got married in '39 July. And she got married. She was by my brothers-in-law. She was there in uh, working in a butcher shop, she was a sales lady. And she uh, met my brother-in-law and she got married. So I came to the wedding. That was--I think it was July. She got married in July. And I remained there for the vacation. In September, I supposed to go back, but I could never go back because the war broke up. September the 1st, '39. I never seen my father again. I went away to the wedding, and he came to the wedding and he went home. But I, I remained there a few months. My sister says, "Stay with me," and then I have my sister-in-law, my brother was living there.
And this was what town? What was the name of the city that...
Chorzów...
Okay.
...Poland.
Okay.
They call it uh, that was the Polish-German corridor...
Okay.
...they called it Königshütte--and then I could never go back. But my sister got married in '39 and then uh, beginning '40, the kids--she had a twin children. And then when they sent us out from O?więcim. And we went away and we came into Sosnowiec. All the Jews, they had to be Judenrein--no Jews. We came into Sosnowiec before Pesach--Easter, 1940. And I was with my sister. I was living with my sister because they took away already my brother-in-law. They took him to ??? Arbeitslager. I was living by my sister and also by my sister-in-law. They were living in one--excuse me. I was there from April to December. In December, right before Christmas, we got a, we got a telegram. My father passed away, in Częstochowa. They still made him a burial at least, he didn't go to Auschwitz and I'm glad for this. But I don't know where his grave is. Because when I came to Poland after the war and I wanted to put a monument, there was no graves. They took all the graves out and planted potatoes. You should see the potatoes like this growing there.
Can you describe what happened to your father? What you told me about before?
Sure. They took him--the Germans--he was a religious guy with a beard, so they took him to the big church--what I told you about, the Black Madonnas? They kept him in the basement for two weeks and they kept on pouring water--cold water. He was naked. I mean, that's what my brother told me. He was, he was still was dead. After they let him out, he had pneumonia and shortly after that he died. So we had a telegram, and we were sitting shiva for a week. We got out shiva Friday.
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