Benjamin Fisk - November 8, 1982
Being Taken Away
Yeah, okay. Um, do--your parents were taken in 1942. They were taken to the ghetto or directly to Auschwitz?
No, no straight to Auschwitz.
Directly to Auschwitz?
Yeah, right to Auschwitz.
Okay. How did--did you come home and find them gone or how did it happen?
No, I stayed at with my sister, you know. It was summertime you know well maybe you know like September or August. It was getting a little bit colder. I knew we knew that they were going to send them away, you know, so we stayed, me and my sister stayed when they were loading them up from the train. We stayed there, I didn't see my sister you know the two of them the children ??? they were rounding them up with the other town folk with the other people but I see my father and mother you know they took them away. We had nothing, when they let us out. We didn't want to go; I want to go with my parents. My sister too, they were whipping us with whips you know and they pushed her out. You know why? Because we had cards that said we were working, you know, I had a card from the factory. They were whipping us, whipped the hell out of us. They tore us away from my mother, you know, my sister was holding my father and they pushed us out you know, "You go home." Then we stayed over there we watched them loading the people, how many times you know on the train forget it, they never come back the children, you know. They never come back. But we didn't know then, you know, nobody could imagine that they just take people to kill you know this way. We didn't know.
Yeah. Where did they round you all up? Where did they keep you? You said it was like Tiger Stadium but...
Like Tiger Stadium, yeah. They took us uh, well, took us to a soccer field here, where they're playing the soccer, you know, before the war ???, we were playing soccer over there and they rounded up the people, you know, ???, you know, ???, you know, and this way they rounded up all the people, you know.
Okay, now when you went to the ghetto--this was in 1943 when you went to the ghetto.
Yes.
Um, can you tell me about that--did you know were you being taken at the time?
Did I know what?
Did you know where you were being taken at the time? Did you know where you were going from there?
Well, we knew they said we had to go to the ghetto, we had to pick our stuff whatever you could, you know, you took it to the ghetto. You were lucky to get a little hole in the wall over there in the attic, you know. But then this, you know, no, no you couldn't live in it.
How many people lived in, in...
Well, it was really bad. It was really bad in the ghetto. I don't know. It was like a small little town. I don't know how man--there must have been uh, maybe fifteen, twenty thousand people over there, you know. My brother, you know, the one that's in Israel, you know, he had--I don't know, a lot of relatives from the next town--from, from Będzin living, you know, and then my sister, she couldn't stay up there, you know, she wouldn't live too long, you know, the one that's in France. And she, she stayed up there, too, and then me--I was working, you know, and uh, I stayed way over there in the hole in the wall what I gave up but my sister wouldn't stay over there, you know, it wasn't safe--our bombed out--our house.
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