Benjamin Fisk - November 8, 1982
Life in Srodula
What was the name of the factory you were working in?
Uh, ???, yeah, it was German, yeah.
Okay, was there much smuggling in the, uh...
Mmm, yes, there was. There had to be smuggling otherwise you couldn't survive. You know, everybody had to do something, you know, to live. You know, trade, you know, even in concentration camps, you know, you were trading a shirt, you know, or uh, pair of underwear something, you know...
How did they...
...uh, pair of pants if you ??? with a German to get, to get something to eat, you know, or a Czech or somebody.
How did they get food into the ghetto?
Well, you know like I told you, you know, you trade something. You trade something you uh, you walked and there were some Polish people, you know. Some people there didn't work in the factories. You know, some people worked here, some worked there, you know, they were in touch the Polish people. Even some Germans, you know, were selling, you know, and, you know, if all the Germans would be bad, you know, there wouldn't be a single one alive. I had German--they, they give me their food. I worked with him on the bench; I work for half the day by the bench and he worked for half the day on the bench. You know, what he eat I eat, you know. If all of them would be bad, nobody would be around to talk about it, you know. There were some good ones, too, you know, some of them were in Russia already. They had the arm shot off, leg shot off--they knew already, you know. They could understand. But some of them were pretty mean, you know, even then, you know, there were some mean ones. They were killing people, you know, really bad, in all kind of ways. And they told you to go pick something up over there, you know, and then, you know, if he shot somebody they gave him a week vacation for it. Or he told somebody, "You go pick this up," you know, if they went over there, it went, "bang," shot him, you know, went on his report, shot a Jew, they gave him a week vacation for it.
Was there much resistance in the ghetto? Was there any...
Mmm, not much, what, what can you do? We didn't have no arms, we didn't have nothing. You didn't have any food, I told you already. And if you're hungry your mind works one way, something to eat you know it's a, you know...
How long were you in the ghetto? How long did you stay there?
Maybe let's see, half a year, you know, little over half a year, something, you know. But that half a year was worse than the two...two years, you know, in that--in town, you know, in town people could do something, you know, you could organize, change something, you know. But in the ghetto it was very bad conditions, really bad. It was a lot worse for the older people They didn't have the resistance like the young people had, you know. Young people could take quite a bit more, you know. And I especially, you know, I was in good shape because I was doing all this athletic work and work out too, you know, I was in good shape. We had the food-we ate good all the time, you know. Food was no problem in our house. There were other Jews in Poland that were hungry all the time you know they didn't have enough to eat.
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