Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Benjamin Fisk - November 8, 1982

What was the uh, what work did you do at IG Farben in ??? What was the factory--it was carpentry work but what was the factory?

I worked--well, IG Farben that was--it was, well, it's uh, you know, they were making everything over there, from coal, they were making medicine. They were making uh, everything, you know. ??? I think then, they were done already making stuff from coal, but even they're making now. Now they're making stuff out of oil over here. Those days there were making everything out of coal, the Germans. Even oil and stuff, I think, and stuff they were making already. I was reading one day in a book some place that the Americans had the formula that the Germans were using but they didn't want to give it up, see, to make the to make uh, to make the stuff from coal. They are making it now. They are making quite a bit of stuff from coal now, too. But the Germans had it already, you know, during the war before the war already, they were making a lot stuff from coal, you know. They had a big factory with hundreds of thousands of people over there, you know. They had a moat and water around. They had, you know, a tremendous big place, you know, you could walk for thirty days. They had French people, Spanish people, Russian, people from Italy, from all over, from Yugoslavia, from all over the world, from all over Europe--English, you know, later. Even Americans, you know, the Americans they were flying they were shutting them down. They were pulling us from all over. The Germans were making people to work every day back to back. I worked in the factory, you know. The carpenters used to make uh, the doors, windows, you know, ??? and I worked half the day by the bench, the German worked half the day by the bench, you know. It was a good time, you know, and then he used to bring me food. He usually used to bring two big slices of bread and when I worked with him he used to bring four because he knew I didn't have any food he helped quite a bit. And later, you know, he couldn't, he didn't have enough bread so he brought potatoes, he used to cook them, you know. And then ??? hot glue. He used to boil, he used to take the glue out put the potatoes in ???, see? He helped me quite a bit. And later on after this German, I worked with a Polish guy from my home town and my brother was still home. So he send me some stuff from home and uh, you know, ??? and later at the concentration camp that was out.