Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Benjamin Fisk - November 8, 1982

What were the sanitary facilities like there? What was it ???

Well, you know, people were dying every day you know not everybody could take it you know.

Okay, so you were at Blechhammer for--until December you said?

No, maybe a little earlier. I don't remember exactly, you know. Maybe six or seven months, you know, it was getting cold already, you know, when they assembled us, you know. They told us you know that uh we were going to eh, to Sackenhoym, you know.

Wife: No, to Buna.

No, no it was to Sackenhoym.

Wife: From Blechhammer?

Sure, from Blechhammer went to Sackenhoym... [interruption in interview]

...in the steel mills, see? Most of the Jewish fellows were working the coal mines. And I was working in the, in the camp, you know, me, a shoemaker,??? in the camp. And one day a German SS came in, you know, he says he had made me a thing, you know, like this, you know, and then he told me, "You can put your foot in," you know, "you can put your foot in," you know, "or they can hold your head and they can beat you up." I had to make it, you know.

Like a ??? like a ???

So they can beat the hell out of you, you know. I made it, you know. First he calls the shoemaker in. He was a great big ???, you know, and he's an older man maybe fifty already or forty-five, I don't know exactly. And he told me he beat the hell out of him--ten, fifteen, twenty. "Does it hurt? Does it hurt?" Finally he said, "Finally, already, it doesn't hurt." Finally he says, "Let him go." Then he took the tailor, you know. I was the last one. He took the tailor, you know. He beat the hell out of him ???, you know. We were at dinner, you know, when they were beating him up, you know. But for some reason or another he beat me two, three, four times and ??? he let me go. I was lucky. He let me go. I got away cheap, you know. And then they had--this was a small camp, maybe 200 people altogether. They had dogs, German shepherds, you know, very vicious, you know. And, you know, to get into the camp, I didn't have to get in I was still in the building but other people, you know, when they come back from, from, from work--they counted them every day, you know, everybody there and ??? "Everybody raus!" you know, quick he says, you know, everybody jumped up at the dogs, you know, three, four, five people and the one guy ??? and the dogs were standing there ripping everybody apart. Three, four dogs, you know, they had great big German shepherds. And, you know, they were feeding the dogs the meat they were cooking the meat in the soup. The dogs were getting the meat and we didn't even have any potatoes, you know.