Benjamin Fisk - November 8, 1982
Being Liberated by the Russians
Yeah. What was the medical care like? Were there...
Nah, there was no medical care. They didn't do nothing for me. They just left me there, you know. The Russians helped me, you know, whatever they had--it was war, you know. The Russians were still at war but they, you know, were giving people food, what the army eat. Most of them were sick, they were dying like flies. It was terrible--their own men. Because of them the Polish men are alive otherwise we would have been dead, too. He made--he took--the Russians give us chunk of bread, he cut it up--a little bit of slices and they were boxes like this table here--the German mar--millions and millions of money--billions of it he was burning it on the stove--the German mark--to make toast with it and warm up a little soup, you know. He didn't know the Germans lost the war the moneys no good. In the meantime, the money was still good we came back and they ??? still used the German money. They were burning it by the billions, who knew? You know I lived too young, I never went to war, I didn't know, you know, what was going on.
You were in Auschwitz when it was bombed by the...
By the Russians...
By the Russians.
...yeah. I fell down. I was sleeping upstairs, you know, I fell down during bombing. Boom I went down on the floor. They were bombing the camp--not exactly the camp, you know, but some of the bombs, they went in the camp. This was already when the camp was evacuated, you know, there were only people in the hospital left.
So they didn't take you--they didn't march you out of the camp, they left you in the hospital?
Yeah.
Okay. And there were no guards there?
Of course, there were guards, you know, for maybe a week I don't know. And then the Russians bombed they all took off. They killed some of them, you know, and then all of sudden in January 23rd the Russians came, you know, '44, '45 already, January 23rd.
What was that like when they first came in? Did...
Well, I tell you uh, just like it was happen now. I looked out the window. The tanks were coming, you know, through the wires and through the walls and everything--knocking down barracks and other things, you know. The Russians, they didn't care about the Nazis, you know. And then you could see people--children in the Russian army--from seven, eight, ten years old carrying rifles and, and guns, you know. When their parents got killed they took them along. They wouldn't leave them behind, you know. They were good spies too and the Germans didn't know that children, you know, can do harm, you know, and, you know, they were coming by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands. You never seen anything like it. Just like a sea by wagon and walking and by--on horses and on tanks and on trucks--hundreds and hundreds of thousands you never seen anything like it, not even in a movie, you know, where you see thousands of people. You never seen anything like it, you know. I still talk about it sometimes. It was a spectacle--something to see and when they were coming in, they were so organized. There was not a place, you know, ??? anything. They do everything at once. They knew everything--they took ev...everything. The next day--the same day they come in there was food in the camp and they took all the administration to the stations and the Red Cross the whole bit, you know.
So they did give you good care when they came in?
Yeah once they came in sure, you know, but ??? so organized ??? we were allowed but, I couldn't go but most people, you know, they were running out from the camp, you know.
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