Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Benjamin Fisk - November 8, 1982

Okay. Um, did you have many other relatives in Sosnowiec? Aunts and uncles?

Well, yeah we had some friends, you know, and relatives and uh, you know, we had some relatives. Most of them lived in Będzin like you have on the map there. We had quite a few relatives over there from my mother's and father's, you know, and uh, they had chosen it, it's a lot bigger. When we made a wedding or something, we didn't need no strangers, you know, from both sides, you know, from my father's side, from my mother's side. You know, didn't need--200, 250 people and they were all relatives, you know.

Your father's side was from Będzin?

No, I don't know exactly from where my father was born, you know, we never got into it, you know, at home, you know. But I know he must have been born some place because his brother lived in Kielce. Did you interview some more people that came from Pińczów maybe or, you know, I never went back from where my parents came from, you know. My sister, the one that still--that lives in uh Paris, you know, she used to go back on vacation, you know, because we had relatives coming from there--every week they used to come by truck, you know, to buy chickens and eggs all kind of stuff, you know. But by dark, you know, they used to come in and sleep in our house, on top of us. There were, there were nine of us, you know, they were sleeping--two big guys you know over six feet tall, you know, but there was enough room for everybody. On top of it the carpenters, you know, were sleeping--they were learning to be a carpenter, you know, a cabinet maker. He sleeped in our house all year long on the couch, you know.

Sure.

Yeah he's in Montreal, you know, this guy--carpenter. I don't even know--it wasn't even a few years ago--matter fact it will be nine years already. And my brother told me that he supposedly saw him in Montreal. I never went to Montreal, you know, to...

Yeah, yeah.

I've seen him after the war, I've seen him in Germany ???.

How many brothers and sisters did your father have?

My father, there was one in Katowice. You probably have it on the map there. That was one I used to go there all the time. ??? And he had another brother in Będzin and he had another brother in Kielce, you know. There were four of them. You know that's uh, you know, four brothers. Sisters, I don't remember. I remember that my mother had a sister in uh, ??? uh, she had a, a brother in Będzin, you know, and she had some relatives there and she had two more bro...two more brothers. She had a brother in Pińczów and another brother, you know. And her sister--she had two. You know, the cousin that's in Montreal is supposed to be in Montreal. His mother was my mother's sister, you know. But he lived in let's see--I used to go, I used to go there every week, you know, I can't think of the name right now. It will come to me.