Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Simon Goldman - June 6, 2003

So you didn't need a sponsor.

I didn't need a sponsor. So I came, I registered for that to come over here. Because my cousin and her husband they had a mother and she, she survived through the war but she was in Sweden. So from the DP camp in forty...'46, yeah, beginning of '46 they--well we, we, we were doing some black market. The, the CIA came in, got us--'course I wasn't doing it.

And what did they do? Did they....

Well, they, they were buying from the GIs and selling it, taking it to Vienna, you know, and from Linz to Vienna. Not smart. Selling it. Black market.

The OSS came in?

So the CIA came in, whoever they caught. They took her.

But they didn't catch you. I mean, you were...

They took me too, because I, I walked in. I knew they were there. And they were turning the place upside down to look for, for goods and stuff, whatever they can find to indict us. But I said, I had nothing to do with it, I just lived there. But I wasn't really, really doing anything.

So where did they take you?

They took me to prison.

Again.

Again. I was in prison for thirty days in Austria. I was interrogated by the CIA and they beat me up. Because the--my cousin's husband, he was originally from Germany. And he got deported in, in '38 or whatever it is to Poland. And he was dealing, wheeling with the, with the Austrians. They had an ambulance--they didn't use it as an ambulance but it was ambulance car. So he loaned 'em a lot of money, then when it came to pay back, they asked the money for, to get back paid. Of course the money, he didn't have it, so ??? the CIA.

They beat you?

Oh yes they beat me. At first they gave me chewing gum and then they, they smacked me around. And they said, "You still have your chewing gum in your mouth?" I said, "Yes." And uh, they beat me up. I told 'em I'm innocent. I told 'em I'm innocent and they let me go after thirty days. And uh, and I, after that I registered to come to United States--when they asked me the question whether, if I was in prison, I told 'em yes I was and I tell 'em why and...it didn't interfere with my coming to the United States. I thought it might, but. I didn't even know but, you know, if you're convicted or you're in prison or something, I wouldn't have been able to come here, but.

Unusual times though.

Yeah.