Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Rose Green - May 21, 2008

You were in Auschwitz I.

Pardon?

You were in Auschwitz...

Birkenau.

You were in Birkenau?

Yeah.

Um, so you were right under the chimneys.

Yeah. There was one young man uh, what was his name? He used to--his father used to come pray. My, my grandfather was very religious--my father's father--and he had a big house, a big backyard, and in the back, there was a, uh, he gave to a teacher uh, religious teacher, Chasid, you know, and they had the Talmud Torah there, and in the winter they didn't go to shul, so they prayed in the Talmud Torah, in my grandfather's backyard. So his father would always go by and I know them very well. What's his name, Tan...not Tannenbaum--Middleman, Middleman. He wa...that boy what was one of those people who were gathering the dead, dead people from the, Sonder...Sonderkommando

Sonderkommando.

Yeah.

And he survived?

He survived, yeah. He came here in--I saw him here a couple of times in America. When my husband was alive he would, he would come and, uh...

There's a Middleman in Detroit.

Pardon?

There's a, there's a Middleman in Detroit.

He's here? Do you know him?

I do.

Tall guy.

Different guy.

Different.

Yeah, he's small, but a survivor of Auschwitz as well.

I think there were two brothers, you see, there are two brothers. One was very tall and one was a little smaller. Was he a mechanic or something?

I can't remember. I'll check--I'll find out. I interviewed him.

Pardon?

I interviewed him a number of years ago. Uh, what were you thinking was going to happen next when you were at Auschwitz? Did you have any...

No, I, I just--I was just worried about my father and I was just worried about my sisters and my brother, because we knew that they occupied uh, Hungary too. And uh, I was worried--I never worried about myself and I was worried what happen--what will happen to my baby. I thought if I'll have the baby--if I die, they will take my baby and what, what will happen. You know that, that was, that was my craziness, you know.