Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000 & January 8, 2001

Knowledge of Gas Chambers

Before you l...we leave Auschwitz, had you heard anything in Auschwitz of gas chambers?

No.

Nothing.

Uh, yes and no--that there are gas chambers but uh, we were--we didn't--we were--only with the Hungarian Jews we arrived. Nobody knew and we didn't have contact with anybody uh, practically, you know. We didn't have contact. No, not, we didn't have--although later on--I did not hear, I did not hear, but some other people he...heard this, overhead that huh, there is a saying, a very, very cruel in Yiddish because we asked the Polish uh, ear...th...those who were uh, some kind of supervisors you know, those, the people, oth...oth...uh...

So the answers are in Yiddish.

In Yiddi...And then one of--no, the good guy was, he talked with my father and he told, I, I told you earlier, to tell us that we are older. He, he wasn't allowed to tell but he was...

That you were sixteen year old.

Older. Sixteen or seventeen. The other, the other, there was some cynical. I didn't hear this. And they say in Yiddish, you speak Yiddish, and I have to repeat this in Yiddish because it sounds terrible and there was a Polish uh, uh, pronunciation. ??? Now you are going to go into the door and...

And out the chimney.

Somebody heard but I don't remember. Later on they told us, some other friends they heard something like that. But that's the, the one... Uh, because they asked what happening, are we going to happen with us. But with us we were taken to, to work. So we were taken to... We were, we spent approximately two months with more in Warsaw.

The trip to Warsaw, the train...

No it was fine.


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