Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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

Squatting.

Squatting. Squatting and then jumping.

Jumping.

Jumping. Different things. And if you didn't jump enough, who didn't jump enough they were beaten. Many different things.

There are pictures of this in the Dachau book.

Dachau. Now that was in Allach.

But it's a Dachau punishment.

Punishment. And many different things, many different things. The only, only positive thing was that uh, the food was better than in Warsaw or in Auschwitz. So that, that was until, until uh, October, approxi...that was almost two months because beginning of September--no, five, approximately five weeks. The eve of Yom Kippur happened another miracle to us. Me uh, my, my brother. Uh, for some reason there, for some reason in couple of weeks my brother managed to come back to the day shift. I don't remember how. So we were again together. He was working, but in the--especially in the night shifts, people were dying like, like uh, uh, flies. You know, because very hard work and especially in the night shifts. Not all--you know, because those people on the camp who worked in other places they were not that bad. But this par...particular uh, BMW uh, place was, was very harsh. So. And, and October, be...at beginning of October, I don't remember. There--I know that was eve of Yom Kippur. Like usual, we got up early, I don't know, five, six o'clock, we had some tea, so-called tea and they about to leave the camp. Because inside the camp we were walking, but we get out in step that was under SS guard with, with weapon. So before we about to leave, the Lagerälteste, Lagerälteste that was you know, he al...was also a, a, but he was usually a Gentile. Uh, like a Kapo but he was the chief. Came up, looked upon us, "Du! Du! Du!" The whole group of men, hun...hundreds, hundreds. So they took out approximately twenty youngsters, including me and my brother. We were the--among the youngest. "Eintreten!" you know, that's eintreten, you know. March. They took us to the kitchen. Part of the kitchen uh, which we had to uh, peel potatoes. So it turned out that day before there was a SS came and they checked the work of the kitchen. Including the Kartofelputzers, which means the uh, uh...