Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000 & January 8, 2001
Deportations from Allach
A closed car.
Yeah, closed car. There were eighty--ninety--hundred, we don't know how much. Practically no food, very little food. And they, sometimes we uh, went one direction fifty kilometers and then was--they couldn't go further, so they go back, back. I remember one, one time the rail station which were, that was bombed, but we di...we were not hurt, so I don't know. So finally we arrived to a mountain place which uh, in Tyrol, in Alps you know, somewhere.
You don't remember the name?
No. I don't know.
It was small town?
We didn't see a town. Th...there was a top hill, a forest all over, you know. And s...and, and that's all. We uh, you know, the uphill. Even many places snow, but uh, already melting. And we stayed there. We had only one guard, an elderly guard he--who didn't care you know, that was a--he didn't care. So he let us, he let us go out. But we didn't go anywhere. We couldn't go. So we were looking in the field. So if we found certain places, let's see, potatoes, we dig up--dug out potatoes and we ate something and I don't remember even. So we--that lasted for a week, I guess.
You didn't see any civilians, nobody, nobody.
No, no, that was in, in, you know. We had, we had you know, we didn't care. But probably the idea was uh, to kill us or something. But they didn't bother us you know, so we--didn't bother us. Strange. That was a long train, probably many thousand people. Very long train. But maybe mostly were lying in, in our train and who dared out--to get out or had the strength to get out to the fields. And we were looking for some food. We found some potatoes I remember, took out and we ate.
Potatoes, that would be a farm, right?
Yeah, no, I don't know, I don't know. That was in a field. We didn't see civilians, we didn't see anybody.
This is the end of April.
End of April. In 29 of April [pause] at that time we were starving, I know. I don't remember being so, so uh, in a bad shape than at that time. They called Muselmann, you know that ex...expression. We were everybody. We looked at each, each other, we couldn't recognize each other, we could hardly move. Twenty-ninth of April we heard that some uh, cars uh, trucks coming. Because that was a, a place they could arrive, I don't know. But we saw with Red Cross. They say Switzerland, whatever. And they delivered some food. Every two, every two of us got a package. I don't know how did it happen. Every two of us got a package. And there were all, all goodies there. No, no, no water of course. But all goodies there. Meat and, and, and, and Oval...Ovaltine and, and uh, different things.
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