Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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

Dangers of Overeating

...stomach, which we, for months didn't eat nor...regular food.

So they died right there.

Right there.

And you...

Several, in the, in the--they died right there in the, either in the uh, uh, in the place, or later on, you know. I know that. I had a good friend, I remember a Fried, F...Fried. He--they survived. The boy was couple of years older than me and he was with his father. I remember Fried. And the father died there, father. I remember that particular case. Because they ate and he died. He got diarrhea and, and, and, and, and they died.

Again, I--I'm curious. You're fifteen now. Right?

At that time I was fifteen.

Fifteen. You're watching people dying and...

Eh, yeah.

What kind of reaction did it have in you?

You know what, I'm telling you, the, oh, psychology was we didn't care much, you know. There was such a apathy, apathy then as to the dying. The only thing we cared, to survive, to have some food and not to be beaten up. And that's, those you know, that was, and that's all we cared during the whole period, you know. We didn't, died, died, so we didn't care. I'm telling you, for instance, when the uh, the last several months when the Americans and, and the English came bombing, nobody had any fear whatsoever. You wouldn't believe that. You know, we just, we were alive, we're happy. We're waiting for them. Because if they allow, and there was several of us then we had--could lie down and not uh, not to work. That's all we, we cared about that.

You mentioned a Dar...Darwinian survival of the fittest when the other people were taken, lost the job in the kitchen, you said that's to survive.

Right. Yes.


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