Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Abraham Holcman - September 14, 1983

Görlitz

What was the train like, ride like from Auschwitz to Germany? Were you crowded in the way you had been before?

No, it wasn't bad. LB Were you given anything to eat?

Yeah, we had food, we had uh, we had the same rations as we had in, in uh, Auschwitz.

How did the guards treat you at Auschwitz?

The guards? No trouble.

How about the other, other prisoners?

There was no trouble in Auschwitz.

Did anybody give you trouble in Auschwitz?

No, no trouble at all.

Okay. Uh, how about when you got to Germany, what happened then?

In Germany, in Germany then there started trouble. I went to, I went to, to the first day uh, we walked in, in camp uh, being hungry for four years you look for the kitchen. So, I started work in the kitchen. But I couldn't, I couldn't uh, I wasn't strong enough to, to handle the job.

What was the job?

To stir, to stir the soup. It had a lot of potatoes in it and uh, with a big uh, pallet, like a rowboat uh, type of thing. And I couldn't, I wasn't strong enough to stir the soup, so I got kicked out.

And where did you go then? What did you do then?

I was, I was doing nothing for another two or three weeks. Everyday uh, people, German people came and selected for different kind of factory work. And uh, since uh, I couldn't work in the kitchen, I didn't want to work at all. So, I hid behind all the time the last one. So finally, uh... [interruption in interview]


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn