Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Holcman - September 14, 1983

Where did you get back to in Poland? Where'd you go?

I went back to my home city, Łódź.

And what'd you find?

I find uh, I find what I thought it was, but I didn't believe it was. I found it empty. It was, uh... I didn't find no family.

Were the buildings standing?

The building was standing and I collected some uh, some pictures of my family.

They were still in the apartment?

Yeah, the uh, yeah. They, they lived in, the flowers. There was no flowers. The building was standing, but no flowers or windows or doors. So, in the uh, heap of scrap I could collect some uh, pictures. I found some pictures. I didn't find pictures of my parents, but uh, uncles, aunts and cousins and stuff.

Was your brother with you?

Uh, yeah, we went together to Łódź, yeah.

And then what happened?

Then uh, un... uh, about thirty miles from Łódź I found out I got a sister alive.

How'd you find that out?

Uh, uh, a friend of our, a friend of my sister's really. He was a fire... a fireman in the ghetto where my sister worked. She worked uh, as a, a pot... potter. And he was a fireman. So, they were sitting in the same cabin most everyday. And uh, and uh, my sister hiding out in the rough times, so he knew me a little bit. So, so he knew that my sister alive and uh, he was telling me my sister is uh, in Hanover, Germany.

Right.

But I was uh, thirty, forty mile from Łódź, so I might as well continue in anyhow. So, I came into the city.

That's when you got the pictures.

The, the, we got the pictures. And there where the trouble started again over.