Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Holcman - September 14, 1983

Where'd you go?

I went to uh, to Kraków. There, there I uh, I heard uh, in Kraków I heard they uh, they giving you a passport so you can go, you can go back to, to Germany. It was a lie really, but I went to Kraków anyhow. And uh, I was telling them that I was born in Germany, so I want to go back home. So uh, so I stayed in Kraków. Uh, in Kraków there was uh, a Jew fellow there and uh, he was making passports for money. So, so I was making, I was trying to make a buck too, so I helped him a little.

Okay.

So, I fixed myself up a passport too.

Then you took the passport and you went to...

Then I, then I took the passport and, and going, going through uh, Czechoslovakia. And on the train going they cancelled all those passports. They should have a different stamp in it. So, I knew that uh, passport uh, wouldn't be valid anyhow. So, but I didn't turn back. I gonna go over there uh, illegally. And I went and I got through with lots of trouble, but I went through.

You got back into Germany now.

I went back to Czechoslovakia and went through a lot of trouble and then uh, back to Germany. More trouble.

What kind of trouble?

Uh, first uh, in Poland, the Russians were going with the, with trucks with potatoes into, into Czechoslovakia, from Poland into Czechoslovakia. And on the, on the road I, I stopped a Russian and I gave him two bottles of whiskey to put me on top of the uh, potato and covered with straw and, and uh, tried to smuggle into, to Czechoslovakia. Going, coming to the border, the Polish officer asked him, uh--he knew a lot of people going there--if he got some Jews on there and that son of a gun, he said yes.

So then what happened? Did they open it?

So, the uh, so I was trying uh, to, to uh, to get some whiskey for the Polish officer to let me go through before I covered up before I'm uncovered from... So, the Polish officer was telling me, I can't do it, they're looking out from the window. So, I went down and went down and went down. I said, now this is my end. [interruption in interview]