Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Holcman - September 14, 1983

Czechoslovakia. Can you tell me what happened then?

Yeah, I went uh, from Poland, Czechoslovakia, then back to Germany. All illegally, really. And uh, in Germany, I lived uh, quite a bit, 'til '47. In the February of '47, I left for Sweden.

Where were you in Germany?

In uh, Frankfurt uh, in the DP camp in, Frankfurt ??? which is ???

Okay. And uh, what was it like in the DP camp as compared to the camps during the war?

A camp is a camp uh, just really I wasn't hungry. Um, maybe if, if I wasn't hungry I could eat that food, but I didn't eat that food at the camp.

So what did you eat?

Uh, the uh, we were on our own. Um, that's a little story too if you want to hear.

Sure.

Uh, when, when I got to camp they just opened up the camp. The first, I was the first there in the camp. And uh, first it had barracks, people full of barracks, but then they cleared some Germans out of our little, little place uh, in ??? which in uh, they're going to take the people from the barracks and locate them in the houses and apartments and so on. And I was just in the right time. Uh, when I got there and I uh, I went to a see a guy, which I knew him from Łódź, to register for a place to live. So, he says, you being single in this barracks, so instead I, I put this, put the sign and as soon as I saw a German move out, I put the sign up, "Here lives Avraham Holcman." And the next day I was approved, my, my house. I was the first one approved. After that people were looking to see uh, which house you got and which apartment you got. I was on the first list.

Fantastic.