Sally Horwitz - June 18, 2007
German Jews
Tell me the story about the German Jews?
What happened, why are you doing that stuff, well anyway. After, after the uh, the fall we had to dig, you know, to cover the potatoes in the, in the winter, early spring we had to uncover the potatoes, don't ask. And this guard used to sneak us out um, a few more people, than the two of us. Uh, Christmas time they made this, well I made this big dinner, we had a oven in the house and they took us back because the Germans weren't around as much on the holidays, I guess. Um, all of a sudden a truck is coming to Skarzysko, I mean, Garbatka, the potato, the potatoes were stopped already, nothing was to be done. A truck is coming with Germans and oy vey they, they certainly bastards. Uh, and they picking people, I must have been the second or the third one up there, to get up and people going up, I see this, somebody's gonna give here, I don't know what. Might as well go someplace, I don't know care, I didn't care where, just get me out of here. And then I said, "my sisters, my sisters," you know, my two sisters and they let them come up. And then ???, my girlfriend since we were little, and she's standing there looking at me and I said, "that is my sister, that's my sister." And I left--speak German and we pull her up and she's up. They took 40 people and six, in all of us a hun...a hundred people. I saved another girl who wa...was hiding, who lived in her house and she tried to get away from the march. And she was hiding in the field, she didn't know where to go. So I told ??? there's somebody please let her in and somebody had died because they shot somebody because she was trying to get away a little bit farther than, than she was and he was there and he just shot her right there in front of us. So I said, "you have one missing so please get her in." So she, I don't know what happened to her either. I think she survived, I know that. Uh, uh, and they were traveling uh, west and I didn't know where that thing is gonna take us. Uh, what did they do at night, they covered us up with something. Um, because they were afraid the, the forests were on both sides. Wherever you went, you went out of the city there was thick forest because they were always afraid, they were shooting at night the, the part, the uh, soldiers were always making noises with their guns, with their rifles. And we, they took us to Skarzysko.
Hm.
And here would come from the farm and still, you know, you're still in the fresh air. You still have potatoes. When they took that truck they opened up those gates and I saw those people, I say I'm going into hell, they taking us to hell. I never saw anything like it in my life and I mean it. I mean, I've been to other places but this was the worst of the worst I ever saw. Um, people were wandering around because I guess the shifts were changing and they look at us here, healthy looking people and they were already bro...grown... And some of them were yellow, some of them were brown. And they worked in different uh, chemicals and they weren't protected, so their skin became yellow or brown or whatever. And they say uh, they talked, you know, they say, "hey you think you're gonna look, pretty soon you're all gonna look like that." Like that, I said, "what are they talking, who are those people?" I was so, I couldn't believe what I saw. I said, "who are those people?" Sure enough uh, they take us, they took us to the factory right away. Factories, you have to be engineer, I mean, the, the, the machine, the, they were working on ammunition. I mean, how anybody of us know what to do. Well, this like my big mouth again. So they're lining us up like slaves and everybody, the masters pick, you know, whoever they want for their machines. Now there was one of them was, who was, you know uh, when we came in he lined us up and then the other ones came. My big mouth, and I say, "Wir sind drei Schwestern." And they start picking this one here, this one, and he didn't let anybody who wanted to take one of us, he says, "???." Um, so he uh, uh, took us and put us on like a table, which was uh, very uh, it was easy. You, cause you sat the whole time instead of standing up. And a good thing too uh, because I became sick right away, I became sick. Uh, we went--they took us, we called it a ???. It was three layers, you know, the beds, no beds, I mean, just like you see in, in the pictures. Are you okay, you want something to drink?
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