Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Lanka Ilkow - October 12, 1991

Knowledge of Hitler

Had you heard of Hitler?

Yeah, we knew--you know, Hitler, we knew already in '32 we already knew about it. In--they're killing Jews. But they say they're killing there, they're not killing here, so nobody cared. Like now, if you tell American people what happened to us, they didn't give, most of 'em didn't give a damn what happened to you, they--so long it doesn't happen and I say that, will happen again. Maybe not this way you know, like we was killed. But will happen, something drastic. Because the people are absolutely not religious and don't believe in nothing and in mixed marriages it's ridiculous. You know, even my own daughter, one is married to a Goy. And she killed me with that. So I tell you something, something will--remember, maybe not in our time, but it's very anti-Semitic. I'm sure I don't have to tell you. You heard, you know. And when I read those things and see on television, all these Nazi parties and all these crazy parties and, and Mark Scott, do you ever listen to him?

I don't....

On WXYZ. Always hocking against Jews and they should not give the ten uh, million or so for the Jews, for nobody. He says, they should not give. And Jews was calling down uh, calling to him. So they say that I am anti-Semite. I am not anti-Semite. I just don't want they should give it. That's it. You supported Israel or not. So this kind of speeches on television and on radio, and the people think and, and the Schwarze here are very anti-Semitic. Here I have a neighbor, they're uh, Jehovah Witnesses. So I walk every morning, four miles. So she started to walk with me. But she's forty-four year old and sh...and I am seventy, she couldn't walk with me like I was doing. So she come, she was talking to me and she says uh, she's Jehovah Witnesses and if, if I will believe in Jesus then everything will be okay. And so I told her--a few times she was talking down, I told her mine opinion about Jesus. I say, "I am sorry to tell you what kind opinion I have. Why you believe in him? He was a Jew. He was born to a Jewish whore and you believe in him." So she didn't like it I told her that. So she doesn't talk to me. She says hello or so, but she doesn't talk to me anymore. But I don't care. I don't need her.

But you had news about that, what was going on in Germany.

Yeah, but you see uh, people from Poland was running to Hungary.


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