Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Simon Kalmas - May 25, 1982

After Liberation

What did you do after you were liberated?

I lived in Germany--in Stuttgart for four years, until I got--well, like, like a camp, you know, a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart.

What were you doing while you were there?

I wasn't doing anything. I just wasn't doing a darn thing. I was the first year--took about a year--I was out of my mind. Depressed. Especially when somebody found a brother or some relative that they were united again. I was so depressed it wasn't even funny. But I got myself out of it. I start lift up my head again, start all over again. Start all over again--make plans where will you go. What is going to be your future. Where you go from here. What do you do. You're not going to sit in the camp all your life. Wait for the ration--to go for the rationing in the morning, go to the mess halls, you know, for dinner, go back and read or listen to the radio or go somewheres. One night I sat down and I knew there's an address in New York, United Service for New Americans. I sat down and I wrote it in Yiddish... [interruption in interview]


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