Salvatore and Lili Katan - August 18, 1981
Sabotaging the Germans III
SK: Now when they come to tell us go and they, they say, "Make a right turn," means they're going to take us to the Krematorium. But if they say, "Make a left," we know we go to work, I mean, in the camp. And sure enough, we, we were going to the camp. And now before you go to the camp, they used to make Appell--count the people and search. And everybody start to throw all the weapons what we have on the street. So we wait, they don't kill us because they want us--the Germans, they want us, there is the reason they don't kill us.
The workers, you mean?
SK: The workers. But they took the people from the Krematorium--as a matter of fact, almost five hundred Greek Jews. They took 'em, they put them in a boxcar and they told them they're going to transfer them to another camp. It was a lie. They were lying. They took 'em around and around the dark and they took 'em to the Krematorium and they burned them all in...
The gas chamber.
SK: ...the gas chamber. All the Greek Jews they were working in the camp--in the Krematorium. They put the Greek Jews there because the Greek Jews there was no capable to talk German, they no capable to talk Polish. Just Greek or French or Italian, but no...
LK: Spanish...
SK: Or Spanish...
LK: Spanish is your mother's language.
SK: That was my mother's language.
LK: She knew Spanish and French.
SK: So that is the reason the Greek Jews were working in the Krematorium. And the Greek Jews was the ones who blow up the Krematorium, with our help.
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