Louis Kaye - May 9, 1983
Return to Poland
Um, when you were liberated, did you, you wanted to go back to Poland. To, to your town?
Yeah.
What happened when you went back?
When I come back from Poland in my town, there was nobody there. There was a few people in my town, maybe thirty or forty people. The forty people was from twenty different cities. From my town left over only a few people. And when I come to Poland I escape, I escape from Poland because the... Like I say, the Polish people tried to kill these Jews, was afraid they come back for their property or come back for something else. And they say, what you doing here, you better go away, they will kill you tonight. They killed people overnight. Lots of place. Then I was in Poland about like a few months and go back to Germany.
What I hear you saying is that the Poles were afraid that the Jews were going to come back and claim their, their old property.
No, they took off the property, yeah. The pro... They took it, some, we took property away. Beside if they killed the Jews, they don't like the Jewish people born...
Didn't... Was your house still there?
Yeah.
Anybody living in it?
Where I was living?
No... Yes, where you were living.
The house was there, yeah.
Who was living in it?
Some Gentile. Yeah, I mean, Polish people. I sold the house. Got nothing. At that time I got like twelve hundred dollar for the house, it don't make money.
How did you do that?
I sold it.
You sold it?
I sold the house, yeah.
To the...
At that time I need the money. It was not money... Each dollar was two, three hundred dollar in 1945. You not sell the house it would be the same thing. It would be the same thing. Sell, don't sell. The house before the war it would be worth fifteen hundred, about three thousand dollar American money. They took it for nothing. But they killed people every day in Poland. You'd be su... You'd be surprised how many Jewish people got killed after the war from the Polish people itself.
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