Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Louis Kaye - May 9, 1983

Who picked you up and put you on a train?

Czech, Czech people. A person. Czech.

Czech.

Yeah, I remember things like that. There no, the English, nothing. I remember ??? Krakow ??? concentration camp, or something like that. I could not say the same thing about the Polish people. Polish people, I would be afraid to go over there. My friend was in Poland with the, and then he would go to the city, his retreat, he was going to see his sister or some place in a sanatorium, hospital or something. He go over there a taxi and Polish people were talking against the Jews. Killing a, a baby for making matzah for Pesach and stuff like that. And he was saying he's Jewish, and they were talking against the Jews and everything, and he was lucky he's living. It was happened after the war.

When you left your town, where did you go?

In '46... When, after the war?

You say you went back home.

Yeah, I was going back to Germany, back to Bömberg, when I was living in Bömberg.

Before then, is that when you sold your home, when you were back in the town then?

Yeah. They didn't give me nothing.

I'm surprised they gave you the two hundred dollars.

They don't give me... Most people work you go through the court, it's not so easy. See, to get the house, they got to do one thing. He, he got to have a lawyer, a court. The, the guy was working with me make almost the same thing that I make, that I got for the house. If I don't sell it would be the same ??? Sold the house, don't sold the house. At least I sold the house, I help somebody. I have a friend in Israel when he come from concentration camp, he have no money, I give him money. At least I did something. I still remember the day. He come in the city, collect money, if not.

So, then you went back to Germany.

I was going back to Germany. Then I lived in Germany up to '49.

Where did you go back to Germany?

Bömberg.

What was there?

I said, yeah, I was working there, I mean, I was living there.

You had a job?

No, nobody worked. Nobody was working.

Where did you live?

I was living outside in a room over there in Germany, yeah.

You had a room?

Yeah, I was living a little... I have a room, and they paid for me, the city. They give me a room and they give me some food to eat, everything. I was working a little bit ???

And how long were you there?

Four years.

What did you do there?

Hm?

Did you live there?

I said I lived there. Waiting, waiting to take me. I was waiting to go to Canadian. The Canadian don't want to let in the Jews at that time. The quota was not many Jews, Polish people, I waiting to go someplace else, then I come to the United States. The Jewish social service brought me in.