Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Louis Kaye - May 9, 1983

Outbreak of War 2

Then about, maybe about six months later they took my brothers away near the Russian border. They do this kind of work. And my bro... my brothers, I have over there one, two brothers, two, three brothers was over there by the Russian border, Lublin. And he could escape by the Russia. My parents told them, don't go there. If you go there, you become a goy. Because we was very religious, and over there everybody was not so religious, but the Russian assimilate and stuff like that. Or make 'em come back here. They come back here and take all to Treblinka. I have two brothers with me, 1942 I have two brothers with me in Poland concentration camp, in Skarzysko. It was like a work, like, in—I was working with two brothers there 1942. On Yom Kippur, before they sent out the whole city from Skarzysko or they asked my brother before that you want to go home? You have a family and everything, you want to go home. They took him out, they shot him. Make him make his own hole and everything. And I come later and saw him. They, they shoot him in everything. In Skarzysko, my brother.

You saw your brother there? In the...

After, yeah.

How long, how long after?

About an hour later, I mean a few hours later, we come pick up his clothes and everything. He make his own hole. And that's his home, and maybe about a hundred people like that. They ask him, "Do you want to go home?" He say, "Yeah, I got a family. I want to go home." Because they ask who want to go home. They took him in the, in the forest. Dig your own hole. And they shoot him.

And you found him with all the other people.

Yeah. And all my brother passed away in, in Skarzysko. The other one passed away 1942, 1943 his... He tried to take Pesach. Easter 1943. He passed away because he never want to complain he's sick and everything. So, he died in '43. So, I was in the station with, with two brothers and I left myself. And then from 1943, 1944 the Russian come closer to Poland, they took, they took me, transferred to Cz?stochow—I was going to Cz?stochow—and then later they took me to Buchenwald. In Buchenwald, I was working there in 65 Block ??? It was a ??? I think he was a politician. It was a little nice for the young kids. Block 65. 65 Block. And from there they took me to Dora and where they... Dora-Nordhausen they make there V-Eins, V-Zwei. You hear from Dora? No. I have a book in the car from Washington, DC—I'm looking sometime in the picture, I think it's me and I don't think so it's me, from Buchenwald. Because I bought a book when I was in Washington, DC. So when, from Buchenwald uh, I was going the, the Dora and I was working Dora-Nordhausen. Hard time. And I was liberated April 11, 1945. Uh, General Eisenhower by the American.


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