Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Ilya Martha Kessler - November 1, 1982

Hearing About the War

Um, when, when the war started um, do you remember when you first heard about the war, about it? When you were a child, you...

In, in Poland? In Poland?

Yes, do you remember when you first heard?

How I say they took the men to uh, where was fighting. So, they took ??? I was very little ??? So man came back, a Jewish man, very religious man. He never again was religious. He came back and he said, "Three days we--no--was moving and didn't hear the people. They threw again some and they... That's it, they died, the Jews." So, they, they start to talk about what, what the story. They didn't know from Auschwitz. They knew they, they have like uh, like in Ukraine where they're taking and they're putting in a, like a, a truck. And they put this. So, all kind of things they heard something. Just they... I think they was like in a--how to say?--like in a mouse in a hole. Can't go here, can't go there. That's it. So, that's what they thought. The Hungarian not going to let us to touch, because they didn't have no other pla... other choice to go. So, that's what I think. Just the only choice, you take paper and you go to the big city and nobody can know you. So...

[interruption in interview]

So, ask me what you want, because I go fast. My mind from here and there goes real fast.


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