Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Joseph Klaiman - May 4, 1982

Surviving in the Forest

Let me ask you a couple of things about today...

Yeah.

...okay. Just um, okay. Um, so you told me a little bit about--you told me about the liberation. You told me about you being in hiding in the forest--that was your form of resistance. You don't remember anybody else? I mean, you were always alone in that uh, I mean, you said your friend was shot and then you were in a forest and then you moved on. You did this all by yourself. Nobody...

Eight days I did this all by myself. I was by myself in forest, I didn't see nobody. I was--in the night I was hiding by the cows in a--in the forest over there when I was afraid that they're going to see me. In the night I was looking for something a little bit food.

Did you get any help from anybody?

Nobody. I was by myself, by myself. I told you that I didn't believe that one Jew is alive because I was--for almost close to six months I didn't know that any Jews survived because of uh, I knew what the German are doing to us in the, in the camp, because they was killing us everyday. And for no reason.

Did your ot...uh, did your cousin survive? You said you...

I got one cousin in Israel. She left in what I said...

Right.

...she is in Israel. I saw her a couple times. She was here. And we corresponded and we talk to each other.

Other people survive from your family, or...

From my family, nobody.

No.

No, just myself. From my city I really don't know too many people who survived--I mean from my street. From the city I know a lot, but the people from here are not from my city--my street. I really don't know too much about that.


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