Joseph Klaiman - May 4, 1982
Reasons for Survival
You said your aunt helped you a lot after your father died, your mother died...
Yeah.
How did she help you? What was her means, I mean, of, of helping so many people?
The means--she was a good women and she was--her, her husband worked in a--and they got some flour, what they bring and he was a strong man, he was working. He brought home a little bit of this kind flour, and he helped nine people and we were still....
You saw them work together in the house in the one and a half rooms...
Oh, there was not enough room when we was young and...
No, but it was in that setting you all pulled together, worked together...
She was holding all the--we was always holding together. We always believed we were going to survive. We was fighting for survive, always. When I was in Auschwitz, I was fighting everyday 'til--I told you, last minute I run away. I didn't care if they going to kill me, let them kill me. But I run away. I still wanted to survive and see after the war...
So why do you think it is, Mr. Klaiman, you survived and others didn't? What is...
Just a lucky. You could see that my friend went--jumped from the train the same time, he got killed. The bullets killed. It possible they shoot at me too, the same thing. And the bullet didn't hit me.
So you think it's just pure luck.
Pure, to me it was just God. We got a God, maybe God want me to be alive, that's all. I was just a lucky man. I run away and I was really lucky. And I was not afraid to be in the, in the forest by myself. And I can tell you I was almost clothes nude for eight days and it was cold, freezing, and I was weighing eighty pounds and forty stone and still didn't have a--I was not sick, I wasn't hurt and I didn't die.
Because you were a fighter.
Yeah I was fighter. I was young, eighteen years old. You were--was a kind of life. I mean, the strongest time of life. I was fighting for--I wanted to survive. I wanted to survive because I didn't care, I didn't care if they kill me because I wanted to survive. If they catch me, let them kill me because I didn't wanted to be so much punishing in my life so much. I was said, "If I run and they shoot me, let them, let them kill me. If not, I'm going to be alive. Maybe it's going to be better times.'
So you had hope.
I...
You didn't...
When you're young you hope, sure. That's it.
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