Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Joseph Klaiman - May 4, 1982

Let me see, um, was there anything else you want to tell me about, or you want to talk about? Is there an experience--were there certain, you know, particular experiences that you recall--you remember growing up or in the ghetto, in the camps? Are there certain...

No.

Is there anything else you remember? Were there certain experiences that you had?

Yeah, sure I had a nice beautiful young life. I had good, good uh, good friends. I really enjoyed it in Europe. The children I remember they were really fun. Played a lot of sport, and I liked the sport--I was doing good sport in my life. I was really good and I enjoyed it very much. And I, I remember I get good parents and uh, fine, fine relatives. But the thing is I was too young to realize there were this kind of thing in life and I realize what it means, I lost them. I lost when I was fourteen years old, both my parents. What can I say? Good things I had. In Poland it was not so....

Did you ever go outside of Łódź as a little boy? Did you ever...

Oh yeah.

...go to places?

I was a little in little towns around--I was in Łódź. I remember, like I say, I remember when in little towns I went in. I want to go back. I remember in 1939 when the, when the German came I was running away with my father to Russia because the Polish people said, "We, we saw the German coming.' After two or three days they wasn't in Poland the German, took a--they been taking too long. My dad and I and a lot of from our neighbors went to Russia. The Polish people said, "We all going to go to Russia and from Russia we going to put in a--that's where we going to fight back against the German.' And when we came back I was walking from little town to little town, and thousands of the Jewish people--were thousands--thousands were all over the little town we were walking to Russia and they didn't--the German--a plane was going just over your head. Just over, they was not afraid nothing because there was no offenses. And they was bombing us. And I remember that we was walking here and a bomb comes, fall down, a hole falls in and about a thousand people went in right in the hole. What can I say, and I'm still alive. Just not far from me, the hole...