Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Martin Koby - April 20, 1999

But you haven't told much of this to your children.

I told them some of it. But, uh...

Do you think they won't understand it?

I think my son understands it. I think--maybe they all know, I don't know. Ah, maybe they do. I don't, I don't want them to feel terrible for me. I want them to--why should they walk around on a chip--with a--you know, with a burden of me. I don't want them to have a uh, me as a burden--mental burden. My father, my father used to say, "I think about you every day." "What do you think? I mean, what do you think--why do you think about me every day?"

Your son says this?

Yeah.

What does he say?

Pardon?

And what did he tell you?

I don't know. I uh, I don't know...

He loves you.

Whatever it is--but I hope he doesn't have my terrible feelings or the anger or the resentment. You know, people say that uh, when your children grow up, when they're grown on their own, they think how smart you are, right? Well, you were smart all along. Is that--what--if that's the case, fine, I'm happy. But what about if he thinks badly you know, he feels terrible that--do I want him to feel badly? No. He's not going to fix anything, is he? He's not going to make it easier, whether it's for me or for the others. When I was in Israel the first time in '73, my cousin Pinhaus--we are the same age--he could be a year older or maybe I'm a year older, I don't know. When the war ended, they were my age, teenagers. And the two of them--the two, two brothers, they both survived. Miracle. They were in a village with Czechs, in another village called Ul'Baron. I was in Ul'Baron two or three times with my father, because they had a, a mill you know, where you grind grain to bread. That's, that's why. And it was a water mill, different.