Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Martin Koby - April 20, 1999

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Okay. They contacted him rather than ???...

The Jews in the village, because he was a neighbor of my grandmother's.

Okay.

He was a member--a neighbor of the, of the...

Yeah.

...uh, of the Corins...I mean, Adlers.

Okay. So this is, this is...

This is the principal of the school.

Okay. The question is, why would he, would he warn people?

I don't know. My question is not why would he.

Yeah.

He did.

Okay.

The whys, I don't know why. I sometimes think maybe they paid him off. Our Jews in our village had no means of paying off anybody with anything. The only thing they had is the house and whatever things they had in the house.

It...

They didn't--there was no money.

He was risking his life, right? So were these...

In a way, yes.

Posters had said, uh...

No, no, but see, he wasn't risking. He just went to the meetings. He didn't ask--a Jew hater or a Jew--a person with a--tried to score points, he would have said every day you know, every Friday he went there, "What should I do with the Jews?" Right?

Right.

But he was asked nicely, I think nicely, "Please don't raise the--be honest man." Right?

And not raise the...

"Seine erlekhe Mentsch. Sol zukhn Emes."

Yeah.

"Sol nisht, sol nisht fregn, frag wegen Yiden." That's what my mother told me and--on West Hampton over here in a park.

T...t...translate it for, for the...

When he was asked...

Yeah.

You should be an honest...

Honorable...

Be an honest man, an honorable honest man.


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