Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Henry Konstam - October 25, 1991

Extermination Camps

In, in Posen were you communicating with your family in Łódź from....

No, we could not, from Posen you could not write a letter. You could not. It was a different world already. No, there again uh, I was in, in particularly lucky that I was working as a carpenter, most of the, most of the time. This is all you need is a little bit of luck.

Is that how you think you survived the camps?

What?

Is that how you think you survived all the camps, just through luck?

Luck. We uh, when I, when I, later on when I was shipped to uh, Jaworzno and um, the uh, it was a different story again. It was already on, on the uh, trains, those cattle trains, you know. It was a different story. And um, when we got there, indoor, we were on the train for several days. And uh, when we got there and we had to shed all your clothes, give up everything you had. And, and we stayed there and be numbered. And uh, the uh, a few days uh, I don't remember how long I was in uh, in Auschwitz--actually I was in uh, Birkenau, which is another uh...

Vernichtungslager.

Section. Uh?


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn