Henry Konstam - October 25, 1991
Concluding Thoughts on the Holocaust
Let me just ask you one more thing. When you look back on it...
Yeah.
is there anything that comes to mind, any kind of conclusion you draw from all this?
The conclusion is one thing. Fight back, when you still have... Don't let it happen again. This is only thing. You see, there were, there were people during the war, even in the ghetto, that the Riboyne Shel O'lem. No, you have to have the Riboyne Shel O'lem. You got to do something about it that you help, you got to help God not to let it happen. You understand what I'm talking? If you don't do anything, if you do nothing, they'll, nothing, they'll have the, have the overhand over you. But you got to do something for God to help you. Just like, just like, I'm trying to get... When the, it was ??? when they uh, and they split the sea uh, so um, God said to them, why, they were crying to God, He says, why do you cry to me? Go, do something.
What do you think they could have done in Łódź?
We should have fought 'em. Just like in Warsaw ghetto later on, they fought, they, they at least they fought back Germans. In Warsaw ghetto they did fight and the, and the, and the religious, even religious Jews, they said no, you cannot do that, you shouldn't do that. The people says no, we have to fight them. So they, whatever they killed, they uh, they were fighting uh, in the ghetto quite, quite a few days over there. But they did kill some Germans. They cannot sit there and says, oh, I'll do nothing and, and God will help you. It don't work that way. You got to fight. You got to fight back. This is the conclusion I came to.
You know they killed, they killed twelve Germans and all of them were killed.
Hm?
They killed twelve Germans and all the Jews were killed in Warsaw.
So they did something. Do you think these Jews would have, would have been alive today anyway?
No.
They wouldn't have been alive. They uh, there was a case uh, I don't remember in which ghetto it was, that the, they took um, they brought all the Jews out, the, the frum, even the religious Jews they put 'em out in the city, they sent them out. Uh, and uh, and they uh, they took a Sefer Torah and they held, opened it up and they told every Jew to spit at it. You know the story?
Mm-hm.
And that one of them that was not religious spit at the German. He said, the only thing he could do. He was, he was actually non-religious whatsoever. He was a, a, a, one of the, the, the, like a mafia-like, you know. And he says he, I, I couldn't bring on me I should spit at the Torah, so when they came to him he spit in the German's face. Naturally, he took a gun and shot him. But he also shot all the rest of them. Now see, you got to stand up. If they knew we are not uh, so, so meek, walking uh, just like, like sheep go to the slaughter, they'll think about it. They might hit back.
Okay, I think we'll stop on that note.
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