Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Marvin Kozlowski - August 28, 2002

Unterriexingen

Unterriexingen? Where is that in Germany?

Not very far from, from, from uh, Moßbach someplace in Germany. Uh, okay. I was uh, first of all, if you, you had some uh, shoes you were left without. There were muds uh, muds. We were making the road, we were helping to do things. Over there you dealed--and the Kapo was like a general uh, the German uh, corporal was a general. It was very hard. And we living there, we stayed there. We figured none of us are going to survive. We were about a few hundred in the barrack. I can't tell you exactly.

Did you talk to each other?

Yeah, of course, the Jewish people, we talk to other. Yeah. Nobody was inside the barrack. Inside, the Germans were not inside our barrack. The had the uh, the Block...Blockführer...

Yeah.

A block leader, and assistant. And uh, we were all talking to each other. We were all in the same shoes. And uh, I remember in that place there, we were again, we were taken from there to work. The people would go into dynamite ???. I don't know if you know ???, what it means. ??? is in mountains. They were dynamite inside.

A mine.

Inside. You could go through those small railroad cars for miles. And we were deeping it further and further. There were having ammunition there. Some planes were storage there and uh, you had to do, the dynamiting was done by the Germans. They would drill a hole for dynamite and they would explode uh, quite a big square area. Then the railroad tracks we had, we had to be four to a corner. That has to be filled within minutes. I don't know. Three or four minutes it had to be filled up. Anybody who couldn't do it was either beaten to death or sent back and would not come to work tomorrow. I was lucky. I survived and I was there-- we were there 'til the Germans were--the English, Americans were coming out. The 12th I think uh, division, whatever it was, they're coming in closer. We had to abandon the place and they moved us to a, further to a hospital ???. At that place they would take our clothes away. We had numbers, so we knew what the clothes. Throw someplace and we would be just like we're born. Nude. Again, three deckers, the fleas were like ??? it was a stove in the middle and big--those pipes. And uh, we would not go out anyplace, but we just lay there.

Why did they take your clothes?

Wife: Without clothes?

Without clothes, just like we're born, just like we're born.

Why did they take your clothes?

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


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