Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Edward Linson - November 10, 1981

Start of the War

When the, when the war started do you remember where you were? When you...

I was taken from the street, for instance uh, my mother got a sister, she got out and she was killed. And they went to that time was like here ???, over there was also a ??? to do something. So they perished too. You wouldn't believe it, it's so tragic. It's impossible to--the human mind cannot, cannot understand this.

Do you remember when they started the ghetto?

Oh yeah, I was--because I was, I was exactly working that time in, in a factory from the, from the--for the German--for Skoda.

They knew you were Jewish, they knew you were Jewish, or didn't they know? You said that they didn't know.

I tell you the truth, the Polacks they didn't know. The, the management uh, they knew, because uh, I was written. And this was uh, you went and after awhile they, they disclose and goodbye. Uh, pushed out everybody in different places.

So how, how did the ghetto start?

How did the ghetto start? I will tell you how the ghetto start. The ghetto start the moment they was sure they are in Poland, you know. So they start getting a Judenrat, and you know what is a Judenrat? So we got over there a good person with the name, Ringelblum.

Emanuel Ringelblum?

Yes, I knew him personally--a wonderful person. And they started a police. This was all a precision work, that's why I am so angry and I am so shaking. I know what this, this hooligan uh, Reagan he wants to do--the same thing he wants to do. Not with this end--he, he--what you call him? They will do it. He got the, the, the--even the E...Egypt. You mean I believe in Egypt? You're mistaken. It's a very bad thing. I am so scared. Personal I am not scared, I'm scared for you, for you. I am dead anyway. I survive, you see, a tumor removal, four, four heart attacks, a few operations in, in concentration camps--experimental. But I'm uh, I'm lucky I am alive. ???.


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn