Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Edward Linson - November 10, 1981

Judenrat of Warsaw

Do you remember the man who was in charge of the Judenrat?

This was Ringelblum.

Ringelblum. Was there also--do you remember someone name Adam Czerniakow?

Adam Czerniakow was also engineer. Actually he was the, the main--Ringelblum went to the--you see, they give an order, "Five tall menschen today we need to work." They went always to be killed. And nobody in the beginning believe. "What, what do you say? This is Deutschland, this a, a Kulturvolk. From, from Heine, Heine, from, from uh, Albert Einstein..." Uh, big deal. Everybody couldn't believe it.

Did you believe it?

Yes, because I knew, I knew exactly what happened.

Um, wait, I, I, before we get to that...

Yes, yes.

...they gave an order for--they needed so many workers. Who--the order came from the Germans. Is that...

From the SS, from the SR ???, this is NSA, National Security ???

But the SS are the people...

The SS, the SR ???

Who did they give the order to for workers?

For workers they come out, they got a, a--they, they need people to, to work the floors. They grab you from the street, from the homes, if you are in a home.

Did they go to the Judenrat first?

Oh, when they go to the Judenrat this was for five grown people, for ten grown people. That's why Ringelblum took himself, his uh, commit suicide.

Czerniakow.

Czerniakow.

Yeah, he committed suicide. Uh, do you remember who it was? Were you there when he committed suicide? Were you still there?

No, I was uh, uh, in uh, in Majdanek already.

So you were taken...

They, they took us out.

In 1942 this was?

Yes.

???

You see that that's why they don't know the, the exact dates, because I was all over around.


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn