John Mandel - May 26, 1981
Document
Can you read me what this document says?
Well...
Now come the glasses. [laughs]
It gives my name. And it says uh, uh, Mandel, Gino.
Where does this appear?
Ausweisen. That, this is--you have it both in German and in English. You see, you have Ausweisen in German and certification in, in uh, English and then Herr means Mr.
Oh, uh-huh.
And uh, and ??? means born. And e... everything that you see here actually is translated in both German and English. This gives me--this gives you my home address before they--it was taken away. Oh this--here we go, that's why I remember the seventeenth.
What does this say?
That means I was, I was uh, incarcerated from the 17th of May, 1944.
Oh that's what the seventeenth.
That's what the seventeenth is for.
What does this word mean? Word, word, von?
From. That, that means incarcerated from.
Okay And this means to?
Uh, yes. May 5th 1945. That was my birthday. [telephone rings]
A national.
Concen... uh, that means, in, in Nationalization Koncentration Lagen gefangen. That means I was, I was a uh, I was a uh, gefangen means uh, um, interned. I was captured. Gefangen. And this, of course, is all obliterated. And that here, freiheit gesetz, that means I was freed.
Uh-huh.
And, and they didn't put this date in here. Then here we have Ebensee 28 of May, 194... '45.
It says here that it was liberated from the concentration camp...
Yeah, this is...
at Mauthausen.
All right, Mauthausen, as I, as I mentioned...
Right, was the...
to you was, was the main camp, and Ebensee was the satellite camp. And I was liberated in Ebensee, which is, was part of the Mauthausen uh, complex.
On the 28th of May?
May 1945.
Forty-five. And then what, this side is identification card?
Current number. Oh, this is my internee number, I guess this must have been my identification number. That's my family name, my given name uh, born in the city of Mukachevo, nationality, Czechoslovak. And uh, basically the same things as I told you earlier.
And who is this?
That was my signature.
Oh that's your signature.
Yes.
Okay.
It looks a d...a little different today.
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