Herman Marczak - May 12, 1982
Working in the Ghetto
Do you know...
I worked for a German ??? because if I wouldn't have worked for that German--not only me--he helped--it was in Zduńska Wola a shoe industry--it was a very established shoe industry which belonged almost to Jewish people. One worked for the other, you see, some were the owners. They produced shoes for children, then sold it in the whole area. And some other people it was not a factory system like here, but you, you took home. You had a little shop and you, and when you took in a two, three boys and lend them out a trade and when they grow up or they got married they went, they went on their own and did the same thing that, that other young people. That went from generation to generation.
Mm-hm.
And there was there a German who was living there for many, many years, a native German. And he had, he had a little more modern shoe factory. So, when the Germans came in he became king. So he took over that whole industry by himself and he needed people to work for him. So he took in maybe twenty or twenty-five...
Jews.
...Jews. Sometimes he worked over, for him, in his place, sometimes they took to work for him. But we worked, all those years we worked for him and he protected us that we, they shouldn't send us away to the labor camp during that time. That's the way I stayed home. And my brother went to the camps and he never came back.
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