Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Herman Marczak - May 12, 1982

Sick.

Yeah, that was the agreement between--they wanted to do something. They survived the war without--as a neutral country they didn't suffer, and they, they wanted to, to do something to help. And there were so many sick--terrible sick people. Fifteen thousand people died in Bergen-Belsen after the war in a period of three months. So they wanted to do something, the Swedes. So they wanted to take in only sick people. So that German doctor what I told you, who told, who told us that it'll take only a couple days and we'll be free.

Uh-huh.

The British they, they, they released him, because either he was a spy or something, I don't know what. There was rumors that he was not on their side, he just wore their uniform, you know.

He was not on the German side.

No, that he was not on the SS either or the Germans. Anyhow, they, they needed a doctor in Bergen-Belsen--so many people, people get calls and things. So they allowed the thing to open up or he, he volunteered. Instead to go home to open up an office and help those people things will get better.

Do you remember his name?

No. I never knew his name. Anyhow, so I found out that if somebody wants to go to Sweden you go into him so he give you some papers they will, they will let you in. So I--me and another two friends went. He opened up and he told us that he's going to open up, that he--was a sign on the door or something that he's going to open up a room he's got over there and, and at certain times I went in and I told him that we were from Dora--his camp--and we want--and I wanted to go to Sweden. So he, he gave me a slip of paper that I have some spot on a lung, and things like this, you know this that and I should go there and there and turn in it to the British ???. So I went there. They said, "Okay, come back tomorrow morning. Tomorrow goes a train to Lübeck and we go to Sweden."

Oh.

And that's the way, that's the way that we--I came, I came to Sweden.

Did a Swedish boat take you over?

A Swedish boat, Princess Ingrid. Now that--I don't know if a lot of American people know, but really that should never be forgotten what the Swedish people and their government, and the whole society did for us, you know.