Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

When you were still in Vienna d.do you remember the. Had you heard of Adolf Eichmann?

Adolf Eichmann, no. Never heard of him.

When they, when theGermans opened up a Jewish immigration office.

No, we didn't hear about that. I didn't hear aboutAdolf Eichmann until I saw him on TV here. Didn't hear about him.

That's where he startedhis career, in Vienna.

Yeah, I know, I know.

Uh, so you were notaffected then by this, this forced expulsion.

I wasn't aware of it. No, no. I had never had arun-in with them. It, it, it, it was totally random. Even the people whom theyreleased and the people whom they took in the camp. And I think that conceptreally was part of the system to have it totally random so you couldn't figureout a way out. Now the uncle who survived was a real no-goodnik of the family.He was a gambler and he lived by cards. And he survived with his wife, hissix-year-old son and a daughter born in '39. He passed himself off as not beingJewish and he played cards with everyone. And whenever they started to pass outidentification cards for food or anything he would move on. He said, no papers.He never wanted to ever have any papers. He survived. 'Cause he had no vestedinterest. He was the one, the black sheep of the family. He had you know,nothing to lose. When he contacted me years later, he had lost total contactwith us. My brother's name appeared in The New York Times when he won aGuggenheim. And my uncle's other cousin saw that name and remembered ???, andso they called him up and asked him what his grandfather's name was. And sothat's how we contacted my uncle again.

How did your brother getfrom South America to.

Argentina? He went from Argentina when we werehere. We tried to send for him an affidavit form but we couldn't until the warended. They wouldn't let-allow him to come before that. So he came in '45.

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