Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Nathan Nothman - November 30, 1982

Now, now from uh, from 1944 in May, I want to get out of Kraków-Płaszów. I figure, it's no good. The Russian closing in, they're not far from us. I don't know what'll happen. Göeth is a crazy guy--he shooting, he kill, he murder. I mean, there was not a day that he wouldn't--through my eyes, what I saw, there was a very nice gentleman--had a, a beard. So he put a handkerchief and he tackled just everything in so they will not be--Göeth came in, and he asked, "What is that, what ???" that means, "What you have inside there? Take yourself--everything off." So he took everything out and he got a nice beard. He shot him maybe distance three feet, four feet. And I never saw something like that. Saw fountain--water fountain--black coming out like ink and just, violent. ??? I mean disappear. I mean just covered it. And I mean, I really saw. There were Polish women--what they took, you know, for the soldiers, so they will entertain the soldiers.

Mm-hm.

And I was working there. It was ??? that what I drill was not far. Uh, shovel. They got maybe about a half a ton, a ton, two tons dirt and they, they just drop it in them alive, alive. Maybe they were pregnant or something and just covered them up. Nothing. And that shovel came in and stood on the place, and she was buried. In 1944, in May, they give us a bread, two eggs--it was something like this, I don't remember--a week. We went into the train. Now I said, "If the train doesn't go to Germany--go to Auschwitz--we out. We'll, we'll..." We know exactly where. It depends by night, which way the tr...the train will pull. And they told us that we're going to Germany. All right, my time there was still. They took us to Gross-Rosen--concentration camp Gross-Rosen. We came in, they strip us completely, they shave off the head. They lo...I mean, from--I don't know how many--600, 700 or 800, I cannot remember how many--they came too many of them. They killed 'em because every time it's supposed to, they just hit, hit with the, with the thing. And, you know, if somebody get hurt and cannot walk, they just eliminated. Gross-Rosen--we--I came uh, organization ??? there and took us to--first to Lager Five ??? Lager. This is by the Czech border. And we work for ??? They give us food. We work hard. We work in the Steinberg, we work all over there.