Nathan Nothman - November 30, 1982
Orders to Move into Ghetto
I want to go back for a minute. When you were still in Kraków before you went to Płaszów uh, how did they round you up? How did you find out that you were going to be sent to the ghetto? How did that all happen?
In Kraków...
In Kraków.
...they gave you a ultimatum...
Mm-hm.
...every Jew must take whatever they need, by this day must be in the ghetto. So they give us a month or two month, I don't remember. So I mean, every Jew was uh, was driving to the--over the bridge, Kraków-Płaszów. Remember--I'm, I'm remembering so much it could take months to explain things.
Did your parents--did your mother lose her store, uh...
Oh yes....
...long before that?
...yes, right away. When they, when they came to Kraków they just deported everything over. And they throw us out from our apartment and they give us someplace building, some one-room apartment. That's what they give us. But it was not for too long because another two, three months we must--we went to Kraków-Płaszów ghetto.
What kind of living conditions were in Płaszów? What kind of...were you still with your entire family at that point?
No, my brother--the older brother, he said he didn't want to stay by them. He want to go to Israel. And he went to Russia. Through Russia he wind up in Israel. So we were--in ghetto it was a--it was a condition that you're supposed to struggle. They didn't give you nothing to live. You're supposed to sell something. You're supposed to--clothes, you see this just to, just to make a living. You couldn't--you, there was no work. You couldn't work by nobody because there was no work. Only you live what you have. Your clothes, like a shoes, so the Pole border then will give you something. But there was no work.
What type of apartment did you have there? How many people were living in...
In Kraków-Płaszów in the ghetto?
In Płaszów, yeah.
In the ghetto there was one, two, three, four, five, five of us. Then the mo...my father went away and my brother went away. So there was three of us. My mother, my sister and myself.
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