Nathan Nothman - November 30, 1982
Going Back to Kraków
Did you ever go back to Poland--back to Kraków after the war?
No, I have nobody there. And I don't want to go back. I would like to make a trip, but to who? What? What? Whom I would see? Nothing to see. I'm Polish Jew. But was a lot of time ask me, I say I'm Jewish and I'm American, and I want to just ignore it. Poles, not educated, brutal--excuse me--stupid. Didn't know what human rights is. That's it. If not the Poles, there would be no 6 million Jews killed in Poland. The Pole pointed finger. The Poles told the German where a Jew--who is Jewish, was not Jew. When I stood in Kraków, in Kraków for bread--1940--friend, friend what I eat with him together--what I brought my--what I stole a piece of challah or a piece of cake to give him--he likes that--when I in the line, "Jude! There's a Jew staying in line." He took me out. His father what was a, what was a nothing, he was a, he was a Volksdeutsch. He was--he had a power. He could--he had so much power he could kill somebody and they wouldn't even tell nothing. So that's what Poles--Poles helped the German to kill the Jews. Without the Poles not too many Jews would be killed, because the German, the German give to the Poles--you go half. I, I heard this one thing now, the German said to the Poles, "If you find where the Jews are hide--no difference by Poles or in caves--we give you a kilo of sugar," that means two pounds of sugar for a hat. "If you find so many of them, we will give you so many sugar." And what the Pole done it, like black market. So they sell a human--children. For what? That not happen in, in, in other country. That not happen in Scandinavia, in Holland, in Belgium. The whole world was sleeping. And that what bothers me. We're supposed to--we cannot trust nobody. We only supposed to trust ourselves. And thank God we got the State of Israel. And thank God that Israel should live and live and that God pay He--God, if ever happen--we have where to go. We have where to go. And I, I hope that will never happen and it should never happen again. And I just, I just want to--I just wonder if Israel would be created in 1938, what would happen to the Jews? They would take the--all Jews, they would sleep on the ground. We must supp...we must support Israel because Israel is in the U.N. Israel is in United Nation, they connect. Thank God for Israel. And we can be proud.
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