Nathan, Bernard, and Samuel Offen - September 3, 1987
Wieliczka II
NO: Uh, what we were actually doing is enlarging the, the rooms down there, whatever you call it, the warehouses. They wanted to build an underground munitions factory for the war effort because they, they--it was safe, it was safe. They--so we were enlarging, enlarging the shaft...
SO: The undergrounds.
NO: The undergrounds down there to build, to build factories down there.
BO: You mean the tunnel, the tunnels?
NO: Tunnels, whatever, yes, yeah the tunnels, whatever, warehouses, whatever they wanted. They had plans to build them. Anyhow, this didnt last too long and then they decided, the Russians, we heard it at night that the Russians are coming already. We heard at night the artillery from far distance already. So the Russian front was moving closer. So they decided to evacuate us from, from eh, from Wieliczka to Płaszów. While they were bringing us up, they load us up on, on trucks and the German--I remember the young German SS man sitting in the back with the, with the gun, guarding us on the truck. He was sitting in the back and he was saying, "Well, we are withdrawing today but we letting all those bad people--the Russians will come in. We let them in to kill all the bad people. And then with the V-2, too, we will come back, with the V-2 we will come back, come back to, to Wieliczka." And then they load us up on the cattle trains, on the cattle trains in Płaszów--no, Im sorry. Sam you want to say something? You want to say about the...
Before Wieliczka did anyone ever try to escape from the salt mine?
NO: I want uh, uh, Sam to tell...
SO: From, eh...
From the salt mine.
NO: Yes.
SO: Oh, yes.
NO: Sam knows...
SO: Well, yes. Well, like Nat was saying, since the Russians were approaching and we could hear these guns in the distance, you know not very far away, maybe, at night. Some of us made a plan that if the Germans eventually come to evacuate the mine, which would have to happen eventually, we would try to escape and stay behind someplace in the cave. And for the purpose we tried to prepare some water and some food--extra food we that have in one of the caves. And Nat and I were among these people. Nat and I plus there were, there were what, three other, three other fellows? Zenerk...
NO: And Velman...
SO: And one more. I dont know. His name is Keffner. I knew there were five of us that made a plan to, to, when the Germans come to get us out of the mine we were going to stay behind. As it happened, when the Germans came down to get us out of the mine, for some reason, I dont recall right now, we--Nat and I could not esc...could not follow the prepared plan and escape to that cave.
NO: We were close to the shaft to what they were taking us out.
SO: We were too close. They took us right out through the shaft. But the other three friends managed to escape and they hid in the cave someplace. Eventually uh, a few months later, we found out...
NO: Excuse me, Sam, excuse me, you dont remember this story. No, its not right. Then they brought us up to the top. We were all--and they started to count us. They were missing. They went down with the dogs. They found, they found those three guys down hidden in the shaft mine, right?
SO: No.
NO: No? Thats how I remember.
SO: Well, I dont remember right then and there we found...
NO: Anyhow...
SO: ...we didnt know--I know I didnt know that eventually when we, when we, after we got to Mauthausen, we found out that the people...
NO: Sam, Sam, Sam, we were watching them being hanged before we got...
SO: Thats not...
NO: I remember...
SO: I dont, I dont, I remember. What is the difference--dont, you know, which hanged somebody else--which crowd for somebody else being hanged in the ghetto. That was somebody else...
NO: I remember them being hanged.
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