Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Nathan, Bernard, and Samuel Offen - September 3, 1987

BO: Thats when I was out of the ghetto.

SO: I dont know...even know, was we because...

BO: I was in the smuggling...

SO: We dont normally talk about it, unless we get together. We just decide to be as normal as any other, you know. Because we just dont--we maybe years ago we talked about it, or not in detail, like we do right now so, I dont remember. Maybe Bernie told me, but I dont remember where he was at that time, of course. So, I dont know where you are. I know this is what happened to me, this is when I, when I came from the ghetto, I saw just blood running down the gutters of the ghetto. And thats when I know we found you and Nat and father, we didnt find mother and sister. Where were you? What did you...

BO: Uh, uh, I was on one of my smuggling trips, uh...

SO: Oh thats right, that is what you said. That's right. You used to do that. You used to...

BO: ...to get some food, uh...

SO: By the sheer nature of his being smaller--he was the smallest one in the family--he would just, just go to the wires or something, you know, or a hole under the ground, and go outside the ghetto and just come back and bring some food home. Thats why you were out of there, yeah, thats right.

BO: Yes, this was new information, and Nat just said about, what you said about...

SO: I remember what Nat told me. I remember Nat said, but I just didnt remember, but I know he did, uh...

NO: Then they took me to work at Zabierzów, this was on the other side of the river. Uh, the war broke out with the Russians already at that time. I was still in the ghetto. And uh, we had to work at night. They were bringing down from the Russian front, the Germans uh, frozen, frozen to death. And they had, they had lice about this size of my thumb. And the Germans didnt want to touch them. So they took the Jews to work on them. There was, there was--they were moaning and groaning. The lights were off--there were, there was no lights, nothing. They were bringing it into a railroad station--substation on a, a side tracks. And we used to drag them from the train--we used to go into the train and bring them out from one side to another to--and, and Entlausung, Entlausung is the German--is, is, is delouse, to delouse them first. So we were the ones to carry them. And I, I recall an incident we use...used to take down--because we had to walk up the platform from the stairs, from the railroad we had to go down and cross over to another train, on another track and there were just steps going down from the, from the, from the train going down. And we used to take two, two guys used to carry it--carry one soldier. They were all young: eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Five--six-foot, six, six-foot tall--big guys, very young. And I recall one, one especially is always on my mind. Well, he must have been about 19, and he spoke to me in broken Polish, he called me a friend and he was moaning. His feet--he told me a story. He said his feet--that those Russians can stay for two or three days in the snow, nothing happen. He was out for just a few hours in the snow and his legs froze on him. And he called me a friend that I should help him. I was so angry, but there was such a big of noise on the train, because that whole train was practically moving and moaning everybody--all the soldiers that were down there was moaning. There was so much noise. I grabbed him on my back and just carrying him down on those stairs, and he was hitting with his legs--he was hitting the stairs as he was going. I had such a satisfaction from that and I was, I--then I cried afterwards because I felt that I am an animal like him.

NO: But I had a great, I had great satisfaction that time that I gave him the pain because he called me a friend, I was his friend.