Samuel Offen - December 27, 1981
Labor in Gusen
Can I ask you just one quick question, was there a--were there any civilians-- German civilians working in, overseeing the labor in the granite works, do you remember?
Uh, there were some. But we would not be in contact with them or very seldom if ever. There were overseers. They would be like engineers working, working a uh, bulldozer or an overhead crane or some other such machinery. There was no reason. They would, well, they would yell like from the bulldozer, you know, "Move that stone over, closer to those," or something. So this is as close as we got with them.
Do you recall the name ???
No.
The name of that corporation, that granite...
Oh, could very well be. I do not remember.
Um, you were transferred back to Mauthausen then.
Yes.
You and your brother both survived.
Yes. One of--before I was transferred to Mauthausen--one, also one, one thing that played a good part in our luck was sometimes in our luck of survival was, I remember, that time the Allies. The Allied armies were getting closer to, to, to Germany. And we used to have air raids around our camp area. When an air raid would blow a siren, all of us had to leave the work area and run to shelters, even prisoners, had to run to shelters. It was like an underground shelter, fully stocked with all kinds of uniforms and some canned food or whatever, it was shelter. And this way we had a chance to rest a little also. So that was our luck that the Allies were approaching. But never have the Allies bombed our camp, so they obviously knew that it was a concentration camp, that there were prisoners there. Because never did they bomb--we heard a bomb dropping, but never did they drop a bomb on our camp.
Did you ever hear the uh, the name--Eichmann's name...
No.
...when you were in the Mauthausen camp?
No.
Uh, or a, a man named Wisliceny?
No.
German officer.
No.
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