Herman Opatowski - November 2, 1981
Resistance in Auschwitz
Uh, in Auschwitz was there any subversion or, or uh, activity to uh, subvert the Germans at all?
It was, as a matter of fact it was as a, some four, four inmates they organized to escape. It was very, very done, they organized, wonderful, wonderful. And they caught three, they caught, but the fourth, he had a way as he uh, run in not far from a place where he runned away, he runned into a place and uh, same, he, he was lucky, had luck. He runned into a um, Gentile place and they practically... The most of them uh, it is a I don't percentage, a half a percent or not a half, nothing who helped us, not a half, not a quarter of a percent. It was one of, one of uh, as I said, from that house. Too much, too, too many. Because uh, you know, this uh, Righteous uh, Gentiles. They'd been too many. But so happened that he runned into a place and they, they, it was a Gentile girl, the daughter, they looked at his face and it was one of those things, you cannot ask why and how. It was lucky luck. And they thought...They took him right away, they, they, they hide him. So he one of four who escaped. The, the other three, they caught the three and they brought 'em right back in, they hanged them. And this guy, he's still alive. As a matter of fact, he, he was so lucky, was...I don't know how to explain this, I, I don't have the explanation myself either. He runned away, once he runned away from the place where, as I said uh, my, my parents uh, they have the children as they finished them up were hiding in the, the, some people hiding in this uh, in the floors with the ??? so they went back to closer to the city, you see. And uh, was all, this was the way as they came out from there. Once he came out from there and after a year or so they caught him again and sent him to Auschwitz. And, and he organized uh, uh, uh, to get away from Auschwitz and he was lucky. The Gentile girl uh, fell in love with him or what, I don't know. And he was hided, hiding there 'til the end of the war.
He's alive in America?
He, he's alive, yeah. Yeah, one of a million, not even a million.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn