Abraham Pasternak - August 13, 1984
Family
Can you tell me your name please and where you are from.
My name is Abe Pasternak and I am, I am from Transylvania, Romania. I come from a small town. The name of the town is Betlan.
And how large was your family?
My family was father, mother, six brothers. We were six brothers. My uh, older brother, his name is Isaac. After him I had a brother Menachim, which... He died in Auschwitz. Then I am next, and then I have a brother, Yussi is after me, he is, he lives now in New York, he used to live in South America. And then I... After is Schloime, who lives in Israel and uh, I had a little kid brother, his name is Mitzala, he died in Auschwitz.
Your parents?
My parents died in Auschwitz.
Aunts and Uncles?
I have uh, most of my aunts and uncles died. Oh, we had about... On my father side, side, we had uh, there were uh, four, five, and a sister, they died All of them died in Auschwitz. Six of them.
Including aunts, uncles, cousins, how large was your family and how many survived?
Of all the family that has survived, there were uh, I would said that our family was largest uh, was a large family forty, fifty, maybe twelve of us, fourteen of us, have survived.
What about the community? What was the community like?
The community was a very lovely community. We had uh, the community was uh, had about 5,000 uh, people were living there. The population was 5,000 and uh, there were 250 Jewish families and among uh, there were Hungarians living there, Romanians, Germans, and Gypsies and Jews. And uh, after the war uh, there were about six or seven families come home.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn