Alexander Raab - June 28, 2002
Return to Jarosław
This is a long way from Jarosław.
Yes, it is. And like I said, we went back in Jarosław uh, perhaps eight years ago ???. And uh, I recognized--a lot of things I recognized. There's the synagogue, which it is walking distance from our house.
Still standing?
It's--the building is still standing. It's not a syn...a synagogue. They made a art school out of it. But they do have a sign on the building and it says that that was a former synagogue and the year when it was built way back in 1800.
Is there a cemetery there?
Cemetery? The--probably, not by the synagogue, no. I assume there must be a synagogue. In what shape it is, I have no idea. I didn't go.
How did you feel to go back?
Very, very tense, very angry. It's just uh, you know, it's uh... I mean, I couldn't see nothing, nothing positive over there. You know, nothing. We went to that, to that square in front of the city hall.
The square where they used to have a market place.
With market place and where the Germans round us all up over there. I went now. It's the same square, the same cobblestone. And they still have a market over there. Every Thursday they have a market over there, farmer's market. The Ukrainians you know, they come from, from around the villages you know, the farms.
Any reference to the Jews there?
Uh, I didn't, I didn't hear anything because I'm sure, I'm sure that uh, first of all, I don't think they could tell, they could tell that I'm a foreigner with my wife by my clothes. I speak a good Polish too. Perhaps they could recognize that my Polish is not so brushed anymore like they speak it. But if to tell if I'm a Jew or not a Jew, I, I doubt ???.
There was no monument of some sort.
No, no, no. There is, there is over there on one wall uh, they have like a map and they show all the concen...the concentration camps in the area and, and uh, the death camps and uh, what the Nazis did, let's put it this way.
Did to the Poles.
Right, they don't mention, but they, they do mention one place that it was a main uh, uh, extermination camp for Jews. You know. What I did found on the main street in the city, just happened to me--I must say that it happened to be a nice little town. I mean, it's not a little town, it's, it's a nice, nice city. It's clean, it's nice, nice buildings. And we were walking on the main street and there was like a stone fence on one side and I see graffiti on it. And it shows a, a Hakenkreuz and a Star of David. So I thought to myself, what can I say? And I'm sure if I would walk up to any of the young ones in particular, if I would walk to them--to any of them on the street, and I would tell 'em, "Tell me how does a Jew look?" And he would probably tell me, "He has a beard, he has horns," whatever. I, I have no idea. And they have no idea probably. And if I would tell 'em that you are talking to a Jew right now, they would probably be surprised as surprised can be.
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