Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Alexander Raab - June 28, 2002

Do you remember any friends, non-Jews um, as well as Jews that you had in Jarosław?

Uh, personally I didn't have non-Jewish friends. Personally I used to uh, be friends with my cousin that lived in, in Jarosław...

And your brother...

...and my brother. And uh, there was uh, in, in the same building there used to be a caretaker of the building which he wa...he was Gentile. And this man had a son which, he must have been maybe a, a year or two older than me. And uh, my parents never liked me to really hang out with him because he, he already, he wasn't such a, a good person to be around.

And d...do you remember anything at all about news from Germany?

I remember, I remember in, in 1939, my father had a little radio, he had a radio. And that was a--in those days it was a big luxury to own a radio. And I remember at night, father used to tune in. And of course I, I pretended I am sleeping but I wasn't sleeping.

I see.

And uh, and I could hear from that radio screaming.

In German.

In German. Screaming. I couldn't understand what. But my--both parents spoke perfect German because they uh, uh, as a fact, my father served in the Austrian Army in the First World War.

So did he tell you stories about the emperor, Franz Josef?

Well, yeah, they were, they were talking about uh, Austria and, and my mother lived in Vienna actually. She actually lived in Vienna uh, during First World War. So...