Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Mrs. Roemerfeld - 1982?

Relations with Polish Workers

Do you remember any Polish people coming to ask for workers and then they would receive and bread for a day's work or anything of that notion?

No, the Polish people wouldn't come to the gate because they were not allowed to. And they wouldn't even risk their life. First of all, they were so anti-Semitic that they enjoyed all that. They really did. They were--I remember standing them at the other side of the gate and laughing. "The Jews are here. They put the Jews there, good for them." So uh, these remarks I remember because they ring in my head. I can't get over when somebody says, you know, "oh the Polish people were so nice to the Jews." Now, there could have been some exceptions to the rules, maybe a small child was taken in by some Polish family. But the majority of them were against the Jews. I remember uh, some Passovers, they used to run around. We weren't allowed in the streets because they said we were killing Polish people to get the blood to make the matzah. Now uh, such hysteria was going on and uh, this was known. And I cannot now, until this day, as old as I am, I cannot understand how the Jewish population in Europe did not revolt or did not get out of there. Did not try to get where, Israel or where...whatever Palestine or to get where they belong or somewhere. But they didn't fight it, they figured probably that's the way it's supposed to be and it's everywhere the same thing.

They felt to be quiet was better.

Yes. And they went uh, to the gas chambers just like uh, little sheeps.

Did you actually hear any Germans making these um, statements during the Passover time?

It wasn't the Germans, it was the Polacks.

The Poles.

Yeah. It was the Polish people. It wasn't during the war, it was before the war.

You heard those things.

Oh yes.

Said directly to you.

Oh yes. That the matzah we eat is from the Polish blood.


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