Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Eric Rosenow - August 5, 1982

...I can't condemn anybody who were in the concentration camp he became a Kapo or an officer. They put them in charge, you know, you do this and beating up on their own Jewish people. And some people overdid it, of course. You know, if you're putting somebody in charge, they, they feel superior and uh, of course, they being watched by the SS and by the SA. I can't condemn anybody because I don't know how I would act if I would be in the same position. But I know a lot of people here who were uh, innocent--you know what I mean by a Kapo...

Yes.

...by a Kapo in concentration camps. We know them, they've been questioned here in America. They've been kicked around by our own people, but they made it possible of managing and today, after 37, 38 years--almost 40 years--they don't give a damn anymore. They're forgetting, they became somebody in our society and they're forgetting it.

Are they? I wonder what was happening ???

Yes, yes, I don't know.

But you have, you have no nightmares or anything of that nature at all. Did you go through a period earlier, maybe years back where you did and that's gone?

Well I'm sure that there were nightmares the time the, the we were in uh, in China. We had uh, uh, bad experience in China, in the ghetto and so far when I was beaten, were beaten up by Koreans and Japanese people, I too. But I believe uh, that as uh, the year goes by, it left me.

What kind of, of hopes and plans do you have for your future?

By now?

Yeah, by now?

Well if, if my, my uh, well, I think I make myself uh, I was very active in, in, in music here and made myself a name in this community.

Obviously.

Wife: And to be healthy and, and ???

And be healthy and to have a long life--a future--to climb up, become a star or became Liberace, this is out of my system. You know I always had I mind to become very, very famous, but I'm satisfied that I became famous in this community, be recognized and uh, gain recognition and be busy in my profession, but, uh...