Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Berek Rothenberg - May 20, 1984

Uh, how often do you think about uh, what happened to you?

How often? I think a lot at nights, I dream about. I--it's not--I dream about, I talk about, I think about. And when I have a picture--I'll show you from my...

This is a, a picture of your family.

My family. That's my mother, Malka. And that's my father, ???. And that's my brother, Yudel. That's my sister, Leah. And that's my brother ??? and that's my brother ???. And that's me.

How did you get this picture of your family?

They sent it to United--my father sent it to his brother and sister here in the United States. When I came here, I found a picture here and I copied. That's not, that's not the original picture. I made copies.

And this was taken in your home?

In '19...in, in the house. Even if you look good in--even--you'll see Pi?sudski--the Polish, the Polish marshal here like on the wall.

Why do you have a picture of him? He wasn't a Jew.

No. Because usually, usually if you live in Poland and, not--it's only a picture. We still went to school, we learned about him.

You were good Poles.

I mean, a Jew is a, is a citizen in every country. Where he is, he's a good loyal citizen. Even if he's in Poland, he's a loyal citizen to Poland. If he's in American, he's a loyal citizen in American. If he's a German--he's Germany was German, his second was Jew. And then when they even the Germans remind him that he's Jewish, he still calls himself Jew--I mean German. And when he--I was with German Jews in, in Buchenwald and when I was with German Jews in the other concentration camps, boy they didn't want to give easy up that they're, they're Jewish.