Berek Rothenberg - May 20, 1984
War Between Poland and Czechoslovakia
What year was that?
That was from 1937, '38. In 1938, when the war broked out between Poland and Czechoslovakia on the Olza in Cieszyn. So they blamed--they want to take it back from Czechoslovakia and they claimed it was a, a Polish territory, and some--a few Polish people got killed. So they mobilized all soldiers from 1938 I was a young boy, I was seventeen years old, they mobilized in our home town was, was stationed the army and they mobilized all the people, Jewish, I mean, all the Jewish people--younger and married, with--even with three, four children--they mobilized everybody, and they went to war. It didn't last too long; it lasted about two or three weeks. And still they were--they saying, they, the war when they were fighting Ciezyn on the Olza there was something from, from the Germans already starting to do it. So to fight, they organize. They, they drafted the Jews to fight and when they had a demonstration and when we said, "We go against Germany or against Lithua when they--when Poland was fighting to, to--that Lithua should belong to Poland," right away they started hollering against the Jews. Right away they, they broke the gla...the windows from the stores, from the storekeepers and, and we were Polish citizens and we supposed to fight with them hand by hand and to go against Lithua and against Czechoslovakia and then when we had demonstrations in the street. So right away they said, "???" and right away they were against us and they were breaking the store windows and they're robbing, and, and that's all. That, that was the Polish people.
Were there uh, local police there?
Was maybe about a half a dozen local policemen. They're hided themselves they shouldn't get beat up.
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