Sam Seltzer - November 29, 1982
American Airplanes
Hope?
...hope you know, after so many years being knocked down and being treated like this and going through things like this. It was our first hope. So uh, finally uh, we heard at night the uh, English came, twelve o'clock midnight. And they were bombing the factory where we worked there, you know. They bombed the factory and there was a few bombs didn't explode. They were in the uh, uh, when the bomb drops uh, you know uh, there was a big hole, you know. Makes a big hole but it doesn't explode, you know. So uh, there's a few people uh, they, they picked out a few people to dismount the, uh...
The bomb?
That was day shift yeah, to dismount the bombs. And one of my friends from my hometown was in the uh, group. And the bomb blew up and killed him. Killed a few boys, I think ten boys got killed by that. Being in, that's what they used us for you know, doing--dismount the bombs and all kind of stuff. And digging, you know. So I was very sad that time when I came back to the camp and I heard that he was killed. And again, I got back into my shell again.
???
Yeah. And what happened in Annaberg uh, we worked for this--I was picked out day shift and nightshift, back and forth like this. But I was strong already. The food helped me, see? So one cold day in 1944, they, they came at work, they picked us up and they ga...and took us out to a big field and everybody had to sit down and cross your feet and, and, and hands like this and sit. They picked everybody up from the camp and everything. And they said, "Take everything, anything you can, take with you. You can't--if we're picked out from work then you can't take anything with you anyway. That's all, you have to leave it." So we were sitting down on the ground, all of us, the whole camp. Was uh, dis...dis...dismantled, you know. It was uh, they didn't take it apart, but all the people. And they kept us on the ground for about a half a day. And uh, they gave us a soup at that time. And they uh, put us in, into a...
[interruption in interview]
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