Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Sam Seltzer - November 29, 1982

I came over 1951.

In 1951. What made you decide to come to the United States?

Um, 1951, I, I was working for the Joint I was uh, uh, weighing out some uh, egg powder and milk power. And I had to work. The doctor told me, this Dr. Mayer told me, "I'm talking like a friend to you," he said. He said, "you have to--if you want to walk, you have to build up your muscles." he says. "It doesn't matter, you look for the hard work." So I looked for hard work and I worked for the Joint I was very hard--I worked hard. But I, I had to. So he said, "Well..." At that time, I used to open up packages from United States and sort 'em out, everything. I knew cans without labels. I knew number two cans and number six cans. Everybody was throwing everything to me and I used to sort 'em out, put 'em--and we used to distribute that into the camps after the Liberation, see? We used to--Feldafing, those big camps. So I was weighing out dry powder, dry milk. I used to weigh out coffee. I, I was at the scale...

Uh-hm.

...you know, and working. And then I worked hard. Whenever needed to be carried or something, I worked very hard. I was there. I never dodged any work. And with that I got a little stronger. While uh, to play soccer I had to--you put my uh, uh, bandages on all the way up to my knee, because uh, my ankles were weak. I have no muscles. I have muscle atrophy, see? I have no muscles on my feet. So uh, I had to use, so I don't break my ankles, I had to use...

Yeah, the...

See my muscles are gone.

Oh, I see.

And blue, see when it gets cold my feet get blue and everything. Uh, now when my brother came to Wahlheim, we were walking. I had--take a few pictures. But I gave it to one of the football players. He said he's going to make a big--a frame. And, and, and it's a good conversation piece, he says. He's going to make a frame out of it and, and, and make uh, blow it up you know, like a bigger picture, so that'll be good. So I gave him my pictures, he never gave 'em back. The guys' name is ???, he used to be a football player. He has a football knee. He was operated on, on the knee and he has my pictures. But I have the paper from the medal that I got a medal for, you know.