Josef Slaim - February 7, 1982
Receiving Help from a German Woman
Do you know if she was hiding anybody before you came?
No, but in the same barn was two English soldiers hi...hiding, but she wasn't even knowing.
[laughs]
Just after the war when she was coming one day, when the uh, when the Americans was coming already there. She was coming and she start screaming uh, "Mr. Miller, Herr Miller," of course, "come down the army's here, the army's..." they uh, made it in short uh, the Americans, they called them Ami. Do you wanna stop this? Well I made it uh, just a little--the story short, because to go through the whole story uh, would take uh, weeks or months. [pause] In Gross-Rosen, I--this uh, this was my uh, I uh, made it myself uh, a little of course in Jewish a little uh, ???, but uh, it probably wouldn't go to good, and it had to be said...
Say it--if it's in Yiddish say it, because the people will study this will know Yiddish.
Yes?
Say it, yes.
Gross-Rosen, zu schlechte ort wer es kind dort dahin bleib schein dort. You know what that mean? Gross-Rosen the place, who comes there, they never get away. Shvester, breeder, tates un mames ??? alle ??? Kinder shreiend. Tate, mame lozn undz nicht allein ??? So now I'm gonna tell you what it was in English.
Say it, say it in English. So we could understand.
I couldn't uh, I couldn't translate this thing--everything in English. It's for me a little bit tough, you know. I had problems mit this one anyway. So that's the story. Like you saw these dramatic things for these at uh, I give you this to read, and the same thing mit the other things for the German lady that wrote it about me.
Now this, what you gave me here...
Yes.
...uh, that was the woman that was in hiding--put you in hiding, uh?
Yes.
I see.
This is the woman. She rode on a plane. And this one was the corporal from New York.
Okay, this poem that, that, that Mr. Slaim showed me uh, that was originally written in German.
Written in German. I got to see her in German which was here translated.
And you have a translation that you showed me.
Yes.
I see.
And this was in Jewish. I got I the uh, Jewish forwards which was also translated from the Corporal ??? in New York. ??? I'll show you the Jewish Forwards. This is the German with the signatures on the title. [shuffling papers] Okay there was the Forward.
So it appeared in the Forward?
Yes. This article, somebody from the Jewish community saw this.
Mm-hm.
And this, this article says about mein uncle. Mein uncle was ???. He used to live in Detroit; he's no longer alive now. Somebody or through somebody mein uncle got this paper and he found out about me. And that's the way I got in contact mit mein uncle, actually through this paper.
Where was he living at this time?
Where mein uncle used to live in this time? In Detroit, in Taylor.
And you were living where?
I was in Germany.
Oh.
I was just uh, li...liberated.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn