Emanuel Tanay - March 16, 1987
Death of Father
Can you tell me that story?
My father was a dentist at a camp known as Lotnisko that is a Polish word for airport, but it was a, a camp in Krakow where Jews were working. They were building the various, you know, it had to do with, with the German air force, there was a camp, a labor camp, it was on the general supervision of the Gestapo and the head of that camp was Plaszow, but the Lotnisko was separate because the Jews worked there. And my father was a dentist there and also was in charge of sort of the health. He was the health officer. And he did have an actual office there. And he had an assistant that was working with him who I knew very well from the, from home. He brought him from Miechow to Krakow to that camp and Leon developed typhus. Now the standard treatment for typhus in camp was immediate execution. And my father having had this separate office did hide Leon in that office in the hope that he would recover and would not be executed. This was discovered and Goeth, Amon Goeth, uh, came to the camp and executed Leon and intended to do the same with my father. The only thing was that the commander of the airport who was of the same rank as Goeth did not permit him to do it. There was a confrontation, a real confrontation that was really a well known event at the camp. And my father remained there, however the commander went on vacation and then Goeth came and got my father, took him to Plaszow. My father attempted to delay it in the hope that uh, the commander would come back, and uh, told Goeth a story that he had a lot of gold in Miechow and in fact, Goeth and my father, a few others, went to our home and they were digging for the gold and didn't find it because there wasn't any and then my father was executed by Goeth. That was told to me by people who observed it, after the war.
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