Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Larry Wayne - 2005

Political prisoners. How long were you there?

Oh, not a long time because Jan....We got there September, January 17 the Russians were already on top of us, '45. We got there '44. But it was, it was long enough that uh, much longer than we would have left. But that's where the, the worst time, went back to that time from January 17 'til the liberation. Because at least we're organized at that time, and we're still young, we were getting a, a half a pound of bread, whatever it was, or whatever it was over there. I don't the remember the exact ration, ration any more. And we're clean. And uh, but af...then afterward they were completely disorganized, taking us from one place to another. Then finally took us on a train ride 'til we got to Gross-Rosen, they said they can't take us, they're too overcrowded. Went to Mauthausen, they didn't take us, they were too overcrowded. And finally we wound up in uh, in Sachsenhausen near Berlin.

Whoa.

And then uh, we got unloaded over there and went... And uh, that was worse than anything because they had these big hangars over there, the Heinkel air...airplane companies. I never saw 'em.

Did you work for them?

No, no. All they do is kept us in there. So all we do is in the morning when they wanted to feed us, everybody had to leave inside and they gave us a piece of bread when you walked, you walked in. And then uh, dinnertime the same thing, everybody had to walk out. So one time me and my brother Jack we're lying already a guy that was dying, so we just took him outside and we schlepped him back in, we got, instead of two rations we got three rations. So once we came in, we put him back on the floor and let him die and we had this piece of bread or whatever it was.

Did it help...

It may sound animalistic, but that's what it was.

Did it help to have Jack there?

I beg your pardon?

Did it help to have Jack?

Yes, yes. Two are better, at least we had... Two are stronger than one, you know. Because there, a lot of times people would just take it, attack, if you're one maybe they, they will hunt you for your soup, they will attack you and try to take the soup away from you, or the piece of bread.

It was really a jungle, wasn't it?

Yeah, oh my God, it was the law of the jungle, nobody there. Then from there they took us, oh, took us to a bunch of camps. Wound up in Flossenburg. And then in Flossenburg they, they, they took my brother away, sent him somewhere else. But up to that time we were together.

And where did they take you next?

For me they, from Flossenburg they took me to ???, and then from ??? it was already was getting... And, and, and to Ohrdruf. And that was all dead camps. There people... And then from Ohrdruf they took us to Buchenwald. And then April 11 I was liberated from Buchenwald.