Jack Weinberger - February 6, 1983
Camp Recollections
Are there ever things that you see here, that happen here that bring back, vividly anything that happened to you in the camps?
If, if this can happen again? Oh, if this would happen again?
Yeah.
Oh, definitely could happen again, could happen again, very fast too. Maybe not to us, maybe not to the Jewish people. Next time the same thing could happen against, who knows against, against Chinese, against Blacks. And I tell you could, it could happen even worse, we don't even know. They have more modern technique. See when the Germans came out with these gas chambers, crematoriums, they--those were new things. Gas trucks, those are already old now. ??? where they can mass, mass killings going on. Well face it, they can fly to the moon, they can have, they can always come out with something new, this can happen. Those things happened all through history. Right now it happened, this time it happened to us Jewish people. It hap, the same thing happened 500 years ago in uh, Spain. It happened in Poland, it happened in ???. This will never stop. Maybe it will stop against the Jews for awhile, but it will start, look what goes on in Cambodia, Vietnam, in uh, different places. Every nation, look even the ???, look what goes in Lebanon. The Lebanese are killing the Christians, the Christians are killing uh, the Muslims and uh, it's just an ordinary day. Yesterday twenty people got killed ???.
Yeah. Do you think if Israel had existed as a state, before World War Two, things would have been different?
Oh, hundred percent, no question about it, no question about it. There would not have been six million Jews killed. First of all, if Israel would have been a state they could put up an army of 300,000 men, in every, and have a strong army even, of course, they are small army to fight the Germans, don't get me wrong. But, but standing next to the British and next to the French against the Germans, Germany would say we gotta, we gotta reason with 'em, they do have a strong army. After all they can go into war and take our prisoners. They're gonna do the same thing ???, you know, in a way ???. And not just that, they could've had open doors to let the people in, that's another thing. They could've saved a, a million Jews or maybe two million Jews. What does it mean now, we had no place to go.
When your father died, at the first camp you were in um, you'd said that that was a better camp in terms of food than things from the second camp.
Oh, compared, at least it didn't hang more people for one thing.
Yeah, yeah.
I never saw nobody being killed, like being shot. They did beat them every once in awhile, occas...uh, but, but, isolated cases. But to see everyday hanging people, I never saw that, not in the Wolfsburg. At least we knew we going out tomor...we're going out tomorrow--in the morning to work. At night at least we knew we'd have a bowl of soup.
Yeah.
Bowl of soup. And we were hoping the soup was going to be thick, thicker it is, at least, at least cause you have more. And then had a slice of bread. But at least in there we had a place where to, to uh, the barracks were at least uh, closed up.
Mm-hm.
Had windows and a door, at least it wasn't that cold, it was warm. We, we had lice, plenty of lice no question about it. But at least, you know, it was bad for those days but then it got a lot even worse.
Mm-hm.
Ebensee was strictly an extermination camp. Wolfsburg was uh, Arbeitslager, means a workings camp.
Yeah.
That is, at least we came in contact once in awhile with the Italian prisoners, which they had other camps around the Wolfsburg. They, they had more food, they gave us a little food once in awhile. I remember one time, I remember I walked in to a, the German guard who was watching us. He gave me, he said, he send me actually go in the house, "maybe they gonna give you some food." And the Wehrmacht, they send us into the house--oh excuse me.
[interruption in interview] So...
When you told me that you were injured on the march--the walk from uh, the first camp to the, to the train that took you to the second camp, to Ebensee. Um, how did that happen? What, what caused them to do that to you?
Do, do what?
When they stabbed you in...
Oh, well they were pushing us to catch up, because man, many we couldn't walk, we were so many people and we had, look they had some, some wagons had one horse, some, some wagons had two horses. We had to push the wagons from the back to help the horses. Because they had a lot of food supplies for uh, the Germans put up there, you know, for them. And uh, it had to be transported, they had no way of getting it transported. Many people died, uh we just had to pick them up and throw them in uh, under the wagon and just, leave them behind.
Did you get any kind of medical care when that happened? Or...
Nothing, nothing, nothing, just nothing. Sometimes a person, sometimes see, a person can be stronger than a lion uh, and weaker than a fly. There were times, sometimes you hear, sometimes you look up, you're gonna go to a factory, he gives you twenty stitches. And sometimes can be big stab wounds and that's it. If you're lucky you survive. There was nothing to turn to, nothing.
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