Jack Weinberger - February 6, 1983
Camp Supervisors
Were there any civilian um, supervisors in the uh, camps at all? Any uh, like the Todt or any...
A what?
Todt.
What do you mean?
Like a organization Todt.
Yes.
Any civilian, um...
No, you mean in the camp?
Yeah in the camp.
The camps strictly uh, the Germans, well I don't know whether it was--all this was military. We had, they--I don't know what happened. The Organisation Todt me they had these with a red band OT.
Mm-hm.
But what it stands for I never uh, I don't know. Or I imagine it was soldier store or civilians, I have no idea. But we...
Did any of the prisoners wear different patches? Different colored...
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah they had Polish uh, PD. The Jews had Jude... G... Oh yes, everybody could be distinct who was who. They had a lot of people the neighbors that hang, hanging, every, every, that came out from, from work, come back from work. There was everyday a new surprise. One day four people are hanging, one day ten people, sometimes twenty people just hanging on their out. They had a big uh, you know, Appellplatz, Appellplatz uh, that would get together. When every time, every day at the same time from different places where they came in from work the music was waiting at the gate and they were coming in uh, marching like soldiers. We had to stop over there and watching and keep heads up. And just look another, people are hanging there just like nothing. They didn't even, nothing, nothing, just daily life, daily life. I remember uh, just maybe a month before the war uh, my cousin ??? and I, they took us, picked us up and they took us to uh, a place called Wels. It's also known as Austria. Americans came in and they bombed uh, it was a big yellow station there and they bombed it, completely, destroyed completely. The trains uh, couldn't go to at all. So they came into the camps, some of us they just picked up. People to go to work and I was among them with my cousin, ???. And uh, there were also German prisoners there too, I must remind you. Germans too who did not believe in Hitler's policy. And they were too. So they uh, being they were German, and they knew the uh, terrain so by--and we working only at night. They escaped from there. Because they didn't have enough German soldiers to guard us, you know, so they escaped. They were picked up next day, they were brought back to hang them. No questions asked, no trial, no nothing. Just picked up...
Was there much resistance?
No, couldn't resist with what, we didn't have nothing. No knife, no tool, no gun, or nothing. Nothing, we had nothing. Nothing whatsoever.
You stayed with your cousin in Ebensee?
Yeah.
Was he, he was there with you?
Yeah, he lost his father, father too.
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