Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Nathan Weiselman - January 1, 1985

Radom

Uh, did uh, any members of your family survive?

No, nobody survived.

All, all killed?

All killed. I went, fact is I have here some pictures, where in 1943 they asked the people, the Jewish people, to make passports. To make pictures, they make passports. And they told them that they going to be transferred somewhere, they didn't know where. So they transferred them to probably to some gas chamber and nobody came back.

You know any details of what happened to your family?

No.

No. How about your wife's fam...uh, your, your mother's family?

My mother's family, some survived. Like Schmuel Coleman, that I told you he was one of the greatest philanthropist in the city. He, his son survived, he's in Australia. Morty Coleman he's, he's in Israel now very active in, uh, Jewish organizations. Zelda Corman, Zelda Coreman I don't think survived. She was in concentration camp. He was, too, but they, they left for Australia.

Were uh, any Jews allowed in Radom?

Yeah. They were. There came back quite a few Jews from Radom. The fact is we went through the same ah, institution, they call it the Ezra. Again, my, my, my father, my uncle actually, he was in charge of this before the war. Ezra, Ezra was a kind of uh, institution. If it came people, you know, from uh,, from out of town, they could sleep the night, or maybe some money so they could get the room and board and share the food, and in a few days they could go ???, or there were some local people who were hungry or some widow or...

Aid society.

Yeah. A relief soc...society. So we, we got together from in this, uh, you know, building, Ezra, and we came back from, to our hometown. But the reason we got together in this Ezra because the police came and they told us that you allowed to have rifles because they might come, some AKA, it means Armia Krajowa, the, the Polish national army there, it was, they were illegal, but they, they terrorizing lots of Jewish people and they might come and, and, and, and, and maybe fight with you or maybe kill you. So they, they gave us rifles.

Who, who gave you, the police?

The police, policja

This is the Russian police, or?

Polish police.

Polish police.

Yeah. And they showed us how to use it.

Yes.


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