Sidy Weiss - January 7, 1987
Liberation
To Augsburg? And then how did you get to Feldafing?
We got to Feldafing--how you call it? They were taking us from that airplane factory to the other factory.
Oh, you worked in another factory?
No.
You just said you...
They took us back from there and uh, we were standing on the open field and uh, how you called it? The train stopped, and a few minutes later the--how you call it? The Americans liberated us, and uh, some of the--how do you call that? The guards that were with us they left, and uh, to the last minute they were shooting, and it was so many--how you call it? Dead bodies over there they were laying on the top of each other like uh, the boards and, uh...
What did you do when they were shooting?
One of the soldiers told me that--not, not just for me, he said for a couple of the people--he said, "You go inside the train and uh, lay down on the bottom and maybe that way you're going to be saved."
Was this an SS soldier or was it a Wehrmacht soldier? Do you remember?
I really don't know.
Yeah. It was a German though?
Yes.
And then, so the Germans ran, finally? And that was the liberation.
That was the liberation. The Americans liberated us.
You said--what kind of, what kind of things would you put in the book that you want to write? What stories would you put into the book?
What I wanted to put in the book?
Yeah.
I wanted to, to say that what uh, what really happened.
What for example would you say? Would you tell stories about Auschwitz?
Yeah.
Tell me some.
You want to hear something?
I do, yeah. And I'll leave you the tape, I'll make a copy of the tape for you, you can use it. What things do you remember about uh, about Auschwitz that you would write about, or talk about in the book, that happened to you?
Well but I thought that we... [long pause]
[long pause] Do you want me to turn it off? Stop? You said you had stories that you wanted to, to tell me. Why don't you just tell me what those are?
But it's like that I mix them up.
That doesn't matter. We can, we can do anything you want with the tape, put them back together in a different order. So what, what--doesn't matter if they're not, not in order; all that matters is that you tell the stories. Um, whatever you--whatever comes to your mind first, you should tell that part.
Okay.
Okay, so what, what--where would you like to start, you want to start at the platform? Your arrival at Auschwitz?
I, I tell you what happened.
All right. Okay.
Can I tell you what happened?
Go, you tell me.
You can, you can put it on what happened.
All right.
You putting it on the tape?
Go ahead. It's on.
On?
Yeah.
So I really tell you the truth what happened. It happened that I--how you call it? That uh, [pause] I went to [pause] really, really good uh, things were happening, before. I want to tell you that the memories are--how you call it? For me, and that it, that it doesn't have anything to do with that.
Whatever you remember. Because if, if you don't tell me, nobody's ever going to hear them.
Mm-hm.
So it's important for people to know what it was like before... [telephone rings] and during.
[interruption in interview]
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