Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Eva Wimmer - January 1, 1985

One of my brothers who was twenty-one at the time was so hungry that he decided--and this we found out from a neighbor who was with him in the same camp. This wasn't Germany yet. This was in Poland, a camp. He was hung. They hung him on a tree. And the whole camp they took everybody out to--they should watch and see what is happening. If somebody will--they called it sabotage in German--like this was something against uh, they didn't want anybody to go and help themself. My brother said. That's what, that's what I found out--we found out that a man in ??? from the family, we found out the brother, who is alive, he was at the time with my older brother. He's the baby brother and he told us the story how it happened. He was so hungry that he decided either I will escape and, and have a little bit of food or, otherwise, whatever will happen, will happen. He, he gave up so they caught him and he was hung on a tree. And this is what we found out, not from my brother because he was not allowed to write this, this brother who is alive, from a neighbor who wrote to his wife that our brother lost, unfortunately, tragically his life. And this what we found out from this brother. My older brother decided he was the one--the older one in the family who was married in 1938 before the war broke out. So, this brother decided--of course his wife was from a different part from Poland--he decided uh, she wanted to go to be with her parents together. Whatever will be, everybody should be together. So, he decided with his wife--they had no children yet--they went to Lomza, a little--it's, it's on the border of Poland and Russia, a little town. And they went they over there with my, my brother and his wife, my sister-in-law, they went back home to her parents. We had a couple of letters from them and then nothing. We didn't hear anything after the war. We searched everywhere. We wrote everywhere--United States, Russia, everywhere. He is not alive. He lost his life. All of them lost their life. So, we lost this brother tragically. My third brother died in the ghetto in 1941 when we still were the remaining family, like the few sisters, and this brother was--unfortunately, he had tuberculosis and in the ghetto there was nothing, no medication, nothing to help him. No food so he, unfortunately, died of starvation and lack of medication of everything. He was, he was uh, uh, a football player in Poland and he got kicked once and--in the spine and he developed tuberculosis. This what we found out--my mother heard in the hospital where she took him. And they said, unfortunately, there is so little medication they have for him that as long as he will live, he will live. But he died in 1941 before they liquidated our ghetto at home so he was the only one from the brothers who, unfortunately, died, but he died at least normal. Nobody killed him. He died of, of different reason.