Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Eugene Feldman - July 15, 1991

Forced Labor

When you went to work, did you uh, report in the morning? Is it...

Everyday in the morning.

Did they round you up, did you have to report to a certain place?

You, you, you--it's funny, God. You, you, we reported. They didn't round us up, I know that much. But I don't even remember where we lived. That's funny.

And then you marched off...

I don't know where I lived in the village.

Strange town. So you marched off from--when you marched off from Stolin, you went back to Glinka.

Back to the village. Well, it was not exactly in the village, no. I wouldn't say it... It was a couple kilometers from the village. But it was closer to the village than back to Stolin. It was between those two. And we kept digging, digging there usually for fuel. Turf is used for fuel. It's terrible. Smokes. Terrible.

How long a day was it?

How long of a day?

Yeah.

I think about ten hours or so. It just didn't. It had no meaning. I don't know, it just had no meaning. I, I didn't work there hard, we you know. Nobody was watching you.

So there were no guards.

And I'm not going to go killing myself, that's for sure or my dad or anybody for the Germans.

Were there German guards?

There were no guards. Where are we going to go? Where you know. They... Our family going to be--it's like hostages you know. You can't, you can't uh, you can't really do much. But a lot of it uh, is blank now.

So when you, you worked there and then each day you'd finish work and then they'd--where did they put you up, in some...

That's the part I say I don't remember. I don't remember where we slept or anything. I know we didn't go back to the ghetto. There must have been some barracks or something. I just don't remember at all.

So how long did this go on, this labor detail?

I think, I don't think very long. I think maybe three months, that's all. Because they uh, sent us right back to the ghetto when--that's when they started killing 'em in Stolin.

While you were in the labor detail--so there were no--were there any guards ever? You never saw any guards at all? Either Polish, Ukrainian.

Oh there had to be guards. I'm sure there had to be guards, there had to be people there to tell you what to do.

Did anybody get beaten, shot, nothing?

No. Uh, uh, it's not that kind. It's not like the concentration camp labor. It was open. You could run away if you want to. Now I imagine somebody, maybe some did, I don't know.

You don't know if people ran.

I really, that part is completely blank.

So you did this for about three months and then what happened?

Sent us back to the ghetto.

To the same... [interruption in interview]


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