Lola Greenspan - April 25, 1983
Life During German Occupation
Did, did any of your neighbors help you at all? Did anyone help when the Germans invaded? Did any of the Gentiles help?
No. Polish?
Yeah, Polish.
No, no, nothing. Just know my sister--the smaller--she went...
She went with the Polish people...
Yeah, Polish people. No, not too long but my mother, she were afraid. We got an Appell that all Jewish is supposed to be together when somebody gonna hire and gonna keep the people. And my mother went afraid and the father go and bring back the girls.
Yeah.
Yeah. Now my father was shot other house, other house. He got a bread. Yeah. And later on my mother she went in Auschwitz and my first--the first beginnings were my brother in law, my brother and a cousin--Majdanek--the first. Oh yes, I forgotted. When they tooked my brother in law--my sister's husband--and, and my brother, they sended to us asher you know asher from this--yeah--in the clothing. Yeah, this we gotted, I forgot.
When did the Germans come in to Myszków?
Germans come into Myszków 1939 and start the war 1940. Yeah, 1939 is war, yeah.
And you were, you were taken to Gabersdorf in 1940?
Gabersdorf 1940, the first, the first. Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hm. How did your family feel after the Germans came in? I mean, what...
My mother nothing. She said, she don't could believe.
Yeah.
And the German gonna be kill--oh...
[interruption in interview]
Um, you said no one knew anything--no one thought that anything bad was going to happen when the Germans came in to town...
No, no. My mother she don't believe this. She said, "Oh, German? Maybe they tooked just the people to work--the people wanna work. Work is nothing. We gonna work," said the mother. And the father said, "Mm." Now the neighbors--the Polish neighbors know and say, "Going to be a war here." And my mother said, "Eh, war. Not with the people." She don't could believe this. And my mother's friends said the same--Jewish people say, "No Esther, nothing going to be here. Just now maybe the young people is going to the camps and going work for the Germans, that's all." Yeah.
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