Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Abraham Pasternak - August 13, 1984

Help From Others

And, in all this time, from the very beginning, do you remember any help that you might have received? Small, large help from, from non-Jews?

None whatsoever. The only thing that I, I remember, now I didn't hear it myself... When you talk about help, what do you mean by help?

Well, someone giving you an extra piece of food, giving you uh, relief from a job?

No. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. The only thing that, that, that was once there was the, the, one of the uh, guards, who was uh, an older man and uh, he said to somebody-I heard it in the barracks afterward, I was not there-and he said he got a postcard from his son who was captured by the Americans and he is now in Florida. So he wrote in the postcard, he wrote, he wrote in the postcard uh, "Schwarz wie a Neger und Fett wie ein Schwein. Black like a African and fat like a pig." So, he said from now on I'll look away when you do something wrong.

Because of his son?

Because of his son. You know, everybody was in the same position. Everybody was in the same uh, situation, I mean uh, if somebody did have more bread than the other, than you were suspicious. Why does he have more? Where did he... Did he get more pay than I did? Nobody got paid. Nobody got more tobacco because they didn't give any tobacco away. Tobacco was the main uh, thing over there. They didn't give you, uh... Why would he get more bread? He must have turned in somebody, then he is, then he is uh, then his uh, uh, a stool pigeon. Stool pigeon.


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