George Vine - July 5, 1983
Remembering the Start of the War in Poland
I'd like to go back to uh, uh, to 1939 because there were really three years before you went into Auschwitz and we really didn't say too much about that. Um, the war started September 1, 1939. Uh, do you recall what you were doing that day?
Yes, in 1939 uh, when the war broke out, we were on the way to school and airplanes were coming over our city and they were bombing our city. And I think that schools were cancelled and we never went back to school since that time. Because it was a short time within two, three weeks the Germans were right in our city. Within a period of--I think it took just about a year for these various laws that I've mentioned to you before that were taking place, segregating the Jewish people in areas. Now, we did not have a ghetto in our town--official ghetto, as the ghetto goes. But what they did do was slowly, they were trying to put most Jews in one area of the city. Not closed up, but nevertheless, in one area.
Were you forced to move? Was your family, uh...
Yes, yes, we had to move to somebody else's apartment, in other words uh, two, three families had to move in uh, to one apartment and uh, ???. Uh, this was going on for about a year the various--closing up the schools and firing jobs and, and everybody had to work, all the Jews, and in losing their businesses and giving their properties away and giving their, their valuables. Every day was a different law that the Jews had to do.
Do you recall what happened to your father and his business? Uh, did...
Uh, our business was confiscated from us. My father had to go to work, uh...
For?
For, just manual work uh, in, in fields uh, construction, things, that of course, he is not equipped for. But uh, nevertheless everybody had to work. I didn't work too many times, but a couple of times I was uh, uh, uh, taken in to weed, weed uh, weeds and, and, and, by, by Gestapo homes and, you know, the S.S. people. And about a year later...
This is a year after you were put into the, on this one area or is this...
Yes, well this...
What year would you say is this?
Yeah, it was a process of like let's say uh, one month and you had to give away all your valuables. The second month you had to put on the, the, the, the uh, thing here. The third month everybody had to work. Uh, so every month a new thing happened. But the populations in the small town were used to this type of stuff. The German Jew uh, was more in shock then we were because they were having a freedom in Germany, the German Jew. They were well to do. They were they were integrated in the community. We Jews in a smaller town were segregated all through the centuries. So uh, more or little discomfort was just a process of, of, of, of people suffering. So there was no, at least in my own mind at the time, there was no great alarm happening here. We were afraid and we were uh, uh, of course uh, concerned what's gonna happen. But we felt that we'll have to work free, we'll get a little food and we'll have to work until the wars over. And we're going to lose all of our businesses and everything. And then when the war will end we're gonna get defeated and things will be right back the way it was.
[interruption in interview]
We left off uh, you were, you were saying uh, how things uh, gradually happened and how this was really, you, you viewed it as part of the...
As a part of...
The 500 year persecution of...
Yes.
the Jews, that this was no different.
Right, and the Jews accepted it, uh, as a matter of fact, I recall conversations among our elders. Where they would say, well the very first war uh, the Russians were with us, uh, we had it worse. And then the Germans came in and uh, we had it pretty good. So we felt that similar situation will happen as it happened in the Fir... in the First World War. Uh, probably some people had more knowledge that we are facing some kind of a tragedy. But I don't believe that anybody had any conception that a really great tragedy of this dimension that happened uh, will happen. Because I remember that we had people coming in to the ghetto, which I will tell you how I wound up there. And they were telling us stories that they're killing Jews and what have you. And we did not believe that man. We just absolutely thought that the guy is just trying to get into the ghetto to live there and he used all kinds of excuses so that we don't throw him out from the ghetto.
Where was he from?
Uh, from a different town uh, but I'll gradually bring you up to that. Uh, so slowly this thing was happening uh, the various changes taking place. And yet, we stayed in our homes, we worked; we managed to, to survive. We didn't starve and uh, u...under conditions, being at war, we felt we're pretty lucky.
You stayed in your home even after they confiscated the business and...
Yes, well, not in our home but we stayed in a Landsmann's home.
Yeah.
You know, but nevertheless with the Jews, with the family together. And uh, and we--although as a matter of fact in 1940 which was just only about four, five months into war uh, it was my Bar Mitzvah and my father uh, uh, being Orthodox as I've told you uh, as uh, as dangerous, as dangerous as it was to get ten Jews put together and yet we hid in the basement and I conducted my Bar Mitzvah ceremony. Uh, to, to show how, how important to the Jews was their heritage and their customs and their religious beliefs and what have you. So when you believed and to a degree you felt that well we're going through another phase and things will be better as long as they realize that the, you know, the Jews are not so bad after all, so alright so things are gonna be tough a little bit here, it will pass, it will pass. That's what they said, it will pass. But it didn't pass. One day a new communication came out and we were notified that 1,000 families and that was including my father and my mother and myself have to report tomorrow morning. And that only the things you can take on your back in the square, market square in the city. Well, I think the first concern, really big concern, happened then.
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