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What was it like when you were liberated? Did you
know anyone?
No,
well I knew some people but during the last night, like I said earlier,
they bombed the camp terribly. It was packed with people, there were
so many people they couldn't sleep in the barracks anymore, but they
brought them all in there and then they started bombing the camp. And
then, of course, the Americans opened the gate and we had to scream
at them. "Don't touch the wires!" They had no idea because
they didn't know the camp was there, they found it by accident we were
told later. And they had to bring the Corps of Engineers to take the
electricity off those wires. Then they found that there was typhoid
in the camps, so now they said, "Wait a minute, you guys can't
get out of this camp," because they had to close the camp up again,
the Americans had to, because they didn't want the American soldiers to
be infected with typhoid, it would have been devastating. So they closed
the camp again.
And
one day, after about a week or two, five of us, we get out, we conned
one of the soldiers into letting us out because we could work. We got
out and went to the next town, the town of Dachau, Dachau is a town.
We went to the first house we saw, which was a nice home, we needed
food and clothing. We looked like hell, and we were hungry and more
so. This German wouldn't open the door, so one of the guys just took
his foot and opened the door. So we got inside and we took what we
needed, it was food and some clothing. There were women in the camp
in the next door, we found about forty women who were almost dead,
and we brought things for them, clothing especially and food, we took
whatever there was in the house. And one of the guys says, "I'm
going kill the SOB, he wouldn't let us in," he got so mad.
And
the reason I tell you this, is because I take deep pride that none
of the prisoners, none of the survivors–and I have checked it
out, numerous numerous occasions–ever killed a German who was
a civilian next to the camps. And people said, "Why didn't you
kill them? You must have been mad." Yeah we were mad, we were
angry, we were worse than that, but we weren't murderers. So we never
killed a German living near the camps, even they knew it. We
knew they knew it because they couldn't help but knowing what was going
on in there. But I take deep pride in all my friends, and I know a
lot of them because of the positions I have taken in the survivor community,
we all agreed to it, in all the different parts of Europe where the
camps were, no civilian living near the camps or in the area, were
ever killed by inmates of those camps. And the reason is simple, we
weren't murderers, we had seen enough murderers, and we didn't want
to be like them. I take deep, deep pride in that, there is part of
when were liberated how we felt. Were we mad? Damn right. Were we angry?
Yeah, all of that. We didn't kill anybody. German guards yes, we killed
all we could find the German guards who had done it to us, but not
German civilians.
Do you have any stories of any contact with the
guards throughout any of the camps you were in?
No,
except at the tail end of the war, it had to be about maybe February,
March of '45, one of the guards – by now you knew their faces,
and they knew your faces, you got to work with them every day when
they were standing around with their weapons and their dogs – he
said to me – because I could speak German, there weren't many
who could speak German, because we had mostly at that point Hungarians
there – he said, "You speak German, I hear," because
I was talking to someone. And he said, "You know, I'm from Munich," which
is out near Dachau. He says, "Why don't you escape? I'll let you
go. I'll give you the address of my house, and I'll tell my wife that
you're coming." He said that to me. Well I didn't trust him because
they used to trick you all the time, used to throw a cigarette butt,
so you went there, you know, some guys did, to pick up a cigarette
and the minute you did, you stepped over the line, and then they shot
you. We didn't trust any of those guards. So he says, "Go there." I
don't know what happened to the guard. I know that I didn't want to
go and listen to what he said because he could have shot me. If I said "yes," then
he could have, you know – we didn't trust them, we were scared
to death. That's the only German that I ever had any discussion with,
and it lasted maybe two minutes. You were scared, couldn't trust him.
What did you do the first day you were liberated?
I
can tell you that. We were liberated by the American army. We were
in the side camp of Dachau, but then when the American army was breaking
through from the west, they took us back to the main camp, which was
Dachau Allach – which was just immediately across the street – another
camp. It was early, very early in the morning, and all of a sudden
we saw tanks going over the hill. We knew there was something going
on because the Germans started bombing the camp. There were aircraft
batteries – they were there to shoot at airplanes, because they
were bombing – the Americans and the British were bombing the
German positions. We saw those tanks come in, and we didn't know what
we were seeing. They were killing hundreds and hundreds of people in
that one last night when they bombed the camp, the Germans. They used
huge cannons to shoot these planes out of the sky, and instead of having
them go this way, they went straight into the camp – killed a
lot of people.
Then
all of a sudden the Americans came with the tanks. We had to scream
at them, "Don't touch the wires!" because the wires were
all high voltage – 2000 volts of electricity. Then they had to
bring in the Corps of Engineers to take the electricity off those wires.
Then they opened up. I got out with about five or six of us immediately
and we took over a German barracks and we killed a bunch of Germans – the
SS, the guards. I could walk at that time, not all could. We then were
told we had to get back in the camp because the American army knew
there was a typhoid epidemic and other diseases at that point. They
closed the camp up again, but they gave us food. They were very good.
Then
we broke out of the camp, about five or six of us went to the next
town of Dachau trying to get some food and some clothing. People were
dying like flies. There was no food, for ten days we hadn't had any
food. We went into some of the homes, the German homes, and took what
we could get. We took it back to the camp. Then the Dutch government
came after a week or so and they took us back to Holland. There was
some communication – I don't know where it came – I think
it was from the American army.
The
American army. The first thing I remember, a soldier gave me a cigarette – I
remember that vividly – he gave me a cigarette, I know, because
they knew we hadn't had any cigarettes. I took a cigarette. I was a
kid when I got in but I used to steal a cigarette sometimes from my
uncle and my father. Boys – you know how you do that. I smoked
the cigarette, and I fainted. I didn't realize that I shouldn't have
smoked at that point because I was too weak and I fainted.
We
got food very, very fast. The American soldiers were terrific. They
were so angry when they saw a German, they killed him immediately because
they saw what they had done to us. The soldiers were great. That's
why I joined during the Korean War, I volunteered for the Korean War
to thank the American army. I gave them two years of my life, which
was a good investment for me. I wanted to do it, and I did. I went
in as a Private, I came out as a Sergeant. I still have quite a few
good friends from those days, 1953. The army, they were angry, the
American soldiers, very angry at what they saw.
Have you kept in contact with your liberators?
No.
Except some twenty years ago – no, it's not, it's ten years ago,
pardon me – when we opened the museum in Washington – some
of you may have seen it, the Holocaust Museum, I was the vice-chairman
of it – we invited some people who had liberated the camps. There
was one man – the staff found him first, he lives in New Mexico – we've
become friends. He talked me into it. He knew where I'd been, and we
started talking. He's older than I am, of course. We still correspond
or call each other once a month. He taught me that the Rainbow Division
of the army was the liberating unit of the camps in that area. Whenever
they have their annual convention – that Rainbow Division – I
go to the convention. I didn't go this last year, because I just couldn't,
it didn't work out for me. But I've been to several of their conventions.
They're all getting older, of course, they're people in their 80's.
I became an honorary member of the Rainbow Division because I went
to their conventions. It's a great bunch of guys. That's the only contact
I have with that. That's the only man I knew. I know some others but
this man, [name], he and his wife, we are in touch with each other.
His son visits me, he travels, whenever he's in San Francisco we have
dinner together.
What were the first things you wanted to do when
you were liberated?
I
wanted to find my parents. I didn't. I thought, "Maybe, maybe
there was a miracle." Actually, I saw them being marched into
the gas chambers – and my sister – they came after I was
in Auschwitz. But you still have that hope, you know, because I never
saw their bodies, their dead bodies. I went back to that hometown I
was born but they weren't there.
Then
what happened, I was busy, the mayor of the town gave me a job in city
hall. I had no education, I went through five grades – the first
five grades. He gave me a job and before long, about three-four weeks
after I had come back, the police chief comes over – there were
a couple of policemen in that town – and he said, "Come
on. I got to show you something." He told me to go to uptown and
there was a Red Cross van, and he says, "Go inside." Who
was in the van? My grandmother! They had taken her from Holland all
the way to Czechoslovakia to Terezinstadt – you may have heard – all
over Europe, all across Europe. She was there because they kept people
there when they had too many people in Auschwitz they couldn't handle
the killings, they kept them there for awhile. My grandmother survived
that. She went to Czechoslovakia in 1942-43 about.
Now
I had my grandmother to mind. I was living with our neighbors, we had
wonderful neighbors, they took me in right away. But I had no place
to put my grandmother. She was 86 years old. I said to my grandmother,
I said, "How was it?" She says, "How was it? Have you
ever been on a plane that goes like this?" That's the only thing
she remembered at that moment, that she was brought back on a small
plane, some Red Cross or whatever – and I'm not an admirer of
the Red Cross, I'm not selling Red Cross because they didn't do anything
for us – she was coming back on a Red Cross plane and they brought
her to the town. She had lived with us. She only remembered that, the
first thing when I asked her how was it, about the turbulence on the
plane. Then, of course, later she told me about the camp, etc. She
lived another ten years. She died at age 96. Never been sick in her
life. That's good genes, apparently. That's all she remembered that
first day when she came back. Then the neighbors helped me, and they
took her also in. Then we got a house, finally, somebody wouldn't come
back and the city gave us a house to live in.
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