DA: So we were for some months.
Then we moved to Fürstenfeldbruck which is just a suburb of Munich.
And every, the all ex-concentration camp group lived in Hotel "Zur Post". I don’t wanna.
I’m going to live by myself in a nicer place, in a private home.
So I look at the houses, beautiful houses, I ring the bell, I didn’t know anybody.
Says “Richard Tischler”, “That’s me”, he says “bitte, bitte, kommen Sie rauf”.
I says “Ich suche ein Zimmer, haben Sie zufällig ein, ein Zimmer zu vermieten?“
“Ja, ja”.
And he says, he negotiates the price for me.
I said this, I don’t remember how many Reichsmark, you know, Reichsmark.
He says to me “Could you pay me the rent for a month in cigarettes?”
I said “It all depends how many cigarettes you want.”
He says “Could you pay me seven cigarettes a month?”
I mean, we don’t understand what it means seven cigarettes a month.
I look at him, I said “I will give you ten cigarettes a month”.
Wow, I became the greatest Jew even lived, because he was a big Nazi, big bully.
When he used to go away, Maria Tischler, his wife, used to show me
“Here, Richard sent this from Belgium, from Holland, his, his...”
And Richard, you know, Second World War, to have a limousine and a chauffeur, with this…
I saw the uniforms, I still get the shakes.
But he called me Heinz, let it be, I was Heinz. Heinz was his… and he was good to me.
Couldn’t talk about politics because the moment, we started talking occasion politics his veins, the whole face, the whole head.
I thought he was going to have a stroke.
In the winter time, I would come home with the ex-concentration camp Orchestra, he would have hot bottles to warm my bed.
He was a, was wonderful to me.
One day I come back, I knew exactly what I had in my drawers.
I look and I know exactly. I come back, coffee, coffee beans are missing, sugar is missing, no cigarettes are missing.
I go into the kitchen, they’re there, I said this: “Listen. I have a key, I can lock the door.
I don’t like it. But I tell you what – I’m leaving for one hour.
And in one hour everything will be back that you took.
Because I don’t want any problems, and you don’t want any problems.
I come back an hour, everything was there, I never said anything.
I said, I’m not going to lock the door, the keys, the…
I don’t want to live in a prison. I don’t lock the door.
Today I lock my door, because today is a crazy world, everybody wants to steal and rob you.
And even when I went to the United States few years later, I used to come back, I used to go visit them until they died.
They were good.
And I lived very well and, and everyone envied me, how did you get this nice place.
You have a nice room, you have a nice people, you know, they bother with you and so on and so on.
It was nice. I had a good existence.
And then the manager of the ex-concentration camp orchestra, was a Jew from Latvia.
And he was, you know, about emm, a month ago I had dinner with him and his wife in New York.
Sometimes ago. He’s 88.
Brilliant mind.
He was studying to become a lawyer.
But he ended up having a very interesting job in the United States, where he travelled all over the world, and he’s…
He read so many books, he has like a library.
Very knowledgeable man. He was Jascha Gurevitch.
He was the manager of the ex-concentration camp orchestra, and I was playing.
On Saturday nights, there was one little room, they were maybe 50 Jews in Fürstenfeldbruck.
And this was called the Jewish community…
And what, what they do, Saturday night, like anybody else, you become noisy, you drink some Vodka.
And you hire somebody with an accordion to play, to sing and you dance and so on.
So I come there one Saturday night and they have someone playing the violin, they rented.
They hired someone to play accordion, so on.
It’s so noisy, everybody smokes, you go like this, layer of smoke, you go, can’t see anything.
And my friend, the manager of the ex-concentration camp orchestra, comes to me.
My name used to be Chaim, he says “Chaim, why don’t you pick up the violin?”
It’s like one o’clock in the morning, 01:30 in the morning.
I said “Jascha”, I didn’t want to play, I said “Jascha,
if you can get this group quiet, totally silence… I will play"
Hoping and thinking… and knowing you cannot get these people to shut up, it’s impossible.
It took an hour. I lost.
I picked up the violin and I played.
Everybody was happy, says “Jascha, he must join our table”.
Took out a bottle of Vodka, we started drinking Vodka.
Jasha says to me “Chaim, anything I can do for you, you come to me and I will do.”
I said… it’s two o'clock, three o'clock, I don’t know.
“I want to talk to you at eight o'clock in the morning, I want something for you to do for me.”
He says “I’ll s…, knock on my door at eight o’clock.”
Go to see him at eight o’clock. “What do you want me to do?”
I said “This is not my life, this is… my time is wasted, this is not a life.
I need to study, I need to learn, I have problems but I cannot do anything. I don’t have any money, I don’t have any food.
I can’t… I go out and beg in the streets.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to give me the salary without playing in the orchestra.”
He says “They’re going to kill me.”
I said “You asked me what I want you to do, this is what I want you to do.”
He did it for me. They were all angry, all ang… he did it for me.
I got the best teachers. Six months later I auditioned for Bayerischer Rundfunk to become a, a player, and I was accepted.
I played a number of recitals for which I got paid, you know, half hour programs.
And eh, the director of the Klassische Musik Abteilung I remember was Dr. Heinz Pringsheim. I still have a letter from him.
And his wife is just a lovely lovely lady.
His wife’s, Mrs Pringsheim's sister was married to Thomas Mann.
And I remember, now I rem… years later, the way she would…
I would come to her office, I don’t know for what, and she would look at me with such feeling,
with such passion of, human passion for another human being and understanding and this, this.
So I had my good times, and then Jasha, he says “You see, what I did for Chaim?
He’s having the best teachers, the concert master of the Bavarian Opera" and the conductor was George Solti that time.
That I accomplished something, that I got better teachers, the best teachers.
And then in a, in May of 1948 Leonard Bernstein came, I’m sure you’re familiar the name.
He was sent by the, by the American government to do some public relations for Germany, you know.
Had the Marshall plan, all this.
To conduct the Bavarian Opera, the Bavarian Opera was on Prinzregentenstrasse. The old opera.
The new was a, in Maximiliam Strasse I think.
To conduct the opera, and to play a concello, was a wonderful pianist.
When Bernstein, who was already the director of the New York philharmonic, at 29, he was 29 years old then.
When he arrived in Munich the people in American embassy, and so on, the people, the first thing he asked
“Is there a Jewish community in Munich?” They said yes.
“I’d like to go to the Jewish community.”
He went to the Jewish community, he said “Are there any musicians from the concentration camp that survived?”
They said “Yes, we have an orchestra, it’s called the ex-concentration camp orchestra”.
He says “I’d like to meet with them tomorrow.”
He came to us, he conducted us two concerts, one concert was at the Opera house here in Munich.
And then he noticed me, he says “We are going to play Brahms Sonatas, you and I going back to Feldafing.”
And we did, this is May, 1948.
It was a new life that opened up for me.
But before May, I was looking for the best teachers, the best teachers, the best teachers.
So at January of 1948, I heard that the concert meister of the Berlin philharmonic is Siegfried Borris, that he is supposed to be good.
So I took a train from Munich, it stopped in Hof, we had to get out, we had to freeze in January all night long.
The next train was going at 8 o’clock in the morning.
Well, we had to go through the Russian zone. They wanted to take my violin.
I had to fight with them.
They didn’t take my violin.
Then I end up in Leipzig, 11 o’clock at night.
Thousands of people in the waiting rooms, everywhere, on the floors, refugees, German refugees from all over.
Couldn’t get a seat on the train, you hang on and so.
But I had some cigarettes, so I see a young man with a red cap who carries suitcases for people.
I said “Is it difficult to get a hotel room?”
He says “None of the rooms are available. None.”
I say “Just a moment, don’t say that.”
I took out, I always had ready, I took out one cigarette, he says “You come with me.”
I had a room paid with cigarettes.
I slept the night, the next… the next day I took a train. It was 8 in the morning and I was in Berlin…
at 11 or something like this.
To make the story short, I didn’t have the phone number of, of Siegfrid Borris, looked on directory, I called him.
I tell him, when I was 10 years old, this concert master, Borris of the Berlin philharmonic, before the war…
Until 1938, there was a Polish Jew from Warsaw by the name of Szymon Goldberg.
Szymon Goldberg was the concert master, and Siegfrid Borris was sitting next to Szymon Goldberg.
There was a very famous string trio: Szymon Goldberg – violin, Paul, Paul, Hindemith – viola, the great composer
and Emanuel Feuerman, who was, Paul Hinde, Hindemith was not Jewish, Feuerman was Jewish, A German-Jew, great great cellist.
And they travelled the world, but this was… the crème.
And I said to Siegfried Borris “I was ten years old, yeah ten or ten and a half.”
When Goldberg came back from Berlin, he had to leave Berlin, and Furtwängler tried very hard to keep Jewish players in the Berlin Philharmonic, but he had…
and Szymon Goldberg was the last Jew, he kept him six months later than any other Jew, and Goldberg played in concerts where Hitler would come.
So, emm, he says "You played for", Siegfried Borris, "You played for Szymon Goldberg, you can play for me anytime."
He gave me the address, made an appointment, I went and played for him.
He offered me full scholarship for the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin, everything, everything, everything.
And I went back after some days to make arrangements.
Then the Blockade started, then the wall, not the wall.
Before - when I was here I was able to take the underground and go to east Berlin, and I went to RIAS, listening to beautiful concerts, in, in east Berlin.
But then it all stopped.
When I heard there’s a wall going up, not a wall, the wall went up in the 60’s.
and I said you, you have to fly in, you know, Tempelhof and things…
I said no, I don’t want another situation.
Life went on and went on.
In the meantime I went to Salzburg to study with a concert master of the Vienna philharmonic at the Mozarteum.
Hated Jews.
We had master classes with six, seven very talented kids from everywhere.
I was the last one to play.
Whenever, no matter what I played, he tore me apart.
I was garbage, I couldn’t do anything, I was…
And these boys from other countries, from Hungary, from this, from Czech Republic, non Jewish, boys and girls, they, we would go out afterwards.
They said “You played beautifully. We don’t understand what…”
But I didn’t want to tell him, you know… big, big Nazi.
Nazi mentality.
But my last lesson with Schneiderhan, last lesson, was always the last of the day, 4 or 5 o’clock.
His wife was one of the great Mozart singer, Irma Seefried.
And he says to me “You come with me, I’m going to go to the ah… festival hall in Salzburg to pick up my wife. You come with me.”
Schneider says this.
And he says “You know, you have talent. And I would take you on a full scholarship at the Vienna academy”.
I couldn’t believe this.
So, but I have heard later on that some people, that their intellect will.. will direct, that you can’t be antisemitic and not a sociopath.
But your intellect tells you that because of a certain gift that you owe to further.
Also I became very friendly when I’m, I’m jumping…
When I went to Curtis in Philadelphia, used to be an elegant lady from Sweden.
Her married name, she was Ingrid Bohlen.
She was from Sweden, and, and she would help young musicians where the could need something, something.
And then after a few months I had to play in a school concert.
And was an elegant, she was 65 years old, a tall, Swedish lady with a British accent.
She comes to me, she looked down, she says: “Mr. Arbeitman, after listening to you play, I know you. Will you have dinner with me?”
Well, I would have dinner with anybody. I was always hungry, but had no money. Sure. We became very close friends.
IV: So your name was still, eh…
DA: And Curtis…
IV: Chaim Arbeitman.
DA: Arbeitman, yes.
IV: When you went to…
DA: When I went to the United States.
IV: The United States?
DA: So with Ingrid Bohlen, she tried to…
You know, I come from a peasant family, bla bla… yeah, but…
Then, if I have a concert tour, a soloist, in Europe, in 1963,
she said “You know I have my niece in Stockholm and so on and so on, I’ll write to them”.
Well, the niece, the husband, the husband was an ambassador of Sweden somewhere.
And they came and they eh, they invited me for dinner at the Strand hotel and..
Beautiful people, and the next day they said “Do you stay an extra day in Stockholm?”
I said yes, “we would like to pick you up at the hotel.
And take you home to have lunch so you see how Swedish people live, and then we like to take you on a sightseeing trip.”
How wonderful, so after lunch.
"This is the house of the parliament. The one to the left is the house of the nobles."
Ingrid Bohlen had parents, there was never a king, the king could never have a party without the parents being at the, there.
And they have huge paintings at the, the house of the noble.
She tried to convince she’s a peasant. She wanted to, to be equal.
So than she starts telling me “In 1936, our family, my husband’s family would come from Germany.
And we had a chauffeur and limousine and they would go and they would say Ingrid, we have things to do here, in Philadelphia, but you wouldn’t understand.”
Ingrid Bohlen was married to Francis von Bohlen, who was professor of law at Harvard.
He didn’t like Harvard intellectuals, he went to the university of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia.
She was married to the first cousin of Krupp von Bohlen is the full name. Krupp.
From what I understand in 1927 took out insurance with the American government.
Not the insurance company, with the government, 12 years before the war.
In case of war, you cannot bound their factories.
I went to Hannover some years ago, everything was flattened except the Krupp factories. They were not touched. I mean these things... Anyway.
IV: I would like to come back to, ah… come back to your time at Flossenbürg, and I would like to ask you two question about it.
DA: Sure.
IV: Emm… the first question is, when you went on the transport to Flossenbürg…
DA: From Flossenbürg?
IV: Did… no, to Flossenbürg, from Wieliczka I guess.
DA: From Wieliczka, yes.
IV: Did you have any clue where you are going?
DA: No.
IV: And when you arrived did you have any orientation that this is Bavaria or where you are?
DA: No. There was no such a thing.
I knew it was Germany. Whether if was Bavaria or not, I knew it was Germany, some signs or something.
But I no clue what is going to be… ah, we are going to Flossenbürg, we are going to Paris tomorrow.
There was no such thing, we are going someplace.
You’re going wherever you’re going to be, you find out.
IV: That also implies that you had not heard the name Flossenbürg before.
DA: I…
IV: There were no rumors about transports going to…
DA: No.
IV: … or Dachau or anywhere else.
DA: You see, what happened… things happened so quickly, so fast.
Now, in Budzyń 1, there were two Budzyńs.
They were the same Budzyń but they changed from Arbeitslager to Konzentrationslager.
The worst thing was that I didn’t have a permanent job, no matter how bad it is.
Because I remember, we were between 15 and 20 people.
And no assignment.
And this is bad, because someone says, would come "I need two people. Two people."
“Zwei Gefangene.” “I need five, I need this”.
One guy comes and he says he needs four musicians. I say "Oh, this is my, my luck, this is the greatest luck".
It was the worst day.
Because we had to pick up from winding stairs, from three stories a Bechstein to carry down.
And if I scratch the Bechstein I know I’m dead. We all are dead.
We had no, no, no, nothing left, I couldn’t carry anything.
But we were so strong for this Bechstein because we knew. You’re dead.
You scratch the back, you do something, we managed to get the Bechstein. Winding stairs, I’ll never forget.
I say, this is terrible, this is bad. But I had no job, no steady job.
So.. The commandant comes in, of the camp, in Budzyń, and he goes with his lieutenants.
He needs two gardeners, so a man about 35, 38, steps up and I step up.
I stepped up to, to, for my death.
I know nothing, even today, I don’t know how you make a… how you, how you grow a carrot.
So we go outside of the camp where the commandant has his quarters and there was a big chunk, there was forest.
And he says to us, like I know what I’m… he wants several blueprints for a garden.
I know I’m dead. My luck, I mean, this is amazing. This man was a professional gardener.
This other man of the camp, and he knew blueprints, he did…
And so we both would go to the commandant, show the blueprints, he would this it like this, this is 1943… like this, like this.
He would like this garden. He would like pathways with benches.
But then, to, we had 25 prisoners to get rid of all the trees, all the this, to flatten the thing...
And this took maybe two months, three months, you know, and he says “As many people you need we’ll get”.
And I knew, I became like a Kapo, because I didn’t have to work.
And I would say "Bend a little bit but don’t do because you finish the job and you’re in trouble."
You know, you don’t know what happens next.
And at the end of the garden was a little… my friend, my friend, my life saver elevated grounds for lawn.
And he said in the center, the commandant wants from certain flowers, certain something,
to have a round in the middle, from plants, a swastika and in each side of the round 1, 9, 19, 43.
And I must tell you, when my friend was finished with this, was this was a finished project, forget about '43.
Forget about the swastika, but my friend did a, a work of art.
He was a great Gardner.
Also we were responsible for having radishes, salads and all kinds of things.
Some scallion to, to, to grow, and this was a good job.
Because whenever the commandant needed something we were called, we would wash it up and deliver certain spot and…
That didn’t last forever. Nothing lasts forever, cause things change.
IV: I would like to ask you a second question. You said that you met Jack Terry at, was that at Budzyń? Or was it at Wieliczka?
DA: Jack Terry was with me in Budzyń. Jack Terry was with me in Wieliczka.
And Jack Terry was with me here.
IV: And my question is did you two try to stay together? Did you try..
DA: No.
IV: To get on the same transports?
DA: Never. Never.
IV: Or did you just end up at the same places by chance?
DA: We, we just… same places by chance. Just.
And I didn’t really know because he was a little boy and he tells me that, I was, he seem, I seem to him tall.
And there was a two year difference between us.
And I remember him. But I never, we never spoke or be friends.
I never, I was never friends with anybody.
Cause humanity was my enemy.
You get my…? Humanity was my enemy.
This was humanity, brought me to be an animal like this.
And my family told me they love me, they lied to me.
They wouldn’t let this happen to me when I was a kid.
You know, you don’t understand anything.
You have to digest. It takes time and time and time.
But the music was my secret.
Music, it opened up my brain, my heart, my feelings, my enjoyment in life.
I, I’m in love with life.
Life is the most important thing to humanity.
It’s a precious thing what life can accomplish under the worst possible circumstances.
IV: You say that music is your life.
DA: Music is my life.
IV: I wonder, you, you told about how you got on the orchestra here in Flossenbürg.
DA: Yeah.
IV: But did you also, I mean… did you like permanently think about music? Did you hum…
DA: No.
IV: While you were working, or did you have the opportunity to talk to other people about music?
DA: No, no. No, if, it, it is something that I don’t understand.
During the incarceration, during the camps, I never thought about my father.
I never thought about my mother, I never thought about my family.
It was a non-human existence, you know.
How can we get a piece of this, a piece, something. We cannot. Not available.
You know, how, how can I, I have to go to the ambulance.
With my swollen legs. They see this, yeah, I went once.
I don’t remember was here or Budzyn.
They said yes, with your foot, the right foot, we have to take off your foot. Amputate.
I know my… amputate. Two hours later you’re shot to death.
I said no, I’ll die with my foot.
And the doctors were amazed because I was like a cave man, after concentration camp.
Swollen feet, never asked the doctor, after months it went, it healed by itself.
No medication. I was stupid, I didn’t know there’s medication.
I used to go to sleep at terrible pain in my stomach every night after the liberation.
I thought this is the way people live.
Every human being has pain, terrible pain in the stomach, and I couldn’t fall asleep until 4:30, 5:00 o’clock in the morning.
Because then, I was so tired I slept with my pain. Until I was taken to the hospital, bleeding ulcers.
I thought everybody has this. This is a way of life.
IV: Maybe one last question.
DA: Yeah.
IV: How and when did you meet Jack Terry again.
DA: In 1997, which is nine years ago.
The Jewish, not the community, there were a few well-to-do Jews in Philadelphia.
Who wanted to do something special for 1998, which would have been the 50th anniversary of the state of Israel.
In Philadelphia.
So they got together, then I got a call, there is a Shoa foundation in Los Angeles, which Spielberg has organizered, the Shoa foundation.
He spent many millions of dollars his own money.
And I was contacted from Los Angeles and many times we had three-way.
If I want to go to Poland, to Warsaw, and to make a documentary.
And I said yes.
So we had many hours of discussion, it was Warsaw, it was a women in Warsaw, one in Los Angeles and me in Philadelphia.
We spoke an hour, and hour and a half at a time to coordinate the thing.
And in May, yeah, in May of '97, they gave me a ticket to go to Warsaw.
At the same time the Philadelphia… the synagogue still around, still stands, that my father used to take me occasionally.
Saturdays..
As a kid, when I was five, six years old.
If it is, I would like to go play.. take the violin, play for my family in the synagogue.
And recite in Hebrew the prayer for the death.
And Los Angeles said "absolutely, we will arrange everything. You can do, you can do…" Everybody was extremely nice.
So they set up, which I didn’t know, that they asked me "How would you like to go to Warsaw, do you, any special airline or something."
And I don’t sleep, and I’ve crossed the Atlantic at night, never slept.
And I have a problem, two or three days to recup…
So I found out Delta airlines, American… stop in London, in Fran, Frankfurt, there’s no good to change planes.
You wait and you maybe late. But from Newark, New Jersey, and New York, but Newark I had friends that live nearby Newark, half an hour away,
flies the Polish airline Lot, from Newark-Warsaw non stop. This is good.
IV: Ok.
DA: So, I’ll finish in a second. So, my friends take me, I check into Lot, I had an economy class.
I get my seat, plane is packed with Poles, I was with 95% Poles.
And the Poles, it seems to me, they don’t travel with the suitcases, they move the whole house.
Crates with things, I said this plane can never lift off. And, ah…
So, I put my stuff over the rack, I had my violin with me.
And before the plane takes off, the stewardess comes up to me, he says "Mr. Arben, I’ll help you with the things, we are moving you to the first class."
At the first class, the young man sitting at the window introduces himself.
He says “I’m making a film of you, I’ll be with you, we’ll be with you the whole week in Warsaw”.
I said “Oh, very nice”.
And he said “Six hours ago, I didn’t know whether I was going with you or not”.
It was so crazy.
So, same thing, he put this on me on the streets of Warsaw, and he went ahead with the camera.
He says “Say anything you do, anything you want, anything”.
And then my testimony for the Shoa foundation, my life story was recorded.
It was like four and a half hours.
This Polish lady had a crew with cameras, they record.
And, emm, you can, you’re allowed, I have contracts from the Spielberg.
I can make a movie, I can write books, but I cannot use the film that was especially done for them.
They have their archives to keep it for different organizations, they don’t give it.
Then was the ten, next day was the time to go to the synagogue.
And my friends were still in Warsaw, ehh, in Warsaw, from the, from Philadelphia orchestra, my friends wanted to come.
Maybe ten of them, eleven of them.
And the newspaper, the major newspaper in Philadelphia, The Inquirer, they wanted to come, so they came.
Oh, what happened, the newspaper knew that I was going to Warsaw for this documentary.
So one week before, they call me, they want to take pictures in my apartment, so they took maybe a 100 hundred pictures, different angles.
So, ah, they had pictures, but when they found out when I was in Warsaw I was playing in the synagogue.
They call me that, that we have pictures from the synagogue, we want the synagogue.
Anyway, I played, it was very emotional, I made a speech about my family and me, a short speech.
And then I did the prayer for the dead.
And after that I went back to the hotel, to the Sheraton, and the Philadelphia orchestra was staying there.
And that was a horrible day for me, that was the day my family.
And the general manager of the Philadelphia orchestra, this is 5 o’clock in the afternoon, says "You’re invited to come to hear the Philadelphia orchestra tonight.
And you will be sitting next to the president of Poland."
I said "Joe, today is my day for my family. Thank you very much. I wouldn’t sit with the president, with anybody."
Because they needed the pictures, and I’m, the president, concentration camp, all of this.
And they had the Polish television too, they were… two or three television stations.
Because the lady told me that the six, seven o’clock news they mentioned David Arben, I was as David Arben, came.
So what happened wa… I was still in Warsaw, still at the Sheraton, when the next day after the Synagogue the newspaper printed half page with big picture:
“David Arben, Poland”.
It was a beautiful article.
And Jack has a friend, Jack had a friend, who is ah… a dean of a college whom I known.
IV: Eliezer..
DA: It’s ready?
IV: No, it’s a…, I mean… the friend is Eliezer Litetsky, right?
DA: No, I never met Eliezer.
IV: Ok.
DA: This is a man. He… Yeah. He saved the article.
IV: Okay, stopp.
DA: Called him, and he says “I’m sending you an article about somebody who was in a concentration camp.”
And I always, the truth, my name is David Arben, it used to be Chaim Arbeitman, it was written underneath.
This now, this is then.
And Jack Terry got the newspaper, he says..
He called his friend, he says “I know Chaim Arbeitman, we were in the concentration camps, different concen… for three years, together.”
So, he called me and it was, it was so beautiful.
So Jack and his wife Louise, they came a few days later to Philadelphia, we spent a whole afternoon, a whole evening.
And, and, and it was an emotional, and we had been very much attached since '97. Yeah.