IV: (???)
So now eh these people from Indersdorf, who come here, eh I do not know much of them.
I do, the story of Indersdorf, what happened there.
ZF: Yeah.
IV: But so there is not much been known about eh individual or the individual.
ZF: Mh {confirming}.
IV: From where they come from?
What happened to them?
ZF: Yeah.
IV: Before they came to Flossenbürg.
ZF: Okay, right.
IV: So we are going to talk also about that.
ZF: About Indersdorf..
IV: No, not about Indersdorf.
ZF: About..
IV: What happened before you came to Indersdorf.
ZF: We, in my case?
IV: Yeah.
ZF: OK, right.
IV: It is, now.
ZF: Yeah, well, it i.., it i.., yeah that will be..
IV: I think that with, can you tell where you, where do you come from?
Where you are born?
ZF: Yeah, OK.
IV: Yeah.
ZF: Shall I tell where I was born?
IV: Yeah.
ZF: I, I was born in a small village in Romania.
It was Romania at that time.
It is located on the northern-western border of Romania in this, near a city called Sathmar {rom: Satu Mare} which is eh.
I was born in a little village.
And we lived in a little village.
My father had a general store in the village.
There were in, in the village there were only two Jews in my little village.
In the next village they had, they had about maybe 20.
And eh i.., it, it was Romania as I said until 1941 when eh Hitler decided to give part of Transylvania back to Hungary and then we became Hungary.
The population is all, all Hungarian.
And eh in eh 1944 when the German Army occupied Hungary, because Hungary was not to be trusted anymore.
They were afraid they'd make separate peace.
They eh started, one of the things that they did, Eichmann, deporting the Jews.
First of all we had to register.
We had to wear yellow stars.
We were restricted and then we were taken to a school with eh..
Eh and this was done by the Hungarian police, because the Hungarian police cooperated with Germany.
Eh and eh I remembered we guarded our belongings and in, in, in little carts.
And I was pushing a cart.
Eh and eh, eh one of the boys from the village, one, one of the Christian boys tried to help.
And the police man was saying, the Hungarian gendarm, he was saying: "Let those dogs, let those Jewish dogs do it.
Do not, do not do it."
I have been "huh".
This, this was eh part of the Hungarian police.
Okay, is, we were taken to this ghetto in the city.
The, there was no ghetto in a way that eh restricted.
But there was a Jewish section.
It was called the ghetto.
And we were eh, we, we were in one more.., one morning in waggons with all, with part of our belongings, were taken to, to this, to this ghetto.
And we were eh sort of eh put together with our relatives.
I mean they, they, they, they left it to us however you want to arrange it.
And eh then we were there for about eh about 4 weeks altogether.
And eh it, and then they started deporting my family eh to, to eh..
Well I did not know it at that time, but eh we, we, we were, this is, was the spring of 1944 to, to, to Birkenau.
I mean that was the first stop.
IV: Mh {confirming}.
ZF: And then of course eh Auschwitz.
But eh except that, my father and some other prominent Jews.
I think eh it was planned by the Germans by this time.
Germany, everything was organized.
There was no random killing in fact.
When the German Army came in, I used to interpretate, because I know Yiddish.
So eh the Army was correct to us.
I mean they did not do anything.
But eh so eh the, the, the eh we, I, I did not know it at that time, but it was all organized by Eichmann.
And in, in, started going on, on transport, the first transport.
Eh, eh I think we were on the third transport, my family.
My mother, three sisters, three little sisters, my grandfather who was bedridden, 81 years old, were put on waggons in, in closed waggons.
Eh I, whenever I see a movie today, when I see the doors closing I remember that I was inside those waggons {laughing}.
Eh, eh in any case eh so I think it took us to, about three, three days to arrive in, in Birkenau.
And there we were separated.
Eh first thing we, we, we among other things we were eh sort of welcomed by fellow prisoners {laughing}.
Who, who has told us eh that it is, (???) finally the Hungarians Jews also have, are, are, are being deported.
But the, these were mostly people from Poland.
Eh, eh and I do not know whether they were mostly Jews.
But anyway the, these are the people that they were, we were called, that, that they had it very good, because they had food and so on.
And I, I when, when, went out from the waggons my eh my mother asked one of them: "Can I go up back and take my medicine?"
And, and this, this is also fellow prisoners, you know with blue stripes, blue stripes.
Eh he said: "Okay, go ahead."
What, what difference it would make in, sort of implied.
Because eh in fact they told us.
They said: "Some of you are going straight to the ovens."
Eh and eh, eh okay and then of course we were separated and eh the, the, the women and, and, and the men were separated first.
And the last time I saw my mother and my sisters and my grandfather who was 80 years old and bedridden.
He was put in a blanket and just thrown out from the waggon.
Eh so then of course all of, all of us who were all the males, were passed through a eh little committee of I.., presumably headed by Mengele, but I am not sure.
Eh, eh who, who, who separated us again.
"You go this way and I go the, that way, rights or links."
And eh, eh I, I was choosen to, eh to go to the right way to, to stay alive.
At least for a while.
And then I do not know exactly when we were given numbers.
My number is 7897.
Eh the, the reason I never forget the number, because, eh everything went by the numbers.
Eh whenever we were given food they eh they eh read off the numbers and checked it off.
And eh my, my brother was with me.
He and he, he also survived eh and so on.
And so I remembered the two numbers were always, my number and his number 7897, 7899.
So eh, eh in any case, eh we were chosen to, to go to work.
But even while we were chosen to work there were some SS running around and said people who they, they saw, oh yes I was about to tell you.
Eh people who, who they saw were too young, they, they were taken back.
They were taken to the, eh presumably going to the crematorium and, and gassed and burned right away.
Eh, eh so, so I was a borderline case.
My brother was a borderline case too.
But is, they did not, they were not that eh, eh they did not care that much about, whether, how old you are.
Because I, we were told by the people who, who welcomed us in quote, eh saying, says, "do not say that you are a student.
Say that you are a worker and say, lie about your age and all that."
Eh, eh and, and so anyway we got to the right row.
And then we were given numbers with, with a fountain pen of sorts eh by, by fellow prisoners.
And then we were stripped completely naked and we were (???) naked for a while and finally we were in Auschwitz eh, eh the Auschwitz proper not in Birkenau.
And then form there we, we marched to, to Buna, where, where is the camp that I was.
Eh for until the winter middle of the winter of eh of 19 eh {thinking} this is 19, 19 well beginning of 1945, beginning, end of 1944.
Eh and..
IV: And you marched by foot to?
ZF: To, to, to Buna, right, yeah.
Buna is about 10 Miles from eh from eh from Auschwitz.
Yeah we, we marched on foot to Buna.
Eh and, and in Buna life was relatively normal, except that eh every few, few months, I do not know, we had what they call the selecione, selecta.
We had to pass naked in front of a, again some sort of a committee.
And those people eh who, who looked weak were taken.
Their numbers were taken.
And eh the next day they did not go to work.
Eh and eh they were taken eh, eh presumably to Birkenau and, and, and killed.
Eh one of the danger was, see my father was, was not with me.
And I guess I eh, but people who were with their fathers, the older people had much less of a chance to survive, the younger people.
Eh o.., once you, we, you were young and you survived you were given some privileges.
Eh, eh I, I worked after a while in a Kommando 90 eh, eh Schlosserkommando.
And eh, eh o.., one of the persons in eh the camp who lived eh who, who got some special privileges, we were called Prominente.
Very nice Blockältester, he, he, he gave me some extra rations.
I mean these little things.
Then also British prisoners of war gave their lunches to us and the, this Kapo eh who, who was a Verbrecher.
But he had a heart of gold {laughing}.
Eh, eh anyway eh I can picture him, eh right eh.
Anyway during normal times we, we marched into the camp and as we marched eh there was music, there was a band playing.
And eh, eh as we marched into the camp they used to say: "Häftlinge, Mützen ab."
And eh, eh except when somebody was missing we had to stand on Appellplatz for a long time.
And one of the other things we had, stand on Appell is to watch hangings.
There were, there were several hangings.
There was once I think the Ober-Kapo who, who was a tall German.
He was hanged and eh as, as that he was hanged he was saying something.
I did not understand that at that time.
But in the books by Elie Wiesel who was by the way in the same camp and wrote about it as Primo Levi.
He said: "Kameraden, ich bin das letzte."
Eh, eh, and, but we, we, we, we eh we witnessed many hangings.
So, so anyway when, when the Russians came they evacuated Buna.
And at first we went by foot to..
And it was middle of the winter, it was very cold.
And eh we, we fi.., first eh in groups of three, three, 3.000.
My brother was the last of the first 3.000 and I was the first of the second 3.000.
And the people who used to be mostly German Jews eh who, who had privileges were singing eh when they marched.
And I think eventually they were all shot, because I have never seen them again.
Eh, eh because I heard eh sho.., shooting, I heard gun, gum, gun shots.
Eh in, in any case then came the eh horrible transport.
We were in open waggons.
This was the middle of the winter.
And they, there were eh were in the beginning were extremely crowded.
And it took us about I do not know how many days.
Maybe 8 days, the only thing we had to eat was snow.
I mean to drink was snow.
I mean, and that was I guess lucky.
And eh at the beginning we had hardly any room.
But by the, by the end of the trip the, the, we had plenty of room, because those people who died we just threw them out of the waggons.
I do not know what they did with them.
Eh in any case by the time we arrived in Oranienburg.
And when we arrived in Oranienburg eh, eh after, we did not recognized each other.
We changed that much.
Yes we some of and eh..
Eh the only food we got during that trip is when we passed o.., on to a bridge, it is just lucky and they, the workers.
The, there is some different memory, Elie Wiesel has, as eh..
But my memory is that they threw their lunches into the thing and we, we trampled each other while trying to get the food.
And, and so, so I guess when people died, I think we took off their clothes.
I, I do not remember that very, very much.
But, but I, I remember t.., to having very little room and trampling each other.
Anyway we arrived in Oranienburg.
In Oranienburg we were in a big Ha.., Hangar, Ha.., Hangar.
Eh be.., because there was no room eh I, I do not eh.
And I do not remember anything, any, what food they gave us in Oranienburg.
I think we stayed there about two, two months eh.
Yeah, that was eh probably around Christmas time.
By the way while in camp I did not know about the Allies landing in France.
I, I, I was isolated from news.
IV: Yeah.
ZF: We did, we did not have news.
Eh we, so in Oranienburg eh I do not remember much about it.
I think we slept on the floor.
Eh but then when the British came, from Oranienburg we were taken to Flossenbürg.
I do not remember, I do not remember much about the trip.
I think we started by train and we did some walking when we arrived in Flossenbürg.
IV: Mh {confirming}.
ZF: And, and we saw the gate "Arbeit macht frei." eh in Flossenbürg.
I think they have the same thing written in, in near eh Birkenau or Auschwitz "Arbeit macht frei.".
IV: Yeah, nearly in every camp.
ZF: Every camp.
IV: Several camps.
ZF: Every, yeah, eh yeah saying.
Yeah it is true.
"Arbeit macht frei.".
But the problem is they did not feed us enough to, to eh be able to do the work eh.
Except some people, some special people who I do not know they, they, they.. I saw it in a movie about.
The, they were eh doing eh they printed money or something like that.
That they had special privileges.
Eh also in the camp eh in Buna actually, the, the, there were people who had, eh they were lucky who had special privileges.
And eh there was eh Schlosser and so on.
And also my Blockältester, I was in a (???) Block, he, he was not a bad guy.
And he smoked, he, he was a political prisoner.
A young guy, he, almost chain smoked.
And anyway, I remember that {laughing}..
IV: He stayed in Buna?
ZF: In Buna, yeah, I am going back to Buna.
IV: Yeah, that is good.
ZF: I, I {laughing} ri.., right. I do not know whether I should say it and eh and publicly but he, he used to yell at us or he would.., as I said he was not a bad guy.
So "Ich werde.." he would say: "Ich werde euch im Arsch ficken."
And something like that {laughing}.
But, but he was, he had, had sort of a sense of humour.
But, but you know he cooperated with the selection and so on.
Okay going back to arriving in Flossenbürg.
IV: Yeah, maybe I ask, may, eh you have been at..
CM: Da redet gerade der Pfarrer.
Sollen wir noch einen Moment warten?
IV: Ich glaube, das ist..
CM: Dauert immer so drei, vier, fünf Minuten.
Ich schau' es mir jetzt grad mal an.
IV: Ja, das war.