IV: They stopped the singing.
ZF: Okay.
IV: Going away.
We can, can go on.
ZF: Okay, alright.
IV: So, yeah, so we stopped..
ZF: Are we a..
IV: At the moment you arrived here in Flossenbürg.
ZF: Well right.
IV: So you, you have been, you have still been together with your brother?
ZF: Right, I was together all the time with my brother.
The only time we were separated was during the march out of Buna.
IV: Mh {confirming}.
ZF: And as I said, he was the first, I, he was the last of the first 3.000, I was the first of the second 3.000.
And then in this huge barn where we came to, where we stopped..
IV: Yes.
ZF: Eh we found each other.
IV: Yeah.
ZF: And, and from then on, we were together.
The only time in Flossenbürg, we were in the same block, but in different section of the block.
There were two, two, one room up front.
One room in the back, so, eh, eh and the situation was the same in both rooms.
And I was very happy who, that he was separated, because I did not want to see him suffer.
And I presumed he, he felt the same way.
So that is eh we were separated.
Eh, eh but anyway Flossenbürg, one of the things I do not remember about it, what food we were given.
But, as I was, told you, as I told you before, we, we, we were, there was not much room and we are sleeping 8 persons to a bed, to a bunk.
And there were three bunks so there were 24 people in, in, in a bunk bed.
So it was, we are almost, but anyway it was and we were in each other laps and we were full of lice.
And, and eh so during the night when some of us tried to sleep on the floor the Blockältester came in with eh some sort of a stick.
And he would beat us to go back to bed, because he had to keep order.
And he, he, he, he was not really truely bad person, other than that, but eh he, he had eh a young boy who was playing the accordion all the time which I remember.
But anyway he, he, he,he, he said this to us at one point in order to discipline us.
He said, eh I do not remember the first part he says, that "I am in the camp, because I am not a National Socialist.".
But he said it, eh and I could say it now in German:
"Ich bin aber eine Deutsche.
Und ich werde euch zeigen, ihr verfluchte Saujuden."
Eh, eh in any case, I, I asked the person, eh one of our guides, whether there were any..
He said that there are Poles and other nationalities here in, who came to the memorial.
Were there any Germans who came?
And he said, they are very all, all old and they most, most of them died.
And he was older, he was older, right.
Eh that there were, there were people who were sent to the Russian front, if they were young enough instead of a, a camp eh.
In fact even some Germans from..
By, by the way, going back again in Buna the, the, the, the Germans prisoners were both, Verbrechers and political prisoners like homosexuals.
Eh, eh were, were eh, eh the eh in sort of in charge of the camp the Blockältester, the huge Lagerältester who was an bad guy.
He, he, he, he, he was of course German.
I do remember that.
Eh so, so, so eh some of them were quite good in fact that this guy in block 7, he tried to do everything for the people.
Eh and I think he finally went to the Russian front.
But eh so okay go, going back to Inder.., to, to Flossenbürg.
IV: Flossenbürg, maybe in the beginning, when you..
CM: Michael.
IV: Ja.
CM: Eh die Beschreibung von dem, von seinem, da war ich jetzt schlecht.
Die hat sich verschoben, die Kamera.
Nur bei der Beschreibung eh wie der, der Räumlichkeiten halt.
IV: Ah, ja, also wie sie geschlafen haben oder so?
CM: Ob sein Bruder da war.
IV: Okay, so we had a little problem with the camera.
ZF: Okay.
IV: So we can, you can tell the story with the beds again?
ZF: Oh, yes, okay.
CM: Da war und dieser Teil da.
IV: Yeah, and so, eh maybe let us, let us start a little bit when you arrived, you and your brother here.
Do you have any, you can remember eh what happened in the beginning when you came to the camp?
ZF: Yeah, no I do not remember.
I, they, it, they must have gone to the showers and...
Yeah one of the things that they did even in Buna is delousing.
They schmierd us with some horribly smelling chemical.
Eh but, but by the time we came to Flossenbürg they did not bother with that.
Because in, until then we did not have any lice.
In Flossenbürg we had lots of lice.
So eh they, they must not have done it.
Okay so, you, you want me to go through..
IV: Okay, to tell a bit how, how the camp, how, how you have been living in the camp, in the house, in the beds..
ZF: Okay, okay, what, one mo.., yeah.
There, there was not much room in the camp, in, in the block.
Eh because eh all, all camps were evacuated and, and the, the ring got tighter and tighter.
So you eh in, in the camp, in, in Flossenbürg we were, we were 8 to, people to a bunk.
We were sitting in each others lap.
And we could not sleep.
And at night we tried to, some of us tried to sleep on the floor and the Blockältester came in and he would hit us to go back to bed.
And, and in order to discipline us he was saying, eh at one time, eh that he is, he is in the camp, because he is not a national socialist.
But then, and I am, I am saying it in German:
"Ich bin aber eine Deutsche.
Und ich werde euch zeigen, ihr verfluchte Saujuden."
And eh, so I do not remember what food we were given in the camp.
No we were not eh, we, I did not stay long in Flossenbürg.
I mean, I was just a guest there {laughing}.
IV: Mh {confirming}.
ZF: Latecomer.
IV: Yeah, do you remember how many days or weeks you have been here?
ZF: May.., maybe several weeks.
Maybe a month or so.
And then, when they evacuated Flossenbürg we started out by train.
Eh..
IV: So, just before eh the evacuation, eh, eh in the camp you had to work also?
ZF: No, no work.
There was no work for us.
IV: Mh {confirming}.
ZF: Whatsoever, we did, we just, in, we did not work in Oranienburg either.
IV: Mh {confirming}.
ZF: The only place were we worked is, is in Buna.
Yeah, b.., but..,
IV: And can you remember some things, what happened to you in Flossenbürg?
You just have been here for a month.
Eh you, so what happened to the people?
How was the condition of the people?
ZF: Oh the, the..,
IV: Did you see any cruelties, hangings or so?
ZF: No, I, I did not see any hangings.
I did not see any c.., any cruelty.
Except the fact that we had to sleep 8 to a bed.
I mean, eh that is cruelty enough.
Eh but I, I did not see any, like, like this Blockältester.
I mean he would not hit us for no reason whatsoever.
Only when we, we were out of, out of the bed, trying and to lie on the floor.
And I do not remember the food we were given in Flossenbürg.
Bu.., but eh when F.., when, I guess when the Allied, the Americans came, they evacuated Flossenbürg.
By the way, we did not know who is coming and who is..
And for a while we were hoping that we were, we, we'll survive and we are liberated.
But it got, the hope got sort of suppressed for a while, because we saw that and, and we thought that they will never let us alive in the hands of the Allies and like that.
We will, we will, we will die in, in, in one way or the other.
But anyway, we, we started evacuating Flossenbürg, eh we started in trains with, with a, freight trains.
And we were sitting on the floor, eh I do not know it, it was not horribly crowded, but it was quite crowded.
And when we arrived in Schwarzenfeld we were strafed.
I think it was American planes.
And in, in, in, in the train, in the waggon, there were I was in, I noticed that all the people are staying on one side.
They are coming to, to my side.
And I did not understand well, but the strafing angle was such, that on one side of the train, eh the bullets hit and I saw one, one man, one person.
By the way, there were only men, I mean, I have not seen a woman since the eh in Oranienburg or Flossenbürg.
Eh his jaw was hanging and some of them others were injured, too.
And the SS let us, after a while, when they kept strafing, to get out of the train.
And I ran into, we were run, first to run to towards the grass.
Eh and I ty.., started, we started eating grass of some sort.
But eh then I ran into the vi.., village.
The village was not far away, eh Schwarzenfeld.
And I found six eggs, which I brought with me and, and I shared it with my brother and with some friends.
And I think that is part of the reason I am {laughing} alive.
Eh, eh raw eggs I us.., I do not like raw eggs, but at that time {laughing} it did not matter.
Eh, eh so bu.., but the thing was that the people next, in the next waggon, got some potatoes and they build a fire.
And I think eh the people who were, build the fire, were shot.
Eh so anyway, we started going by foot.
After, after the, the locomotive was shot out.
And we, we ran through the forest.
Eh mostly we marched mostly at night.
And we saw all this silver strips against the planes.
Eh, eh anyway, we marched at night.
And the, the, the, the road, the side of the road was strewn with deads.
Anybody who could not go any further was shot.
There was one, must have been one sadist, and these were not SS they were older people.
Because some of the young SS were sent to the Russian front.
So one of them for some reason, he, he must have been horrible person.
They assure that who ever lies down gets shot.
They, they shot them in the neck.
And eh most of the other guards, did not, they did not mind.
They did not do that.
But they did not mind.
So, whe.., whe.., I, I think I had sort of wooden shoes.
My, my brother eh and I discussed lying down, because we knew, we wanted to lie down together.
But we, of course, we decided against it.
And we just kept going.
We, we slept in the forrest.
And then finally we came to a huge barn, again a barn.
I guess, because it is a good place to st.., they have to store a lot of people.
And we, we were resting there, when suddenly we heared the ratatata of the machine guns.
And eh suddenly the SS disappeared and we ran out.
And, and as we ran out, the, the, the, the tanks with white stars, I think at this stage I know it was the American third Army (???), eh took over us.
And they, they were shooting.
I think they would, shooting, trace of bullets mostly along the side.
And they mov.., told us to go back, back, back and we ran back.
At first eh we, we took some raw potatoes and tried to eat them, because we saw it on the field.
But then the, the American soldiers eh threw eh chocolates and other stuff at us.
And we, as we ran back and finally came to eh a.., again to some sort of a farm.
Then we found some milk and we drank it and fortunately we did not got sick.
By we, I mean my brother, people were separated.
I mean everybody ran sort of helter skelter.
And eh we slept in this place, I think maybe it was a stable anyway to gather for warmth.
Eh because it was late spring.
Eh and it was still cold when we were liberated.
And wo.., o.., on the way, by the way, I had these wooden shoes, eh a tank stopped and he had some prisoners of war.
I, I, I think it must have been German officers, prisoners of war now.
And he called me over and he made the, this a, eh it must have been an officer, because they had beautiful boots, made him take off his boots and give it to me.
And exchanged for my wooden shoes.
{breathing} {laughing} That is a {breathing} slight revenge.
I, I mean, I, I did not do, I did not participate in any revenge.
But some, some did.
Mo.., mostly people who were in better shape than us.
Eh like Russians they, they did kill some, some of the guards.
I, I, I did not know that.
Eh I, we just walked back.
And finally we came to this place, Stulln.
And there was a camp there.
I do not know whether eh it, it was part of Flossenbürg or no?
Anyway there was a camp.
But when I came there, there were Russian prisoners of war there.
And we were given some food.
And then we met some other people.
There was an American Army eh Bay, eh, eh a transportation company.
And eh jew.., Jewish soldier came to us and, and gave me and a bunch of eh Serbian, ex Serbian prisoners of war who, who were treated, I mean com.., compared to us they look, they were in great shape.
They eh no.., not all, and for example the British prisoners, looked in great shape.
Although somebody who wrote a book about it what, that they, had their problems.
But they did not take this food at the, they were given.
They g.., gave it to us.
So the Serbian prisoners were, anyway, we got eh this job in the Army eh with the Army.
And we was great, because we had great food.
Eh which we sort of we shared.
We, what we did, we did KP, you know, kitchen privileges.
Kitchen, k.., k.., eh we washed the, we help out in the kitchen that sort of stuff.
Wash dishes and so on.
And I, I went into, to Schwarzenfeld once.
And eh anyway, we were in this camp.
And from this camp we went to Schw.., Schwandorf, where they, eh they had, we stayed in a Hotel, in a huge Hotel.
And from Schwandorf finally we went to Indersdorf, you.., you.., younger people.
But I, just this again, after the war.
Eh from Indersdorf I decided, my brother stayed in Indersdorf, I decided to go back to Romania.
And that was relatively easy. Relatively, because I attached myself to a, a train, which took home Hungarian ex, ex, well prisoners of war, ex-prisoners of war.
And then in Budapest, from Budapest I went to Romania to my home.
But I saw a lot of people.
A lot of young people who from, who were liberated from the camp.
Of the, the people who, who I saw, some relatives, some people form the village were in a range between, say 16 to 30 years.
Within another range, they, they did not survive.
And there were women, too, also.
The first time I saw a Jewish woman, because I thought they were all killed.
After a while I did, I was hoping that my family did survive.
Eh but eh, eh okay, eh s.., but, but eh then I saw.
And there of course, there were a lot of.
Then I went back as, there were Jewish women, lots of women who also survived.
Also between that range.
Unfortunately a lot of them died of typhoid.
Yeah, I, I was lucky.
Anyway, going back to eh Indersdorf was very hard, very difficult.
Was very adventurous at this stage.
I am looking at this as an adventure.
We had to cross from Hungary to Romania where the guards were bribed.
And they, they put on a show to guide, to get as much things out of us as possible.
They collect some of the jewellery there.
Eh and then from eh from, from Hungary we had to go to the Russian zone of Austria.
Which we went out, through mountains.
Eh because the Hungarians were bribed, but not the Russians.
And so then and from the, from the Russians zone of Austria to the British zone of Austria.
British zone of Austria, the American zone of Austria.
From the American zone of Austria go back to Indersdorf.
It is all, eh went back.
And I might as well tell you the rest of the story.
{laughing} Eh it was an (???) effort, two years, and I came to the United States in 1947 where my father had two brothers and two sisters.
My grandfather, at least so I have lots of relatives.
We went to school there, evening school.
I worked.
Got a degree in e.., in electrical engineering.
Eh at first at night and then during the day.
And finally I came to Cal.., eh worked in my field.
I came to California in 1962 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator where, where I worked ever since.
And I am still going into work.
So that is my story in a nutshell {laughing}.
IV: Yeah, so eh two last questions.
ZF: Right.
IV: So one is, coming back eh, eh to the marches.
ZF: Yes.
IV: Do you remember when you started from here or when you started eh when the train broke down.
How many people you have been on the march?
ZF: Yeah, yeah a, the march, may.., maybe about 200 people.
IV: Mh {confirming}.
ZF: I, I, I estimate.
Yeah and we were marching, about 200 people.
I do not know whether two groups of a 100.
The, the, the, my best estimate is about 200 people.
I, I do not know, I think maybe not half of them, maybe a quarter of them were killed on the, on the march.
They were shot.
IV: And what happened to, when you got liberated, what happened to the people who have been accompanying you?
Who watched you?
These soldiers.
They run away..
ZF: They run away.
They run away.
Yeah, they disappeared.
They run away.
They disappeared.
Yeah we did not, just we did not see.
Suddenly they disappeared.
IV: Yeah.
ZF: And we, it took us a little time to realize that we are free.
And it was very, I was very elated.
I mean, we knew, I mean we were close to death and we were alive and that was a great thing {laughing}.
Eh some people of course where, we were traumatized, but that, that thing was very great thing.
Very happy to, to be liberated.
But of course the problem was that our family did not survive.
And there, that eh by the way, I never knew the time when they died.
I, at, at the beginning ha.., hope, against hope.
That somehow to some miracle, they survived.
And it never suddenly, did not knew when, when they died, but slowly like in technical language asymptoticaly, finally I realized that eh that they were killed.
They, eh I.
IV: And so the last question.
So telling the story, most of the time we have been talking about facts not about emotions.
ZF: No.
IV: What do you think?
Eh you have been, so not a child anymore, but you are young.
ZF: No, yeah, teenager, la.., late teenager.
IV: Teenager.
So, so seeing, eh yeah, making this experience and seeing the things happening around you.
How did you feel all this time?
What happened to your, yeah, to your soul, to you?
ZF: Yeah, right, well it definitely effected me emotionally, naturally.
Eh in, in the camp in a way, all we ever concerned is staying alive, in the beginning.
And, and, and we, but, but then, the, the, the, I, the realization that my family did not survive.
I had a physical pain for a while.
Eventually I reconciled myself to it.
I mean, I, I accepted it, but eh..
Also there are a lot of people who were after the liberation eh said they, they want to find a Jewish woman and marry.
As soon as possible and have children, so to keep on.
Like in Hebrew:
"Am Israel hai".
To keep up, keep the nation alive.
The, the, b.., but my, when I was, watch, watch my father being helpless when he was first arrested, eh and.
He was a very strong person.
And I, eh but the effect on me was not to, not to have any children.
Because I knew I could not guarantee their safety.
Eh b.., but a lot of people, and I am very happy that they did not take the same way I did.
So, but that is, that is the effect on me.
IV: And would you, having, during this time, eh leaving, leaving Romania, being together with your brother in those camps.
What has been the most difficult or most terrible thing for you?
ZF: You mean in the DP camps?
IV: Eh no, before, in the concentration camps.
ZF: In the concentration camp.
There were of course very, many moments of terrible things.
Yeah eh say eh you know, if I want to highlight is this trip from Buna on, on the waggon.
Eh it was very cold and we had to stay.
And, and the first terrible thing is when we were separated, from, from the family.
And eh as I mentioned before.
When the waggons closed on us.
And it was, it took us three days.
And we were crowded when we were, this was when we were going to, to Birkenau.
And eh we did not have any facilities there.
And that, that was eh terrible emotional trauma.
Yeah, cer.., certainly.
Eh the, sometimes the, the cold, was on appell.
When we were on appell.
Just before we..
But, but the thing is, they gave us after a while, first of all we were in this eh prisoner clothes you know, eh blue stripes thing.
But we were given coats.
I mean they just took a lot of coats.
Which they had plenty, because, left..
And some of us got better coats than others, they were just throwing.
They throw it at us.
And I think we, we had coats, were given I think when, when, when we left Buna after a while.
At first we were just staying outside in the cold.
And I remember feeling sorry for my brother and for myself, too, I suppose.
Eh the other thing is when we were sleeping 8 to a bed, to a bunk.
That was very traumatic for eh.
Well of course the whole trip {laughing} from eh, eh to, to Oranienburg from eh from, from Buna to Oranienburg.
Yeah in, in the United States we did very well in school.
When my brother graduated from High School, Evening High School.
He had the highest average.
I had the second highest average.
But first we stayed at with, with our aunt for about a year.
And then even later on for a while we ate at, one ate by ate at one, ate, place, an uncle, too, but the aunts cook.
Eh and ate once a week.
So, and I lived mostly in New York City.
Yeah I also did not mention I was two years in the Army which was..
IV: US Army?
ZF: US Army, piece of cake.
IV: {laughing}.
ZF: Eh the only thing of bad about it was during basic training, because of the cold.
Even that was not so bad. Because eh we always, sent to radar school.
And I knew more than the teacher.
And it was one of those things that you w.., dream about {laughing}.
Yeah, so.
IV: Good.