IV: Okay. Let's try. So..
MH: Are you ready?
IV: Jah, we are ready.
MH: Now, I, actually, I should come back before - they marched us out of Flossenbürg.
I was here for two, three months.
I don't know exactly the time.
I suppose on records they should have the time of the people who arrived and who - they marched out.
I know now, looked at the map, I know exactly where my barrack was.
If you go along here, you know where the crematorium is?
Down there, there were four barracks, on the right, four barracks.
And I was in one of them, I remember.
Because, close to the barracks, there was the la- the toilette, the lavatory, and the washroom.
So I do remember.
And I pointed, I could see from the - you see these streets here? You see?
There was a barrack there and I was told, it was a Bordell.
There.. you can't see it because the trees have grown.
But before, I could see it from my barrack.
And we were told, that was a Bordell for the SS.
When I'm telling this people, they say I don't know, but I know, I could see it from the barrack I was there.
Anyway, I was here, how long?
Two months, three months, I don't know the exactly, how long we were..
And I was working -
You see, when they brought the people in here, through that -
and they went into the washroom, first they had to undress. And then.. Now.
I was working, sorting out the clothing. That was the work I did.
And I remember, every morning, they used to march us to the Appell. The Appell, you see.
And conditions were terrible here in that barrack.
We used to be - I always tried to go to the top, you know, in the bunk.
Alright, because people always were messing, if you were underneath.
And I was still strong enough, I managed to climb up.
And we were always three, four, five.
And every morning, there were one or two deads in our bunk. So you see.
So I kept saying "Oh, next night, we won't have so many in the, in the bunk."
You know, you were happy because you couldn't sleep.
You were just sort of crowded and standing all night like this in the bank.
And we were here, for, as I say, two - but I don't know the - how long we were here.
I don't know if they got records when they registered.
They've got records, I see, I didn't know that.
I found my records, my name and my number.
So, I suppose they must have records how long people were here.
But I can't find it - that I don't know.
When they marched us out, we marched for days and days and days.
Always, during the night, in the forest.
And so many people. We marched out, there was in groups, they took people out in groups.
A few thousand.
And every few yards, hundred yards, people were just falling out like flies.
And anybody who fell out that was shot.
Until.. one day, one evening, I gained -
it was very bad weather, I remember, I was soaked to the skin.
I was like a skeleton, you know.
And the worst thing - in all the year.. time that I was in the concentration camp, it was bad enough you didn't get any food.
And you were a slave labourer, you know.
The worst thing was lice. It was eating you up.
The lice were eating people up.
Abso- that was the worst, and you're - look, you're - all you're ever doing is scratching yourself.
Never washed. Can you imagine?
And the same thing, you were never changed.
The same clothes, all lice. There was - conditions were terrible.
Anyway, one evening, they put us in a village. We arrived in a village.
And they put us in a barn. You know, what a barn is? Alright.
Oh, it was raining terribly. And I was soaked to the skin.
I was so happy at laying in the hay, covering yourself, you know.
But still, I was wet. In the morning, they took us all from the barn.
Started marching again.
Now, imagine we are marching in this direction and I could see from the distance a bridge.
I could see a bridge.
So, I, I've seen there's a bridge, it must be a, a river.
If there's a bridge.
Suddenly, we see - like, we are marching this direction. Suddenly, from the other direction, I see tanks.
Now, it happened so quickly - it was a minute, everything happened in minutes.
All of a sudden, I see soldiers jumping out from the tanks.
I don't know who these tanks are, I don't know nothing.
But all I heard is, they're shouting. Because we had SS on each side, marching..
But at that time, we were not many left, it was only about three, four hundred left from the group that left Flossenbürg.
And I heard shouting "Ach, diese deutschen Kranken." In German. Cause I spoke German..
While this has happened, within seconds, minutes, I saw soldiers jumping out from the tanks and started shooting.
At the SS. Started shooting SS.
And they started saying "Get behind the (???), get behind the tanks."
And I'm still so confused, I don't know what it's all about.
I still don't know - what tanks? You know.
Luckily, while this - all this happened very quickly.
Now, I assume and I'm pretty sure that they had already liberated because they had already come across people like us.
You know, we were still in the striped uniforms.
So, they knew who we were, you see, they liberated..
They said "Get behind the tanks."
And they started throwing sweets and chocolate.
Sweets and chocolate.
Now, it was very nice. You know, can you imagine after you haven't eaten, now sweets and chocolate.
They're throwing from the tanks. But I know, it was a bad thing.
They shouldn't have done that. People hadn't eaten for years, their stomach was shrunk or something.
That was the worst thing they could have done to give you sweets and chocolate.
Anyway, get behind - luckily, among the soldiers, there were some Jewish soldiers and they spoke Yiddish.
Because I didn't speak any other - and they spoke Yiddish.
And they said, and they had already liberated and they knew who we were and they spoke Yiddish.
And we explained, we are from the camps..
They said, they know all about. Anyway, we didn't know what to do.
You know, suddenly, we find ourselves in the village.
So, about four of us, my brother and myself and some other, two others.
We looked for somewhere to go.
So we saw a house - so we said, we're going to that house.
We went into that house, there was a woman.
German woman. She ran away, we came in, into the house.
And she ran off.
We made ourselves comfortable, found food in the house.
And we all wanted to take the clothes off because it was full of lice, you know.
So, we found a lot of food - she ran away - we must have stayed there for about a week or so.
I was recuperating, already having a rest, I was eating.
And then, the Americans was, they were rounding up people like us.
And they took me to Neunburg.
Why? Now, I wanted to know the place where I was liberated.
And I didn't know.
But this chap, who I'm telling you, his name was Manfred, he was born in Germany. German Jew.
He knew things because he knew Germany.
Now he tells me that this village where we were liberated is Stamsried.
Stamsried.
I looked on the map everywhere, I can't find Stamsried on the - but they must have it on the local maps.
They must - it's a small place. Stamsried.
So, it cannot be all that far from Neunburg, I imagine so.
I imagine because they marched us from here.
Anyway, so the place is called, I know it now to be Stamsried.
We like to go and see but I don't think it's possible.
You know, I don't know where places were, so I can't find it on the map but I made inquiries.
And they said "Yes, it is such a place" but it's not on the map but they know where it is.
Anyway, they took us to Neunburg because Neunburg, you know, Neuburg is a town.
You know? Big town.
They already had the Jewish community set up, you know, getting people say all the records.
So they asked me where I come and I told them, I come from such and such a place. I'm a Jew.
Anyway, we - I was a youngster, so from there, they took me to Indersdorf.
I didn't know where Indersdorf..
When we got there - of course, Indersdorf is a monastery.
I don't know if you know Indersdorf? Indersdorf is a monastery.
They made us comfortable, you know, there was a lot of room. So it's a big, very big place.
We were there for a few months. Quite a few months.
So one day, they said, look, we're going to take you to England.
Now, I knew I had family in Palestine.
I said what are you doing - I want to go to where I've got brothers and sisters in Palestine. Brother and sisters.
I want to go. But in those days, you couldn't go to Palestine.
If you know there's the.. the British mandate, you couldn't go into Palestine.
Anyway, they took us to England. They asked me for a date of birth and everything.
So, I genuinely didn't know.
So I had to give a date of birth. So anything that came into my mind, I just gave a date.
This is my day, this is my month and this is my year. Right.
Now, from then, from - until today, I always go. All my legal documents, passports, always on that day.
But I always wanted to find out my real date of birth.
You know, you're curious, you want to know your date of birth.
So for many years I applied to the Romanian embassy in England but they couldn't find - I say: "I would like my date of birth."
So they, they're terrible, the Romanians.
You know, I don't want to go into details in politics but they're useless.
They're useless.
So they said: "No, we can't find because there was a lot of fighting in that days, things were destroyed..."
Anyway, but I was persistent. I kept persisting.
Eventually, they did find my date of birth.
My certificate - my birth certificate. And I saw that on my birth certificate, I wasn't far out.
I was only a few months, so I've got two birthdays.
I've got my official birthday and the birthday that I got on the documents.
But I've never changed it.
I never ever changed it. Always my passport, all my documents, but my real date..
So I found here, so I wondered the date they have got here.
On my record. I found my name and my number.
Where did they get this? I must have given them, they didn't invent it.
So I must have given them the date. I suppose I just gave a date.
I just gave a date of birth. Anyway, so -
IV: Maybe you can tell us, what is the exact date?
MH: My exact date is the 10th of december 1930. That's my -
Woman: '31!
MH: What?
Woman: '31!
MH: 1931. That's the real birth.
Anyway, but I was only a few months out. Difference..
Anyway, they took us to England.
And from Indersdorf and they said, they are going to take us to England.
They do what they want. They take us where they want. I don't, I've got no choice.
They took me to England, we landed there - in a place near Southampton.
I don't know if you've heard of Southampton? The town, there's a small airfield.
And they brought - you had to be under 16.
You had to be under 16 to be taken.
Now, people had no documents of date of birth. You could say anything.
They had to believe you.
But they could also see, roughly, how old you were.
But some people, they wanted to go, so they said. Even if you were a year older or something..
You were taken to England.
But that was not the real date of birth.
Anyway, they took us to England and we were sent to ah, center first of all near Southampton.
From there, we were there for a few days, and then they sent people to hostels.
Now, those who came from Indersdorf, we called it the Munich.
We are always known as "The Boys", we are known.
To this day, we are from the community in England, we are always known as "The Boys."
Because we were boys then, so we call ourselves, still call ourselves "The Boys".
Books were written, it's always on "The Boys", the books.
So, we were sent to hostels, I was sent to a hostel in Manchester.
I was sent to a hostel in Manchester.
I was there for a few months. It was a religious hostel.
Now, although I was brought up in a very religious family, but life has changed, you know.
Completely. My life is different now.
I've got no parents, I've got nothing and I'm responsible for myself.
So, I was there for a few months, in that hostel in Manchester.
I didn't like it, you know. It was sort of too strict for my liking, I sort of became a rebel.
You know, I had my own views about life.
And ah.. Yes, so I wanted - I'm staying still in Manchester.
So I wanted to find out about my brother and sister in Palestine.
It was still Palestine, that was before the state was established. I'm talking about 1945 and 1946.
So, I've got no address but I know a name.
I know his name is Michael Hecht. I'm Hecht. His name was Michael.
So, how do I find him. So I asked somebody to write "Michael Hecht, Palestine".
That's all I know, he's in Palestina.
The letter was sent, "Michael Hecht, Palestine", and it got there.
Because at that time, Palestine had only about 300,000 to 350,000 Jewish people. So, there were not many Hechts.
So it got to him. That's how he found out that we were alive.
We explained in the letter that Jacob - Jack - and Martin, we were alive, we were in Manchester.
Then afterwards, we told him the details what happened to the rest of the family. They knew nothing.
Well, they were in Palestine. So, that's how we started to communicate, that's how I found him.
We were in Manchester and then, I came back to a hostel in London.
And I started to go to school, there were (???).
I was going to a ORT school, you know, you've heard of the ORT?
That they do - teaching and also a profession. So, I was taking engineering.
So I was - for three years, I went to school. I studied.
And also.. Then, at the age of 17, you sort of started to make your own life.
But I always wanted to go to Palestine. To see my family.
Then, of course, in 1948 when the state was established, 1947/48, I was working earning just enough to keep myself.
You know, paying for rent, have a living.
And I was, in those days, there was the old English money, the shillings.
And I remember, I was saving up every week, like the equivalent to half a pound every week, you know.
To save enough money to go to Israel, to see my family, you know.
Because until then, we were responsi.. - the Jewish community, they were responsible for us.
We used to get pocket money, like the equivalent of a euro or two a week, just to buy something.
Anyway, but then I saved up enough and I decided to - I managed to go to Palestine.
In those days, there was no flights, you couldn't fly.
The only way to go to Palestine, to Israel, you have to go by ship.
Now, there was no shipping from England.
So you had to go either to France, to Marseille, there was -
Israel had already established, it's, it was called the "ZIM Line".
A shipping company, you know, they used.. would all ships from Germany or from Italy, you know.
And they were running every week from Marseille or from Venice to Haifa.
It took a week to go by boat. So, I made my way to Marseille.
From England. And then I took a boat from Marseille to Haifa. Took about a week, sailing.
And I remember, when I arrived, they were waiting for me on the dock.
And of course, I've never seen them before, I don't know because I was a child when they left for Palestine.
I didn't know how they looked. I've never seen my family.
They were waiting for me but they had already sent me some photos from them at the time, from Palestine.
So I more or less knew how they looked.
They were waiting for me, can you imagine, brothers.. Story of my life. Were they.
Would you like to ask me any questions?
IV: Yes, yes, some questions.. coming back to Flossenbürg.
Because you remember very well. So - alles hinten noch okay?
CM: Hmm.
IV: So, you remember where your barracks have been?
MH: Yes, I pointed out, from here.
If you go along the trees, right to the end, well, you go down to the crematorium, you go down.
Of course, the barracks don't exist there anymore. They are not there anymore.
There were four barracks there.
And if you go to the end, by the last barrack, there is a, there was a toilet and a washroom, a washroom.
That's where my barrack was. Because I remember, I could see the barrack on to the other side which I was told was a brothel.
That I do remember. And of course, they used to bring us out from that direction to the Appell.
The Appell. This is where I was working, in this building.
I was sorting out the clothing, when people were made to undress, to go into the showerroom.
That's where I - my job.
IV: And you've been here until the camp was evacuated.
So can you tell me a little bit about the situation in these last months of Flossenbürg?
MH: Condi-, conditions were terrible.
I know one thing, maybe people who were in the other barracks didn't see it.
But I used to see it because I used to bring - my barrack was the last one - they used to bring all the bodies there.
To the crematorium. So I used to see it from our barracks.
Depends where you were situated, as I say.
There, the houses are there now, there were barracks. All along.
Now, I cannot understand to this day, why they allowed houses to be built here.
And if they did allow, who would want to live in houses where there was a concentration camp where people were murdered.
You know, this, I cannot understand. Who would want to live there.
Would you want to live in there, in a place like that?
IV: No, never.
MH: Why did they allow houses to be built?
I asked that question. So I was told, the reason these people built houses, they were working in the quarries.
And they had to house them somewhere, so they built these houses for them.
They were workers who were working in the quarries.
But - I wouldn't want to live here where people were murdered.
This was a - this was a factory for murder. They learned, they were fantastic, the Germans.
They're so efficient, it is unbelievable.
Look, here you've got a people, cultured, intelligent, with every single - you know, they know how to build the best thing, you know.
And yet, they learn to murder. This was a factory of murdering people.
Not just here, all the concentration camps.
But this is absolutely - people were being murdered by, daily hanged.
In this center where the Appellplatz was, they used to hang them.
We used to stand there, watching they hanging people. Or beaten to death..
First of all, they whipped them, then the hanged them. Right in the center of the Appellplatz.
In the morning or in the evening. People who came back from work had to be counted again.
They always had to know the number. Cause people were dying out ever night.
So in the morning, they had to have an Appell again. And then in the evening, again.
Twice a day we had Appells here. Right in the center.
There.. it's unbelievable. How people - look, don't ask me how I survived.
I don't know.
I can't even say if it was courage, willpower. I was young and I said: "No. I want to survive. I'm not giving in."
Some people just - like flies. They give in, had enough, you can't take it anymore.
You know. But I was determined, it's in my nature.
I just know, I'm not giving in. I was determined.
I saw people you.. it was unbelievable. You know, they just gave up, can't take it anymore.
You know, there's a slice of bread -
When I was working in Dörnhau in Silesia, we were given every day in the evening, coming back from the work, a slice of bread.
In the morning, they said they're giving us hot coffee, just hot water, you know.
Went to work, worked like a slave, all day.
And in the evening, when they brought us back to the camp.
You know what the (???) is? We call the (???) You had to have a dish.
And if you lost the dish - always, doesn't matter where you went, slept or working, you always had it with you.
Tied to you. If you didn't have it, you didn't get no food.
Because when you came in, you went with the dish to get a ladle of food. If you didn't have it.
So you made sure that this was always - you wouldn't let it go. You wouldn't - and it was always hanging by your trousers.
You see. So in the evening, you come in, always, slice of bread. And the ladle of soup. Hot water with cabbage.
Of course, people can't survive. Especially you, ah, they, you're slaving, like a slave labourer.
And they're whipping you, people were beaten at work if they couldn't carry on anymore. You know.
I remember the work I did. I was working in the quarries.
And then, they transferred me, they were building a station on the mountains.
I'm telling you, the company.. What's the name? They know the name of the company. The.. ah, German company.
IV: I don't know but we can find out.
MH: They're the biggest, several engineers, they're building bridges..
Anyway, this was a company. And I was lucky.
There, I was working for a few weeks. I was working on the train. You know, ah.. you're shifting earth and had these little wagons.
I was on the Bremsen, you know what the Brems is?
IV: Yeah.
MH: I was working on the - on the Brems. So I was lucky there, I was working for a few weeks on that.
And at least, at that time, I didn't have to dig.
It's always, transferring, we had this narrow little gage in the railway line.
So we transferring earth from one place to another. I was working on the Bremsen.
If it was going down there. And then, I was moved again, you see.
Everyday, I remember, I used to go out to work say, in groups. It depends on what job you had.
They had different work. Used to go like, 100, 200 workers there.
And in the evening, bringing bodies back.
They couldn't, they were like flies. Falling like flies at work.
How can, how long can you.. You can do it for a few days, a week.
But day after day, so they kept in there, they kept bringing in again.
To make up the number. They needed workers. They needed workers.
IV: So, and in these last days, so here in Flossenbürg, ah. People told me it was very crowded. Everyday new transports came.
MH: Absolutely.
IV: Do you have some idea, can you remember, what happened here?
MH: This.. No, that's I'm telling you.
They brought in so many people in the end, as I say, they brought me from there.
I was here, I don't know. They must have records, two or three months.
I must have been two or three - because some of the boys told me they were only here for a few days.
But I was brought - you can tell by the number, they've got numbers here.
The year and the number, so I came in 1945 here and afterwards there's more numbers.
People came much later. Much later.
Now, the whole idea, I've learned now, when they.. evacuated Flossenbürg and they took us.
You know, where we, they were going to take us?
I know now, I've read all the books, I've read the records.
We were going to be taken to Dachau. To Dachau.
Why, Dachau was still in the hands of the Germans, that was one of the last concentration camps, you see.
So, these - the people from Flossenbürg were being taken..
But we never reached Dachau. We were liberated before Dachau.
So, this was the idea, from when they evacuated people, you know.
So as I say, I was liberated at Stamsried, a village, how far - it's a long distance.
Can you imagine, they were going to march us from here to -
You know how many miles it is, how many kilometres from here to Dachau? What, then? 200? 250 kilometres?
IV: Maybe 250.
MH: Yeah, around - I looked in the map, around 200.. So, they were going to march us from here to Dachau.
IV: Nobody would have survived.
MH: Now, as I say, even before, when we were liberated.
I don't know the distance we marched.
We.. left here, what, 3-4000, I don't know how many.
Only 500 survived by the time we were liberated.
So many people - every few yards, there was another shot. Another shot.
People were just falling out, they couldn't march anymore.
You had - they never. Three, four days, we didn't get any food at all. Nothing. Nothing.
At night-time, they used to put us in the forest. Resting.
And I used to see the SS eating, you know.
Another thing I wanted to point out - it's not here anymore, you see there.
Along here, there was a little pond, there was a pond.
There was a pond in the middle. It's not there, I'm telling people - look, I remember the pond.
It's not there anymore.
So, one day, I shall never forget it.
An SS man was walking here along, so sometimes, you had nothing to do all day.
You were just.. you know, you didn't have no work or you were just hanging around.
I saw an SS man coming along and he was eating something.
And as he's walking along, he threw it, whatever it was, a potato, an apple, what, I don't know what it was, he threw it away into the pond.
Now, I saw that. I saw that, so naturally, I was running like mad to pick it up.
To see if I can get.. And there was another boy, he must have seen the same thing.
We were all running into the pond..
So when we got there, to the pond, there wasn't much water. It was just a small pond.
I saw a man right push it out.. and now he managed to get it. You know what it was?
A hot potato he was eating. The SS man.
And when I'm telling people, see there was a little pond there.
You can't see, everything has changed. All this what you see is not what it was like.
There were barracks, here.. and along barracks here. If you go, I don't know, have you been to Dachau?
IV: Yes.
MH: There, you can see where the barracks were.
In this (???), nothing has changed. Here, of course, they have changed everything.
People who don't know, came, say - a person came here, doesn't know that there was a camp or anything.
You wouldn't think so, from a distance. Until you go and you see what it's like..
From a distance, you wouldn't know that there was a concentration camp as you entered.
You see houses here, you see beautiful pine-trees, you know. I think, also beautiful, beautiful area.
You know... This was a killing machine.
IV: During all this time, I think you nearly spent one year in these camps.
MH: Yes, one year because the Hungarians were brought - you see, if you know the history, Eichmann, it was coming to the end of the war.
They knew Germany was losing the war. Alright.
The Hungarian Jews were the last Jews who still remained.
They had murdered, they had killed all the Polish Jews, the Latvians, and all of the rest of Europe were already finished.
They were the last, last remnants were the Hungarian Jews.
Now Eichmann was in Budapest. I don't know if you read the history of what happened.
Now, the war is coming to an end, they were losing, let's say, don't know, they said: "These are the last people we got to murder." The Final Solution.
That was the Final Solution. So, they couldn't get enough trains, you know.
When we reached ahm, Auschwitz, the crematoriums were working overtime. They couldn't kill people enough, ah, quick enough.
As many, you know..
They couldn't get enough trains to get the last. Because you know, the Russians were not far.
When I'm telling you, we were so naive in our village. Do you know.
If we had known what was going on in the world, what was happening and we knew -
If we had known that the Russians were only 20-30 kilometres away, the front was..
They were losing, the Germans.
We were in the forest, we could have hidden. We, we could have survived, we didn't know.
We were so.. Actually, naive is the wrong word.
It's not right. We were ignorant, we didn't know what's going on.
We were an isolated place in the Carpathian Mountains. We didn't know what was going on.
Had we known, we could have hidden in the mountains. They would never have found us. In the.. in the forest.
And.. after we were taken away, do you know, it was only about 2-3 weeks later that it was liberated.
Where the Russians were.. It was only two, three weeks later after that we were taken away.
All that area was liberated by the Red Army. So, you see.. we didn't know.
I'm here today because we didn't know.
Had we known, it was easy for us to hide. We had our own places, we had a forest.
We found, I found the record now, we had so many.. ah, what's the name, properties in Romania.
Because I tried to get back from Romania my property.
So they said, you have to do this, you know, legal things. So, I appointed a lawyer in Romania, to do the research.
So I said, look here.
I can give you a few names because it was still going from, back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that area.
So, every property that you had, had a name and a number.
So, when I was a boy of eleven, twelve, I used to go in the fields. So I knew names and numbers.
So I said to the lawyer, look here. I want you to work on my case to get our property back.
Cause we entitled to it. I didn't sell it or something, it's.. we were taken away.
So, I says, I can give you half.. six names.
So, we paid him, he says: "I'm going to do research."
So, we find the legal documents, everything.
It was not in the village because it was in the town, Vișeu, where we were taken. That's the nearest town.
The records are kept. He worked for about a week and he found 90 properties.
We didn't, I didn't even realise how wealthy we were, big landowners.
He found 90 properties on our name, on our family name. You know.
So, all this land, we had forests, land, all different, you know.
We had big farms with cattle, we had thousands of sheep and cattle.
We have, very big farmers. And today..
Even today, I'm fighting all the time, it's a waste of time, I can't get my property back.
Because the Romanians are corrupt and they, they don't want to give you..
All I'm doing is, I've given up, I'm not fighting anymore.
I've just had enough. I've paid lawyers, they're corrupt, they're rotten.
All they want to do is take your money and do nothing. In Romania.
IV: So one last question.
CM: Halt.