We knocked on the door, the first door, whether we can sleep there.
People were usually good, so they let us sleep. You know, and eh..
We eventually got to the outskirts of Neunburg.
There was a German man with a white band, came up and he said, he was appointed by the American authorities, they had already occupied, you know, this part of Germany.
By the American authorities, to look after the people coming back from the camps.
They would like accommodate us, give us something to eat, then accommodate us, if we follow him to Neunburg.
We followed him to Neunburg, took us to the eh.. the Stadthalle, you know what it is called, to the townhall.
He took us to the townhall, there was a, two queues.
One queue where you registered, another queue where you got bread. Bread and coffee.
But first, you had to register.
We went, we registered and then we got black bread and coffee.
We were so hungry, you know, when you went - through a window, you got black coffee and a quarter of a bread.
You went back to the queue, ate it up and have another one. This didn't matter.
And then, he came up, this man said, "You wait here. And eh.. I will come, I will come and find you accommodation, with a German family."
We waited a long time.
While we were sitting, waiting, I said to (???) two frenchmen, wearing like brand-new Nazi uniforms.
I said, "Where did you get it?" He said, "Behind there, there's a ladder, it goes up in the loft."
So I went in there, went up the ladder in the loft. Soon got Nazi flags, books, bits of clothing.
So, I found two brown shirts, obviously Hitler Youth.
One was linen shirt, one was (???) shirts.
Brown shirt, it fitted me, I tried it on, it fitted me.
And I found breeches, you know, breeches. Yellow velvet breeches, I found, but fitted me - it was also from obviously, from a Hitler youth because it was small.
And I put this on.
And the jacket I was wearing.. And I found a pair of white socks.
Put it on, I lost, I lost my boots because when we were travelling on the train, we had to jump out, so I thought, they were killing me.
When we came back, there were bodies in the train, they shot up, from the bombing.
So I called out to somebody who was sitting there, I knew him, "Can you get me his shoes?" They were tennis shoes.
White tennis shoes.
So the white tennis shoes was better than shoes that I couldn't walk in.
So I was wearing white tennis shoes. Now, these white socks I put on in the tennis shoes, I looked a picture like this, jacket from the camp and brown shirt.
And another shirt under my arm.
I went down.
While I went down, you know, I went out for something, and two Americans passed by and they looked at me and they burst out laughing.
I was wearing the cap from the camp.
They burst out laughing at me, you know.
I went back. I went back, sitting there, waiting, in came two Hitler Youths, in full uniform.
One was wearing a rucksack and hanging from the rucksack, were jackboots.
German army boots. Brand new. Like just from the factory.
And he was wearing a pair of (???) boots, you know.
I looked at him, I said, "Hitler youths?" They said, "No, no, they are refugees."
I said, "I know better."
I said, "Look. You got two pair of boots, I have none, I want - I want one pair of boots."
They said to me, "Do you mind if I gave you the one that I was wearing?"
But I said, "That's fine with me." They were too, the size was too big for me anyway. So he took off, he took off and he gave me.
Actually, about a few minutes later, two American military policemen came in and arrested them.
I don't know, how.. and took them away.
So this, this - I had yellow boots, white socks, and these high boots.. I was a really picture. And I was waiting there.
Eventually, the man came in.
He said, "You come with me."
He went to a house, knocked on the door. He said, "We are full up." The old story.
Everywhere he went in an apartment block, every door - "Full up." Every house - "Full up."
And whatever he has told.. So.
He looked at his watch, he said, "It will be curfew", the Americans also instituted curfew for the Germans.
He said, "I have to go back."
So we went back to the townhall, he went to the man who was in charge of these people.
He said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't find him accommodation."
He said, "You will be in trouble or we will be in trouble if we don't find him accommodation. Because of our orders, we must find him accommodation."
So he said, "Do you mind if I take them home?"
He said, "I have a house, a big house, but I already have refugees from East Germany and I also have got two gypsy boys."
He said, "I don't mind, as long as you give them accommodation."
So he took, he took us home, in Neunburg, an enormous house.
Gave us a room, first floor.
And eh, the.. lady from East Germany came in and said, "What would you like for breakfast?"
I said, "Whatever it's going.."
You know, we're not used to it.
And eh.. We were, we were living in Neunburg at this, in this house for a little while.
The Americans took it over as their headquarters because it was bigger now.
And then we moved to another place where we were told a Kapo is living upstairs.
They gave us one room. They had no children, so.
They had plenty of room to themselves.
I already met some people from the camps who were liberated before us.
And one told me, he got some food, he's got a sack full of rice.
He said, "You want some rice?", I said no..
One day.. two boys, got jobs with the Americans, one in the kitchen and one eh, was cleaning for American officers, their accommodation.
He was cleaning.
I couldn't because a few days earlier, we, not a few days, it must have been a week or a couple of weeks, we heard that there are some Jewish women in the camp in Schwandorf.
But we had to get to Schwandorf because we thought, maybe there's my sister or my mother, you know, we have to get to Schwandorf.
So we went out on the road, we saw a German lorry, it had big chimneys of it burning wood because they had no petrol.
I don't know.. I know the chimneys, and they were going up the hill, they couldn't, they had to get off to push it.
So we thought we will join them, there were several German.
They let us on this waggon and they were going past Schwandorf.
So we knocked on the door and said to the driver, "Do you mind, when you come to Schwandorf, you let us off?"
He didn't answer. We come to Schwandorf, he wouldn't let us off.
We decided to jump, the two boys jumped, they were alright, I jumped, fell like this, broke my arm.
So my arm was broken, so I was taken back to eh.. to Neunburg.
Where they called the American army, sent an army doctor.
He took my right away to the hospital, in Neunburg.
And eh.. And they immediately x-rayed it and put it in plaster.
So I couldn't work, I was there.. all day long, walking in town, seeing boys.
One day, there was a notice.
Outside the townhall.. that anyone of the refugees from the camps who wants to emigrate to America or England or Canada, should register.
So everyone, there were thirty-odd of us in town, everybody registered.
Later on, another notice, everyone who registered should come at such and such date to the townhall, there will be a.. you know, transport waiting for you. And so on..
So we all, you know, happy, you know, took everything, our suitcase.
There was an American transport vehicle, with a, two, one G.I. and the driver.
And we each caught an iron ration, you know, the Americans have the food, an iron ration. Food..
On you go, onto the, we are driving, we are going to England.
One chap was wearing a top hat he got somewhere, and it was trying and singing "Wir fahren nach England.." You know, everybody so happy.
About lunchtime, we came to a village called Winzer. Do you know the area?
IV: A little bit, but I don't..
SB: Near, near Deggendorf.
We came to Winzer, the lorry stops, guards, Polish soldiers and American soldiers.
Open, drive in, the G.I. comes out, "All down."
I said, "We are not going down, we are going to England." We thought, we are driving to -
He said, "I don't know where you're going, I've got here my orders, I should drive you here and leave you here and come back, come back empty. You get off here."
I said, "Where, where are we?" We were in the Polish military camp.
We had to get off, we had no option.
We got off, a Polish officer came, he said, "Come, I'll show you where you are going to live."
Two barracks, we had.
And he said, "Your food, you get together with the soldiers. You queue up and you will get your food in the morning, at lunchtime."
We had quite little ones as well, teenagers and little ones..
We didn't like it.
Because - Oh, yes, they said, "You are not allowed out from the camp. You have to stay where you are."
So it's being from one concentration camp back into the other..
We stayed there like this, maybe two weeks.
One day, a woman from the UNRRA arrived.
And she called us together, she said, she comes from UNRRA, we are the responsibility of the UNRRA.
We are displaced persons.
And.. she's coming to see whether we are alright. Whether we need anything. She heard we're here.
So we told her, first of all, we don't have enough blankets.
We want radio. We don't know what's going on in the world. We are liberated and we still don't know anything.
And most of all, we want permission to go out whenever we like. We are free men.
Why should we be in prison?
So, she said, she wrote all this down.
She said, "I will be back soon with what, I know, what you need."
She came back the following week - oh yes, we said, and of course, we want to go to England.
She said, "I don't know anything about you going to England. But I make inquiries."
When she came back, she brought a radio, she brought blankets.
And she said, you have permission to leave the camp whenever you like.
The food, you can fetch the food in a kessel, what do you call it?
And.. distribute it yourself, because we wanted extra food for the youngsters, for the people who cleaned, who volunteered to clean and so on.
We got everything.
She said, "As far as it's going to England, you won't go to England from here, but there is a DP camp in Indersdorf, in a place called Kloster Indersdorf. If you want to go there, maybe it will be possible."
So we said yes, we will go anyway.
And that's how we eventually came to Indersdorf.
Not all of us.
Because some of the people in Winzer, in the Polish military camp, escaped during the night. So the two lots of guards escaped.
And the rest decided to wait and see what happens.
Now, that was.. the story how we got to Indersdorf. From Indersdorf, I have to tell the story to ..
IV: Okay, so, eh. Then, before making a little break, I can ask some questions again.
SB: Yes.
IV: I promised you, just tell your story, then some questions.
So, let me say, I did many interviews with Holocaust -
SB: Can you come a...
IV: Speak louder? Can you understand me? You can hear me?
SB: Ja.
IV: I did quite a lot of interviews with people who survived the Holocaust.
And I think your story, it's quite a sad story, but I never met somebody who made it such a funny story.
SB: Now, first of all - I have to thank for, my parents, they were good people, they were generous people.
And the people who knew them, helped me.
Without this help, I don't think I would have survived. And I had luck.
I had such luck, I would tell you.. eh.. about a German farmer, you see, Lodz was started as a town by Germans. Not by Poles.
Lodz was a little village, a nothing.
Then somebody, it was under Russia, it wasn't the Polish government then, this was beginning of 19th century, you know.
It was Russia, it also part - oh!
IV: Jetzt müssen wir einfach unterbrechen, weil sonst -
SB: Somebody had this idea that it would be suitable to start a textile business because it had, for textile, you need particular good, good water.
And they got plenty of land with nothing there. Nothing. It..
So, the Polish or the Russian government, whoever it was, invited German manifacturers.
They gave them the land for nothing.
Money to build the factories.
Great advantages they had.
And German factories came, manifacturers came, established a wonderful textile business.
Big, Lodz was a big manufacturer.
And of course, Jews came after, afterwards.
Also manufacturers but the biggest ones were German factories, Scheibler and so on. And the lingua franca in the textile eh business, was German.
Everybody spoke German.
And eh, Lodz was actually under German occupation for a while in the First World War.
So, also following the, following the manufacturers were German farmers, were also poor then, and they got land and they, all villages around were German.
And in the business, my father was buying from German villages, their cooperatives.
So, a German farmer would deliver every day, you know, cream and cheese and all products from the cooperative. For years.
And of course, the men who delivered it, became friends, you know, they spoke only German. With my father.
And the man was coming every day, the same man, on friday, he was coming to collect the money, we sat down, my father, drink coffee, smoke the pipe, you know. And talk.
When the German occupied Lodz, on the 6th of eh.. what was it.. of October, there was no food in town.
People were running around trying to buy, you know, food.
He arrived in a big waggon, like - two ladders on each side, a long waggon, full of food.
Big loafs, full, like big, like big wheels, you know, bread and butter and fruit and vegetables, everything he brought.
He unloaded this, unloaded this, my father thanked him very much.
And said, "How much?"
"What do you mean, how much for the goods?", he said. "When I've got plenty of food and I hear my friend has no food, you are going to pay me no, I am not accepting for-?"
So he said, "I will be back again."
A few days or the following week, he was back again, again with food.
This time, he sat down with my father, I remember, he was sitting and crying.
My father told us later, the Polish army abducted his daughter, he had only, he didn't have a wife, his, he was a widower, abducted his daughter.
And he said, his son will be called up in the German army. He said, "Who is going to help on the farm?"
He said, "I can't manage, I'm an old man." He was crying like a baby.
He said, "And I can't come here, can't deliver you more food. The Nazis and the corps refused to give me permission to deliver food to you."
So, this was a parting.
He was such a good man, such a good friend of, of my family.
IV: So, you told us your story. But what happened to the rest of your family?
SB: Ah. I know, I didn't know till 1960s, when I heard, two of my cousins were alive in Israel.
We went to Israel, I met them, they were, they were from a small town near Lodz.
But during the war, they were living in Lodz.
And they could tell me everything.
They said my mother and sister were sent to Auschwitz, together with them.
They were in the same barrack.
My mother was eh, selected. Because she was older.
And when they came to collect her, my sister went with her, they tried to keep her back.
They said to her, "Do you know where they're going?"
My mother turned around and said, "I know where I'm going. Wherever my mother is going, I am going."
So I know, where my mother went.
My father, I think probably, he was selected when he first was taken to Auschwitz because the whole Lodzer Ghetto was transported to Auschwitz.
Some were selected, some were taken to work.
So I guess, my brother, I knew from the camp, what happened to him. So I know what.. And I..
Distant family, like I had, two, two of my father's cousins were living in Berlin.
They were sent out before, they were thrown out from Germany because they had Polish passports.
One eh, escaped to, to Montevideo.
He survived the war.
And his grandson is still living in Montevideo.
My son went to see him.
And eh, all the family disappeared. Nobody. The close family, I'm the only survivor. Cousins, uncles, nobody.
IV: Maybe, just some sentences - later on, from Indersdorf, you went to England?
SB: Pardon?
IV: From, from Indersdorf, later, you got to England.
SB: I - ?
IV: You got to England, from Indersdorf - Maybe just some sentences, what happened, in England.
SB: Yes, yes. So we stayed in eh, in Indersdorf.
As I said, this is a story.. We stayed there and one day, it was lovely, they really brought us back into civilisation.
I will give an illustration, when we were in Neunburg, we got ration cards. For food.
I remember they gave us double, the food that the Germans, the Americans..
So they came, when we got the ration cards, the next day we went out to collect meat.
We didn't have a piece of meat for five years. I didn't taste meat.
I didn't know what meat was.
And eh, we went to the butcher. Queue, we came in, we said "This", said "This", you know.
He told us what we can have.
He made up, "It will be 12 marks."
We said, "What, what? What do you mean, 12 marks?"
He said, "12 marks, money."
We didn't know money, we never saw money, for five years, we didn't know that we need to pay.
But they were very understanding, they let us go.
So, next day, we said to the Americans who were outside, "Look, we have no money, we can't expect the people to give us this, we got ration cards, we have to pay."
They gave, the Americans with their own pocket, we didn't know what money was.
So we were wild, we were naive and.. we had different ideas.
In the camp, under the Nazis, truth was a lie and a lie was a truth, you never knew.
They were telling like my brother volunteered to go to Germany, from the Lodzer Ghetto.
They said, "Oh, you going to work in Germany, you get a good salary, you have plenty to eat and you'll be able to ride home..."
And you know, lies, lies.
Everything, like telling is "If you are tired, you will be driven, you know.." Driving to be shot. You know.
So you didn't know what was a truth and we had to lie to, to survive.
And this.. right after, you don't.. you become again civilised at all. It took a long time.
When we were already in England and they take us on a holiday, it was practical a year after, they gave us a holiday.
And eh.. Breakfast, the waiter came in with bread, before, he put a plate full of white bread on the table. And before you went to the door, it was gone.
We called him back.
And this several times, just gobbled up, this was already a year after, we were still...
It took time. To get back.
And then of course, I went to college and you know, so..
But it took time, believe me. We were raw. You know, they can turn a human into inhumans.
IV: OK, shall we make a break to say hello to Anna?
SB: Ja.
IV: Then..