IV: Thank you for finding the time for us... I thought we could just start, warm up to each other by talking.
I'll ask you a few questions. You can talk about anything that occurs to you.
Later we can move sections around if we want.
Uh, why don't you begin by telling us where you were born and what your name is.
So that we can get to know you.
SB:...I'll do that. I was born in 1927 in Poland. Father Josef, my mother Amalia.
I am the youngest of the brothers. I had an older sister, who was born in 1920.
Roman was born in 1923 and Alec was born in 1924. I was born in '27.
My bro...my father had four brothers and a sister.
They all had...families with six, two, five children. Not one of them remains.
We three brothers remain.
We remain because we worked for the Wehrmacht.
And we knew...in 1942 we knew what was coming...in Polish they called it "wysiedlenia", that means resettlement.
That is why we stayed with the work and my sister worked and father worked.
Only mother didn't work, she was at home.
But sadly, my sister was sent away with my parents. And we three remained.
I already mentioned that only three brothers remained, from the entire family.
In 19...actually 1939, when the war began, we were only at home until 1941.
We lived in the old flat. In the flat where we lived before the war.
It started getting worse for Jews right at the beginning. It didn't happen all at once.
Various restrictions...for example we couldn't go into the park, sit in the park.
We couldn't go to the school of course.
We could not shop at the market until 11 o'clock. And at 11 o'clock we could shop.
And of course we all had to go to work.
That was work, you could say forced labor.
Because it was for the company Wolfer and Goebel. They built streets.
That is where Roman worked...for the company Wolfer and Goebel.
We worked, my brother and I, at the barracks of the Wehrmacht, we did all kinds of work there.
And uh that was...it was not very good.
We were uh...
repressed. Can you say that? Repressed.
It was bad. The earnings were very...we received two Zloty for each day we worked
That was not enough to live.
We had to sell things we had from the house, things that we could get.
That was until '41. Roman was sent from home to a camp Dębica, Pustków.
The Germans built a... actually he never knew what it was supposed to be. Because he ran away in '42.
Didn't know how it ended. But there were many streets and buildings built...It may have been for the military.
And Poles worked there too. The Poles arrived early to work and after work they went home.
My brother was in the SS camp. But the Poles couldn't speak German. My brother spoke German.
He was an interpreter. And as an interpreter he was also at the work site and in the office.
He got the plan and saw that so many Poles worked there, so many. So many Poles. He did that with the Poles.
One time my brother came into the...barracks where the office was. The engineer was a civilian. But there were also SS people there.
An SS man came out and said to my brother: "You stole my pistol."
My brother said: "Excuse me I just came in, I was not in the room.
I was not in your room. I never go in there. I just came from the office of the engineer."
He said: "No, you stole my pistol."
He said: "Stole my pistol" Any my brother said: "No, I did not steal your pistol."
But my brother saw that he couldn't get him to agree, he said:
"I give you my word of honor that I did not steal the pistol."
As long as he said "I didn't steal", the SS man understood.
But my brother said: "I give you my word of honor that I didn't do that."
He took his hand and slapped him: "Since when does a Jew have a word of honor?"
Of course he had the pistol....he found the pistol. If he hadn't you can imagine what would have happened to my brother.
And he stayed there until early '42. Two..
My brother Alec and I worked in the munitions camp of the Wehrmacht.
And we traveled home every day. That was 12 kilometers to my city Bochnia.
Jews were not allowed to take the train, we had special permission, we were 150 men...
Every day we traveled to Klaj, to the munitions camp and then back home in the evening.
Just ten peolpe...the storage, the camp was in the woods...we stayed there...slept...ten men for fire standby duty.
So each time a different ten men stayed there.
That's how it was until ... In '42 my brother left Pustków, he simply left for Bochnia.
We were afraid that he ...they had his address, that they would come and pick him up in Bochnia.
And we knew what would happen to him when the caught him.
There was someone in Klaj, from the Wehrmacht, Private Zimmer.
I went to Private Zimmer...and told him: "Private Zimmer, I have a favor to ask."
"My brother is in Bochnia and he is not working." I didn't mention that he had walked away from Pustków.
"I have a brother and he doesn't really have any work
I would like him to join us here in Klaj to work." He said: "no problem."
He got him an ID and permission to travel on the train. And he came.
And he stayed every night to sleep. Working at the fire...
Didn't go home. He stayed there.
That's how it was until 1942.
In 1942 we already knew.
Well actually we didn't have any contact between cities. We were isolated from every city.
We didn't know about Lodz and we didn't know what was happening in the Warsaw Ghetto.
We didn't know anything at all. We didn't know what was happening in the Krakow Ghetto. We only knew what was in Bochnia.
But we did know about the resettlement from the ghetto.
We also knew that the people who worked would not be sent away and could stay in the ghetto.
But that is not how it was.
From Bochnia, that was a....it was a Friday. We went to work in Klaj.
An order came that everyone should go into the barracks. Stop working and go into the barracks.
We went there and were told: "Go home and bring back sheets and clothes.
and you are going to stay in Klaj, you aren't going back to Boch...back home to sleep. You'll stay in Bochnia.
We traveled home, Friday, and brought everything and came back to Klaj.
We were 150 men and how we worked and then they permitted ten women to come.
The ten women worked for us in the kitchen.
Back then we got products from....from the Wehrmacht.
We were 150 men and ten women.
Two men, married, with children, did not come back to Klaj.
Private Zimmer...the brother-in-law of one of the men who didn't come back was Mr. Stein, and he was the camp elder.
He didn't work but he was the camp elder.
And that was his brother-in-law. He asked Private Zimmer:
"Since he didn't return so go to Bochnia, bring him back to Klaj."
Him and one other man. Two men didn't return.
So he traveled to Bochnia, Private Zimmer, and brought them back. That was Monday.
He told us what had happened...that the entire ghetto...
There was a large square not far from the train station, that is where they were all concentrated.
All the people from Bochnia were there, sitting on the square. So it began on Saturday.
And on Monday they were still at the square. The first ones to arrive at the square were there for three days. It happened that...
My sister was in Poland. She had hidden.
But she heard what happened. She thought that they would not send away everyone.
But she heard that everyone...she came voluntarily.
She could have hidden, but she heard that her parents were gone...so she went with her parents.
Private Zimmer brought the two men back to Klaj, Markheim and Rosen.
They told us what had happened but there was nothing more we could do.
And the next day, Tuesday, my brother Alec went to Lieutenant Hofmann. He was the officer of the Wehrmacht in Klaj.
He went to Officer Hofmann...and said: "Mr. Officer, I would like to travel to Bochnia."
He said: "You can't travel there."
He said: "Officer, I have to travel to Bochnia. I want to know what happened to my family."
He said: "You can't do that."
He said to him.. But he was a very...he wasn't SS, Officer Hoffmann
He said to him: "Mr Officer, I am going to Bochnia." And he went to Bochnia. And he came back.
Tuesday he came back. Everything was gone.
I was 14 1/2 years old at the time. When I heard that I started to cry.
Private Zimmer came and called to me.
"Salusz, why are you crying? How can I help you?"
"You can't help me. Everything is gone."
And we stayed in Klaj, Didn't go back to Bochnia. Lived in Klaj.
And there were five barracks. We stayed there until 1943.
The Bochnia ghetto still existed. But there were very few people from Bochnia in the Bochnia ghetto.
They all came from the area around Bochnia, from the villages and...
There was a small town, Wiśnicz and äh Brzesko. They all came to the Bochnia ghetto.
CM: We have to take a short break.
SB: Take a break?
CM: The microphone.
Yes. right.
SB: So we went ..not every Sunday, but every second Sunday, Lieutenant Hofmann allowed it.
Not everyone but some of the people, of course under guard, but not by the SS, but by the Wehrmacht, by soldiers.
We walked the 12 km to Bochnia.
He allowed us to go to Bochnia....to be deloused. This gave us a chance to go to Bochnia.
But we didn't find anyone there. Everyone was gone.
We stayed until 1943, May '43.
We left early in the morning...to get up and go to work.
We went out and saw that the SS were all around the barracks.
They had arrived with two or three trucks and...
put us on the trucks and brought us to Plaszow.
Plaszow, that was a camp not far from...a suburb of Krakow.
It was a large camp...were all...
It was actually a work camp. It was a concentration camp but not an extermination camp.
There wasn't a crematorium, it was only a work camp. There were 24 or 25,000 people working there.
And a tailor, a shoemaker...everything the military needed. All the work was for...
We arrived in Plaszow and they asked if there were any carpenters among us.
We stepped up, 50 men, said we are carpenters.
Pardon, among the carpenters, 50 men, one of them was a...
He built furniture, a Stolar? Stolarz is the Polish word.
And one of them, he could push nails into the wall.
Se we left...there were many engineers...Jews in the camp.
But there was one woman, a good engineer. She was very small, tiny.
And she explained to us how, and we started to build barracks.
The barracks were very close to each other. They were worried that a fire might break out...and the whole camp would burn.
So we took down every second barrack and built it again...at a different site. That is how we worked and built.
And later... all the experts lived in the camp but they worked in Krakow.
They went to work every day in Krakow.
Meanwhile we were given the order. New barracks had arrived.
They called out "new grounds." Below was the camp and the roll-call square and the washroom.
And above was...that is where they built the new grounds. We built the barracks.
They closed off the camp. No one could leave the camp. Everyone had to stay.
All the workshops in Krakow, everything was moved to the new grounds, in the barracks.
That was very bad in the camp because when the people had something, they came to Krakow..they could...
The Poles brought us bread and they could...
Now the could not come in and do business, but the Poles brought...there was...
But then they closed off the camp and everyone had to stay in the new grounds. It was very bad.
Because we were only given one bread for the whole week. Not every day a slice of bread.
You were given a bread, a bit of white cheese and marmalade. And then...at noon we were given a soup.
But that was the bread for the whole week. Said...do what you want, eat the whole week or eat it alone.
That was very bad. That was a very very long time.
When the building of the new grounds was finished...the guards were Ukrainians.
I don't know if they were Ukrainian or Russian. From Wlassow, Army Wlassow. That is the army that...
They came over to Germany...are you familiar with Wlassow?
And it was...they were our guards and they had a barrack in the camp.
Where they lived. We had built guard barracks for the SS.
The female engineer was the head engineer there.
And we started to build and one time...
We set up the wall, supported by a board and we went into the ground with the wood and there we...
The wall shouldn't fall and after a few meters we had the binding...that's it.
We arrived early in the morning. It was a wall, around eight or ten meters long.
And we were there, finishing the work, the barracks. The next day we arrived and the wall...the wall was on the ground.
It was...there had been wind and rain during the night. The earth was soft and the wall had fallen down.
It was our bad luck that Göth arrived. He came by and saw the wall lying on the ground.
"What happened?" he asked the engineer, the woman.
"What happened here?" she said....told him what happened, with the rain, with the wind.
That the ground was soft and the wall had fallen.
He said to... Hujar was with him. He was a big guy, Hujar.
He said: "Take her off to the side and kill her."
"Where?" - "There on the square."
Did you see the film, uh, Sch...Rech...Sch...uh, uh.
IV: Schindlers List.
SB: Did you see the film? That is in it, the woman being shot. He shot her at the square.
And we built and it was hard, very hard work. Very hard work.
All the people in the barracks, all the workshops were inside the barracks.
But for us it was very very hard, because we were out there in summer, in rain, in winter, in snow, 24 , 20 degrees frost.
Did everything outside. Not much to eat. It was very hard.
Every once in a a while we were lucky, when it was very important work.
We built, for example, for the camp elder Chilowicz, once we built a dining hall.
Chilowicz arrived. "Finish the work and everyone will get a half a bread."
We worked until eight, nine at night, so that we could get half a bread.
Half a bread, that was a lot.
Uh.
What I am telling, that was the life, really. But in between there was a lot. What is a lot?
Amon Göth rode across the fields, came into the camp.
He never went out, back to the camp, shot three or four people.
He didn't come every day, that was lucky for us, But when he came to the camp he always...
Never scolded. Just pulled out the pistol and fired and rode on.
Hujar too, he was then....Göth told him to shoot the engineer. Him too.
We were standing there doing the work. A boy stood next to me, Strikowsky.
I didn't see the SS man. He didn't see him either.
Suddenly I heard the shot. And I felt him fall. He shot him and moved on.
When we were building the new grounds the barracks were brought by train.
In Plaszow there was a track, it went into the camp. We unloaded it all and put everything next to the train cars.
Early in the morning every day there was roll call... a large roll-call square and every block had an SS man.
There was the block elder and he spoke to the people and to the SS man:
"Block 20, Block 21, so and so many people are there." Not people, prisoners.
And the SS man went through and counted, checked that everything was in order. He also reported. He...
When the roll call was over all the people there had to go to work above at the new grounds.
Everyone had to take a part of the barracks from below...
The entire grounds were not finished. We were building the whole time.
Everyone had to take parts...stone, wall or a piece, however big.
But they were not allowed to go without taking something to the new grounds.
Göth's villa was up above. The roll-call square was below.
He often came out ...without clothes...just wearing pants and he had a rifle with him.
Is that what it's called? Carabiner?
And he aimed. And he fired.
Often he just caused an injury. But usually he killed.
That was sport for him. He went out and fired.
The lucky ones stayed alive. The unlucky got shot.
That means, we were all there ...and everyone knew about it.
We knew what was but not what might come in a half hour.
We lived with the now. Not with what might come later.
I don't know if you all are interested in this but in 1944...yes...there was a Jew from...Krakow...A Jew from Switzerland.
And he was free at first. As a Swiss citizen he was free. And he received food from Switzerland for us...
Erfl...uh...noodles, different kinds of food.
But he knew we wouldn't get it. That it would go into the camp and the SS would eat it and...
I think that...I don't know what was done.
Amon Göth had many, many...
When we went to Klaj we were lined up and Os Zdrojewski arrived, an SS man.
And said, like this with his hands: "Everything out, everything out."
I knew where to search. There. There. Gold, watches, all the...money, everything was brought
to them in a basket and everything was thrown in. Everything.
When we were in Klaj we were, we still had money... and...
With the Wehrmacht no one took anything from us. It was ours.
But those who came to Plaszow, the whole...everything.
It wasn't an inspection, to see who had so much money and who was there. It was.