SB: We spoke about that yesterday.
There were many who closed the door on the past and didn't want to talk about it and the children pushed their parents to speak about it.
Some were successful, others were not. Other parents took their secret with them to the grave.
On the other hand, it was hard to find someone to listen.
I am talking about the early years when we arrived in the country. I am talking about Israel.
We were -- well I don't want to criticize - but we were asked why we had been so passive.
Later, it turned out, not everyone was passive. And by the way, the whole system was designed to keep us passive.
To break us down morally so that we were unable to engage in resistance.
But there were places, like the Warsaw Uprising, 1942, yes, I'm referring to the Jewish uprising, the ghetto uprising.
Or there were similar uprisings in other camps, for example Treblinka, in Belzec, in Poland, where groups formed in the camp and made an uprising.
But they also had to fight inmates in the camp.
Because there were people in the camps, who were opposed to it.
Because they knew that as soon as an uprising occurred, this troop would be revealed.
And they still had the hope of surviving.
As I said, in recent years there has been a tendency in the world, I sense it throughout the whole world, to acquire information from primary sources about what happened during the war.
Because people have recognized that it won't be long before this primary source is gone and people will only have information from various narratives about what happened.
So today various authors are emerging who were not previously known, yes, writing books and the books are known today.
I am speaking for Israel. And the same from people who spoke of their experiences, their biography, be it in Yad Vashem, or with Spielberg.
IV: In the archive.
SB: In the Spielberg Archive.
IV: Were you able to speak about it, did you want to, from the very beginning, were you able to emotionally?
SB: I wanted to speak and I was willing to speak to whoever would listen.
But I did not always find people who were willing to listen, as I said.
The same thing again, Mr. Ulrich asked me yesterday about my sons, whether they were interested. And I said, not only my sons, also my grandchildren.
With the grandchildren it begins differently. Young children always ask questions.
"Saba," Saba means grandfather or grandpa, yes, "what is that?", then I have to explain it to them.
Explaining to each child in a way appropriate to his age so that he understands.
And that is how the interest continued to grow, up to today and I am interested in this.
The older grandchildren have all been to Europe, mostly to Poland, to visit the extermination camps.
And I hope that the younger children, who are not ready yet, that they will do this too.
IV: There were many people who survived and later immigrated to Israel and America who said they would never return to Germany.
Many stopped speaking German as a way to make a cut or because they couldn't bear it.
How was it for you in regard to returning?
SB: You see, there are two words: there is homeland and native country.
For me, my native country is Germany. I didn't leave Germany as a child, as an infant.
I left Germany as a 14-year-old. I still have memories of Germany so that I...
The first time I returned to Cologne after the war, that was summer 1945, from Schwandorf, yes.
My first trip was to Cologne although I knew that I wouldn't find anyone in Cologne.
Yes, there was one person I knew I would find and that was, as I said, my grandmother, I already mentioned my grandmother.
She was buried there at the Jewish cemetery, which still exists today, and an uncle, who is buried there, and the inscription on the monument to the former Jewish front soldiers from World War I, where... my uncle is also mentioned, that he fell in the war.
By the way, this uncle who fell had volunteered, he wasn't conscripted.
He registed voluntarily and then fell in the East. And his grave is unknown.
IV: So you were able to return to Germany later, too.
SB: I always did. There are certain places in Germany today that remind me of the past,
such as the school I attended, it still exists today.
Yes, I have pictures of my class, and from my brother's class, my younger brother who also attended this school.
This school in Cologne, I was in Cologne with my sons four years ago, also during the summer, during the break.
We were, I was in the school and the building is still standing, and I showed them the picture where I was and in the background the facade of the building.
Then a woman who worked there came out of the building and asked who I was looking for.
At first I didn't know what I should answer. I said: "I am looking for my past."
But she understood and went on. I described it to my children.
By the way, there is a synagogue in Cologne that wasn't burned down during the Kristallnacht because they feared the fire would spread to the neighboring buildings so only the inside of the synagogue was only destroyed.
The facade is still standing, it is an old building, has been standing for 100...130 years or so.
The synagogue is being used today as a prayer house. Other synagogues were burned down, along with Jewish department stores, shops.
I remember the Kristallnacht. I remember the moment when the Jewish stores were demolished.
The Kristallnacht wasn't only about synagogues.
And as I already described, in the morning when the delivery boy arrived with the fresh baked goods, because my parents ran a grocery story.
And the store was still closed and I remember how he said, "Mr. Brückner, don't open the store, the synagogues are on fire."
I was at home at the time and my younger brother was already at school.
So I went directly to school, it was about 30, 40 minutes away by foot and I saw the SS hordes and SA hordes going through the streets, demolishing everything Jewish.
I picked my brother up from school, came back and encountered a man I didn't know there with a yellow armband and three dots. He was a war invalid from World War I but I didn't know him.
After I got home my mother introduced me and the man left the house.
My mother said, my mother had a cousin in Cologne, we lived in Cologne.
And this man was a war invalid, he was a Jew, he was a boarder who lived at my mother's cousin's house and when this cousin heard that the synagogues and stores were being set on fire, she asked him to stop by and see what had happened to us.
My mother told me that this man had come by, rang, and said: Do the Brückners live here?
My mother said no, because she was...she saw a strange man. He said, "but you are Mrs. Brückner."
She said: "No." He introduced himself: I live with the Silberstein family, that was the name of my mother's cousin, she sent me.
When my mother heard this she invited him inside.
At that moment when they were still standing outside, between the yes and no, a horde of SA men arrived and said: "This is a Jewish store." This man stood there and said: "This is my store. I am a war invaild. Okay, let's go."
And they went on their way so our shop was saved by this man.
After the Kristallnacht the Jewish stores were not allowed to open again, they couldn't be repaired and opened and a large number of Jews were later sent to the concentration camps, back then it was Dachau.
Yes, and I experienced that as a child. Some were killed, some were lucky and were released, some were told that for a fee they could have the urn, with the ashes.
IV: You are rather composed as you tell this whole story, quite distanced.
At that time, as of 1939, you were alone and took this odyssee through several different work camps and concentration camps.
What was the worst thing for you during this time or what was the worst for you here in Flossenbürg?
SB: The worst were the moments without hope, where I knew that I was alone in the world.
On the one hand. On the other I knew I had this urge to live.
I had family abroad, two sisters, half sisters, who lived in Israel, or in Palestine, who emigrated before the war.
I had siblings or aunts and uncles living in Israel.
Grandfather. My grandmother had died in Cologne before the war, but one grandfather lived in Israel, in Palestine.
I didn't know then that he wasn't alive any longer, he died during the war.
By the way, this grandfather had a grandchild who was born after his death, who is the mayor of Haifa today.
So he is a cousin of mine and his name is, he hebrewized his name.
IV: So your hope was that there were people somewhere else who were waiting for you and that gave you a motivation to survive.
SB: I didn't know how I would shape my future.
I didn't know that but it was mostly this urge to live, the urge to live
There were moments where, as I said, I raised my hands, but I had other moments too, I am religious, I grew up in a religious family and remain religious today, so I always see a certain divine providence.
One has to see the other side of life and that gave me courage. That gave me courage.
IV: That is good. Many didn't have that, but perhaps we could return to the time here.
What was the hardest thing to endure. You said the feeling of hopelessness but factually, what was the worst part?
SB: The winter months were the worst. The winter months, standing for roll call in the cold, in snow, with minimal clothing, yes, and on the one hand there was hope and on the other hopelessness.
There were no signs there, people said that the front was getting closer.
But the area wasn't even bombed. I have to say it like this: we heard airplanes flying over us, but we didn't know what kind of airplanes they were.
Planes, we didn't know what kind but they flew over us, we didn't know what it was.
There were moments when we lost hope.
To overcome this cost us strength, cost strength.
IV: You also spoke of your contact to the Jehovah's Witness. So there was something like friendship and support.
SB: Yes, he gave me a lot of courage, as I said.
He always said to me, Samual, have hope. I couldn't ask him where he got it from or how he knew it.
I saw that he was holding back, he no doubt had his reasons. But I believed him, I just believed him.
IV: And did you have other support...You said that on the death march people took you with them, supported you, there was something to eat, even before, it was an odyssee between the different camps.
Did you have contact to the civilian population? That was also...
SB: No.
IV: That existed too.
SB: After my liberation I didn't return to Flossenbürg, although I lived nearby.
Excuse me. I lived in Schwandorf, yes, but I didn't go back to Flossenbürg.
I had to bridge the war time, all the war years and the time of liberation and I didn't know how I would shape my future.
One thing I knew: I did not want to stay in Germany.
I had the opportunity to stay in Germany, I was offered the chance, as I said....from Schwandorf, before we went to Israel, we were in Teublitz.
Teublitz was a village on the way to Schwandorf, between Schwandorf and Burglengenfeld, yes.
A group formed there that was preparing to immigrate to Palestine.
And I was there, that is where I met my wife.
And I was the so-called middle man between the head of the school and the authorities on the outside, like the mayor of Teublitz, Burglengenfeld.
Yes, because I spoke German and I had the opportunity, I was asked if I planned to stay in Germany and I always said, no.
IV: Perhaps one more question: You mentioned before that when you came back for the first time you didn't recognize anything.
Now you have been here often...here in Flossenbürg, from the camp. When you look around today, there is the Kommandantur, a few towers.
Does that trigger a memory of how you worked.
SB: Difficult.
Difficult. I have a difficult time, first all the grass, that is misleading.
Also after we, after I came to Flossenbürg the second time, from Hersburch to the deserted Flossenbürg until the evacuation, I never left the camp again because we worked in the camp.
IV: So the workplace for Messerschmitt was right here in the camp.
SB: Here, yes, those were the halls, the barracks, large barracks, that were in the camp. And later, these...
IV: That was also built, I think. Where the roll call square is, there were factory halls, industry...
SB: Exactly. What the hotel owner, the guesthouse owner in Weiden said to me, that affected me.
I said...if that is true, then there is no reason for me to be here.
After I was...after I visited Dachau, and in Dachau it looks quite different.
IV:That had already been fixed up too.
SB: Right, that's why.
IV: So it was an attempt.
SB: What I would like to ask: I don't know if you have heard this, or if anyone can answer, yesterday someone told me
that there was a plan to rebuild the barracks in Flossenbürg, to recreate the former appearance, to authenticate the camp,
IV: I highly doubt that will happen in Flossenbürg.
SB: Not in Flossenbürg. Someone told me this, whose uncle, we happened to get into a conversation, and his uncle was from the area in Flossenbürg and perished in Flossenbürg.
IV: I think the way Flossenbürg looks now will remain in the future too.
SB: That means it won't be developed to recreate an impression of the past.
IV: I think now, with this new exhibition...
SB: Perhaps.
IV:...I think they tried to show everything historically using photos and film and in this way the roll call square, the way it was then somewhat..
SB: In Germany I have only visited Dachau, but other camps such as Auschwitz...have you ever visited Auschwitz?
IV: Yes
SB: It presents a different impression.
IV: Yes.
SB: It presents a very different impression.
IV: Even though there is very little here, I think that it is like a park here.
SB: All that green, it is misleading.
IV: It is like a cemetery or something, it is hard to say, it is almost idyllic.
SB: Yes. And when someone comes here today, a "layman", and when he is told what happened here.
He would have a hard time imagining how it looked because he sees this today, not what was here years ago.
But despite this, much has been done here, a lot is done, I see that, to preserve what there is to preserve, for the next generation.
Because I remember when I was here last year, with the chauffeur who brought us here, I told him, his name was Heckel. I said, Mr. Heckel.
You have some free time now, we can arrange to meet up later, and he asked me whether I minded if he joined us.
I said, please do. And he joined us and there were different groups here who turned around and I...and he said something and pointed to me and said that I had been in the camp.
And when the people heard that they descended on me, wanted me to tell them what it looked like here and asked me questions.
IV: That probably woundn't have happened 20 years ago.
SB: That would...
IV: The people would have been too scared maybe.
SB: I was here 29 years ago and didn't see a living soul, I was here alone.
I stood on these grounds all alone.
IV: I am pretty much finished with my questions. You two have already spoken together.
Is there another subject that might be important, given what you have heard so far?
IV2: No, but to complete the story, I still haven't quite understood how you got from Cologne to Poland in 1939.
SB: Pardon?
CM: You have to say that to Herr Aue. Will you ask the question?
IV: The journey, from Cologne to Poland, as a child, 14 years old, alone.
SB: Um, to say it correctly. My parents were born in Poland, yes, and came to Cologne as children.
When I say as children, my mother didn't come to Cologne, she was first in Essen, but later she came to Cologne.
And my father came to Cologne in the late 19th century, 1800 something.
And he lived in Cologne ever since with one interruption for a few years when he lived in Elberfeld, in Elberfeld-Barnem, but then came back to Cologne.
And as I said, my parents married in Cologne but never acquired German citizenship.
That was their reason. So now to tell the exact story...in 1938 Poland passed a law.
Anyone with Polish citizenship who had not crossed the Polish border by October 28, so now I am naming the exact dates, by October 28, 1938, would automatically lose their Polish citizenship.
IV: That meant, anyone who didn't return.
SB: Would automatically lose their...
Hitler said, I've had enough of my own Jews, I can do without so many Jews.
A few thousand Jews with Polish citizenship in Cologne, living in Germany, to have to accommodate so many stateless Jews...
And in the night of October 27/28, 1938, an action took place throughout Germany and all the Polish citizens were sent by train to the border and deported to Poland.
There were different sites, the ones closer to the Polish border were for whole families...
There was also the question of which place. In some places someone showed up at night and gave the people 15 minutes to close up their flat and get on the train.
At other places, such as Cologne, I will go into the details, they gave the people time to report to the police.
As I said, the transports went to the border on the 28th, Poland was surprised.
It let the first transports cross the border, the second...but not the other transports and they gathered...
They had to let them cross the border...gathered on a certain border location on the Polish side, a place called Zbąszyń.
On the German side the town was called Bentschen, or Neu-Bentschen, I think, and on the Polish side Zbąszyń.
And that's where the transports collected. I will come back to Cologne.
In places like Cologne, I think Cologne was the only place where a large number of Polish Jews lived and only the head of the family was deported.
That meant the fathers and men who were older than 15. I was barely 13 at the time.
We were in school and I remember my father came to the school and picked me up.
He first spoke to the teacher and then picked us up and on the way home he told us what had happened, that two police men had come to the store
and brought him the expulsion order and told him that at two in the afternoon he had to report to the police headquarters with hand luggage, nothing else.
That is how it was. And my father was deported with all the others. We stayed in Cologne.
Later different rumors spread, that the transport didn't go across the border, that the people would come back. You know how it is in these kinds of situations but that wasn't the case, it went across the border.
A few days later we got a message that he had arrived. So now I come back to Germany.
In Breslau there lived a family among the Polish citizens, a family named Grynszpan, Herschel Grynszpan. Their son, Herschel Grynszpan, was in Paris at the time.
His parents were deported from Breslau and this son in Paris wanted to take revenge.
He went to the German consulate, got himself a revolver, and decided to commit an assassination.
He rang, but it wasn't the ambassador who opened the door, but instead an employee in the consulate, his name was vom Rath. He fired the shots, wounded him and a few days later von Rath died.
He died one or two days before November 9, and that was what set off the Kristallnacht. That was the exact story.
IV: Okay, but your story...
SB: So now I return to our story. As I said, we stayed in Cologne.
IV: But your father was already...
SB: My father was in Poland. Yes, and my mother liquidated the store and my sister in Israel, the personal story.
My sister arranged everything to send us a certificate, to immigrate, an entry permit to Palestine.
But there was an immigration quota in Palestine and we had to get in line and wait until it was our turn.
I was 14 years old at the time, it was 1939, I remember, I had ordered a large trunk, a 4-square-meter trunk, and we prepared our immigration to Palestine.
I ordered a customs agent from the customs office, he stood by, we packed, I packed everything alone, with a list.
I even got the list back, by the way, when I immigrated to the country, I got it from my sister, with my handwriting, yes, the things arrived.
Some of the things are in our home today. I had sent the things ahead.
And we waited for the certificate for the entry permit to Israel.
Meanwhile the people who had been resettled to Poland were given entry permits to go to Germany in groups, to close up their stores.
Since they had to leave everything behind. And later, when family members were there who they had left behind, they traveled with the family members back to Poland.
My father, I speak personally now, wrote that it was his turn and that he could return to Germany and my mother wrote back:
You know what our plan is...there is no need for you to come to Germany.
Because our plan now is that you to travel from Poland to Triest, that was a harbor city, Triest in Italy where the ships departed to Israel, to Palestine and we would meet in Triest.
One day, it was a Friday, someone rang and my father was standing at the door. That was late July 1939.
My father stood at the door although we had planned it differently, suddenly he was there.
He said, no I came so that we could leave Germany as soon as possible.
It didn't take more than 14 days. He managed in a few days to close up the store, there was nothing more to process and then we came to Cracow, Poland.
IV: The whole family.
SB: The whole family.