IV: Heute ist Donnerstag, der 19. Juli 2012.
Wir sind hier in Weiden in der Oberpfalz im Hotel Admira und wir sprechen mit Abe Maisner, der in Warschau geboren wurde und jetzt in Amerika lebt.
Telling your name, when you were born, where you've born, where you grow up, a little bit the beginning ah of your story.
AM: Ah okay, my name is Abe Maisner, M-A-I-S-N-E-R.
I was born in Warsaw, Poland.
I was born {coughing} 19, March 25th, 1929 in Warsaw Poland.
I, my mother died, when I was seven years old.
And that was in 19 in 30ies, which I don't, hardly remember.
I was a young kid, maybe seven years old.
I also had a sister, which was younger.
Her name was Lola.
My father remarried and I guess the marriage didn't work right so, and we got separated and the war broke out right after that, 1939.
1939 in the, the Warsaw Ghetto started in 1940.
Life was getting very bad, starvation, hunger, ah disrespect.
I as a child wasn't, was not happy being in the Ghetto.
I've seen there a lot of kids running away from the Ghetto.
And I tried to do the same thing.
And I did and it worked.
I went out and I brought some food into the Ghetto.
Well I did it a couple of times.
After that I said: "It is no way."
My father was sick.
He was already on the way out.
So I was still remaining in the Ghetto until he passed away.
And then I remained by myself.
All my family almost gone.
Some of them had the chance to run away.
IV: From the Ghetto?
AM: From, from, from Poland, altogether.
Some of my aunts went to France, some of them went to Belgium.
But I didn't have no interest and I didn't have their, the finances to do it.
And besides travelling as a Jew, wasn't that easy thing, you know.
So (???) ran out of the Ghetto and I roamed around and outside the Ghetto on the Christian side, ah just ah to, to survive, you know,
you didn't know, if the war is gonna end tomorrow or the war is gonna end yesterday or whatever.
Things were no good.
Let's put it this way.
So I had a few tough months like from the fall all away way up to part of the winter.
Mostly the fall and maybe a couple of months like in December or January.
And my survival was that I was, it was easy to recognize me, either by the Christians or by the Germans, the soldiers, the SS, the other one, you know.
And so I hid myself mostly in the broken buildings.
That were bombarded in 1939, the Germans did.
And I survived going from door to door basically this way.
Going in, knocking on the door, hopefully that I am a Christian, I am looking for a piece of bread or little soup.
Some people open the door, knew what's happening already, put, stick the hand out, because it was, it was, I was, it was against the law, to give anything out.
So some did and some just closed the door, they didn't wanted to know, because it was, as ah, if they get caught, they get fined, you know.
So it took a while ah like that and finally it was getting cold and I wouldn't know, what to do with myself.
I was cold, where do I go to sleep?
So I found ways to sleep in an attic, like a four storey building there was an attic on top of it.
So I slept there, you know a couple of nights there, a couple of nights here, in the basements.
I tried to see, we didn't know, if tomorrow the war is over or whatever.
Anyway, ah one day, one night, I sort of sneaked into one of the buildings and I walked up four stairs up to the attic and I went in there and supposedly the guy that the,
the guy that ah took care of the, of the building, the caretaker, saw me going through there.
I don't know what, how and what, but he saw me going through.
So I guess, he followed and probably was the evening he had dinner and he got himself feeling good, he says: "Oh, I saw this guy going up there."
So he goes into the staircase and he starts to holler up: "Hey do you Jew, come on down!"
And I said: "Please."
You know, talking in Polish, and he says, hollers up again to me, he says: "You better come down, because, if I come up, I'll kill you!"
And this is already he is going to first floor, second floor and I see, he means it.
And he is drunk.
You know, ah drunk, those things you never know.
So anyway he, I started to climb down little by little, but he says: "You better come down first, because when I come, I'll catch you, I'll kill you!"
So finally, he was going down already, because he saw me coming down.
{coughing} And I followed him.
And as he opened the door, from the, from the entrance to, into the building, pushed me out into the street and it was curfew, eleven o'clock curfew.
This was already after eleven o'clock and a couple ah gendarmes passed by of course speaks to me in German, I understood a little bit.
Whatever I did, "what are you doing?"
You know, "why are you here, why did you get out of the Ghetto?", how and what, go.
Across the street was a bar.
He took me by the neck, didn't hit me, brought me into the bar and I guess in the bar they made a lot of fun about me.
You know all were laughing, girls and soldiers.
{coughing} And they were waiting for the police to come and pick me up, take me to the police department.
{coughing} Got me to the police department.
I was there over night.
Next morning they brought me to the Warsaw jail, which was the name Pawiak.
Was one of the, the worst jails in Poland.
And was happened to be in Warsaw.
Over there I was, six months I was there.
On the six month they took us, fifth or sixth month, I don't know exactly, don't remember exactly.
And {coughing} and a whole bunch of kids, the same age, mostly that ran into the, ran out of the Ghetto, because the starvation was so bad, that there was no way of living there anymore.
So they took us by car, by truck and they brought us into court and they stood us in front the judges, maybe four or five German judges.
And each one is asking questions.
They said: "Are you guilty? Did you?"
"Yes."
You know, I answered them in German, you know.
So the rest of them, the all of us were already prosecuted as they say.
They say: "You all gonna be hanged.
You gonna go back to jail."
Right out, they took us back to jail, each one was already in a separate cell.
Prior to that, {coughing} there was one room, half of the size of this here and there must have been about 60 of us.
They slept on the floor, like herrings.
If you had to get up in the morning, you couldn't go to the toilet.
There was a but, bucket staying in the corner and that's what's you use, that's what you use.
They in the morning, they, {coughing} some of went and took it and emptied it.
And once a day they used to let us out for ten minutes, walking around inside the, the Pawiak, the jail.
{coughing} Well anyway, after that, after that being in jail already after the, what we got that, they was, they say the "Urteil" and that was what they say, you know, what I mean.
Ah the German soldiers came in with a truck and one officer stood on top of the truck.
They took us all out, maybe 60 of us, all kids like that.
Young kids, thirteen, fourteen years old.
{coughing} And we're staying outside and the officer hollers out: "Who wants to go to work?"
And of course, the kids that didn't go to jail, didn't go the, to the judge, forget they gonna be able, relieved or released or whatever.
I didn't have nothing to loose anymore.
And some more like me.
We lift our arms and good port... a good portion of us {coughing} they took us to the "Umschlagplatz", which was near Auschwitz.
And they, meantime they picked up more.
By time we got to Auschwitz, we had already ten or twelve car loads of people.
And we waited to go into camp.
We stayed there for about two or three days.
There didn't, was no room there was, you know, they were picking them up like left and right, from the Ghettos all over the country.
And they said, they didn't say anything.
They just gave us another piece, another half of loaf of bread and some water.
Went, where did we go?
We went already, the Germans, {coughing} the Germans already start to occupy the Ukraine.
IV: Yeah.
AM: So they took us to the Ukraine, 1.500 of us.
And we went to the Bobruisk, which is the Ukraine {means: Belarus}.
So, coming there, there was nothing there, there was some old barns, old things, old broken up stuffs that the, that the Ukrains used to use it, {coughing} while they were there, you know?
But when they took of or they were arrested or killed or whatever, we didn't know what's happened, but that's were they played us.
{laughing} Some or another, some or another all of a sudden, there comes a, an officer and he sits us out in a circle and he says to us: "You'll have to peel potatoes for the German soldiers."
{coughing} Some or another, there were brought up a lot of potato, pile of potatoes.
And then as a joke, I mean, I didn't know is a joke.
He walks around, walks around twice and he says: "Who is the youngest here?"
Nobody answers and I am looking around myself.
Looks like, I am looking around myself, I, I look the youngest.
So I stood up.
{coughing} And he says, he says me in German: "Du wirst erschossen."
In German, you know, what I am talking?
IV: Yes.
AM: He says: "Go over to that tree and turn around.
Don't face me, turn around."
And I am going.
I said: "What the hell is going on here?"
Am I gonna really killed?
Is he gonna really kill me?
It's no, no big deal, you know?
One less doesn't mean nothing.
{coughing} Well, I heard him, bum.
I fall down.
So he walks over, cursed me out, cursed me out in German all kind of names, you know.
I says: "I didn't do nothing, nothing to you."
"Why do you do, what you do, what you fall down?"
Well I heard a gun go off, so I, I fell down.
I didn't know that {laughing} it is no joke.
He says: "Go back to work."
That was my first co.., concentration camp that I had to visit.
So {coughing} and SS from then on, we were there, they brought another transport after that.
Another 1.500 people, because they were dying from hunger, they were dying from cold, you know, winter was come, coming.
And from then on, by 18 months being there, 41 of us left, out of 1.800.
What did they do with us?
Then in meantime the Russians already pushing the Germans.
"We cannot leave these Jews here, it's no way."
They put us in one, you call them cattle car, {coughing} put us on the rail.
And that is all.
Wherever we wind up, we wind up.
They locked it and left us there and that's it.
And the train was going back and forth and back and forth.
We were ten days in that, in that cattle car.
We had some food.
I don't know, somehow, where, where it was?
{coughing} Finally we wind up in Minsk.
They opened the cattle cars, the, the ah, they opened the car, the car.
They say: "There is people in there."
And we were almost layed out, layed out, with no food, no, never, no air, no nothing.
So finally, they took us out from there and put us in Minsk Ghetto, a Jewish ghetto there.
{coughing} We were there two days and they liquidate that Ghetto.
So then, we got to take us out.
They took the, they like liquidated the Ghetto, so of course we'll, take us back into the car, into the cars.
Where they taking us, to a concentration camp in Buchenwald {means probably Majdanek}.
IV: Buchenwald?
AM: {confirming} {coughing} Buchenwald was a camp, it is a death camp, you probably heard about it.
No matter what, eventually you're gone.
Well the guy, at the door, at the gate, on the inside yet, not outside, inside yet was a Jewish police man.
They were helping to take care of the people.
So one of the police men saw me and he says to me: "What are you doing here?"
I said: "What do I do here?
You are here, you know, what I am doing here."
He grabs me by the back and pushes me on the side.
"Just stay, don't move."
Well, anyway, I stayed there.
{coughing} Then at night, he put, he put me in into a some barracks, barracks, there were people came, brand new Germans came in.
They brought them in.
And it was a big barrack about twice this size and there is a lot of Germans sitting there, on the, on the, on their valises.
Because they, you know, they came with their valises.
You know, they Germans just look like that.
You know, you whatever you wanna take, take with you.
You gonna leave it anyway.
The next day, they took all these Germans and myself and they took us to a concentration camp.
And he says: "Now you go in and go with them.
I don't want you to be in here, because this, you'll never get out of here."
Which was the truth.
So they took us to a camp, Budzyń, which was not far from there.
And that was a camp, that were Jewish veterans from the polish army.
Whatever they caught, they put them in there.
{coughing} And it was a regimental, you know, what I mean, they were all soldiers, you know.
And here we're coming in as civilians.
My ah young, young guys like myself, elderly guys, Germans, you know.
It was, it was already a differently, but these guys want it to be like everybody, like they are, perfect, well that's what they learn in the army and that's what they want it to be.
From then on, I was going from one camp basically from one to the other.
Basically altogether I must have going to seven different, eight, eight different camps until I wound up here in ah, what do you call ah?
IV: Flossenbürg.
AM: Flossenbürg.
IV: Do you, do you remember some names of some of those camps where you have been?
AM: Yes, I have, it's a, maybe I have to be sure.
See everything was, have, fast, fast, fast.
Because I didn't anticipate.
Here, see that.
Had a (???)
IV: This is from, this is from Flossenbürg.
AM: Yeah, oh here, you see, when I came back, right?
IV: Mhm {confirming}.
AM: You see, the date when I came back for it?
IV: Ja, so it is 19th of July 1945.
So that's when everything was finished here.
AM: Right, exactly.
IV: So but in before, you can remember what camp you have been to?
AM: I have it, but I...
IV: So if it is complicated now, you can tell me later.
AM: I just had it here.
I had it all here.
See this, this is a picture, that children in the Warsaw Ghetto try to make a living.
Ah here it is, here, Bobruisk, Minsk.
{coughing} Then I wind out, wind up in Majdanek.
IV: Majdanek.
AM: Fortunate, I was fortunate that I was not in those camps where the concent.., where the gas chambers were and the crematoriums were.
Basically I was in camps where basically you went to work.
I was working like in Mielec camp.
I was working as a carpenter.
There was a father there and three sons and they taught me how to be a carpenter.
So I helped them being a carpenter.
So whatever I went somehow another I got into, I got into as, as a, as a helper, you know, what I mean?
So then and then I went Budzyń.
Then I went to Mielec, where I got this, that was Wieliczka, where the salts, salt gra..., salt ah mines...
And from there basically, well you got the names the other names, you got all the other names, Minsk, Bobronsk, ah the jail, Mielec.
Those were all the camps that, you could survive, if you watch yourself.
You know, what I mean?
You, the hunger was there, okay?
Not, when I wound up in Flossenbürg, that was a different game.
There was crematoriums here.
There was different kind of people.
Before we came into Flossenbürg, there were gypsies here, there was all kind of nationalities.
And amongst people that were against the regime, you know?
IV: Polits, political?
AM: Political, right, you know, some of them had the red ah red ah red triangle.
Some of them had a different triangle, a black triangle.
But they were all, they were all under, not, {coughing} not, it's not a concentration camp.
But there, they were not killing anybody, you understand?
They were not, they were working for that, what was necessary.
But that was normal, you know, what I mean?
Not, when they brought us in, we were the first concentration camp people, that were sent to Flossenbürg.
And that, that was us, it was 1.500 of us, children, grown ups, you know.
They already start to liquidate camp, certain camps, because so they start to put them together.
IV: Yeah.
AM: And were like put into smaller camps like for example like I mention these here like Mielec, the one here, Wieliczka, there was, there were {coughing} certain areas, that there was too little camps.
But they didn't build gas chambers.
They had their main ones like Majdanek, like Auschwitz, you know?
And from when they started towards the end, they started to put these people together from the smaller camps and brought them into the camps to get gased and everything else.
Well, in Flossenbürg ah was this, was a story in Flossenbürg that's, it's kind of hard to express or like see it, I mean, the Kapos there, you know what I am talking about is,
why all Kapos, all Germans that were against the regime or something else.
And they were very strict and very antisemitic.
So any little thing, like a, I had a friend of mine that we were, in the morning we were staying in line to get coffee and whatever else so this friend of mine was one of the first ones and I had been in charge of the, that litrine, the toilet.
And he, he got his coffee forgetting I am the first one, I am gonna go back at the other end and I get another cup of coffee.
Unfortunate, he came through and he, that Kapo saw him again and saw, what he did.
He steal, that he lied to him, that he wasn't there yet, he was the first time.
And he beat the hell out of him.
And I mean, really beat out the hell out of him.
And ah and everybody else went to work.
So {coughing} when they left, I was in the ninth, in the ninth barrack which was on top of the hill.
So he went down with them and I guess he, he remained there for quite a while.
Meantime I took the guy and pulled him back into the toilet and I and I cleaned him up, I washed him up and I put him back into the barrack into his bed bunk.
Maybe two hours later he comes up and he says to me, he says ah: "Where is that, yeah Judensäue, that I beat the hell out of him, because he was lying to me?"
I said: "I don't know.
Maybe he went to work and I didn't see him."
Well I took my, my life in, in, in his hands, let's put it this way, lying to him and everything.
But anyway somehow or another he sort of believed me.
Meantime he was laying, he was, I was taking him from behind the door.
So in case he comes in and he goes behind the door he says: "That's him."
Well he climbed, he climbed in it, he, he crawled in, in there and that is what it is.
But, no, he didn't look, he believed me.
He was already in the barrack, in the bunk.
I mean, in the bank, you know in the sleeping quarters.
And the next day the guy went to work and if I wouldn't do that he would have fixed, fixed him up.
He would have finished him off.
So that was stories that they stayed for you and for the rest of your life, you know.
And basic I, I couldn't, there was, there were incidents, but those are incidents that I survive with them.
Otherwise I wouldn't be here.
So that's why I say, what, what am I gonna write stories that are don't, they didn't, they, of course it wasn't,
it wasn't ah stories that, that transpired in all those years were not pleasant ones that you got beaten up or everything.
I tried to stay away from it, okay?
IV: Mhm {confirming} can I ask you some questions especially about Flossenbürg?
AM: Yes, absolutely, ah that is what you are here for to ask me.
IV: Ah can you remember ah when you arrived here, what happened when you arrived?
AM: In 19, we, we arrived here in 1944, I don't know exactly, I think it was about middle of the, middle of the year 1944.
And we were here till 1945, I think April.
And all of a sudden they were took all these, only the people that were with the, as KZ, you know, on, only the ones, the survivors.
And they put us into cattle cars, {coughing} outside the, outside the camp.
And they took us go to Dachau.
Somehow or another the English or the American were flying on top and every time that train moved, boom.
So I think that happened like that maybe twice or three times, then they got disgusted and they says: "Ach, get them of the trace, they'll walk."
And that's when they walked in April, starting I think April 15.
And we were walking to Dachau, we were, were supposingly.
We didn't walked during the day, because they were afraid, they see us walking.
So what we did, during the day we were at the barn, in the barns.
And at night we were walking.
And happens to be that year that was a lot of rain.
But we on basically walked through the woods not on the main highway.
Well we wind up after seven or eight days, we wind up in one of the barns, there was a few of them, but we were, I think we were one of the first ones.
And we looked through the doors and there was, there was spot, spaces in between the boards.
So we, they looked out and one guy says:
"I see a tank with a white star.
It must be the Russians."
And there is another guy:
"No, the Russians are, have a red star."
You know meantime we have an argument is it red or white or what, is it the Russians or who are they?
{coughing} But one guy, a guy said: "No, it is an American."
So we pushed the doors open, we all went out.
We ran out and, and of course the tank stops and they soldiers jumped of their tank and 80 percent of us are half dead.
And ah they were falling like, they were falling like babies.
IV: Can I help you?
AM: Yes, can you get that file?
See, this is another one that I was in Schwandorf.
I lived there after, after the war.
IV: So that is not far from here.
AM: No, not far from here.
I was in Regensburg, in Schwandorf.
They, I was liberated in Pösing.
This is me after the liberation.
IV: Ah do you remember how old you have been when this picture has been made?
AM: This picture, I was about 17 years old.
IV: 17.
AM: This is the place where we were liberated in Pösing.
This is the picture, they put a stone, the next year they put ah put the stone there.
IV: At place where you have been liberated?
AM: In Pas, in Pösing, it's I hope it's still there.
IV: That's close to Munich, isn't it?
AM: Yeah, Pösing, it's ah, it's ah small ah village.
IV: Yeah.
AM: I think it's a brewer, "Brauerei", brewery, there was big brewery I think it was there.
Yeah, it was at that time maybe, I don't know.
IV: Well they have it everywhere here in southern Germany, the breweries.
AM: Yeah, but that is what I say.
Well, that's what I say, there was a brewery, because we went into town and that's what I can smell is beer.
IV: Yeah.
AM: And this is her, Elika, come here a minute, Jackie.
So her father..., come here.
JM: Sure.
AM: Her father was a dentist in Warsaw.
So this was done in Europe.
JM: My great-grandfather.
AM: Yeah and that is your, who's that?
That's your, that's your aunt, that's your grandmother?
JM: That is my grandmother, maternal, Irene Coneger and then my great-grandfather is Roland Coneger and he married Barbara Coneger, the sister of Irene, my grandmother.
AM: And this, I'll show you this is my wife suffering with cancer for 20 years.
She just passed away two years ago.
And this is a great and great, great, great-grandmother it was done in France, before the war.
IV: Ah, in Paris.
AM: And these are notes that I found, just recently with that picture, not knowing that my wife left me.
This is just a little bit.
IV: And the picture, what does it, does it show?
AM: It's a heart in a house.
I got plenty of letters, but this is just happens to be attached to that picture.
That's why I brought it.
And this is, who's that?
Yeah, your grandma, isn't it?
And she was working in Germany.
This is my mum, her sister in South Africa.
IV: Your mum and her sister?
AM: Yeah.
IV: And in South Africa?
AM: Yeah, that was before the war.
IV: Ah ja, they have been living down there also in South Africa or just?
AM: They remained, my, my ah the aunt, my remain, remained in South Africa with the family.
IV: Yeah.
But my, my mum not.
And this is her grandfather's thing from Germany, yeah.
IV: Ich schlage es trotzdem einmal auf.
AM: See to, to all theses camps there is stories to it, but it's, it'll take us forever.
IV: Yeah.
AM: You know what I mean?
IV: But maybe some details just of Flossenbürg?
AM: Like, yes, yes, yes, yes.
IV: Just Flossenbürg.
AM: Just Flossenbürg.
What can I tell you?
It's basically, I worked in the Messerschmitt.
You know in the, in the, on the aeroplanes.
For I think, what was the company name, I think, yeah, it was Messerschmitt, ja.
And ah we worked and slaved and ah basically that is what it was.
The, the Kapos were very mean, you know what I mean.
They were and they, they worked, they were not working uniforms like we did.
You know, they had different uniforms.
They were, were, they were dressed comparing to us like with it, these stripes, you know, and everything.
But they wore normal uniforms and they, they treated us like, like that we're nobody, you know.
It was very strict and everything else, but otherwise every morning you know, that was the normal thing, counting in the morning, counting at night, going to work, singing when you go to work.
And if you don't sing, you, you know, you're being punished.
But ah Flossenbürg was, was a short time.
It was only, I was three months, April, we left April and we came in about beginning of 1944.
Maybe a little later, I don't know.
I didn't keep no dates.
IV: So nearly one, but nearly one year, it's quite, it's long.
AM: I, I should say I was, we smelled already that something is happening.
It's just like everything else that there is something till end that there is coming an end, there is coming and end somewheres and we were, everybody was worrying not to get killed.
But that death march killed a lot of people.
IV: So in during this time you, you still, yeah you might have been 15 years old or, you have been in this special childrens block or where, where did you sleep?
What about the other people?
AM: We slept on this, in the same, in the same camp, in the same barracks.
Like where I was in a ninth barrack.
There was kids like myself and there was elderly, it was, it was already a mixture.
It wasn't, you were not segregated.
You know what I mean, like you were kids separate.
First of all, they didn't, they didn't want the kids, they didn't, they didn't want nobody.
They wanted to get rid of us, the final solution, you know.
You remember, ah you probably remember that, when it was the final solution.
So we smelled it already that it's coming, but we didn't know where and what.
So when we went on a death march that was, we were not, we was not a gas chamber, there was not of something that's gonna go through the smoke.
Whoever made it, made it, so a lot of people died through that march, you know.
And after that we wind up in hospitals.
I wound up in a hospital in, in Pösing, alright.
And some others were wind up in a hospital in Cham, I got the hernia, I got a "Bruch"?
Ja, so, I had to do it right away, because it has been a while and every time I had to keep my, keep it in, put it in, put it in.
They, gladly that the war was over, that it was over.
But the red cross grabbed me right away, put me in the hospital, I got surgery, I was six weeks and a half in a hospital.
{coughing} And from then on, basically I ah, I probably just tried to relax.
I think I got a picture.
I did, I think, I did a picture.
At the beginning, rush, rush, rush, it's not, it's not {laughing}, it's not what I like to do, but, you know, I think, I got it.
You must have heard of Fromberg?
IV: What?
AM: A place Fromberg, here.
IV: Fromberg?
I don't know, I don't know.
AM: Is right not far from here.
Well this is the lady that I stayed in her house in Fromberg.
Fromberg is here not, not a few kilometers.
And she {coughing} gave us a room, myself and another friend of mine.
And Sunday we had to have dinner with her.
Which is a normal dinner, a Bavarian dinner, you know?
And that's, but I, I have the original I have.
Oh here it is.
IV: And what time you got to her house?
After the liberations, after?
AM: After the liberation.
IV: Yeah.
AM: What is there on the other side?
IV: Fromberg.
Never heard about it, but maybe it's small.
AM: Small town, small town.
It's ah like a, it's like a, ah like a village.
And, because you look at, looking at the house, how old are this, then, she was 70 years then.
And she had a, she had a son that took care at the farm.
And she stayed with her on, on the first floor.
And the farm was I don't, maybe ah two kilometers away from there, you know?
So she basically stayed at home.
But she was very nice to us and ah.
IV: Why did, did you get back, you, you have been liberated close to Pösing and why did you get back to the Oberpfalz to this place around here?
AM: I went to Schwandorf, after I got out of the hospital.
I was in the hospital in Pasing and I was in the hospital in Cham, because I had a thing, one I had ah is, here, the hernia and the other one, I think, I had the diarrhea for, overeating yourself, because you ate everything.
{coughing} Then I went into Schwandorf, whether Schwandorf was a big Jewish population survivors.
So I remain basically, I didn't go to a camp, I went a private place, you know, ah with another friend.
And ah we ah and then from then I went to a children's home in Prien, Prien am Chiemsee.
And ah we were there, basically all kids under 18, maybe 40 or 50 of us.
And it was, you know, like a children's home, you know, we, we had lessons, different kind of lessons.
Ah whatever you wanted to do, you were not restricted from anything.
You wanted to go out, you went out.
{coughing} And Prien am Chiemsee was a nice little village, you must, must have heard of it, right.
And ah usually with, they have a boat, little boats, you could have take the boat and go across and there was some beautiful buildings there, you know.
And basically we were there and ah just waiting for our next, what's happening next.
So a lot of people signed up go to Israel, a lot of people signed up go to the United States, if they had family.
In my case, I was fortunate enough that President Truman in 1940, 46 or 47 anounced on his birthday 1.500 Visas in his name to go to the United States.
And I happened to be one of them.
So at that day, I had two Visas.
{laughing} A Visa to Israel, which was illegal to go at that time, because that time the English was still there and there was a lot of problems.
Or I could go to the States.
Well I decided to go to the States.
And the States was not, is not what I expected, because I actually wanted to {coughing}, as I had decided that I wanted to go to Connecticut,
because I had some friends that moved, they, they were here, they came to the States about six months prior of myself.
And so, so I figured I call them up and they invited me out to Connecticut and, it was kind of wanted to be somebody, because I didn't have anybody.
Language I didn't know, so I was gonna came back and I then and I went to, to the HIAS and I said:
"I like to go to the United States."
He says: "No, you gotta go to Kansas City, that's where your Visa is."
I said: "I'm not going to Kansas City."
{coughing} I said: "Now I am in a free country, I wanna do what's, what's free."
That much I understood {laughing}.
Well anyway, ah it came through, both Visas came through the same time.
And I ah decided to go to the United States.
And I was, went to the (???), if you want to remember that.
{coughing} Near the ships, we were waiting for the ship there, an army ship, marina flag ship.
And they took us ten days to get to New York.
And finally we wind up in New York, and we were watching the Westside Highway and there was cars at night going back and forth.
So I said: "Were are we?
{laughing} These people don't sleep?"
Well we found out afterwards.
And the next day, the next couple of days, until we got all the papers from the ah immigration taken care of and everything.
They took us to the Bronx to we, {coughing} it was a home an old, not a new, a quite old, and old ah stone house {coughing}.
And all, we took us all, I don't know, maybe 20 of us, it was a lot of rooms in there, I don't know, maybe 15, up 15 rooms in that, up and down, three floors.
And we were sitting there and waiting until we gonna leave.
So that was, just before I went to, to Prien.
IV: So ah before you went to the United States, did you try to find out what happened to the rest of your family?
Did you try to make any contacts?
Was it?
AM: I tried, there was nothing.
Especially from Warsaw people, {coughing} those were the first victims.
First of all, they brought in from the small towns around Warsaw into Warsaw.
And from Warsaw they were taking them to Auschwitz {coughing} or to Dachau or Buchenwald, basically for, gas them, burn them, you know and that's where the most of it went.
And if you want, if you were lucky like myself, I don't know why, because maybe I was young, I, you never, you never need, they all only asked you:
"How old are you?"
And then you saw what the situation is.
Sometimes you said a lie, you said, that you're older.
Some you said, you're even younger.
Ah it feel, it fitted, because you don't have no, you didn't have no birth certificate.
You didn't have anything, so whatever you said, they took it for granted, you know.
And ah somehow or another I, I'm here.
IV: Yeah, but in an age of around 17 ah..
AM: 18.
IV: ..18 finding out, ah now being an orphan having lost whole the family, having survived the Holocaust, what did you feel?
So that now you told the, have been talking a lot about facts, but..
AM: About what?
IV: Ah what about your feelings at this time?
AM: It was very bad, but I had friends that we survived together like in Connecticut.
And you and I am start out to find out to belong to a Jewish organization like the work man circle that were Jewish, Jewish people that, that came over and asked me who are you, where are you
and I have meet people that led me different ways.
And that's how I learned my life.
Followed certain people that I felt that they're nice people, they are respected, respectful people and they helped me to get on my feet.
I saw, I saw I can, I can survive.
At the beginning I didn't believe, I wanted to come back, because they had JC's, the Jewish Community Center gave me the, at that time there was no Jewish Community Center.
They didn't have any money, because it was right after the war, people, {coughing} it was depression, the war and everything else.
So money wasn't that easy.
And they, so they basically they gave me a job and they gave me room, ah space {coughing} to live with the Jewish family and I was making 80, 75 cents an hour.
By the time I make my weeks paid 28 Dollars after social security and everything else.
I was finished and I said:
"Ey, this is not for you.
You got to get better."
And I was very ambitious and I worked myself up as best as could be.
IV: So maybe you can tell me a little bit, building up a new carreer, a new life and what happened to you?
What did you do?
AM: I basically, what career, I basically I was, I was aiming, because I've seen that this country money talks.
And I made a mistake.
Instead going for an education which I couldn't afford it.
There was no help, I went to night school as many, as many times as I could, because I worked from seven o'clock in the morning till five o'clock at night, by time I get home and everything else.
English, all my English is I learned when I came home and I laid down after dinner I put the radio on, there was no TV that time.
I put the radio on, listen to the radio and followed the language.
And kept on repeating.
The next day I went to work, I tried to speak English to the people, just the same.
And this was, this, you that's what you see, that's what you got.
I made very well, but same time I lost my wife, I lost everything.
I have two sons, I have six grandchildren.
And got, I got nices and nephews, you know.
This is my second nice.
IV: And ah later on, what kind of job did you do?
AM: Anything, that I can make a dollar {laughing}.
Because I've seen education I didn't, I couldn't get, I got the best I know how, but there were times I had, can't afford it to spend.
And somehow or another my wife was educated so she took over everything.
She was the secretary and I was the, the laborer.
One job, two jobs, three jobs, whatever I could do to save a dollar, like a typical, typical ah what is they call it, a typical greenhorn let's put it this way {laughing}, plain English.
But I, I thank God I'm, I'm here, not the happiest guy on two feet, but God gives me years to live, so I'm here.
And I'm coming here to help out whatever transpired in my life or anybody else's life.
IV: Ah did you before today, did you ever come back to Germany or?
AM: No, I came back, but I came back, we came back to Slovakia, because we, {coughing} my wife liked the beds in, in Czech.
We came back to Austria, we came back to France, we went to Belgium.
Every year we went somewhere else.
We had thank God a, a life, a normal life, you know, what I mean.
We were not millionairs, but we were left, lived comfortable.
And we let live, live and let live.
IV: Yeah and remembering this time in the concentration camps, so later on in your family, you've been talking about it to your children,..
AM: There was no..
IV: ..to your grandchildren?
Or you tried to forget it?
And now you came back, so maybe tell us..
AM: It's been coming back all along.
I used to wake up during the night and I scream and yell and cry.
Now I'm on, by myself, but my wife was there she kept on waking:
"Abe, stop."
You know, I screamed, yelled, you know, just things coming back that you, that you saw and what you saw and what you and you wake up during the night and you think about it.
How, how, how did I make, how did I survive?
Miracles.
They say, there is no, there are miracles.
I found miracles.
And not, not everybody can say the same thing.
Thank God I'm not crippled, ah my brain is not a 100 percent, but close to it, maybe 50 {laughing}.
You know, I do, do, my, my memory is still pretty good, remembering 50, 60, 70 years what transpired, you know and if you think about it, your memory comes back.
IV: So and now, what do you feel ah, coming here to Flossenbürg, now you are in an, in a nice Hotel, but still a little bit crowded.
AM: I'm here, I'm here what I left.
I left here to come back and say:
"Thank God that I'm still here."
After 65 years I'm still here.
A lot of people didn't make it.
Many of them and I'm, I then I used to go {coughing} when I was, when I was a little younger I used to go to schools and speak to children, you know, about the Holocaust.
And ah I got letters like this from kids and then I used to break down, while I was speaking and I think it, this is not healthy for me, because the night is not gonna be a good night.
And there were a lot, many other ones that didn't break down.
I still break down, even today, even today at the, at lunch, I started to talk about it and bum.
There is my tears.
Ah because it's in me.
It's not never go away.
Never, never, never, never.
And ah and it brings back memories that you, that you really don't wanna talk about it.
But especial during the night you, you can't help it, it don't let you sleep, you know.
So I take a sleeping pill {laughing}.
IV: And what do you expect, I think tomorrow you will go to the memorial site.
What are your feelings seeing this places?
AM: I'll, I'll probably, I'll probably break down, you know.
Or speak there is some, I go to the cemetary now almost every once a month or once in two months.
There is my my, my wife is there, {coughing} her parents are there, my in-laws are there, you know it's in Palm Beach, Florida.
And basically and I talk to them, do they answer me?
Maybe yes and maybe no.
I can't hear.
How long, I don't know.
It's a man, man above is gonna be my judge.
Whenever he say:
"Come on, time is up."
And otherwise you got more answ.., more questions I'll be glad to answer to you.
Seriously, no I'm, I'm not kidding.
Whenever you wanna know anything else just, just shoot {laughing}.
You're not talking, I've been doing all the talking {laughing}.
I know you want me to talk and I don't blame you, okay, that's what you're here for.
But no, if you think of something that's, it'll be more interesting than whatever I tell you or why should I tell you stories, if they are not there?!
I'm telling you exactly, exactly what I went through.
I had a tough life when I was a child.
I lost my parents.
I wound up in jail, {laughing} I got almost hanged by my neck, I almost got killed in the concentration camps, but didn't mean nothing to kill somebody, to shoot somebody or whatever or beaten them, beat them up or whatever.
So, what am I gonna say, that I got beaten up?
It's normal.
IV: Ah is there anything special you want to tell me now in this interview?
AM: If there is, I cannot express myself now.
IV: Okay, then we finish it.
AM: I guess so, what ah what do we spend?
Half an hour, three-quarter, an hour.
More than that I think.
IV: More than one hour.
AM: {coughing} I didn't, I didn't expect even that much.
{laughing} No seriously, because I'm tired and my eyes are, you know, we didn't sleep all night and the day before we didn't sleep either, because I was travelling from West Palm to, to Washington to meet my nice.
And then that night, we didn't, I didn't sleep either, so it's, it's taking the toll on me {laughing}.
And I'm not 19 anymore.
I'm getting to be 19 {laughing}.
He's laughing, as long you laugh, everything is gonna be okay.
When you start crying, that's bad {laughing}.
IV: So as, how long you are going to stay here in Germany now?
Just for this some days here?
AM: No, I'm gonna, we're gonna stay.
JM: That's why it was changed to M-A-I-S.
IV: Yeah.
AM: See originally my name is M-A-J-Z-N-E-R.
In Europe it's, it's "J" is used as a "J".
They don't use here the "J".
So they said: "That'll be very difficult for you, to every time to spell it."
When you say: "Maisner", it's M-A-I.
IV: Yeah, so here ah anyway how you write it, ah we, we pronounce it the same.
JM: Okay.
IV: It's always you say...
AM: No if you, if you have "J".
IV: If it's A-A-E- (???) Maisner.
AM: A-I, A-I.
IV: A-I.
AM: Ah, but if, if you spell, if you have the "J", it sounds like "maj", "maj", "maj", "majasner".
Like I have a friend of mine, that is Freid, "Freijermen", Freimen.
So he has the "J" there.
So it becomes "Freijermen" ah it..