SB: ..This place where I am now I also don't remember it.
IV: Yes, but you were here once before, privately, no?
SB: Last year. In August. I was here in August for a few hours, yes.
IV: Mmh. And this is the first time that you have come for a meeting of this kind.
SB: The first time at a meeting. There is a certain history, as I said.
I was here for the first time after the war in 1980.
And...can I tell this? I can tell this?
IV: Yes, yes, of course.
SB: And I arrived in the afternoon in Weiden and was looking for accommodations. I knew that I had to travel to Flossenbürg the next morning.
And I found one, rang, I found a guesthouse, I rang, the owner opened the door, a young man around 30, 35 years old and he said:
"I'm sorry but we are closed, we are renovating and cannot take any guests."
And I asked just for a place to sleep because I would be leaving early the next morning.
He took me in and later I told him the purpose of my journey.
And then he said in approximately these words: If you are expecting to find something in the former camp you will be bitterly disappointed.
Everything was done to conceal it all, so that no traces remain.
And the next day I came here and it was just as he said. I had come alone. Not a living soul far and wide that I could ask something.
I just saw the grounds and then I went to Schwarzenfeld. Because Schwarzenfeld, am I being recorded?
IV: Yes. It's running.
SB: Yes, in Schwarzenfeld, as I said, I was on the first transport that left Flossenbürg before the war...before the end of the war.
That was on April 15 and we we were put on trains in Floss, some open trains, some closed.
But after traveling a few kilometers we were attacked by low-flying planes.
The low-flying planes brought the locomotive to a halt and we had to wait for another locomotive to arrive.
What was notable was that the first attack came quite unexpectedly, for the prisoners and for the guards, for the SS guards.
The prisoners...jumped down from the train cars and ran off to seek shelter.
Some, I believe, were able to get away and find something.
So later, when we drove on...after one or two days, the order came that if another attack occurred then the SS guards...
were to take their positions on both sides of the train with their weapons pointed at the train cars and we prisoners were not allowed to leave the train.
We had either to stay on the train or hide beneath the train car.
I have this image of the second attack, so the second attack did occur.
There may have even been a third one, I can't recall.
And it contined like this until Thursday, April 19, when we arrived in Schwarzenfeld.
In Schwarzenfeld we were bombed again, attacked by low-flying planes but this time the entire train was attacked.
As I said, was attacked, the train was fired at, there were wounded and dead.
We screamed, we had...
The people who were wearing prisoner clothing were waving their clothes so the low-flying planes would see it.
It didn't help and we were, there were injured and dead, more than 200, we left ca. 200 people behind.
It was later said that the attack had come from American planes, I have heard other versions, but I don't want to go into that now because I am not sure about it and secondly, the end result was the same.
So as I said, we had to leave the train because, as I learned later, the aim was the evacuation of Dachau.
After we were in Schwarzenfeld, after it was realized that we we could not leave Schwarzenfeld by train...
we gathered onto one side the injured and those who were not able to continue on by foot and those who were able to walk gathered on the other side.
We were told that those who were staying behind would be transported by car but that didn't happen.
As soon as we marched off, they were shot and buried right then and there on the Jew...on the Christian cemetery.
I learned that later.
We marched onward from that Thursday until around Friday afternoon when we arrived in Neunburg at the entrance to the forest.
It had begun to rain when we were marching, it was April, we were soaking wet.
Friday, Thursday to Friday, we rested for a few hours on the side of the road, on the ground, and arrived Friday afternoon in Neuenburg at the entrance to the forest.
We left Flossenbürg on Sunday without any food.
We were not given anything to eat the entire day, the first time was when we got to Neunberg.
Evidently they had been told that a transport was on the way, they were waiting for us on a horse-drawn buggy, a hay cart, with a few barrels of cooked potatoes.
I remember exactly. Everyone was given one portion and we assembled into groups again and marched on.
That was Friday afternoon, Friday to Saturday we marched on along the road, I don't know in which direction.
We arrived on Friday, Saturday afternoon in some village and found sleeping quarters in the barns of farmers, soaked down to the bones, and stayed there until Monday morning.
Monday morning, April 23.
On April 23, they said we had to leave and we got into our groups and continued the march.
Notable is that we marched until Saturday afternoon, we marched on the main road, along the main road.
But on Monday morning we turned onto a forest and went through the forest.
That was, I don't want to say that I found it strange, but it was fact.
We marched through the woods for about 2 hours until we saw the clearing in the woods.
That was the end of the woods.
Then they told us to stop, we prisoners had to carry the SS people's luggage.
So they told us to stop and the SS people were called back into the woods.
We instinctively knew to move forwards and sensed that we were free.
We left the woods, I was with two other comrades, we stopped together and approached the first farmhouse and shots were fired from the house.
So we turned onto the road in the other direction, to the left.
Then to the left we came to a dirt road, I can't remember exactly a dirt road that at some point sloped downward
Two fields sloped upward on both sides.
That means the fields went uphill on the other side, on both sides and we went along this dirt road.
Until we reached the top again and we saw two men in front of us about 50, 60 meters away and one was in uniform, an SS man, he held a hand grenade in one hand and a gun in the other.
And a farmer stood next to him.
The SS man called to us to come closer. We had to, we came closer and he asked us in broken German, I noticed that immediately, where we came from.
It turned out he was a Ukrainian in an SS uniform.
And we said that we had come from Flossenbürg, that we left with the transport on Sunday and had made it here and had been freed.
We later learned that this SS man had come from Flossenbürg too but had left on a later Flossenbürg transport and had stayed the night at the farmer's in this village.
The next morning when he got up, he saw that he had been left alone, didn't find anyone there and from us he learned the first news about what the situation was.
So he defused the grenade and threw the individual parts in, either in a pond or in a well next to him.
I can't remember exactly. And he understood the truth, the situation and took off.
And beforehand the farmer asked whether he could invite us into his house and the SS man had said "yes" and we went to the farmer's house.
There were three of us and and he gave us something to eat. That was the first time, that was around noon.
Two or three hours later we heard a rattling, rattling.
In front of the house was a large field or meadow and then came the road, the main road, and then the first Americans arrived, filled up their tanks but they didn't stop, they passed by, continued on their way down the road towards Cham.
The village where we were freed was Stamsried.
IV: Stamsried.
SB: Stamsried. Where the farmer lived, the farmer who fed us.
We stayed with him for about 18 days until we had regained some strength and when we heard that a group of prisoners were nearby in Cham we decided to go to Cham.
And we thanked him and said goodby and headed eastward.
I came back to Stamsried. As I said, last year when I was here in Flossenbürg, on the way home.
Because we had been in Bad Wörishofen at the time. I came later to Bad Wörisshofen.
I asked the chauffeur to drive through Stamsried, and in my memory, in the back of my mind, I had the name of the farmer. But I wasn't sure.
We got to Stamsried and I wanted to inquire about the farmer but we didn't see anyone far and wide in the area.
I went into a house, went into the barn, called out, no one answered, I went to the next house. The same.
So I was resigned and said we should drive home. I left and as I was getting in, a car passed, stopped and a young lady got out with a thermos in her hand and I asked her if she came from Stamsried.
She said no, she wasn't from Stamsried, but her father-in-law who was working here at the construction site, he came from Stamsried. He could provide me information.
So we went to the father-in-law and I asked him about the name of the farm and it was Staunershof.
I had that in my memory but I wasn't sure.
He said "yes, it existed but it was on the other side of the village and he showed us the way, how to get there.
And we went the right direction after asking a few times we arrived there and then we met the son-in-law of this farmer.
The farmer wasn't alive anymore and he said "yes," the father-in-law had often spoken about how at the end of the war he had taken care of a few prisoners and had told them about that and I told him that we wanted to say thank you and that I remembered that we slept those nights in the barn.
I didn't mean to criticize in any way, just the opposite.
It was very pleasant, we had blankets and it was very warm.
And then a grandson from the owner of the house came in and brought me a picture of the barn, an authentic picture, I have it with me, and he said "You slept in this barn."
I said "yes" that's what it looked like.
So that was the story.
Later when we got to Cham, that was after the liberation, yes, the war wasn't over yet, we lived in Cham for a while, should I continue?
IV: Yes!
SB: When we got to Cham, we looked for a place to sleep, we didn't have one and found an open guesthouse.
The doors were open, we entered the guesthouse, went into the kitchen, looked for something to eat.
There wasn't any food there but we found a tidy room with made beds, white sheets.
That was totally new for us. And the next morning we went to the city.
I think we were in this hotel for one or two nights until...
Three men came, the mayor of Cham, the second person was the owner of the guesthouse and a military man.
And the mayor introduced the owner of the guesthouse to us, said that he wanted to take it back into his possession and I said, "where will we sleep?"
He said: "Not far from Cham there is a military airfield and you can find accommodations there."
So we agreed, we had no other choice and we drove there.
At this base, this military base there were mostly groups of forced laborers...from Europe who were in Germany to perform forced labor and they were grouped together there and later sent back to their homeland.
We were...when we left Flossenbürg on Sunday we were the first transport to leave Flossenbürg and it was made up only of Jews.
At this military base they said that the Jews were to be put in a special camp and would be sent from there to Poland, transported to Poland, everyone back to his home.
We all protested, even the ones who came from Poland. Most of them came from Poland, I didn't, I came from Germany.
Most came from Poland, and said, we don't have a home in Poland anymore, we don't have anyone, no more relatives in Poland. Our goal is Palestine.
Nothing helped. After a few days we were brought to a camp in Hohenfels.
Hohenfels was a prison camp where there were only Poles.
Polish forced laborers, formerly, And we were admitted there.
The Poles who took us in were not very friendly but that is beside the point.
And the camp was fenced in, the camp was closed, you weren't allowed to leave the camp, only with permission.
But we tried to somehow leave the camp.
We were a small group of Jews and and we found a way out of the camp secretly at night.
I, myself, went to Schwandorf, that was towards the end of May.
I settled in Schwandorf and lived there in Schwandorf until mid-'47.
Then in mid-'47 I left Schwandorf and set off for Palestine, at first illegally, from Schwandorf across the border to Austria, from Austria to Italy.
We arrived in Italy in the summer, summer '47.
And that was before the vote to decide what to do with the people rescued from the Shoah and that was the vote in Lake Success on November 29, 1947.
Where the founding of the state of Palestine, the state of Israel, was decided so we stayed in Italy until the end of '48. November '48 we came to Israel legally.
I had by then gotten married in Italy, I met my wife in Germany, in Schwandorf.
My wife came from a different direction. My wife was not in the camps, she was in Russia, but we met in Germany and later on the way in Italy we got married.
IV: And since then you live...
SB: Since then I have lived in Israel.
IV: You have a very good memory.
SB: We created a fresh, new generation, the two of us, yes, we have two sons, one son is already 59 years old and the other turned 50 last month.
And grandchildren, the evening before last, before we departed.
It was around 12 at night, we departed at six in the morning from Tel Aviv.
At twelve midnight we received a telephone call from our son, that his grandchild was born. That means...
IV: Congratulations!
SB: Thank you. That is the third great grandchild.
I have one, the oldest grandchild, he already has two children, he is 32 years old, is now a lieutenant in the Israeli military.
A month ago we were in Haifa, in the Technion, invited by Technion, where more than 700 students received the second title, I can't think of the name...
IV: Master's.
SB: Master's degree, yes. My grandson was among them and we watched as our son, as our grandson walked onto the stage in uniform and recieved the certificate.
That was a great joy for us, yes, in this moment the entire past went through our heads. That was it.
By the way, to come back to the liberation...
As I said, we left Flossenbürg in the direction of Dachau in Schwarzenfeld, as I later learned.
When we saw that we couldn't get to Dachau by train any more, we went the rest of the way by foot and took the trail through the forest on Monday, the 23rd.
Later, we learned that the plan had been to get to the bomb craters, where we were to be shot.
So it was our good fortune that we were freed two to three walking hours before we reached these bomb craters.
IV: That means, you freed yourselves. The SS withdrew.
SB: The SS withdrew.
Once again, I had something in my memory, but I wasn't certain.
Which Mr. Ulrich confirmed, that it was the case, that we were freed on the 23rd and a few groups found accommodations with farmers in the area.
I had heard that at one of the farmer's SS people came in the evening after the liberation, gathered the freed people together and piled them one over another and shot through them as a way to save ammunition.
I wasn't sure about this and I asked Mr. Ulrich whether it was true and he said "yes", he confirmed that it was fact.
IV: But you had only heard about it.
SB: I had heard it, we were not there.
We were with the farmer in Staunershof, there were just three of us.
Yes, we were, no, pardon, there were four of us.. Another person came there later.
There were four of us and were there for 8 to 10 days until we left Staunershof.
IV: What was your...later you lived in Schwandorf.
SB: Yes.
IV: What were your feelings about how the people treated you after the war, as a former prisoner.
SB: I'd like to say something. For me personally, the war began in '33 not in '39.
I can vaguely recall when HItler came to power, but later I processed it in my memories,
I was born in Germany, attended school in Cologne, completed grammar school, experienced the Kristallnacht in Cologne and stayed in Cologne until shorty before the war broke out.
And I was then immediately separated from my parents.
I was in the camps and I had a brother who was 6 years younger who stayed with my parents.
And since then I have never heard from my parents so I am 100 percent certain that my parents and my brother perished.
IV: And you were totally alone...Why don't you tell me about your journey leading up to your arrival in Flossenbürg.
SB: Eh, at the very beginning I was in work camps in Poland and we...
As I said, a work camp, not a concentration camp.
But the conditions were, I don't want to say that the conditions in the concentration camps were good, but worse than in...
The company that we worked for, it was a construction company from Mörfelden near Frankfurt, called Firma Fischer and right after the war ended in Poland...
The war didn't last long in Poland, it was over in three weeks, they took over various work, such as clearing out forests and other things.
I worked in the forest for this company that had established a camp in Poland.
They were work camps, but the conditions were terrible. The conditions were terrible and we...
IV: How old were you then?
SB: When the war broke out, broke out, that was '39, I was 14 years old. I was born in '25.
IV: Yes. So at the age of 14 you began...
SB: WIth 14 I began working as a forced laborer and those who fell...
The reservoir, the human reservoir, it was huge, it was not a problem to get fresh reserves to exploit human labor.
IV2: May I ask, Mr. Brückner, how did you get from Cologne to Poland? How did that happen?
SB: Pardon?
IV2: How did you get from Cologne to Poland?
SB: My parents were Polish citizens. My parents were born in Poland and arrived as children in Cologne, and when I say children, I mean late 19th century, early 20th century.
Yes, so on my mother's side, three brothers were in World War I, two returned home and one fell.
And his name is engraved in a memorial stone in Cologne at the cemetery, the Jewish cemetery, which still exists in Bocklemünd.
Along with my grandmother and an uncle who was also in the war, but died after the war, was buried in Cologne, after the war, they died after the war, after World War I in Cologne.
During the time under Hitler...I was born in Cologne, 1925.
IV: Could you repeat that into the camera?
SB: I was born in Cologne and attended the Jewish grammar school and arrived in Poland about four weeks before the war broke out.
I experienced the break out of war in Poland, in Cracow.
I had two sisters at the time in Israel, who had gone to Israel before the war.
One sister went in '33 right when it started in '33 as soon as Hitler came to power, lived in Düsseldorf.
I lived in Cologne and my second sister went to Israel two years later.
In 1935 we were supposed, we could have gone to Israel, had the chance.
IV: The whole family.
SB: The whole family. We had property in Cologne, still lived there.
But there were a few circumstances there.
First of all, my parents ran a general store in Cologne and the suppliers were almost all German and encouraged my parents not to leave because the situation had to, could not continue long in this way.
It has to come to an end somehow. We just had to stick it out.
The other thing was that when I was around ten, that was 1935, my brother was four and the situation in Israel was not very rosy.
So my parents postponed the journey to Israel.
We already had our certificate in '35....we could have gone to Israel.
IV: And your sisters were sent there.
SB: My sisters went there voluntarily.
And we, when we were small children, our parents said we should grow up a bit before we go to Israel.
But then after the Kristallnacht...
In 1938, on November 9, you know what happened, we were still in Cologne.
We said SOS, SOS, alarm to Israel, that was my parents.
And the immigrant quota to Israel was limited so we had to wait until it was our turn.
Meanwhile the war broke out and everything changed.
What we did manage, was to send a part of our household from Cologne to Israel, to what was then Palestine, because we were on the waiting list to go to Israel, and our things made it there.
They were at my sister's and when I, as the only survivor, was given the things, as a keepsake I have various photographs from my time at school in Cologne, the schools I attended, that still exist today, and a few family possessions.
IV: Mmh, I'd like to return to where we left off...
CM: Then let's take a break here.
IV: Ok.