IV: Heute ist Samstag, der 19. Juli 2014.
Wir sind in Weiden im Hotel Admira.
Mein Name ist Michael Aue von der Medienwerkstatt Franken.
Und ich führe jetzt ein Interview mit Herrn Henry Greenbaum, der in den USA lebt.
Er wurde am 1. April 1928 in Polen geboren.
Und zwar in dem Ort Starachowice.
Und äh, kam unter anderem, nach einem Auftenthalt in Auschwitz, auch nach Flossenbürg.
Und wurde auf dem Todesmarsch befreit.
IV: Well, so let's start ah a little bit ah just ah biographical.
Where're you born?
Ah, little bit about your family.
So d.., just to know, where you are and where the story..
HG: Okay.
IV: ..started.
HG: So you want me to talk?
IV: Yeah, I want you to, to tell a little bit about your..
HG: I thought you gonna just ask me questions {laughing}, okay.
IV: Ah, yeah, so, just a.., my questions are there ah t.., to make you..
HG: Okay.
IV: ..talk {laughing}.
HG: I c.., I come from a family of nine children.
We had six girls and three boys.
We were ah, I come from Poland.
Ah and I was born April 1st 1928.
I was the youngest of the nine children.
And of course we had a normal upbringing.
I went to public school.
I went to Hebrew school.
And play games with other children.
Like a normal life.
But of course, when the German army took over then it was a little bit different.
They right away, it didn't take them too long.
I don't know how long it was.
We wound up in a ghetto in the old city, in Starochowice.
We stayed in there for two years.
From '40 to October '42 we stayed in the ghetto {clicking his tongue}.
And then they decided to have a selection.
They took, the selection was to take away the old, very young, handicapped, pregnant women, women with children.
And ah all they left, able were the people for work.
We, my family, we also had family's store in my town.
We had IDs that we worked in the factories.
I was not quite twelve years old.
But I already worked in the ammunition factory.
For the ah, for the Polish, ah, when they ordered.
And when the German army came in, of course we had IDs so we were saved.
And then they took those people away when they had the selection.
They took them to Treblinka.
Nothing but a killing center.
My mum went there.
My two married sisters went there with three ah little nieces and two nephews.
They all were there, but I never could find them after the war.
We were asking, looking for them. And they told us not to look for them, the, that they lost their lifes in Treblinka.
IV: Treblinka {whispering}. One? So just, yeah, come in, come in.
And the people who were able to work?
HG: Okay, we stayed there and I was left with three single sisters.
And we all had IDs that we work in the ammunition factory.
In fact, the older one of the girls wound up in a tailor's shop.
She ah because that was our business in...
We had a tailor d..shop.
So the girls knew how to sew.
This one volunteered to be a tailor after and, after work in the ammunition factory.
But the others, we worked, we came to work three shifts a day.
Seven to three, from three to eleven, from eleven to seven in the morning.
Every week changed the three shifts.
And we were in this ghetto.
And the ghetto, the only good thing in the ghetto is, the family was together, intact.
But when they had the selection, of course, they broke up the family.
My father died two months before the war.
IV: Mhm {confirming}. And, so you stood in the ghetto at, but the..
CM: Moment.
IV: Yeah. Outside of the ghetto.
HG: The work?
IV: The, yeah, the work.
HG: Ah, was outside the ghetto, right, it was a factory.
Not to far away distant from the ghetto.
We were able to walk every day.
And the order was, that to come out of the ghetto, is the ones to show the guards the ID.
And we were lining up for work.
And all of us marched out at the same time.
We came back at the same time.
And we stayed there like I said till October '42.
And then when they had the selection, after the selection they didn't return us to the ghetto.
They built for us a slave labor camp.
On the top of a stone quarry.
With six foot fence wires, not electric just barbed wire.
And the guards, and the dogs, and the tower.
And they had floodlight.
And we continued for another year to stay there.
And we worked there.
Then from the being, from the dirt, from the filth, we never changed our cloth.
We never got washed.
We became lice infested.
And lice breed typhoid sickness.
And that broke out while we were there in the slave labor camp.
A very contagious sickness.
And we were staying in such close quarters, like three guys slept on one bunk.
Then maybe seventy-five inches wide.
So, if one caught it, the next will definitely gonna catch it.
But the only thing is if someone was, had high fever.
That high, they could, you could do nothing.
You couldn't even stand on your feet.
Middle fewer, low fewer, you can go to work.
You're slow a little bit, but you can go to work.
But if you didn't line up for work, they went to look for the rest of them.
Because every morning we lined up in the front of the barrack to send us off to work.
If the night shift come back, they wouldn't let them in yet.
Until they send the day shift out.
So, if somebody was missing, they went inside the barrack to look for them.
And if they found them, there was a pick-up truck.
I think it was the Einsatzgruppen.
I'm not sure.
But it was a special unit who came by with a little truck.
And they put the sick people and they took them away to the outskirt sort of town.
They killed them there.
And they all had one grave.
And we dug those trenches for them, for the army, for the German army.
And they told us that that was for the military, for the tanks to fall in.
Whether theyy were six feet by four feet..
I don't remember how deep we were digging.
And they used those trenches for the people with typhoid.
They shot them into the ditch, naked first.
I didn't see it.
I was not there.
But I was told that ah people who investigated from the farmers around with, who were there.
Because the farmers took the cloth.
IV: Yeah.
HG: And they shot them naked and throw, they went into the ditch.
I lost a sister who died of typhoid.
And then the old middle sister, they took her, she didn't line up for work.
And we didn't know where they take those people.
We thought they're taken for hospital.
Or they take them to another, a ki.. o.. another camp or another ghetto.
We didn't know what they were doing.
Until after the war we found out.
So at the end, I was left.
One sister was, ah died of typhoid.
And one the, I think it was the Einsatzgruppe that came to pick them up.
Any barrack to barrack, it was ah, the truck was full.
They would take them to the outskirts of the town.
And they would shoot them there.
And I lost two, so I had one more.
So we heard rumors from the tailor shop.
The high ranking officer came into the tailor shop and told those tailors to hurry up with those uniforms,
"because such-and-such date all of you gonna be deported out of here."
And it was already almost '44, 1944.
IV: Yeah.
HG: So these tailors didn't know what it meant, that we are gonna be deported.
They thought, "they are gonna probably kill us and now they don't need us anymore."
Although we helped them for three years with the war machinery.
Whether it was a tailor or ammunition, what ever.
And then, and then they decided that they came.
And ah not everyone knew about the escape, just a few.
Most of all the tailors.
And then who their relatives were or friends.
And they organized a certain group.
And the day my sister that I had left over the one she had..
A middle fewer, but she can go to work everyday.
She told me the night before, when I come back from my shift, from the factory:
"Do not go into the barrack.
Wait for me outside."
So I obeyed that order.
And she came by to follow.. I had my shift from three to eleven.
So I, I never went into the barrack.
I stayed for her outside.
And it was pitch-dark.
She came by with a Jewish policeman.
Whether she befriended him, I don't know the answer.
She held us hands, her hand.
And she grabbed my hand, all through we were running.
And there was a, a barbed wire fence first.
And the second fence was a wooden fence.
When we came to the wooden fence to break it out, it made a little more noise than the clippers cut the wires.
And the guards and the shepherd, shepherd dogs.
Very alert, very alert dogs, they were growling and barking.
So, the guard flipped the lights on, to see what was wrong.
And they saw people were running out.
And he just tried to kill as many as he could.
Some wounded.
And I was not, and I was about maybe ten feet away with the policeman and my sister.
And once he put the lights on, he started shooting at us, too.
We, and then that, the bullet grazed me on the back of my head.
And knocked me out.
When I awoke a few seconds later,
I was yelling for my sister Faiga and I could not find her.
And I never would run towards the hole, where they cut the hole out.
So I decided to stay an.., and look for her.
And I could not find her.
But the women's barrack was in the opposite direction.
Where the hole was cut through.
So I decided to run for that.
I lowered my head, bleeding furiously.
And I ran there, and I came into the women's barrack.
And the woman didn't let me in.
It was a Jewish woman.
From my town, she knew me and I knew her.
She would not let me in.
I said: "I wanna see my sister Fagia."
"She is not here.
Get out of here.
You gonna get us all killed."
I said: "How am I gonna get you killed?
I have no weapons, how am I gonna kill you?"
Anyway, we were fighting back and forth.
I decided to sit in the doorway.
And she could not close the door.
And the guards upstairs on the tower were very angry that people were running out.
And then, at one point they stopped running.
And when they saw what's happening, the lights were up already.
So they started shooting into the barracks.
And they came in, a few bullets came into the barrack.
And the women jumped off the bu.., the ah the bunks.
And on the floor they went.
Then I had eye contact with everyone of them, looking for my sister.
I didn't believe the woman, told me my sister was not here.
So I sits here and I ran into my first cousin Aida.
They, her mum and my mum were sisters.
She says: "What happened to you?"
And I say: "I am looking for my sister Fagia."
She says: "Your sister is not here.
She is not here.
I know what bunk she was on.
She is not here.
But what happened to you?"
So I told her, I was injured, but I can't find my sister.
So she said: "Let me help you with the bleeding."
And then they stopped shooting anymore.
So the woman, my cousin had a bucket of water, and, for everybody.
And we were drinking that water every day in the barracks.
So she wetted a rag, cleaned me up a little bit.
And she took a dry rag and put it over the wound.
She says: "I give you my beret.
And you wear my beret."
So the cloth would stay underneath.
And ah, we had a lot of hair.
They wouldn't cut our hair.
And in the ghetto or the slave labor camp in the old town.
So the women had their long hair.
And the men had long hair.
So that's why this lice infestation started.
Mostly in the hair.
And so then she just cleaned me up.
And then, I still have to, I don't stay in there.
What if the guards would catch me in there.
They probably would have killed me.
So I decided to sneak out of the women's barrack and I was watching the floodlights.
It was all, it already got dark already.
And the floodlight was going from the hall away and then back.
Comes and goes, back and forth.
And I figured out, I was fifteen years old that time already.
And I said: "I can beat that ah the floodlight."
Until for, starting of, running for this direction.
And I lowered my head and I jumped.
And I ran into my barrack where I belong with the men.
And a few minutes later, the loudspeaker came on.
All, everybody had to go "aus, raus."
And we had to stay in the front of the barrack.
The night shift just came back.
They wouldn't let them in.
They held them between these two sets of fences.
And they started counting each of one in front of each barrack.
Just to get some idea how many people escaped.
So they were counting.
And then there were missings.
So that they would look inside for them, inside the barrack, they were not there.
So that means either they're injured and lie at the hole over there or they escaped.
And then after they get through counting of one of u.. ah each of us,
we had to face the area where the hole was.
And there he took his gun out.
And he killed all the wounded people.
(???)
That were not killed.
The policeman was one of them.
He was sitting in an upright position on the ground.
A white band he had.
He wore his cap.
The special police cap he had, mourning and groaning.
He was hit by a bullet, I don't know where of course.
And then others, he killed all of the wounded ones.
The ones that were alive, breathing or yelling for help.
They just shot all of them.
And then he turned around to us.
And he said: "That's what will happen to you, should you ever try to escape again."
And we went back inside.
And back to normal for a few, two, three months.
And then, they decided that they, of sele..of, the deportation came.
And we were all deported.
They wouldn't let us go to work that twenty-four hour period.
Everybody was in this slave labor camp.
And they struck us on those trains.
And they to.., they took us away.
With no water, no bathroom for three, four days we traveled.
At the end of the travelling, we wound up in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
And the trains open up.
The doors opened up.
And the well dressed, the uniform guys, ah German army was standing there with their dog and they were directing traffic.
Like ah, what the reason there was, I don't know.
They had a selection again.
Left, right, left, right.
They sent me on the good side.
And we, we didn't know what the other bad side is.
Until a few days later.
We were told by other inmates that that part of the group was gased the day they came.
They either didn't have enough room for everyone.
Or they had an order how many they need to dispose of.
We were lucky.
My, my group that was saved were lucky.
The first thing we got is a number on our arm.
The first thing.
If I can open this up here.
And I am glad to show you
There is a number here: A, eighteen, nine, nine, one.
That was my number.
And by the way, I met a gentleman last night at the, at the Flossenbürg reunion there.
He had his number here.
And I think his number was pretty much close with mine.
So we were there at the same, almost at the same time.
So, we wound up here.
We stayed only about a few months in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
And a well... German man came in, a civilian.
Well-dressed man.
Well I, I admired his clothes.
He had a, a straw hat.
He had a three piece outfit, with a vest, a, a gold watch with a chain.
That's how I observed that guy.
That guy is still on my mind.
Because he sort of saved my life.
It was, we didn't know that.
He ordered that barrack..
He had two guards with him and a dog.
And they, the guards went in.
They chased everybody out of the barrack.
And that civilian German picked who ever he want.
But we didn't know what he is picking us for.
He took, I don't know, approximately I would say fifty of us.
And he marched us out of ah Birkenau-Auschwitz.
Either by truck or by foot, I don't remember it positively.
And he put us near Buna-Monowitz a subcamp of Auschwitz.
And that man was either an owner or manager of the IG Farben Company.
And the job that he would've done in the IG
is to build the road or a part of a road
with cobbled stones and sidewalks.
And this, that was already in 1945 of course.
And the war was already starting to sort of ease up a little bit.
And then we used to, then the United States bombed IG at that time.
They sent us over to some other place and bombed the IG factory.
The rail mostly in the beginning, that led into the IG.
And then of course at the end they knocked out the whole factory.
So they put us on trains again.
And we rode to, deeper into Germany.
We went to Austria, we went to Czechoslovakia.
And then the, ah the ah, the ah airforce got very aggressive.
And they knocked out the whole rail.
In some places they knocked out the lokomotive.
And then at the end was, they divided us in different groups.
I don't know how many in the march.
About two hundred, a hundred I don't remember that.
All I know we had two guards and two dogs.
Regarding (???) we started marching.
I think, I am not sur.., positive, but I'm, I will be investigating most of today in Flossenbürg.
That is my first time back.
So, the oth.., these gentlemen I have talked to, thought that was not the day that we arrived here.
It was, we were doing the work
We finally had to march in for a couple of miles to the camp.
Because of the rail system, the trains didn't go and that's how far they went.
And they knocked them out too, the lokomotive.
So we wound up in Flossenbürg.
And there, in Flossenbürg, which for me was just another camp, same bunks, the same food.
The only thing, that we didn't have to go to a factory to work.
I thought, this man would disagree with me.
He said something else.
He said, he stayed in ah, in, like in a, in a office or, or a factory of some kind.
I remember only bundling up clothing.
It was a story high of cloth from people who were wearing, who were murdered.
And I don't know whether that was people only from Flossenbürg.
Or was, was that the depot where they brought all the clothing in there?
That I am not sure.
But we were separating clothing.
Bundling up coats, shoes, pants bundling up.
And then they, I guess they shipped them back to Germany for recycling I guess.
And I was in Flossenbürg maybe another six months or so.
And then, the American army, we thought that was the Russian army,
because, being close to the Czech border we wouldn't think that Americans would come there.
But the American army was coming to liberate Flossenbürg.
And three days before that, that the ah, the ah,
German army or the Nazis or the, or the soldiers, they put us on trains again.
They took us in, deeper into Germany.
So, we were never got off the train, except in one spot,
we went to Austria, Czechoslovakia, Bavaria, Germany.
Just riding around
Some of them had open trains.
Mostly the women had open trains in those days already.
You know, half open.
And then we travelled through, then the ah, the ah Russian, the American airforce got very aggressive again.
And they knocked out eventually the whole system.
So they started to march us.
How many of us was in the march, I don't really recall.
But I know we were marching from middle of February to the 25th of April.
Just marching, marching, marching.
IV: Every day?
HG: Then, ev.., the guards..
IV: At night time or day time?
HG: Mostly day time. Never marched us at night.
IV: Yeah.
HG: At night we stayed in the woods, covered up.
Stayed there and the dogs were guarding us with the guards.
And then, at the ah 24th of April, the day before liberation,
before that, the guards didn't have any supplies with them either.
They were hungry too.
But they located a farm, while we were marching.
And they used to go to the farm and have themselves a good meal.
And the dogs I'm sure ate good {laughing}.
And we were allowed only one raw potato.
For the farmer, they gave us one raw potato and some water to drink.
And we didn't have water f.., for months.
It was two months at least.
We were drinking water out of the creek.
With anyway, it was 24th they brought us into a farm.
It was the day before liberation.
And all of a sudden they put us into this silo, where they keep the hay.
And some animals were right there.
And we thought that once they put us in there, they'll make, ah light a match and burn us all up.
But they didn't.
The dogs were outside.
Two dogs were outside laying on the ground.
Watching us, watching us being on the inside.
But we were that time drenched wet from the April showers.
We came in and we took our uniforms off.
Striped uniforms.
Because before we wore regular clothes for three years from home yet.
Never clean, never, that's why the lice in the hair, we got infested there.
But they, that was, we didn't get cleaned up until we got to Auschwitz.
Where we got the number, we finally got our hair cut.
We finally got a shower.
When I arrived at ah Birkenau.
But anyway that day, that day the 24th of April, we were in that place where the hay is, the silo.
And in the morning, they woke us up early in the morning.
We put back our clothes on.
They were not quite dry.
But, they were okay, they were not too bad.
We didn't have any underwear or socks.
All we had is the, the cap, the jacket, pants.
Wooden-bottomed shoes with canvas stubs on them, to tie up.
And that was our uniform.
And then they always..., they woke us up early in the morning.
And we only marched for two hours, near a wooded area.
And it was pretty much close to Neunburg vorm Wald.
In the woods in the area.
And all of a sudden, while we saw a lot of commotion on a highway, a lot of equipment.
But we didn't know whom the equipment was.
Who did it belong to?
Because we didn't know the marking on the equipment.
So we thought it was German army.
We didn't know who it was.
But all of a sudden the two guards, while we were resting, all of a sudden disappeared.
They took off with their dog.
And they left us by ourselves.
And after that we were kind of hu.., angry, because they left us.
Anybody can kill us now.
Although they would, probably were closest to kill us.
But they were afraid to fire a gun.
Because it makes a lot of noise.
And those two guards didn't wanna get caught.
I'm just guessing.
These two guards didn't wanna get caught by the American army.
So, they ran away from us.
Probably got into a farm.
Took their uniform off.
Put civilian clothes on.
They're just another person.
And then, all of a sudden, while we sat there, a tank appeared from the main highway towards us.
F.., by five, ten feet away.
The hatch opened up.
And this beautiful American soldier came out of the hatch, put his hands on his mouth.
And he says: "We are Americans and all of you are free."
IV: Did you understand english?
HG: We had somebody in that group that spoke english.
But we knew what "free" meant.
And "we are Americans", "American" is almost an international word. "American."
And I had a sister living in America.
She came here before the war.
Because I only gave you ah the description of five sisters.
The one that went to America in 1937.
So I knew, I had somebody still alive.
And some day, with God's help, I will be in America.
And once
the soldier told us that, "We are Americans and you are free."
I said to, to my, to my, to God I said: "Dear God.
Thanks f.., thanks for saving our lives.
But why did it take you so long?"
Five years it took.
I was locked up for five years.
At the age of seventeen I was liberated.
They tell me I weigh like seventy-five kilos or seventy-five pounds.
I don't remember that, but I was told that.
IV: So, what about your physical and also yo.., your mental condition after these five years?
HG: Well, the..
IV: About, during the time?
HG: Well, maybe it helped because I was younger.
And maybe it helped that I knew I had some good life ahead of me yet.
Once I came to ah, once I come to America.
I was looking forward to that.
But while I was in Germany, I ran into, after liberation, and after we had enough food in our system,
we started travelling on trains.
And I took a ride to Bergen-Belsen.
Looking for my m.., married sisters, the one they took away in October '42.
I said, maybe they killed my mum,
she was only fifty-four.
But my sisters were young women.
They had, one had three k.., ah girls, one, two boys.
And I said: "Maybe they killed the cildren?
Maybe the women are alive?"
So I took, ah, a ride to Bergen-Belsen.
And that was the British zone.
They liberated ah Bergen-Belsen.
I went in there.
The soldier told me: "Only three days."
And I told him, "I only need one day, only to look, to see."
And I couldn't find anybody.
Somehow I found this one woman, we were walking and she recognized me.
And I recognized her.
And it was that same cousin who helped me with the wound.
And they, and they ah, in my slave labor camp in Poland.
And she says: "I am going to Poland.
Do you wanna go with me?"
And we had a brother with the Polish Army.
I had one in the Polish Army.
But f.., I didn't know where he was of course.
And she took a ride.
And she went to Łódź, Poland.
It was a Displaced Persons camp.
And she looked for her brother Ramon.
And he knew of my brother, Isakery, who was in the Polish army.
He got caught by the German ah, Gestapo or SS, whoever it was.
And they put him into the Wilno ghetto.
He was in the Wilno ghetto.
For a little while.
Then he was liberated by the Russians.
But then he made it into Germany.
And then to Poland back.
And he wound up in Łódź, Poland, in the Displaced Persons camp.
So, she told him, that I was alive.
And I was in a ca.., in a displaced person camp near Frankfurt am Main.
It was called Zeilsheim.
It was either run by the Jewish organization, the HIAS.
Or maybe the UNRRA, they had a sign, UNRRA. U-N-R-R-A 503.
The reason I remember that, because I have picture of it.
I didn't bring it with me.
So, anyway, so my brother found out about that.
He came to me ah in a few weeks later.
And he happened to know where my sister lives.
Approximately in the, the Washington D. C. area.
All I knew she was in America.
But, so he came closer.
And somehow we found our sister.
And she sent papers for us.
And the two of, of us, came together, emigrated to America in ninet.., ah we left ah in 1946.
We came to America.
'45 I was liberated, a year later, 46 of, of June I was in, ah in, in, in New York.
IV: And then..
CM: (???)
IV: In the states, I think, you started a new life.
Let's go back a little bit.
Ah just to..
HG: But they, I have to back up, because..
IV: Okay.
HG: What happened is, before the German army invaded my city
in '39 of September, my Mum was very protective of us.
There were three single girls and myself and the oldest of the brothers, the second oldest of the brothers.
We went with a horse-drawn buggy on a farm.
And we ate breakfast outside in the field.
In front of the farmer's house.
He gave us a piece of bread.
And we used a tomato and we ate a piece tomato and some bread.
Supposed to go in to get a glass of milk in there.
Before we got it in to get the glass of milk, my brother saw a soldier, a Polish soldier.
Pulling ah a bicycle, broken bicycle.
And his, his uniform was a little ripped.
And my brother stopped him.
Somehow he knew his name.
I don't know how he knew his name.
Maybe it was a guard of the city.
But he did have quite a few medals on him.
And he called him by his first name.
And he told him, he says: "Where're you running from?"
He says: "I am running from the German army.
I didn't wanna get caught to be a prisoner."
In Polish to my brother.
And he ran away in the opposite direction.
My brother had an idea.
He asked the soldier, can he run away with him?
And he took off and left me by myself.
Right there.
And then I said: "He had to leave me.
He is my big brother, my, my hero brother.
He is gonna leave me with the three girls and my mum.
You know, because the other one was the Polish army.
IV: Yeah.
HG: So, I was, I was the only man.
IV: Yeah.
HG: I didn't like that.
I was chasing after, for a couple of miles, hiding under bushes.
To see, where he disappeared.
And he can.., but then he saw my head.
He yelled back: "Go back to your mother.
Go back to your mother."
I didn't listen to him of course.
But with the soldier turning around, he yelled at me to go back to my mother.
I said: "Okay."
And the next time I saw him, he was in America.
He escaped to Wilno, Lithuania.
And somehow he got in touch, in touch with my sister in America.
And they, ah I understand that they had a Japanese ambassador in Wilno Lithuania.
By the name of Sugihara.
He was helping some Jews.
They all took Chassidic Jews.
With false passports.
And he got them out of, he got them out of Wilno, Lithuania.
And they sent them like to Manchuria.
And from Manchuria they travelled wherever they wanted to go.
Or whoever, the relatives...
He asked to pick them up or what ever.
So, when I came to America with the other brother, we were looking for my sister to come pick us up.
Well, there was a man. He came.
And he got closer to me.
I said: "Oh, that is our brother Dave."
I said: "How did you get here?"
He says: "Oh, I came to America in 1941."
Then he started, so I told him: "If you would have been a good brother {laughing},
you would have let me run away with you.
And I would have been in America in 1941, too."
So he started telling me how much trouble that he had {laughing},
while he was in Lithuania.
I said: "Well, that's okay.
That's all right.
You're still my brother."
We hugged. We got on the train.
They took us to Washington, D. C. to see my sister.
And we all lived with my sister for a while.
IV: Ah, so, strange stories.
{???} so., what..
HG: Thank you.
IV: ..happened to one family. And so..
HG: And so, God was watching over me.
I came here.
I raised a beautiful family.
And I came with nothing.
With nothing.
In America they say, on, the, in America that you can do that.
You can become whoever you want to, if you're willing to work, willing to work hard.
And make something out of yourself.
IV: So, but so starting this new life, what about the past?
Did you try to forget it?
HG: Well.., and I never forget it.
I never forget it.
In the beginning you were dreaming every night.
I was black and blue sometimes from my wife.
She would hit me at night time: "You were, you're dreaming, you're dreaming."
Wake me up.
But, since I am, I am a volunteer for quite a long time about fifteen years or more
at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
And I speak to audiences there.
I tell my story just like I told you this story.
And a, field trips come.
And many, I don't say too many, I have run across quite a few a German young people that come.
To the museum.
And sometimes after they get through viewing they come down and they cry.
And they ask: "Do you have ah survivors?"
And the information tells them, there is a survivor at that desk.
And every day somebody, two people sit at that desk.
The survivors.
Whether they are from Russia, whether they are from Poland.
No matter who they are.
And they start talking to the person.
And sometimes we tell them: "You don't need to cry.
It was not your fault.
You were too young.
Your great-grandfather, maybe, I will never forgive.
But you and your mum and your parents.
You're too young.
I have nothing against you.
You didn't do it."
IV: And you also..
HG: So that gets out of my system.
Because I don't have a, some of this survivors keep everything bundled up.
And eventually, and they explode.
Something happens to them and they loose their mind.
Well, I know some of them, who did that.
But, like I say, the group that goes out to talk
we are about eighty of us at the Holocaust Museum.
Every day there is somebody at that desk, two people.
If somebody wants to talk to us and we, most of the time they come in and wanna take pictures with you.
The audience, whether it is German.., I even ran across a German High School Gymnasium.
They said they went to Auschwitz recently, a few days ago.
I was there.
And the and the guard, the woman that was taking them,
ah as a group, was sitting with me on the bench.
And we started talking.
And while the, the children was sitting on the grass area, resting.
So she found out about me.
Well, yeah, of course I told her.
She asked me where I was from.
And I told her that I am a survivor in the Holocaust.
She said: "Can you do me a favour?"
I said: "Sure. What do you need?"
She said: "I bring the kids over here.
Can you talk to them?"
They came over to me.
And I started telling them the story.
Some of them would tear eye.
Mostly the girls.
And there was some boys and girls.
Just, just about few days ago I did that.
So, maybe that is the reason I get it out of my system...
And that doesn't affect me.
Some of the pe.., like I say, do not talk.
They will not talk.
They can't talk.
They break down, too.
IV: Yeah. But in the beginning, when you got your children and your family,
you did talk about your, tell your, to tell your sons...
HG: I have never told my kids until they were older.
IV: Yeah.
HG: I remember they finally found out about it in 1978.
There was a documentary on NBC playing.
And they played, it was called, the documentary was called Holocaust.
IV: Oh no.
HG: So they broke it down to three segments.
Ah every other night over..., just break it up.
And my, I used to tell when they were little, my, especially my daughter.
She wants to know my.., I said: "That is my telephone number from the store {laughing}."
I would not tell her.
But then, 1978, they were already older.
They knew what it was.
About that time I went around to talk already at that time.
IV: But now it is the first time you are coming to Flossenbürg?
HG: Yes, I have a reason for that.
I was to busy in my store.
I was in the dry-cleaning business.
And I couldn't get out.
And my wife was not feeling well, too much always, to be traveling.
And then I had, the children were little.
I didn't, and I didn't feel like leaving them alone.
But since, I am eighty-six years old, I said, "you better do it now, or you never do it again."
So I took it up on myself to do it.
They agreed to come travel with me.
So I decided to come here.
IV: Mhm {confirming}. And now, what about your, what about your feelings, your emotions?
HG: Feeling this, well, it affects me, but I said, I almost look back at the bright side of the story.
I said: "I'm alive.
And accomplished a lot." I said.
While I was here, I cannot bring them back, the people who were murdered.
I can't bring them back.
So I'm, I'm happy as I get along with my family.
I got three sons and a daughter.
I got twelve grandkids, six great granddaughters.
One of them is a little boy.
So, I, I raised ah I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm good, in good shape.
I can't walk too good.
But that is all right.
But so far, I'm okay.
IV: Mhm {confirming}. So, one last question, let's come, come, going back to Flossenbürg.
Ah when you told your story, you said, one camp was like the other.
So, are there any special..
HG: Well, when I came in the barrack,
what I ment is the barracks're the same.
The barracks were the same.
Three people to a barrack.
The same food.
A slice of bread in the morning.
A little black Ersatz-coffee.
And then we work for ten hours in the factories.
And then they gave us cabbage water, cabbage soup.
I remember, that I had a spoon in the, tied up to my pants.
I never took it off.
Because it was nothing to spoon.
Just drink out this bowl of soup. That's all.
In every camp I stayed, that the, the, the diet never changed.
Except in one camp.
It might have been here.
The Red Cross came one day.
And I don't know whether this, the Red Cross was a German Red Cross or whether international?
Or whether they were Polish, that I don't know.
We could not talk to them.
The German officers were talking, discussing.
But they made us clean up,
the area real good.
They brought in two goals to, for us to play soccer.
And, and that day, we didn't get any cabbage water soup.
We got cream of wheat.
And I, I know for sure that these ah, ah red cross people that were there, were observing us.
That we don't look like that we get fat.
Cream of wheat everyday.
The way we looked.
The next day back to cabbage water.
And I think it was Flossenbürg.
IV: So, but Flossenbürg was the last camp you have been?
And it was very close to the end of the war?
HG: True..
IV: So, was it more, more crowded, more difficult, more dirty?
More dying people than compared to the other camps?
HG: Well, Flossenbürg, I remember they had ah a nice bathroom.
They didn't have that bathroom with that long seats
I don't think, with the holes.
There is like a regular, if, if you go to urinate the, ah the wall thing, to normal...
And all the other camps we didn't have that.
That is the only thing about Flossenbürg that I remember.
And it was some way to wash your hands, too.
No soap, but you could wash your hands.
But I didn't see all of Flossenbürg.
I arrived yesterday and I just mingled with the group that's in, under the tent.
IV: Yeah.
HG: To see, if I recognize anybody.
Today we're hoping we gonna go into the office or library or the museum whatever they have there.
To see, if my records are there.
IV: Yeah, and so, perhaps some memories will come back, seeing..
HG: Perhaps, yes..
IV: Old pictures..
HG: Because..
IV: Or the area..
HG: Like we went back to Auschwitz, before I came here.
IV: Yeah.
HG: We went to Birkenau, Auschwitz.
Some of the barracks, you know, they would, I, I remember the barracks.
I don't know exactly where they were.
But they were there.
I remember seeing the, whether the guards was sitting on top of there.
They're guarding the area with a, where the ah electric w.., ah fences were around.
And then that was roped up.
You can't go behind the fences.
That kind of thing.
Yeah, it comes back to you.
But I didn't see anything here yet.
IV: Okay. So, I just can say: "Thank you for sharing..
HG: You, you're welcome.
IV: ..your experience."
HG: And by the way I will tell you.
I was interviewed by a German television station around,
I think it was easter time, when we had, the museum had the twentieth anniversary, since they opened.
IV: Yeah. The Holocaust Museum?
HG: Yes, the Jewish..,United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
That is the right title.
And so, a German crew came up to my appartment.
They were two, two men and a woman from the German television station.
That is stationed in the Washington area.
They came to meet me for almost two hours.
And then was, you know, that by the time you get through,
they edited, you know, ah like a little, because she send me the, the tape.
IV: Yeah.
HG: The disc.
IV: Yeah.
HG: Two seconds. And I said, they interviewed me for two hours.
That was more than that.
But on television, and by the time, this television was shown in, in Germany.
On the evening news.
Now whether you can follow that up,
to see, if I'm telling you the truth {laughing}.
Mayb.., maybe you can find out something.
IV: So, but this time, you will get a DVD of..