Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Research Center
Transcript of an
Oral History Interview with
PAUL ARGIEWICZ
Concentration Camp Prisoner, World War II
Crew Chief, Air Force, Korean War
2000
OH
291
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OH
291
Argiewicz, Paul, (1933-). Oral History Interview, 2000.
User Copy: 2 sound cassettes (ca. 99 min.); analog, 1 7/8 ips, mono.
Master Copy: 2 sound cassettes (ca. 99 min.); analog, 1 7/8 ips, mono.
Video Recording: 2 videorecordings (ca. 99 min.); ½ inch, color.
Transcript: 0.1 linear ft. (1 folder).
Abstract:
Paul Argiewicz, a Bielsko, Poland native, discusses his experiences as a Jewish child in
Poland during Hitler's regime in Europe, immigration to Sheboygan (Wisconsin), and
service with the Air Force during the Korean War. Argiewicz talks about moving from
his family's home to Sosnowiec ghetto, sneaking out of the ghetto at age ten in an attempt
to find food for his family, capture by SS troops, processing at Auschwitz, and being sent
to a work camp called Blechhammer. He reflects on anti-Semitism and the culpability of
different European nations for the war. He describes conditions at his camp on the
Czechoslovakian border including the different types of people there, labor, food, and
assignment to help an electrician at a fuel plant. He comments on his relationship with the
electrician who he credits with saving his life by finding additional work for him and
bringing him extra food. As the Russian Army approached the camp, prisoners were
given a loaf of bread and forced to march to Buchenwald (Germany), and Argiewicz
recalls stealing sausages for an officer who in turn looked out for him, probably saving
his life during the death march. He mentions the changes a week before the war ended
including the prisoners resorting to cannibalism when the Germans stopped bringing
food, emotions when the Buchenwald camp was liberated, and the prisoners killing a
German guard. He speaks of staying with a German family after the war. Argiewicz
touches upon moving into the American Zone of Germany and getting a job with the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and an organization named
Sochnut. He talks about helping smuggle Jewish refugees across the Eastern German and
Polish borders to help them reach Palestine, smuggling cigarettes and coffee into
Czechoslovakia to bribe guards, and immigration to the United States. Drafted into the
American military, he comments on basic training at Scott Field and Lackland Air Force
Base (Texas), being wounded when his plane shot down by the Chinese Army over North
Korea, and his treatment as a prisoner of war. Argiewicz shares a few anecdotes about
being a service officer for disabled veterans: fighting with Senator Bob Kasten over
veteran benefits, going to court to get health benefits for a veteran’s widow, and saving a
gun-wielding veteran from being shot by police.
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Bibliographic Sketch:
Argiewicz (1933-), a child during World War II, experienced life in a Polish Jewish
ghetto and in a labor camp. Immigrating to the United States in 1950, he settled in
Racine, Wisconsin and served in the Air Force during the Korean War. He is featured in
Number 176520: The Story of Paul Argiewicz, a Teenage Holocaust Survivor, a
biography by Deanne Ebner.
Interviewed by James McIntosh, 2000.
Transcribed by Katy Marty, 2008.
Corrected by Channing Welch, 2009.
Corrections typed by Katy Marty, 2009.
Abstract written by Susan Krueger, 2009.
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Transcribed Interview:
[Total time ca. 99 min. Tape begins abruptly.]
MR. A:
-- and I went only three and a half years to grade school with no education.
JIM:
That’s all?
MR. A:
That’s all. But --
JIM:
Yeah, how did you get so smart then?
MR. A:
I don’t know.
JIM:
Oh.
MR. A:
You know it’s funny.
MRS. A:
And so humble.
MR. A:
I hope you’re taping it.
JIM:
Of course.
MR. A:
Are you taping it now?
JIM:
Of course,
MR. A:
Fine. When I got --
JIM:
The world wants to know, you know.
MR. A:
When I got in the service, after I finished. –
JIM:
Yes, go ahead.
MR. A:
Don’t tell me you’re gonna have a --
JIM:
No, I’ve gotta, no, I’ve gotta. It sticks. But this is getting it. You’re on
here. This is just extra here, this stuff.
MR. A:
I hope so. Why don’t I have my wife with me?
MRS. A:
No, just do it on your own honey.
4
JIM:
Because it’s all I can do is to tape one of ya. All right.
MRS. A:
I’ll just prompt you when you forget, all right?
JIM:
There you go.
MR. A:
You see I’ve been on my honeymoon now.
JIM:
Wonderful.
MR. A:
Thank you.
Wife:
For four years he still thinks he’s still on a honeymoon.
JIM:
Probably does (??) (laughter) I won’t let you talk to my wife. I don’t know
why this doesn’t want to work. I guess the --
MR. A:
Is she here too?
JIM:
No, I don’t let her come in here.
MRS. A:
No, he doesn’t want us to talk to her. (laughs)
JIM:
Oh, you don’t want to talk to her.
MR. A:
You press two buttons. One, --
JIM:
The problem is when I’m not here somebody is always in there screwing
around with this thing.
MR. A:
I’m sure it wasn’t me.
JIM:
No, I’m positive.
MRS. A:
Not this time.
JIM:
Not this time.
MR. A:
Now wait a minute. I have the same phonograph (??) –
Jim:
Yeah, I know it. See, I should –
MR. A:
Let me show it to ya. Is this empty?
JIM:
Yeah.
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MR. A:
Okay, put it the way you had it. Now close it up. Now you gonna press
two buttons, this one --
JIM:
No, this way to record you just press that button.
MR. A:
No, this is recording together. You have to push --
JIM:
No.
MR.A:
Is this like –
JIM:
Yeah, but it doesn’t work.
MR. A:
Is this Panasonic? Let’s see once. That’s different. I thought it was the
same.
JIM:
No, you guys got to move.
MR. A:
Does it say both buttons?
JIM:
No, I’ve been using it that way for --
MR. A:
Now it’s recording.
JIM:
No, it isn’t.
MR. A:
It does.
JIM:
It doesn’t move. I can see it doesn’t move, and I don’t know why it
doesn’t want to move. God damn it. Ah ha. We’re getting all this
(unintelligible) okay.
MR. A:
Do you want to put the tape on?
JIM:
No.
MR. A:
On this roll of tape is here too. It will pick up the video, I mean the
audio?
JIM:
Oh, sure.
MR. A:
Oh, so you didn’t need the tape?
JIM:
It’s superfluous.
MR. A:
Oh.
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JIM:
As they say.
MR. A:
Oh I see.
JIM:
All right, off and running.
MR. A:
All right.
JIM:
It’s the 25th of February 2000 and we’re talking to Paul Argiewicz.
MR. A:
Argiewicz, right.
JIM:
Did I say it right?
Mr. A.:
That’s correct, now you’ve got it.
JIM:
I’m a slow learner. Anyway, tell me, here we go. Where were you born?
MR. A:
I was born in Bielsko, Poland.
JIM:
Boy, you better spell that one.
Mr. A.
B-i-e-l-s-k-o, Poland.
JIM:
When?
MR. A:
In 1933.
JIM:
’33?
MR. A:
Yeah.
JIM:
See I’m just ten years older. I’m going to be seventy-seven this year.
MR. A:
Who?
JIM:
You’d be, I will. If you were born in ’33 you were born ten years after I
was.
MR. A:
This is right.
JIM:
Yeah, Okay.
MR. A:
Pretty close.
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JIM:
Close enough.
MR. A:
Pretty close.
JIM:
O. K. so in your early life how did you get –
MR.A:
In my early life –
JIM:
Involved?
MR. A:
I want to explain, I want to start it from the beginning. I was born of a
Jewish family in Bielsko, Poland and we were not very affluent. We were
a very poor family, and we lived not in the city. We lived in the outskirt of
the city because in the outskirt was cheaper rent and cheaper it was to live.
So when the war broke out in 19 -
JIM:
’39.
MR. A:
‘39 late in the fall. And all the wars used to start always in the fall.
JIM:
First of September.
MR. A:
Because they prepared the food to start a war because they never knew
how long it would take place. And nobody ever thought that such a horror
would take place over whole Europe. Nobody ever expected it. The
Germans had a very bad reputation --- reputation . Now, wait a minute.
Very bad, let me say this way, history of war, warfare and fighting and like in the First World War they were the first create gas and all chemical
things.
JIM:
It went back about 600 years.
MR. A:
But back way back to the French wars and the German wars.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
And then a great leader came along and united Germany by the name
Bismarck. That’s why the Germans always looked up to him. And when
the war started, well, I used to go to school like any kid and just as
mischief as any other kid, no different. But in my hometown, not only my
hometown, through whole Europe there was a lot of anti-Semitism hatred,
and that’s why Hitler could get away with a lot of things. No other country
he got away with it as much as he got away in Poland. That’s why he
could set up all the concentration camps, extermination -- could not
concentrate extermination camps but at the same time when the people
were coming in he could sort ‘em out, what he could salvage to use for
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work and what he would exterminate immediately. So what happened
when you came in the camp? I came to Auschwitz, or Majdanek or
Treblinka, in those camps right away you went to the gas chamber because
the people were coming in constantly from all over Europe from as far as
Yugoslavia all way to Denmark. But in Denmark coming back, I will
come back later to you. There was a special thing. In Demark it never got
any Jews. Very, maybe a handful, because the people were very
cooperative in Denmark and they didn’t believe of Jews as Jews. They
believed that the Jews were Danes as much as any other, but in Poland,
you could live for generations, you always were a Jew, never accepted you
as a Pole. Anti-Semitism was great and it was just right in hand. The
church had a lot to do with it. So when I came in the concentration camp
and they picked me up. Oh, let us go back. I got into ghetto. First I got
into ghetto in Sosnowiec.
JIM:
Age? Your age?
MRS. A:
Ten, when you went in the ghetto.
MR. A:
In the ghetto I was ten.
JIM:
Okay.
MR.A:
Ten years of age.
JIM:
Sent to the ghetto.
MR. A:
You know what a ghetto is?
MRS. A:
The whole family.
JIM:
Yeah, not in Warsaw, though.
MR. A:
No, it was in Sosnowiec.
JIM:
(laughs) Boy,
MRS. A:
You are going to have fun spelling all of these.
MR. A:
Give me another piece of paper S-
JIM:
In Poland, I’ll write Poland. That’s close enough for good work.
MR. A:
Yeah.
JIM:
Got it.
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MR. A:
Okay, and we were in that ghetto for almost a year.
JIM:
Your family?
MR. A:
My whole family.
JIM:
Got it.
MR. A:
And it was so bad in that ghetto we used to be quartered in maybe one
bedroom maybe three families could sleep in it like sardines next to each
other. But nobody abused each other physically. Nobody ever even
thought about it. Like I mean sexually or whatever. It was all self-respect
and everything. So one day we got up and it was so bad that we had
nothing to eat so I figured if I go out as a kid maybe I can sneak through,
out of the ghetto and go to a bakery someplace or whatever it is. If I can’t
buy the bread, if not I’m gonna steal it. So each Jew had to be marked with
the Star of David. Had to wear it. If not he would have shot you right on
the street or hang you if they caught you without any markings.
JIM:
German soldiers or Polish soldiers? Was this before the war or after the
war?
MR. A:
That was during, that was after the Poland was overran.
JIM:
Oh, then it was German soldiers then.
MR. A:
But the German soldiers didn’t do it. The German soldiers, the
Wehrmacht, was never involved in any killing or murder whatever. That
was the Schutzpolizel and the Schutzpolizei was under the command of
the SS. Of the Gestapo.
JIM:
Himmler.
MR. A:
Himmler’s gang, right. So they caught me. And I have never seen my
parents again.
JIM:
So they didn’t let you get back to the ghetto?
MR. A:
No.
JIM:
Then where did --?
MR. A:
They took me into a school they called “Durchenslager” that means like a
building where they try to evaluate you if you can work or you go for
extermination, for experiments whatever it is.
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JIM:
In the same city or out of the city?
MR. A:
No, in the same city, but then when you got to Auschwitz they tried to
again check you over. Here, this was brief. You came in, and we were
standing in a line and they came and asked me, “How old are you?” And a
guy behind me kicked me in the shin and said to me in Jewish he said to
me, “Say to him that you are 18.” And I was almost, I was just about
eleven years old. But I was very husky built and strong. I don’t know if I
could get away with it, but it was so quick. The people were coming in. So
the guy was standing with a stick, like a whip. I don’t remember what it
was, a bull whip or was a stick, but whatever it was. This way or go this
way. So I went to the right.
JIM:
You said, “Eighteen”?
MR. A:
I said, “Eighteen.” I became instantly eighteen years of age.
JIM:
Here, here (??)
MR. A:
So from the beginning you had your name and they kept your address,
whatever it was. They sent me to a camp, what it was actually an
“arbeitslager”, a work camp and we were working on the Autobahn. The
Autobahn is not the Autobahn by us. The Autobahn is like we have the
Interstate.
JIM:
I know.
MR. A:
And we used to work very hard. We used to, there was no machinery. The
machinery was only a shovel and ice and a pick.
JIM:
How far away did they move you to this place?
MR. A:
This way they moved me from Sosnowiec to I would say maybe, give or
take, maybe a hundred miles into Germany because this where I come
from.--
JIM:
Is on the border.
MR. A:
It’s right on the border. It’s on the eastern part, southeastern part of
Poland.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
So it was very close to Germany, and close to Czechoslovakia. That’s why
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I was born with three languages. I speak fluently German, Czech, and I
speak Polish.
MRS. A:
English, of course.
MR. A:
And Jewish I didn’t spoke until I got in concentration camp.
JIM:
Mm.
MR. A:
Because all the Jewish people were together from all different
countries so the only way you could communicate is one language. That
was the Jewish language. It was like a universal language. Now, let me
say, this way, it was “Esperanto.” You ever heard about it?
JIM:
Oh, yeah.
MR. A:
A lot of people don’t even know what it is.
JIM:
Oh, I know what it is.
MR. A:
I just want to show it to you. So, we could communicate with each other.
And who were those people who were rounded up and put in those camps?
They wanted the biggest brain power in Europe. So when I got in the
camp that was next to me sleeping? A couple doctors, a couple attorneys,
a couple of lawyers. I never heard in all the five years I was in
concentration camp that anybody assaulted me sexually or in any way.
Never. Streicher the editor of the Der Sturmer --
JIM:
(unintelligible)
MR. A:
Portrayed every Jew as a homosexual, a Jew child molester and, ah,
whatever he wanted to create, the Jew was portrayed that way. I am today
70 years old almost and I would never even dream of such a thing because
my whole basic training, my whole basic philosophy, my with the people
what I was in, something rubbed off on me. Education, intelligence,
because the people what I associated through the whole concentration
camp were very highly intelligent people.
JIM:
All these doctors and so forth, they were doing menial labor like you?
MR. A:
Organized as menial labor and they were falling. They were not built
physically –
JIM:
Sure.
MR. A:
Those people.
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JIM:
But the Nazis didn’t use them the way they could of.
MR. A:
No, because they were Jews.
JIM:
So they were nonhuman then, right.
MR. A:
They were nonhuman. They were just exterminated. That was one of the
greatest powers, but I’m coming back to the German philosophy, what
even today puzzles me. And I just want to tell you I just had only three
and half year’s grade, three and half year I went to school, and I am selfeducated. I do a lot of reading. I go to libraries. I watch, I don’t watch soap
operas, I watch real -
JIM:
You won’t learn anything there (laughs).
MR. A:
Because there’s nothing I can benefit from.
JIM:
No redeeming features? (laughing)
MR. A:
Nothing, absolutely. And when I talk to students I tell ‘em about it too.
That rings where I come from you don’t put a ring in your nose. Where I
come from a ring belongs to a bull but not to a human.
So what happened? These people. Hitler did not, Hitler used only those
people he could use. Not for research, not for intelligence. Only they were
using people engravers. And when I came in Auschwitz for a brief short
time, a few days, they asked for engravers, and I found out they were
counterfeiting money, American money -
JIM:
Mm hmm
MR. A:
They wanted to flood the whole world with dollars, with counterfeited
money and Jewish engravers, one of the greatest, one of the finest
engravers in the world and he knew he can use ‘em. And then he used a lot
of gold smelters because he had so many teeth from millions of people
what he killed and where that gold wound up God knows.
JIM:
Switzerland is where it wound up.
MR. A:
A lot of ‘em wound up in Argentina too.
JIM:
Yes.
MR. A:
And a lot now is coming out, like the Vatican. It’s sad.
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JIM:
The Vatican, of course, to take the gold they moved the people. They
turned their back on the whole thing.
MR. A:
Well, --
JIM:
Well, another story.
MR. A:
I don’t want – that’s another chapter.
Mrs. A:
But I think what you were trying to get at and you just missed out was
when you said one of the points you wanted to make was that you still
don’t understand was I think about the medical profession?
MR. A:
Yeah, that’s what I wanted to point out. The medical profession what
puzzles me that Germany possessed one of the finest medical --
JIM:
Systems.
MR. A:
Systems and brain system in whole Europe. Even the war. And they
surrendered to the Nazi regime, - to Streicher, Himmler and all these
things. The first act what they did was Germany will never forgive
themselves either. They killed out all the Down syndrome and all mental
institution, they emptied out and all the handicapped in less then a month,
completely eliminated. In other words they were, those people were
worthless. Those people according to them didn’t belong on this earth.
What a crime he has committed against his own people. But you have to
think about it . Hitler wasn’t even German but a lot of people don’t know
it.
JIM:
Yes, they do.
MR. A:
He was an Austrian!
JIM:
That’s in my view; the seat of anti-Semitism is in Austria more than any
other place --
Mr. A:
Of course, then in Germany a lot of people - You know what happened
and everybody thinks the Austrians --. They tried to portray themselves as
the clean clean people --
JIM:
That really annoys me because --
MR. A:
That’s what bothers me too.
JIM:
And they were judged as victims of the Nazis --
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MR. A:
Yes!
JIM:
And they didn’t have to pay any reparation.
MR. A:
No. They should be guilty.
JIM:
Well, of course.
MR. A:
For everything what they did.
JIM:
Exactly. Well, we’re off to a good start here. (Laughter)
MR. A:
No, because this is something what the average person doesn’t understand.
“Ach, die Deutschen waren schlect.” “The Germans were bad.” I said but
nobody talks about the Osterreicher.
JIM:
A little.
MR. A:
A little bit. I speak with a real Bavarian accent and a lot of people think
that I’m a German. “Ich bin Deutschen nitte. Ich bin Polnisch Jude.”
(laughs)
JIM:
We might start - I don’t want to waste it.
MR. A:
You know I used to be a service officer for the disabled veterans. When
you go into politics, I can tell you something. This reminds me. When
every veteran, when he mails a letter to the VA for the pharmacy so that
was a self-addressed envelope with the stamp on but Bob Kasten was the
Senator of this state and I used to be on the executive committee of the
Republican Party in Marinette, Wisconsin. So I was a delegate to go and
see him but I went to see what I can get out of him for my veterans
because I was a service officer --
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
And a Sixth District Commander and since this was recommended. It was
nothing for me. I don’t need anything. I just need one thing for the
almighty God to give me health and happiness. The VA can’t give it to
me.
JIM:
No.
MR. A:
Okay, so I said to Bob Kasten and I says, “Bob, you are not fair with the
veterans and I’m going to ask you something. I want that envelope be
restored because there’s a lot of veterans what live up north. They don’t
get Social Security because they never paid into it, and they don’t get
15
anything from the VA. Don’t steal from them that little envelope.” At that
time was only 25 or 29 cents. He was standing there like this, and his aid
came up to me he says, “You cannot speak like this to the United States
Senator!”
JIM:
And you said, “I elected him.” (laughter)
MR. A:
Exactly, you took it out of my mouth. I said, “People like me put him
there. But I’ve got news for you I’m going to put an article at the VFW,--
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
American Legion, AMVETS, Purple Heart, American Legion. I’m
going to put a little article in the paper, and I got news for you. He will
not be reelected.” You should have seen his face. The senator did not talk
to me. That was Bob Kasten, but I put it in the paper, in all these papers.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
Because I was on the step to put the stuff. So what happened, Mr. Bob
Kasten, about two weeks after the election he was defeated he calls me up,
“Why did you do that to me? What did I do wrong to you?” And I said,
“Bob, --
JIM:
“You’re not listening,” right.
MR. A:
“You didn’t listen to me when I begged you, “--
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
“Because you were the Armed Force Armed Services Committee, and this
budget for the VA comes under that same budget.”
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
“And you did not restore that little envelope for the poor veterans and the
veterans gettin’ cut left and right in the hospital. They do not get the
proper care. They get all generic drugs, what are not the same as good
drugs. People on welfare get full pay to travel. The veterans don’t get it. If
you’re not service connected you don’t get any. I am service connected. I
get it, but why should the non-service connected be denied?”
JIM:
Right.
16
MR. A:
When we have money for foreign countries and help this country this
disaster when it comes to disasters in our backyard. I don’t like to see our
boys what served this country should be second grade citizens.
JIM:
Exactly.
MR. A:
They deserve it. They fought for this country, they have given their life.
Treat them decent, don’t treat them with disrespect. So then Feingold ran
for election against him. So I went and I met Feingold. When he came to
Marinette he wanted to see me because he knew about me because he
knew that I was --
JIM:
You were trouble, right.
MR. A:
That I’m a trouble maker. So the first thing I ask --
MRS. A:
You’ve got that right.
MR. A:
Mr. Feingold, I said, “Mr. Feingold I’m going to ask you one question. Be
honest with me. Don’t promise me anything and then you won’t deliver.
There’s going to be a big disappointment to you because most politicians
did it, did to me this. I want you to be honest to me. If you can do
something do it, please. Can you restore that envelope back? Can you
overlook certain –” He says, “If I get on that committee, I promise you
that I will not turn my back on the veterans.” “That’s all I’m asking you.”
JIM:
Sure.
MR. A:
Not only for the service connected veterans because they can’t stop you
from this is something but for the non-service connected veterans and for
the widows --
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
And for the children because I had one woman what came into us - You
see I used to be the service officer in Marinette and her disability was
denied because she was too young and she had a speech impediment. So
what I did, I said to her “I’m going to go to court.” This is a hearing,
actually it’s a court hearing. It’s not a regular judge; it’s a regulatory judge
at the council. He came from Brooklyn but nobody knows him. So I talked
to him like I talk to you, plain English. This woman needs it. I said, “Have
a heart. If anybody needs it, or anybody fakes (unintelligible) don’t
deserve it. This women does not fake. She’s a very sick woman, she has a
hunchback and –”
MRS. A:
We don’t think a hunchback should (unintelligible)
17
MR. A:
“She has a speech impediment. She can’t even do light work. Please, I beg
you in Jewish to say, ‘Hob rakh moones, have heart, have mercy.’ I’m not
asking for anything from you and I want to tell you something. I didn’t
come here to collect money from that lady to represent her because if she
would ever offer me something I would never accept it.” Matter of fact
after she got the money, the first check she got, so help me God, as my
wife is sitting with you present, she came and she brought me a hundred
dollar bill, those new phony bills that are like lottery money, and I picked
it up and I looked at it I said, “What is it for?” “For helping me get my
disability. “ I went and put it back” I said, “You do not owe me a single
thing.” Then she starts begging me I should take something. I said, “I will
not take a penny from you.”
JIM:
You were doing your job. Yeah.
MR. A:
I said, “The only thing what you do for me is just say thank you and that
will be enough.”
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
“And I don’t want anything.” So what happened? There’s a long story.
Her husband used to be a veteran too. That’s why I went and did it.
JIM:
Let’s get back to where on this paper.
MR. A:
Okay.
JIM:
I can do some (unintelligible). Tell me. You did menial work at the
concentration camp?
MR. A:
What happened, I was working very hard. The menial labor was so bad.
JIM:
Tell me about feeding you. How about eating.
MR. A:
The food that we used to get about in the evening you used to get I would
say kilo bread, rye bread, about a portion like this.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
It was filled full with filler. It was not flour. It was --
JIM:/ MR. A: Sawdust.
MR. A:
Yea, to fill it up. It was very low in calories, and practically
18
nothing in protein, but one thing the Germans didn’t know about. That
they were feeding us. They were feeding us with peelings, dried up
peelings.
JIM:
Oh.
MR. A:
And this (unintelligible), that was very high in protein, very high in
vitamins. This, they had this - this they thought that the --
JIM:
Peelings of what? Potatoes?
MR. A:
Potatoes,
MRS. A:
Carrots, vegetables --
MR. A:
Carrots, cabbage, anything would work.
MRS. A:
Animal feed –
JIM:
Then you got your vitamins too? You didn’t get scurvy, right.
MR. A:
Exactly. They called it the “gergemezza.”The “geremezza “was for the
animals because Hitler thought that the war would go on forever, for a
long time. So they had this in storage for the animals but as they overran
Poland and these were agricultural countries, they overran all the Balkan
countries. They all had a lot of food so they didn’t need that food. So they
were serving this to the prisoners. Then we was to get -
JIM:
In a soup or -
MR. A:
In a soup, cooked in a soup.
JIM:
Yeah, that, and bread that was your meal.
MR. A:
Very thin. That was main stable.
MRS. A:
And oatmeal, watery oatmeal in the morning.
MR. A:
The oatmeal we were getting around lunch time. The people what worked
only. The people what didn’t work got only one meal a day. They didn’t
even get --
JIM:
If you worked you got two.
MR. A:
Yeah. You got two meals. You got the bonka suppe. The “bonka
suppe” that used to be. --
19
JIM:
That must be German. “Bonka.”
MR. A:
Was watered down oatmeal just like I would say a little
bit thicker then that water.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
What had no nourishing at all, but --
JIM:
Now when they served it, did they have it in big vats and you come?
MR. A:
They used to bring in cans, in five gallon cans.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
Now, “penat” they used to call it. They used to bring it to --
JIM:
Then you’d line up and –
MR. A:
Line up –
JIM:
Take something out of it.
MR. A:
Each one was getting a little mizette (??) like the French say, you know
mizette (??) is a bowl, a metal bowl.
MRS. A:
Which you used for your pillow at night.
MR. A:
Used to use for my pillow or whatever I had, yeah.
JIM:
Okay. Now, your quarters, that was the next thing I was going to ask you.
Wooden barracks type?
MR. A:
That was all prefabricated barracks. Baracken they used to
call this. And I used to --
JIM:
The bunks were how deep or how high?
MR. A:
Ah, in some places we used to have three and four --
JIM:
Three or four?
MR. A:
Yeah.
JIM:
Yeah, okay.
20
MR. A:
In Buchenwald I remember, what was it, three or four I think. Was it three
there or four layers?
MRS. A:
(unintelligible) three.
MR. A:
Whatever it was. I have pictures. I bet, in fact I’d like to show you
the picture from U.S. News and World Report.
JIM:
Okay then, and what else do I need to ask? And there was no
communication other than what you could devise yourself.
MR. A:
The only communication was from the outside.
JIM:
Mmm hmm.
MR. A:
The people would work in the steinbruch, like in the quarries, or on the
railroad they had no communication because they were all in gangs. Like
in chain gangs. But I was working with a civilian as an electrician so I
used to go around --
JIM:
Outside the camp or inside?
MR. A:
Outside the camp and inside the factory. The factory was almost thirty
square miles. Blechhammer, ooh, that was one of the biggest AEG farm
industry plan.
JIM:
You mean continuous building, or did it just multiple buildings?
MR. A:
There were hundreds of buildings in all different sections. They were
making out of the coal gasoline [End of tape 1, side A ca.30 min]
gasoline but the factory was still in process of building it. They were not
completed. Then the Americans and the British denied it to be finished,
but they already produced gasoline, because this was the most important
thing because out of coal you had almost a hundred different products.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
Because they used to make ah, medicine out of it. They were making oil,
gas, --
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
Soap, whatever petroleum by product was producing.
JIM:
How did you get there?
21
MR. A:
How? Because I used to go with this man.
JIM:
I mean, did you drive? Somebody would pick you up?
Mr. A;
Every day the guy, I used to come to him in his little cubbyhole he
had. He had a few electricians with him working. He used to be the
foreman and I used to be his go-fer.
JIM:
Did you walk to this job? Or -
MR. A:
No, the SS men used to bring me over to drop me off and he had to sign
every day a paper.
JIM:
This is how far away?
MR. A:
Oh, I would say maybe a half a mile.
JIM:
Oh, okay.
MR. A:
Okay. So I came there and he says, “All right.” “What I did was in the
morning, used to come I put the water on so coffee and I worked with him,
oh, maybe a month. He was very leery of me, very careful with me. After
all, I still was a dirty Jew.
JIM:
And he was a Pole. A Pollock?
MR. A:
No, I wouldn’t trust him. I was, he was a real German.
JIM:
Oh, really.
MR. A:
He was a German and a very kind person. I never realized yet what this
man was. So after a month working with him he comes to me says,
“Pauliken (??), stop with your lies. Tell me the truth. You are not
an electrician, are you?” And I looked in his eyes, with tears in my eyes, I
remember that, and I said, “No.” That saved my life. And he hesitated for
a second and he closed his eyes and he took the pencil like this, he put it
down. He closed his eyes, he put his hands like this. When he opened his
eyes he says to me “Paul, Pauliken (??),” he said, “you know –
JIM:
Little Paul.
Jim:
Right.
22
MR. A:
“Little Paul,” he said, “I will save you. Whatever I can, I will do but I
want you to keep your mouth shut. Whatever people ask you, ‘I don’t
know’, – and they won’t ask you for anything.”
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
“You haven’t seen anything.”
JIM:
Right. You don’t know anything.
MR. A:
I don’t know anything, and that’s going to be the best thing. So all of a
sudden he opens this little box. He gives me a sandwich. I never had a
sandwich like this even when I was a kid.
JIM:
(laughing)
MR. A:
Because I come from a very poor family.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
So he gives me a sandwich. I ate the sandwich. He says, “Don’t ever say
nothing.” A week later he came to work. Well, he comes every day, but he
came with tears and crying and everything. I don’t remember his last
name. I said, “Hans, mit zu Ruhe?” And all of the sudden he breaks down.
He says, “I lost my mother, I lost my wife, and I lost my children in
Dresden.”
JIM:
Oh
MR. A:
In the bombing. He said, “I have nothing. What did that animal do to
us.” He didn’t say the word Hitler.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
He says Was has das (??), no, he said “Welche art schweine mach (??)” to
us, what kind of swine, what he did to us. And I didn’t say a word to him.
He became so close to me.
JIM:
You were a replacement.
MR. A:
I was his - - and when the SS men came he said, “Oh this kid? He is
essential. He is such an important person. He knows everything.” And he
by teaching me how to wire things and how to do things, and he says,
“Certain things I used to do backwards on purpose so they would have to
call you to find if there’s any troubles on the line because you know about
it.” And he says, “You’ve got to be so important that they will not kill
23
you.” And when we used to go over there when the angriffe used to be the
luftangriffe, the bombing used to come, and you could hear the siren.
Everybody went for the shelters. They wouldn’t let prisoners from
concentration camp people in the shelters but they let me in.
JIM:
Huh!
MR. A:
I had the special ribbon on my thing.
JIM:
Oh, really?
MR. A:
Uh huh, and I had a special instrument to save those instruments for
testing. I used to carry them. He said, “You grab those and run with them.
They gonna have to let you in because these instruments are more
important than you.” And that’s how I saved my life. And a lot of guys got
killed.
JIM:
Because nobody else knew how to do those things.
MR. A:
That’s right. And he used to be a foreman. He used to be a very big person
at Blechhammer. And he taught me how to wire the turbines. This was got
to be a perfect job. You can imagine the turbines were, each turbine was as
long as this room here
JIM:
I’ll bet.
MR. A:
And believe it or not, I don’t know how those turbines got there. They’re
Westinghouse turbines. Still to this day I don’t know how they got there.
There was Siemens-Schubert, Siemens, there were Westinghouse, there
were GE --
JIM:
I could guess how they got there.
MR. A:
Hmm?
JIM:
I can guess how they got there.
MR. A:
Oh, they got there through Switzerland --
JIM:
Switzerland.
MR. A:
Through Sweden --
JIM:
Sweden, yeah. That’s (unintelligible) I haven’t forgiven them either.
MR. A:
What, Sweden?
24
JIM:
Sweden, yeah.
MR. A:
Well, but that’s something, too. Sometime you have to think about it
because a lot of people overlook. Norway was a very little county but the
Norwegians denied them the victory more than anybody there was.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
And nobody evens talks about it, and this is a little country --
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
With a lot of --
JIM:
Guts.
MR. A:
Guts.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
And they went into Norway and blew everything there was. A lot of
people don’t - even the Norwegians don’t even know that. They were real
heroes.
JIM:
They sure were.
MR. A:
They were so dedicated to the country and love for their country
JIM:
Oh, that’s right. Close this thing. Here we go.
MR. A:
I want to tell you something. A lot of people say to me, “You know Paul,
you didn’t go to all education, everything. How do you know all these
things?” I did a lot of reading.
JIM:
Reading
MR. A:
And a lot of study.
MRS. A:
A lot of things he just knew.
MR. A:
How Hitler, a lot of people don’t even know how he got to
power. You know, that was brewing for so long. That was so under,
underneath,
JIM:
Right.
25
MR. A:
Boiling underneath. And there was just German - you see a lot of people
overlook a lot of things. We had great heroes in this county with great
visions and they were dismissed and I want to tell you something. Believe
it or not, you can agree with me or disagree with me. Gen. Marshall was a
great person with a great vision
JIM:
Oh, yeah.
MR. A:
Because when he after the war he did not what our forefathers did after the
1st World War in this country, and who was the biggest villain? The
French, --
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
The Italians and the English. They stole and robbed this country, what was
left over. That’s why Hitler came to power. But, this general said, “Wait a
minute. We are going to put ‘em out of the ashes back on the map. We are
gonna help ‘em that another Hitler can not rise. “And that’s exactly what
happened. Because this man spoke with a vision, not with hatred, because
with hatred - this man was a great, to me in my opinion I don’t know how
other people look at him.
JIM:
Oh, I think he --
MR. A:
He did not give away anything. He gave away something that he brought
future and stability not only for our country but for whole Europe and we
need stability in Europe very much. We need a country what is vital, what
is productive, what is bright. And the Germans admitting it today, what
they did. It would be worse like the Austrians. They don’t want to admit
it.
JIM:
Nor will they.
MR. A:
But thank God this is a little country. It used to be a very big country prior
to --
JIM:
Well, that’s correct --
MR. A:
1st World War when they used to be --
JIM:
Hungary and --
MR. A:
Hungary, Hungary, no, what was it? Osterreichisch
JIM:
Austro-Hungary.
26
MR. A:
Ungarische Empire with the Kaiser Franz Joseph. And he was killed
where? In Bosnia. That’s where the whole thing started. By a Serbian.
JIM:
Right and the Black Hand.
MR. A:
That’s right, and take the average student. What really hurts me, and I
look at it and I see those kids today. Those exhibitionists with those
rooster hairs, with the dyed hair with the pants like clowns. To me. I am
pitying those kids. I’m sorry for them because you know why? Those kids
lacking a lot of things at home what they don’t have.
JIM:
I understand.
MR. A:
They have no - I don’t make fun out of it. To me this is America.
When I spoke to those kids yesterday, there were about 200 students. I
went up and I said to them like this, “I’m going to talk to you kids plain
English and I’m going to tell you the facts of life. You are the future of
our nation. When I see that red, white and blue, that’s you,” I said.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
“Because we investing money in you in education. Don’t take it for
granted. Don’t look at your teachers as adversaries. Look at the teacher as
somebody who’s going to help you. If you need help nobody will turn you
down. Be yourself. Don’t follow the losers. Follow the winners follow the
achievers, and stay in school. This what I, is my message to you. Please, I
beg of you. Stay in school.” And then I told them an incident what
happened to me recently. I went to the Seven Mile Fair. You know where
that is?
JIM:
No.
MR. A:
It’s outside Milwaukee. I wanted to buy me a Sawzall. You can buy it
cheaper whatever there. I just put up a house. So I see three boys talking.
The one boy says to each other, “You know, that’s sick. That’s stupid to
go to church.”
MRS. A:
You didn’t say where you saw them.
MR. A:
Well, he says one to each other, “It sucks.”
MRS. A:
This is in the men’s room.
MR. A:
In the men’s washroom yeah. And I’m sitting in the man’s washroom
when I overhear the conversation, and from all the people I listen to the
27
conversation. So I came out and I says, “Listen, who said it sucks to go to
church?” He said, “I do. Doesn’t it? I said, “I don’t think so.” I said, “Let
me tell you something. What would you rather have carry in your
pocketbook concealed? A knife, a gun, or would you like to have a little
Bible? I’m going to ask you something.” All three of them didn’t know
what to answer.
JIM;
Normal (laughs)
MR. A:
And I said to listen to me, “I’m a survivor from concentration camp and
the only way I survived is having a faith in God and believe in God. I
don’t care which religion you are. That doesn’t matter to me, but there’s
only one God, there’s only one supreme.” And then another kids says to
me, “You know I’m going to church tomorrow.” And I says, “What are
you?” He says, “I’m a Catholic boy.” And I said, “What would you rather
have, a little rosary in your pocket or carry a big dagger or a gun? I got
news for you. If the police stops you on the street and search you for some
reason and they’re gonna find a rosary in your pocket instead of a gun,
you know what they going to do to you? They gonna apologize to you.
They’re going to say to you ‘I’m sorry that I stopped you.’ But what will
happen if you gonna carry a illegal bayonet or knife or a gun? You asking
for trouble. You asking me what you would carry?” He says, “Do you
carry a weapon?” One of the kids. I says, “Yes, I always carry a weapon. I
never leave my house without a weapon but my weapon what I have when
I’m depressed, when I’m sick, when I’m really down and under I take my
weapon out what never outdated for the last 5,000 years. It was given to
me, given to us by almighty God, and it’s never outdated. The funny part
is it was modern then and it’s modern today. Word by word, never
changed. And what is better to go, I don’t expect you to read the whole
prayer book everyday. I don’t want you to because it would be
hypocritical. Just take two or three passages out of it and read it and you
gonna feel much better.” You know what all three boys said? One of the
boys took the ring out of his nose. I talk about the ring, too. He threw it
away.
JIM:
Really?
MR. A:
He threw it out. And then the other day by my house one of the kids took
out --
MRS. A:
He got another one.
MR. A:
He had a pierce through his mouth. They have it like –
JIM:
That could be dangerous.
28
MR. A:
You know how dangerous this is, and I said to him, “This is cancer
forming.”
JIM:
No, you get infection is what you get. But anyway, let’s not get into it.
MR. A:
But the two boys what I did already, one of them took it out - I says,
“Where I come from, I used to have cows up north. I used to live on a
farm. I sued Says I had a small farm up north with cows. I had a little
bully ring, he had a ring through the nose and there was a reason why.”
And he took it out and threw it away, and I was proud of it. You know
what I said to him? “Son, I’m real proud of you.”
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
Don’t be ashamed to wear rosary in your pocket or prayer book.
JIM:
Did you ever, have you read that new book on Hitler by Ian Kershaw?
MR. A:
No, no.
JIM:
You should read that. It’s the best book on Hitler I’ve read. I’ve read about
five books but this is the best of all.
Mr. A;
Is it? Would you write it down honey?
JIM:
Ian Kershaw. Kershaw was with “k”. Ian is --
MR. A:
In Europe most of the people use “k” as a-- in this country you would say
and in Poland, in Europe in Latin countries a “w” is a “v”.
JIM:
Oh, sure.
MR. A:
And a vowel. And a “v” is a vowel. Like in German, ein- ya, volk, volk.
JIM:
Yes, I know that. I took two years of German.
MR. A:
You know, that’s so funny. I went to, I have three years Cornell
University.
JIM:
Oh yeah?
MR. A:
You know how? In six months I took a real crash course, and I tell you
something. There is even when you go to college there’s so much waste of
time.
JIM:
Oh yeah.
29
MR. A:
Because you can if you really wanted to get through --
JIM:
You could get through all that in about four weeks if you really worked at
it.
MR. A:
If you really wanted to do it. And you know what happens - one of the
kids said to me - when I came to this country I had five dollars in my
pocket. A guy give me a present. I don’t even know who the man was.
Thank God I have a beautiful home. I made a good living.
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
I had a good business in Chicago.
JIM:
Did you?
MR. A:
Yeah. Very good business.
JIM:
Let’s get back to the war here. So and your business with the
concentration camp was closing was that when things changed?
Mr. A;
What happened we were working everyday we used to go to work and for
me to go to work was the most pleasant of things in my life.
JIM:
Sure.
MR. A:
Because when I stayed home for some reason on Saturday and Sunday we
didn’t work.
JIM:
Oh
MR. A:
No, Saturday we worked Sunday the only one day we didn’t
work. That’s all you had hazing, hanging, beating.
JIM:
Oh really.
Mr. A;
Hanging, and sometime when we came from work we had to stay in crowd
watching four or five people be hanged. Terrorizing people, keep them for
no reason. For nothing.
JIM:
Just for entertainment?
MR. A:
Just for entertainment, yeah. When I used to come in through the doors
and I could hear the music playing, they had a four or five guys’
instruments and when I heard the music playing we knew right away there
30
would be hanging. And the worse thing one time happened to me, this I
never will forget. I was already about two years in Blechhammer on Yom
Kippur Eve. You see he knew about it. How did I know all these things? I
worked with this guy, sometime I used to pick up an old paper what be
thrown away.
JIM:
Mm hmm.
MR. A:
And the only way the paper what you saw there was the Voelkischer
Beobachter. This was the mass – this is like the Isvestia or you pick up the
Figaro or you pick up, ah, the Washington Post.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
Or the Pravda, whatever you wanted. I it’s like the mouthpiece for
Germany and the editor was his name was Rosenberg but he was not a
Jew. He was a German.
JIM:
No, I know that.
MR. A:
No, no that wasn’t Julius Roesenberg. His name was different. His name
was Rosenberg but it was not Julius. Julius, ahh that was Julius Streicher.
He used to be the editor of Der Sturmer, the anti-Semitic paper --
JIM:
Newspaper, yeah.
MR. A:
What?
JIM:
Yeah, the head of the newspaper.
MR. A:
Yeah. The head of the – and these papers were delivered only to children
from I think form ten years of age and depict the Jew was the villain. The
Jew had a big nose, had big glasses, had a hunchback, used to lure
Christian children like a vampire, and these kids used to imagine this. It
was put in their --
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
In their computer that the people when even today people have a very bad
image. A lot of people don’t even know what a Jew is. And what
happened to me not recently up where I live up in Wausaukee. I found a
purse with $465. When I returned that money to that lady she says, she
says to me, “You are a good Christian.” And I says, “You got the wrong
guy because I’m not.”
JIM:
Ah ha.
31
MR. A:
And she says, “No, you are.” I said, “What are you?” I says, “I’m a
Jew.” “No, you’re not a Jew!” Really arrogant. It couldn’t be that I’m a
Jew.
JIM:
She was embarrassed.
MR. A:
No, she was not embarrassed because she was too stupid because I asked
her how much education she had.
JIM and MRS. A: (laughter) Ah ha.
MR. A:
She only finished grade school. She didn’t even go to high school, but her
mother what came with her, she said “My dear innocent daughter, she said
“He is a good man what is more than his religion. That doesn’t matter
because there’s a lot of people –“ What do you want?
JIM:
Just that people are going to start coming in here pretty soon.
MR. A:
Oh, I better take it out and put it out in front of you. As long as you don’t
steal my watch. It’s a thousand dollar watch. It’s a golden watch.
JIM:
It’s a chance you have to take. ( MRS. A laughs) What time do you think
those people start coming in?
Staff:
Around 4:30 to 5:00 I suppose, a quarter to five.
JIM:
The program is at 5:00, huh?
STAFF:
Yeah.
JIM:
O. K. we’ll hurry along here.
MR. A:
We better finish then. Okay. We’ll make it very short. So what happens so
the end was I told her that I’m a good person, and she wanted to give me a
hundred dollars of the money and I says, “I don’t want any.” But you see
it’s the person, and when I tell you, make it short, when I came to this
country and after the military I became the service officer for the disabled
veterans. And when I tell you how many people I helped.
JIM:
I know that.
MR. A:
And how many people I went out of my way. But the biggest achievement
in my life was when a guys came from the Vietnam War, he cracked up
and he was running ‘round with a loaded gun.
32
JIM:
Oh!
MR.A:
A loaded rifle. The sheriff department called me up and he says to
me, “Paul, I’m sorry to say we have to take him out. We’re gonna send out
a team and we are going to have to shoot him.” And when I heard that the
water ran down my spine. I said, “Don’t you ever do that!” I says, “I go
there.” “What if he is gonna shoot you?” I said I will take my
responsibility. So I went out to the farm of Danny McAllister (??) and
when I came in I said, “Danny, put that gun down.” He said, “No, don’t
come any closer. I’m going to shoot you!” I said, “Don’t shoot me because
I’m a friend of yours. I wanna talk to you. What is the problem?” He says,
“There’s a Satan invaded my property.” And I said, “That’s very simple
for me. I know how to get him out.” He says, “How?” and we start talking.
Once we start talkin’ after fifteen, twenty minutes I went in the car. What
a coincidence I had a couple brooms, and I gave him a broom, and I took a
broom. And I got the gun, and I’m pretty good at guns, and you should
have seen how quick I pulled the pin -
JIM:
I bet.
MR. A:
Out of that rifle and I give him the gun back with the ammunition, but
there was no firing pin and before we turn around we start sweeping and
sweeping the whole property, and I says, “You know Danny, I have a
feeling that we got that Satan out of here. Why don’t you go with me to
the VA Hospital? Let me make a telephone call.” So I call up Tomah by
the name Dr. Trainer. You ever heard of him?
JIM:
No.
MR. A:
He’s the head of the psychiatric department and I told him the story. He
said, “Bring him up to Iron Mountain. I will arrange everything for him.”
That gonna give him a little happy needle and they’re gonna calm him
down and we got him there and then he signed his name and they
committed him for one year at Tomah hospital. When we came back he
embraced me and said to me, “Thank you.”
JIM:
Oh, is that nice.
MR. A:
This is so much to me to save a life.
JIM:
That’s terrific.
MR. A:
I know a lot of people in the legislature here.
JIM:
Don’t bother with them. I don’t like people in the legislature.
33
MR. A / MRS. A:
(laughter)
MR. A:
You know Dave Prosser by any chance?
JIM:
Oh, I know who all those people are.
MR. A:
I know everybody, even the Governor, you just have to ask him about me.
From the day of Deryfuss. Dreyfus was very close to me, very close. I
used to - If anything I needed for the veterans.
JIM:
Let’s get back to the war.
MR. A:
Yeah.
MRS. A:
I bet he thinks we should open season on politicians (unintelligible) (Mr.
& Mrs. A. laugh)
JIM:
Yeah, anyway , so we got you back at – tell me about the getting out of
the concentration camp. The war is over and then (unintelligible) – how’d
that go?
MR. A:
The war is over long on the 11th of April. I couldn’t go to work anymore in
the--
JIM:
There’s three days after the war is over.
MR. A:
No, that was maybe a week and a half, two weeks before the war was
over.
MRS. A:
He wants to hear about when it ended.
JIM:
Oh, in April.
MR. A:
In April.
JIM:
Yeah, OK I’m sorry.
MR. A:
That was in April because I used to go every day to the Steinbruch. This is
the quarry.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
And there was at least fifteen, twenty guys from my column dead every
weekend. Through the week the guard used to take a hat and throw it. He
said, “Go get my hat.” So when you went to get the hat – they all carried
rifles, they never had pistols. So one guys says to another SS man,
34
“Warumdu hast mit geschossen?” Why did you shoot him? “Because he
wanted to runaway.”
JIM:
Playing games.
MR. A:
Yeah. They’re playing games just like nothing, but this guy, the veteran,
the inmates parted his head with a spade.
JIM:
When the war came out -
MR. A:
When the Americans came and they grabbed - I saw them. They grabbed,
they found him. He had a uniform from an inmate.
JIM:
Did they put it on him?
MR. A:
He put it on himself. He wanted to sneak -
JIM:
Oh, sneak out.
MR. A:
To not be identified, but they identified him. They had (unintelligible)
because each SS man had a tattoo under his right, I don’t know, my left or
right, ahh –
JIM:
Axilla.
MR. A:
They took a spade and killed him instantly.
JIM:
Good.
MR. A:
There were so many of them. But the Americans would not allow to take
any reprisals. They took it. The first day or two you could get away with
it, but then everything stopped. And when the Americans came in - well, a
week before they came in they didn’t give us any food and I became so
weak that I couldn’t even walk from here to the kitchen counter.
JIM:
All, everything stopped?
MR. A:
Everything stopped.
JIM:
So you knew this was coming to an end?
MR. A:
We didn’t know, my mind wasn’t even working.
JIM:
Oh.
35
MR.A:
If it was right, whatever happened. But I prayed to God that he should get
over with it because it was so painful. On one morning I get up, I hear
shoot - we were making fire and frying human bodies. Take a knife and
cut off the flesh and eat it.
JIM:
Where was this?
MR. A:
In Buchenwald.
JIM:
I’m sorry.
MR. A:
Hmm?
JIM:
Who was doing this?
MR. A:
We did, the inmates because there was no food.
JIM:
Oh,boy.
MR. A:
We became a lot of guys became –
JIM:
Cannibals.
MR. A:
Cannibals. That’s sad. So, one morning I hear shooting and trembling and
I look outside and here I see a green tank with white markings, you know,
olive green come right through the gate, not through the gate, through the
barbed wires. And I see he stopped and I see the turret with the barrel
facing one of the towers when all of the sudden a salvo I hear. The whole
tower, you know can imagine, what is it? A hundred, what is it? A big
barrel – I heard a salvo.
JIM:
Mm hmm.
MR. A:
It blew everything up and all of the sudden he turns around and blows
another one up. And the guy the tank comes closer and toward him and
one guy in a broken German screams out, “We are all free!” You can
imagine I start crying.
JIM:
Sure.
MR.A:
And I couldn’t walk anymore, and I wanted to walk and get up and I fall
down. But an hour later, all of the sudden, food is comin’ in from
everywhere. When the Army got in they brought in with ‘em a hospital,
and one of the guys in that hospital was Dr. Birch (??) . He was a major in
the United States Army. He must have called up somewhere that he cannot
go on any more further because there’s such a horror what is there. What
36
he saw, and I know a couple of GIs who of coincidence, the world is so –
he says, “Paul, I wanted to get out of there. The smell of bodies was so
horrible. I was happy we were moved out.” Because you see when the 71st
Combat Engineers moved in there, you cannot stop an army from moving.
Once they move, they are on move. They go in and they go keep on going,
but there’s another army behind you what coming in and that’s when the
hospital came in. And Dr. Birch (??), he was from Marquette, Michigan.
He was, by the way, an obstetrician, or was he a gynecologist. He
delivered thousands of children up there.
STAFF:
I’m sorry -
JIM:
All right need to go here. Let’s stop it. Off and running, okay. Now, we
were talking about --
MR. A:
About liberation.
JIM:
Liberation.
MR. A:
When they came in, the Americans.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
And when the - Is it on now? Yeah. When the Americans came in I can
not describe you -
JIM:
I’m sure.
MR. A:
The joy.
JIM:
That must be a monumental feeling.
MR. A:
And the next day, the Dr. Birch (??) was going through the bunks. They
had certain different camps in Buchenwald. They had camps what they
wanted to destroy the people and there were camps what they used to
work the people. Then they used to work them to death. I’m going to send
you some documents from the United States Army. Maybe you have it; I
don’t know what the aim was. Maybe you have it or not. I got, I got, ah,
some of the original United States Army documents what they found in
Buchenwald. It’s going to be very interesting to you, for yourself or
whatever you want to use it for research or something. I’ll mail it to you.
And, ah, this Dr. Birch (??) has seen so many horrors there, so he must
have had some influence that he got stuck there and he set up a whole
hospital and he saved as many as he could salvageable people. But the
people were still dyin’. You can’t stop instantly everything. And the food
came in. I don’t know where he got the food. He cleaned up the hospital,
37
he got all the Germans from surrounding, forced them to clean up
everything. And what the worst thing what happened when General
Eisenhower came to Buchenwald I saw him and he stopped Germans on
the street. He was a German too, Eisenhower.
JIM:
Yeah, his grandparents came from Germany.
MR. A:
And he asked and everybody said, “Ya, wissen nichts.” So he said, “You
don’t know anything –”
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
“But you will see it.” He made every one of them go to Weimar from
Weimar to Buchenwald. That’s the Buchenwald was the mountain, and on
that mountain that was in Ettersberg. On the mountain of Ettersberg was
the Buchenwald, the camp. And he made all people, the whole city of
Weimar had to go up there to see it, what the horrors the Germans left
behind, and it was unpleasant. Women, children, old people, - well, young
people there weren’t any young people left because he - what Hitler didn’t
kill out and that’s all you had was only invalids and disabled people. Who
you think was home? He drafted even [End of Tape 1, Side B ca. 30
min.] at the end of it he even drafted the Hitler youth. These kids didn’t
even know what they were doing because what should a soldier do when
you see a little Hitler? You do the panzerfauste. You know the
panzerfauste?
JIM:
Oh, yeah.
Mr. A
Is a bazooka and he has a loaded bazooka, what he should do? Shoot him.
So many kids who were innocent kids were shot.
JIM:
I knew that. I thought you had said you were at Auschwitz. You
mentioned Buchenwald.
Mr. A;
Well, that’s when I was liberated. I was not liberated in Auschwitz,
because they evacuated us from Blechhammer. This was about maybe
sixty, seventy miles from Auschwitz. And Auschwitz what they did they
gave me this number, and I was there only a couple days because over
there I bluffed myself through, too, because there I said that I can work.
See this was my number. Can you see the number?
JIM:
Got it.
MR. A:
Can you?
JIM:
1-7-6-5-0.
38
Mr. A;
No, 2- 0.
JIM:
2- 0. But they moved you then from -
MR. A:
They moved because they needed electricians.
JIM:
You were an ace by then. (laughter)
MR. A:
Oh, I was an expert. I was a real expert (laughs), but I tell you but it
worked. It worked.
JIM:
So you went from one camp to the other?
MR. A:
To another camp and they brought me then -
JIM:
So you were liberated from Buchenwald.
MR. A:
I was liberated from Buchenwald and that was, Buchenwald was outside
Weimar. Weimar, do you remember that was the capital city of the
Weimar Republic?
JIM:
I know. Weimar Republic. Yes, I know that.
Mr. A:
And that was such a cultural city, one of the most cultural cities in
Germany. And that’s what a lot of people even today, the historians cannot
understand how people with such intelligence, with such a brainpower
could could follow a painter, not even and artist, just a plain house painter.
Yup.
JIM:
Tell me about the death march.
MR. A:
When the Germans were caving in, they were losing the war in the east,
and the German army already, the Russian army already entered Poland
and as they were going towards Germany so they came by Kattowitz,
Katowice. This was right on the German border with approximately I
would say maybe sixty kilometers, seventy kilometers about 45 miles
from our camp. One day they gave each on of ‘em whole loaf of bread and
took us on a four week death march. When we left there were about 3,000
prisoners. By the time we got to Buchenwald there were only 800 left,
maybe, and whoever couldn’t walk, they came and rolled you over with
their foot, you know on your back. They shot you. That was their favorite,
right here. So when they shot you they gave you instant, instant death.
You didn’t even feel it, you know when you get shot right through,
through the back, and that was their favorite.
39
MRS. A:
That was the good news.
MR. A:
It is sad to say lot of these guys escaped into this country. And a lot of ‘em
JIM:
Yeah, that’s another subject now. Let’s not get off into that.
MR. A:
I know, but I would like to tell you about it, the subject, how -
JIM:
Yeah, I’m perfectly willing to listen to that. It’s just that I don’t want to
get off our track here.
MR. A:
Off our track, right. But what happened, we got into Buchenwald and the
day when we got into Buchenwald, not to Buchenwald, to Blech – to
Weimar. So of course the American pilots didn’t see that we wee on the
bottom. And most of the guys what used to be in the open railroad and
cars and when the artillery starts shooting I can imagine, you can imagine,
the shrapnels were flying all over, and I knew and I could see how the
guys were killed in the cars, so I jumped out of the car, railroad car,
because the guards ran away. They hid in bunkers. And I jumped
underneath the train, the railroad car and I got saved because sometime,
you know, the metal pieces, and when I came back I saw half the car was
dead.
JIM:
How far were the Russians away at this point?
MR. A:
Oh, at that point the Russians were at least -
JIM:
A couple of miles? or
MR. A:
Oh, no they were pretty far. They took us very far into Germany.
JIM:
Oh, this is long artillery then.
MR. A:
Because, you see when we left on the march it was in November,
and then we got in and -
JIM:
Oh.
MR. A:
November, and then we got into Buchenwald, I think it was in December.
JIM:
You were on the road a month?
MR. A:
About a month, yea.
JIM:
Walking, walking (unintelligible).
40
MR. A:
Walking.
JIM:
But you got something to eat. You couldn’t not
MR. A:
Yeah, they give you a couple of potatoes, that’s all. There’s maybe a little
bit “bonka suppe”, hot water, whatever they give you.
JIM:
Sure.
MR. A:
And then we were walking going through a creek and somehow I was
walking on the side of the column. The SS men used to say to me when
we got to the village. “You see that butcher store?” because we used to
live in the butcher store. The butchers in the old country we used to have
the kitchen, and in the front was the store. “When you get in there grab
whatever you see and bring come back in.” The column was moving
slowly. Steal the sausage. I used to steal four or five sausage. I’d give it to
him, all of it and he kept something for himself and he divided it to all the
guys in the column. But nobody knew about it and then when we went
through a village outside I broke through the ice and I fell in at least three
feet and it was about 10 below 0. When I got out I don’t have to tell you
my skinny little striped uniform turned to ice so he looked at me and says,
“You come in the back then.” He got in the back because we stayed there
about a half a day. He took me in the barn and he give me one of his
uniforms. He tore off all the SS signatures.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
SS signatures. We put it underneath. He put that ice frozen stuff over it. It
didn’t melt it but when you go to sleep at night he says, “You’re gonna
sleep maybe in a barn or maybe someplace. Hang it up to dry it up. And
thank God they did – he used to be in that group that was watching us and
he helped me through.
JIM:
What prompted this behavior?
MR. A:
I have no idea. I think they knew that the end is coming. We thought
maybe -
JIM:
He was getting set up for when the signals were going to be in the
reversed.
MR. A:
A lot of guys - because my sister told me that one of the SS women was
hiding all of her possessions because she managed to save it and she give
it to her. And she saved her some of the jewelry and some of the pictures.
That’s why my sister has a lot of pictures from the family, but then I had a
lot of pictures because we have family in France and the wife was Swiss
41
girl so they could go to Switzerland and they could bring their husbands
with them because they were French citizen. That was my father’s family.
But from my mother’s family everybody perished, my sister, her husband.
And I remember my sister’s husband was a very famous artist who was a,
he was a portrait painter very famous. They all perished. Even Hitler was
so stupid when he played Offenbach music wasn’t allowed to be played.
You know Offenbach Tales of -JIM:
Only Wagner.
MR. A:
Only Wagner. Oh, Von Karajan (??) and all --
JIM:
He’s another Nazi.
MR. A:
Like a fourth and whatever, whoever was - there were so many artists. Oh,
what was his name? Bizet’s music not allowed because Georges Bizet was
a French Jew.
JIM:
He was a Jewish fellow.
MR. A:
Yeah, and there was a few others were great musicians. Offenbach, Bizet
and there was, what was his name, was not allowed – Handel was not
allowed
JIM:
He’s another Jew.
MR. A:
to play his music.
JIM:
And certainly Mendelssohn.
MR. A:
There were so many great musicians. It’s just, he hurt his own people in
every way. But he was not a German, what a lot of people don’t know . He
wasn’t.
JIM:
I know that.
MR. A:
He wasn’t. He was an Oestreicher.
JIM:
O. K. Let’s get back to war now, we’re gettin’ off the track have.
MR. A:
No, we don’t want ta get off the track.
MRS. A:
(unintelligible) (laughter)
MR. A:
But then –
42
JIM:
They ‘re gonna want you in the other room, you see, and then I won’t -
Mr. A.:
No, no. Then when I came to this country -
JIM:
Wait a minute.
MR. A:
Okay, let us stop.
JIM:
Yeah, how did we get to this country now?
MR. A:
Oh, this country. Well, when I got - then I got my oath and I had to look
for a job.
JIM:
How did you get out -?
MRS. A:
No, wait, the family that helped you in Germany first.
JIM:
How did you get –
MRS. A:
(unintelligible) months.
MR. A:
Oh, I went to a German family, a farmer family. I walked in and I said to
them, “I am from a concentration camp.”
JIM:
You just walked in the -
MR. A:
Just walked right in, yeah, with the stripes and everything. She says,
“Come in.”
JIM:
German family?
MR. A:
German family, oh, the woman starts crying and hugged me. She says –
JIM:
Oh really.
MR. A:
Oh, they were to me like they were my parents and they would let me do
anything on the farm. They brought me food. The farmer used to get up in
the morning. Strawberries – she used to give me cream to drink. They
didn’t even want me to drink milk, just cream to put me back to—I was so
skinny I couldn’t walk.
JIM:
(laughter)
MR. A:
And they didn’t had oranges over there like that but they had other fresh
fruit. She used to make me spinach and give me - every morning she used
to go to the garden and bring fresh food for me and anything I wanted.
43
JIM:
Why do you suppose that they were this way?
MR. A:
They felt bad. They knew they found out the problem.
JIM:
Felt guilty?
MR. A:
Yeah, they were guilty. They knew that they were, you know, when
people felt bad about it, just like sometimes you think about black people.
JIM:
You think that they might have been concerned that the Americans might
do something to them?
MR. A:
No, no –
JIM:
They didn’t feel that way.
MR. A:
No because they didn’t feel at all because I went to one guy and the funny
part of it is he was born in the United States and was a citizen. (Jim
laughs) Yeah, he came from Wisconsin from Appleton around there and as
a kid he went back to Germany.
JIM:
And then he couldn’t get out again.
MR. A:
He couldn’t get out and he could not join the German army because
he was an American citizen. Yeah, they wouldn’t accept him.
JIM:
Oh, I see.
MR. A:
And they discriminated against him. As a matter of fact I ran into him
and, oh, he was unbelievable nice to me. He says the minute I have a
chance I will sell everything and go back home to Wisconsin yeah.
JIM:
Okay. So -
MR. A:
So then the German family was – and then after about three months, this
was in the east zone of Germany –
JIM:
Right, and now you had Russians to deal with.
MR. A:
Then what happened, the farmer said to me he said, “Paul, the Russians
will be in a few weeks –”
JIM:
Right.
44
MR. A:
“And the Americans will move out. You better and get out of here with
the Americans because if you want to go back to America the only way
you’ll be able to go get out of here.” So I speak German -
JIM:
It made sense that it would not get much better when the Russians came.
MR. A:
That would have been just as bad.
JIM:
Right. That was the general feeling.
MR. A:
That’s right.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
And I had a feeling - I was street wise, not educated wise, but street wise.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
Survival of the fittest.
JIM:
Gotcha.
MR. A:
So when I came to Hof and die Salle --
JIM:
I don’t know where that –
MR. A:
This is on the American side, of the American Zone.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
This is right on the border of the Czech, hoslovakian -
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
German border. Now, I speak three languages I was born with ‘em,
Polish, German and Czech. Now, how would I make myself useful? I
joined the UNRA [UNRRA, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration]. What is the UNRA? The UNRA means the United
Nations Relief Organization.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
It was sponsored by the Americans. And I got a job, and they asked me
“Do you know how to drive a truck?” Oh, I know everything. I couldn’t
shift.
45
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
I broke a couple teeth but I know how to drive a truck. So after a couple
weeks I drove a truck.
JIM:
(laughter)
MR. A:
And I did a good use out of myself and then there was another
organization Sochnut. This Sochnut was based in New York City. A
Jewish agency. They told me “As long as you drive that truck and you
deliver food, we want you to use that truck to deliver people from the
Czech border. So I used to go to the Czech border and I know the border
because I was born and raised in that area.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
So I know the Czech guards. The Germans I didn’t worry about it. But I
worry about the Russians.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
So -
JIM:
These were what people, that wanted to get out?
MR. A:
From the east part of Germany, I mean from the eastern part from Poland
survivors of the concentration –
JIM:
They just wanted to get out -
MR. A:
Out of the eastern part of the area and to go to the west because from there
they could got to Palestine. At that time there was no Israel.
JIM:
That’s what I was getting at.
MR. A:
That’s right. There was no Palestine, there was no Israel. Because Israel -
JIM:
I know.
Mr. A;
Because Israel was born in ’48.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
And this was in ’46.
JIM:
OK.
46
MR. A:
So I used to drive to the border and I used to smuggle the people over the
border so -
JIM:
Tell me about that. The truck, in a covered truck -
MR. A:
A covered truck
JIM:
And about six or seven at a time or -
Mr. A:
Oh no, I could bring up to thirty people. I loaded them up like sardines.
JIM:
(laughing)
MR. A:
I used to come to the border and I was the only guy who carried a 45
automatic.
JIM:
Where’d you get that?
MR. A:
From the United States Army, from the Provost Marshal.
JIM:
He knew that you were doing this?
MR. A:
Yes.
JIM:
OK
MR. A:
With the permission of the United states government because Truman
silently made a deal with the Israeli at that time -
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
With the Sochnut. But why did I decide to carry the gun? In case the
guards decided shooting and I would have to defend myself and defend
the people when they crossed the border. But I could never use that gun
under any circumstances.
JIM:
But they didn’t know that.
MR. A:
Who?
JIM:
The people that you were --
MR. A:
What I drove them?
JIM:
Yeah.
47
MR. A:
No, nobody knew, except me. But if somebody, when the military police
stopped me because I came to the border there was the constabulary, and
they wanted to have a trip ticket and I had a trip ticket issued by the
UNRA. It was legal and on my papers they knew when I used to have my
jacket open I had a holster under my arm. I didn’t had a side holster I had
a holster – they asked me, “How come you carry a 45?” So I showed them
a little paper. Silent, nothing said, did not give it to me I was never, I never
had to use that gun.
JIM:
How long did you do this?
MR. A:
I did it until I left for America.
JIM:
How did you get passage to America?
MR. A:
How did I get the passage for America? Through the United Nations, oh
no, through the, you had to have to be sponsored by somebody. So you
went and applied to enter the United States. So first you have to go to the
Jewish agency and they found me a job. Otherwise you couldn’t enter the
United States. If you didn’t had a job here –
JIM:
That is still true.
MR. A:
No, that’s not true. Today you can, oh no, you can have sickness and
everything and enter this country. You can just pay –
Jim:
Walk across the Rio Grande River, right.
MR. A:
That’s right. That’s all you have to do or from Europe you buy a ticket –
MRS. A:
Be a criminal and come --
MR. A:
And any criminal we have – we have so many criminals here it’s unreal.
Just like you say, cross the river and bring a whole bunch of dope with me
and that’d be okay.
JIM:
Or the 10,000 Nazis who came over here.
MR. A:
That’s exactly the -
JIM:
To build the rockets. Wernher Von Braun, you see. (unintelligible)
MR. A:
So I came to this country –
MRS. A:
That’s another whole conversation.
48
MR. A:
That’s another story; I can get back into you. So the end was I got a job
with the UNRA and I got very little pay but I didn’t care for the pay
because I was very dedicated.
JIM:
You had opportunity here.
MR. A:
And I had a big opportunity – now, a lot of times I used to come on the
border they used to say to me, the Czechs, “I need some coffee.” I say,
“How much coffee you need?” “Fifty pounds of coffee.” I say, “Okay.
What kind you want, roasted or unroasted? I got it for you. Tomorrow at
10:00 o’clock there will be a transport of 150 people. Where we going to
break the fence? Tell me where.” So they told me, “Be in there, count so
many things.” So I knew – I knew about constabulary was there watching
us and, the Bayerisches, the Grenzpolizei, was there too but the
Grenzpolizei was told to stay far away from it. So they never interfered,
never stopped me, and the only military was American military.
Sometimes it came close and then I waved to them and they know what
I’m doing and they just backed off.
JIM:
Where’d you get the coffee?
MR. A:
From the agency. I needed cigarettes too. When I needed -
JIM:
Did you tell them what you need? Send you to the stores and you’d pick
up all you needed.
MR. A:
I don’t know where they got the coffee.
JIM:
Yeah. Okay,
MR. A:
I need 100 cartons of cigarettes.
JIM:
No problem.
MR. A:
There was no problem. If there was any money -
JIM:
And this was used to bribe the Czech guards.
MR. A:
The Czech guards SNB. It was the Grenzpolizei and I speak fluently
Czech, so I mean we’re talking –
JIM:
All your friends. (laughs)
49
MR. A:
Yeah, and then on top of it they used – the best thing what happened to me
one time a jeep drove up with a woman and an officer, a Russian soldier.
He had a “Pepe Shaw” Holy man, I mean a –
JIM:
A burp gun.
MR. A:
The one with the drum.
JIM:
A burp gun.
MR. A:
A burp gun, a “Pe Pe Shaw” they used to call it. And he jumps up,
“Nobody will cross the border.” I said, “What is the reason?” He says,
“Because I’m going with ‘em.” I said, “Nobody goes with ‘em”
JIM:
(laughs)
MR. A:
So I said, “What are going to do with the jeep, an American jeep with
Russian markings on it?” So he drove over the border. The jeep was
impounded right away and I turned him over to the CIC. Remember, there
was not CIA.
JIM:
Well, the CIC is a service -
MR. A:
You remember that or not? CIC, and we took him over there and I talked
to them and I interpreted because they couldn’t I could speak to him. And
he could only speak Yiddish or Russian.
JIM:
Russian.
MR. A:
And I asked him where he’s from. He says from Kiev, and his wife was
from Zhytomyr. So we were talking. They had two children with them and
everything. So what happened, the wife and the children were right away
freed, but he was kept at the CIC for about almost a week. I think he was
interrogated, -
JIM:
Sure.
MR. A:
And they never called me for interpreting. They didn’t want me there. I
have no reason why, I am sure they had interpreters very well qualified.
And all of a sudden his name was Maruss (??). “Maruss” (??) means
“frost”. So when he came to America he says to me, “When you come to
America to Chicago and you look me up my name is Maruss (??), Jackob
Maruss (??).” So I couldn’t find him and then I said to him, “What
happened to you?” He says, “My name is Jack Frost.” The immigration
department changed his name.
50
JIM:
Where’d you find him?
MR. A:
In Chicago.
JIM:
When?
MR. A:
In a Jewish neighborhood, and -
JIM:
Twenty years later or?
MR. A:
No, about maybe ten, fifteen years later. All of the sudden I see him in the
story. I said, “What are you doing here, Jack?” “Yonkel,” I said to him,
“what is your – you know I couldn’t find you.” He said, “What do you
mean you can’t find me? I’m in the phone book. I pay my telephone bills.”
He says, “Oh, I forgot to tell you I changed my name to Bruce (??). From
Bruce (??) to Frost, to Jack Frost.”
JIM:
That’s a cute story.
MR. A:
Yeah.
JIM:
O. K. So you applied for a visa and you got it.
MR. A:
I applied for the visa and I had to go through a check if I was not a
criminal, if I had to go to medical, if I had no TB -
JIM:
Oh, all right
MR. A:
Venereal diseases, anything what was connected I have to have a clean bill
of health. So when I entered the United States and I landed in New Jersey
--
JIM:
You just got on a plane and that’s where the plane landed?
MR. A:
No, there were no planes in those days. They put you on a ship in
Bremerhaven. First they put you in a quarantine, quaranto, that’s forty
and they kept you there and they checked you for diseases and everything
what you had to go through. This is not like today. You just sit on a plane.
JIM:
I know.
MR. A:
And everybody who came here was healthy. And everybody had a job.
There was no unemployment.
MRS. A:
And there wasn’t enough food on the transport ship. They told you’d only
get like one meal or -
51
MR. A:
But it was so funny when we got on the ship and I got in Bremerhaven
they said that the ship hadn’t been in port back for so long they couldn’t
refinish it, refurbish with food. So they had only for male – only one meal
a day but for women and children there were three meals a day. But once
we got on the ship, oh my God, the kitchen was empty. Nobody wanted to
go in the kitchen. Everybody was seasick. There was plenty of food.
JIM:
(Laughing.)
MR. A:
And I came in the kitchen and I said to him, “Can I eat?” He said, “All
you want.”
JIM:
Nobody seemed to –
MR. A:
It didn’t bother me a bit. It didn’t affected me at all. (laughs)
JIM:
O. K. so you got to New Jersey.
MR. A:
So I got in New Jersey -
MRS. A:
(unintelligible)
JIM:
Your job was ready.
MR. A:
Yup, I got a job for an electrician.
JIM:
Well, you’re an expert.
Mr. A.:
I got a job for an electrician because I knew the job. Now, I knew the
electrical job, yeah, and the guy was very heartbroken that I quit right
away. But paid me only, what, eighty cents an hour.
JIM:
Why did you quit?
MR. A:
Because I wanted to go to Sheboygan. I had a sister lived in
Sheboygan. She came a year prior. So when I got to Sheboygan I got a job
with the Power and Light Company. Eighty cents difference between Two
dollars and a quarter. That’s a big money.
JIM:
Yes.
MR. A:
And then I bought myself my first car. I bought myself. A Bel – what was
it?
MRS. A:
Chevy Bel Air.
52
MR. A:
$1,600.00, a brand new car, never had a car in my life. And ah, granted
there was no radio in it and the only radio you could get is an AM radio.
There was no FM in those days. There was no heater either. You had to
buy a heater extra. There was a Borg Warner heater from gasoline. Did
you ever heard about it?
JIM:
No.
MR. A:
Gas heated you have to put -
JIM:
Separate.
MR. A:
Yeah, and that’s it. Then I had my family there, my sister, and,
JIM:
Yup, and then –
MR. A:
ah I went and was drafted.
JIM:
How did you get drafted?
MR. A:
How?
JIM:
Who decided that? You just got a notice one day?
MR. A:
I had to report with the - I applied for the status of being, become a
citizenship of the United States.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
So you get a green card. The green card is like ah, you will become a
citizen in five years.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
But you, under the – you have certain rights, not quite, you can’t vote.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
But you are like an American citizen. But they can use you when they
need you. So I was drafted and I was qualified 1-A.
JIM:
If you went in the service didn’t that shorten your time to become a
citizen?
53
MR. A:
When I got in the minute you lift your right hand, you take the oath of
office.
JIM:
So you didn’t have to wait five years if you joined the Army.
MR. A:
No, that’s right.
JIM:
Yeah, see that’s what I’m getting at.
MR. A.
So when I got – but what the funny part of it is when I got out of service I
didn’t even know I was a citizen. (Jim laughs) But I was. So when I got
out of the service I applied for a job at the Post Office.
JIM:
What about the Power and Light Company?
MR. A:
Oh, I got back there, but I didn’t like to be in Sheboygan.
JIM:
Oh.
MR. A:
Oh, they couldn’t fire me. I didn’t know that. That the job was waiting for
me.
JIM:
Right. Out of service people are careful about that.
MR. A:
Oh, yeah. I didn’t know that. Honey, could I have a little bit more water?
They were so good - you should see the packages I used to get in the
service from the boys here. People were patriotic. Schools used to send me
scarves, gloves and everything.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
And I tell you something. I, ah, oh, when I got out of the service
I wanted to get a job at the post office and there was so many guys applied
for the job and this was on the railroad. The Post Office used to have their
own railroad cars.
JIM:
I remember that.
MR. A:
Do you remember that? Right after the locomotive used to be a railroad
car. So when I got on a train in downtown in Chicago on Canal Street I
wound up in Ishpeming. And then I used to go back. I used to drop those
bags out. And a lot of people told me that don’t bother even get a job
because you never gonna get a job. From all the people I got the job
because, did you see my card? It says 80% -
JIM:
Right.
54
MR. A:
When I showed them my 80% service connected I got the job without
even – So then it was no good for me because it was too far traveling and I
didn’t wanna, oh, I couldn’t sleep late at night. So then, at that time they
had a military section at Midway Airport, not O’ Hare. At that time
O’Hare wasn’t even on the drawing board. Oh, oh, I’m sorry. [Break in
tape 1, approx. 7 sec. gap in tape.]
JIM:
You havin’ fun –
MR. A:
Give you a lot of baloney. (laughs)
JIM:
Oh sure, I like that.
MR. A:
Yeah. So when, I couldn’t get through the gate. I was still in the reserves.
(Jim laughs) So I walk in there to the guard. The guard salutes. I saluted
back in my uniform, all the ribbons I put on. “Can I help you?” I says, “I
want to see the Provost Marshall.” “Oh sure,” he says, “Hold on a minute.
Go down and turn to your” – a day before he wouldn’t let me in. I was
(unintelligible). When I put my uniform on with my –
JIM:
Ribbons on.
MR.A:
Not only that I had my fingerprints, my pictures on it, because I had to
have it. You know a unit in those days – I don’t know how it is now,
probably the same way. You have your nameplate and everything. So the
guy let me in. I say, “I’ll talk to the provost marshal.” He says, “Sure. You
fill out this application. You’ll get the job, no problem.” So I was working
there, too and then, but they didn’t pay anything. So then I went on my
own. Then I went to get, I figured I’m going to go to school and learn
refrigeration and heating, really refrigeration/heating. Electrical I knew,
I’m very good on controls. So I got the job and then I quit. And then I got
another job, called a guy, and I learned the American way of doing
business. He was the biggest thief I have ever seen in my life. When you
shaked hands you have to count your fingers.
JIM:
(Laughing).
MR. A:
But it was not my cup of tea. And then he passed away and I wanted to
take over the business but his wife was so greedy. It didn’t go. So she lost
everything and I did one - Then I started my own business.
JIM:
Where are we now?
MR. A:
In Chicago. And I did a very good living. A very good living. I was very
successful.
55
JIM:
I’m sure. Whatever you’d turn to, you’d be.
Mr. A;
Because I was not lazy to work.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
But one thing I was, I was very honest. I never cheated anybody.
JIM:
There’s no reason to.
MR. A:
No. Exactly what you should have said, what you said. And I married a
lady from Chicago. Her name was Hathaway, a real English name
Hathaway.
JIM:
She make shirts? (Mrs. A Laughs) A Hathaway shirt is a famous shirt.
MR.A:
Well, whatever, and she graduated from IIT, very intellectual. She was a
graduate engineer.
JIM:
Oh boy.
MR. A:
Mechanical engineer, where you don’t find many women,
JIM:
No.
MR. A:
Very mechanical. In those days there was no women at all. I asked her
how many women you had in the class. She said, “Nobody except me.”
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
And I said, “How did you handle it?” She says, “Well, any stupid idiot can
tell you the four letter words, but put it in writing, that’s another thing.”
And she was graduated very high in the class. She was very successful and
she helped me a lot in many ways. Because when I used to open my
business I had to make a lot of blueprints and they all had to be certified
by an architect or an engineer. An architect is an engineer.
JIM:
You had a built-in one.
MR. A:
So I had one built in, so she used to sign all the stuff and I did my other
work and I was very successful. Then she passed away. Matter of fact.
Here in Madison she passed away.
JIM:
Oh.
56
MR. A:
At the University. And then my wife, present wife, was a widow.
MRS. A:
That’s forty years now. This is forty years they were married.
MR.A:
That’s – yeah, and then I raised two sons, and this one here - [End of
Tape 2, side A, ca. 30 min.] My wife became a widow. I knew this young
lady here for over thirty years -
JIM:
This child here (laughs)?
MR. A:
No, no, no. We knew each other because her husband was a friend of mine
and then what happened down the line she lost her husband, and, ah -
JIM:
Didn’t work out.
MR. A:
And she was a widow for twelve years, and when my wife passed away,
well, that was the only thing is to call her and say, “Listen.” - I said listen.
She was available.
JIM:
It’s your turn now, right?
MRS. A:
(laughs)
MR. A:
And we knew each other. And she turned a lot in my life, a big change in
my life. Literally (??), I couldn’t talk to you. Like you would ask me today
about the interview what you give me. I would never give it to you. I
would walk out.
JIM:
Too tight?
MR. A:
I was so tight I would walk out. I just, I just didn’t work. And this lady
here made about face. She opened me and I became -
JIM:
Open the door. Oh.
STAFF:
We’re about ten minutes from takeoff.
JIM:
Okay.
STAFF:
Paul, this is Justice (??) Rosenberg.
MR. A:
Oh, how do you do?
JIM (?):
-- Mr. Rosenberg – nice meeting you.
ROSENBERG: It’s nice to be here.
57
STAFF (?):
We want to talk about how you want us to introduce you.
MR. A:
Just Paul Argiewicz.
STAFF:
Argiewicz?
MR. A:
Survivor, let us say, from the Buchenwald concentration camp. Okay?
STAFF:
That’s fine.
JIM:
Ten minutes?
STAFF:
Ten minutes.
JIM:
We’ll be there.
STAFF:
Okay.
MR. A:
So I married my wife and even my brother in law (??) says to me. We
lived in Sheboygan and he comes from the same hometown, and, you,
know, he and I didn’t (??) used to get along with him because I was a little
bully.
MRS. A:
No.
MR. A:
I used to pick on him. And I was a tough little kid, as a little child. He is
different. He’s more intellectual and not outspoken. He is, he keeps
everything inside of him. Not everybody can come up and speak in front
of public.
JIM:
Yeah, let me have your watch here so I know. Now we have to talk about
that Korean War. That’s all we’ve got left now.
MR. A:
Well, I wound up in -
JIM:
You’re drafted, and you trained where and -
MR. A:
I wound up where? Up in North Korea.
JIM:
Right out of –
MRS. A:
Trained?
JIM:
You trained where?
58
MR. A:
Well, I was, I finished my basic training and I got in -
JIM:
Where?
MR. A:
In my basic training? In Lockland Air force Base like -
JIM:
What year was this?
MR. A:
That was in 1950, no wait a minute. Yeah, 1951, that’s right.
JIM:
All right.
MR. A:
I can’t give you the numbers because the numbers are ’50 -. What
Was it, ’54, was the war over?
JIM:
Yeah, ’53.
MR. A:
’53?
JIM:
Right. It started in ’50.
MR. A:
Can you read it? It’s Russian.
JIM:
Nyet.
MRS. A:
Here’s the time, right here.
JIM:
No, I’m not looking that way.
MRS. A:
Well, I am. Do you want me to tell you when -
JIM:
No, I got it right here.
MR. A:
But in many ways what I went through in the Korean War and I came
back – Just recently, to show you how small a world it is, me and my
sister, we were talkin’; but I didn’t tell you how I met my sister.
JIM:
I’m not interested in that now. I don’t have time for your sister.
MR. A:
Okay, but I just wanted to tell you when I spoke with my sister, just the
other day. Not long ago. I said to her, “Lucy, how do you feel about being
in America?” She looks to me straight in my eyes and face, and I am very
patriotic. You can sell me anything you want.
JIM:
I know.
59
MR. A:
But I served this country. I love this county. To me, my country is what a
lot of people say about Israel. I love Israel.
JIM:
But that’s not your country.
MR. A:
That is not my country. Still this is my home. You know what I’m saying?
It isn’t like - Listen, sure I’m Jewish. I sympathize with ‘em, but this is
my country.
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
It’s different. You understand what I’m saying?
JIM:
Of course.
MR. A:
You know what the feelings are. Like I have a choice between this, and
this I still take my choice, my country. And I said to her “Lucy, how do
you feel?” and she looked straight in my eye and she says to me “If I have
to live two lifetimes I could never pay back what this country did for me.”
You were there at the time.
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
She was at the table.
JIM:
Yeah.
MRS. A:
Are you back in Korea?
MR. A:
And you know the meet (??) so emotional.
MRS. A:
Are you getting Korea?
JIM:
I know it. I need you in Korea here.
MR. A:
Did you met me in Korea or didn’t?
JIM:
No.
MR. A:
You were some place in Pusan.
MRS. A:
You met after Korea.
MR. A:
You were someplace in Pusan.
JIM:
Oh I’ve been there, Pusan.
60
MRS. A:
Korea – you a navigator.
JIM:
I made the Pusan landing.
MR. A:
Were you a kid in World War II?
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
Who doesn’t? You tell me who wasn’t there.
MRS. A:
O. K. You were the crew chief. The navigator.
JIM:
What was your job? What was your -
MR. A:
In the service?
JIM:
Yeah.
MR. A:
First, I went to Scott Field.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
I took basic training. Then I went to K. I. Sawyer. I was a crew chief.
JIM:
For an Air Force crew chief?
MR. A:
Yeah, yeah, on a B-29.
JIM:
Right, And how did -
MR. A:
Then we got shot down.
JIM:
Where?
MR. A:
Over North Korea, yeah.
JIM:
Over North Korea?
MR. A:
Yeah.
JIM:
You got captured?
MR. A:
Yeah. That was it.
JIM:
That was what?
61
MR. A:
That was the end of my whole career. Then I came back.
JIM:
How long were you in the prison?
MR. A:
About eleven months.
JIM:
See, now this is really the reason that you’re here. It’s all about this.
MR. A:
And I want to tell you something. It’s - I have prayed to God. I’m not
religious. I don’t try to pretend that I’m a religious person. But I believe
there is a supreme being over us and everybody has a destiny in this life
they call this “ein schicksal” in German. You can write it down. You can
look it up in the dictionary. It’s something in Hebrew that says “bashert”.
I can tell you this in several languages. It doesn’t change; it’s all the same
thing. It’s something, a destiny what you have no control over. But you
have to be honest with yourself and the most important in your life is how
can you be honest to other people if you’re not honest with yourself.
JIM:
Getting shot down, tell me about this.
MR. A:
When I was shot down, I was hit on my left shoulder, right from my left
shoulder, and I was operated by the Chinese.
JIM:
Did your plane land or crash-land or –
MR. A:
I was –
JIM:
Did you parachute?
MR. A:
I parachuted out, yeah.
JIM:
That was fun.
MR. A:
Yeah. It was very high fun from about 28,000 feet.
MRS. A:
That’s where he lost his hearing.
MR. A:
Yeah, I don’t hear too well.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
A lot of people make fun of me, but I couldn’t care less.
JIM:
I’m sorry. So then what happened when you hit the ground?
62
MR. A:
I remember I had the same rifle that the Chinaman - actually it’s a carbine.
A fixed bayonet on it, you know when you flip it over there’s a -
JIM:
Oh, yeah.
MR. A:
He had right on my neck, right here and he looked at the Lieutenant and
the Lieutenant says, “No.”
JIM:
That’s close.
MR. A:
That was so close. It’s the same thing in Germany happened a couple
times. I came so close from death.
JIM:
Right. So then they took you - did several of the guys get out of the plane?
MR. A:
Yeah. Only a couple guys didn’t survive. I think the gunner didn’t, but the
tail gunner – so hard to get out.
JIM:
Okay, and then where did they march you to?
MR. A:
Well, they didn’t march me, they carried me. I couldn’t march because I
lost so much blood.
JIM:
Oh, from your shoulder wound.
MR. A:
Yeah, and -
MRS. A:
It was right by your aorta.
MR. A:
In the –
JIM:
Not up there.
MRS. A:
Where was it? What was it -
Mr. A:
It was so close to my artery what goes into my brain. And I remember
The Chinese doctor says to me, a woman, she says, “You lucky.”
JIM:
She spoke English?
Mr. A:
Yeah, beautiful, just like you talk from England, like a British accent.
JIM:
Ah.
MR. A:
And I heard about acupuncture, but I never knew about it so she must of
put hundreds of needles around the ears -
63
JIM:
Oh really.
MR. A:
To my brain here, and she asked me, “Can you feel it?” I says, “Nope.”
You know, if I feel pain. I says, “No.”
JIM:
They sewed that up?
MR. A:
They sewed it up.
JIM:
The bullet went through and through?
Mr. A:
Yeah, it went right through here.
JIM:
Yeah, so they didn’t anything to dig around there?
MR. A:
No, no.
JIM:
So then they put you back in the regular camp?
MR. A:
Yeah, then I recovered. The Chinese fed us the same thing what the
soldiers ate. No different.
JIM:
Really?
MR. A:
They ate rice, give you herring, piece of meat.
JIM:
So they treated you --
MR. A:
Yeah, that –
JIM:
Pretty well.
MR. A:
I never was in Vietnam. I don’t know. Should say that Vietnam was
horrible, but this was a different culture. This was French culture. This
was more Chinese culture. They did not abuse you, no. Not like the
Germans.
JIM:
Or the Japanese, which was worse.
Mr. A:
Oh the Japanese. My brother-in-law from my first marriage was four years
in prison in Japan. He had no nails. He was a commanding officer on
Guam, and I don’t have to tell you all the stories about him.
JIM:
Okay. So your life in the prison camp was boring but otherwise -
64
Mr. A:
Otherwise I know I’m going to come home eventually.
JIM:
And it certainly wasn’t as bad as the concentration camp.
MR. A:
No, not comparison.
JIM:
Not even close.
MR. A:
Not even close.
JIM:
Okay. That’s all I wanted you to say.
MR. A:
That’s not even –
JIM:
That’s why I assumed -
MR. A:
And I cannot understand how people, human people, can can go so low -
JIM:
How?
MR. A:
To commit such a crime. But you know what bothers me, what bothers me
most – about a year ago I heard what one guy says to – I picked up a
newspaper and I read the article. The headline article was “The Tootsies
With The Hutus hotie were Fighting in Africa. And one of the guys says to
me, “Ah, that’s only Niggers. Let ‘em give them a lot of guns.” And I said
to him, all the people he says this to me and I said to him, “That’s almost a
sin to say. That’s a shame.”
JIM:
Open the door.
STAFF (?):
(unintelligible) a story.
STAFF 2 (?): Amen.
JIM:
You only gave me ten minutes. Now you’re cutting it down. It’s only been
five minutes.
STAFF:
You ever hear of union rule number 333333?
MRS. A:
And a half.
STAFF:
And a half. (Laughter)
MRS. A:
And a third.
STAFF:
Two-thirds, you’re right.
65
MR. A:
I’m gonna charge ya for using my wife.
STAFF:
Exactly right. I said “Bill us.”
MR. A:
Who?
STAFF:
Just bill us.
MR. A:
Made in Russia. Did you see it? It’s a Longines watch.
JIM:
Is it?
STAFF:
Longines were made in Russia?
MR. A:
What?
STAFF:
Longines were made in Russia?
MR. A:
Yeah.
STAFF:
(unintelligible) A golden watch.
MR. A:
A golden case and everything, yeah.
JIM:
Could you use the GI Bill when you got out of the service?
MR. A:
Oh, I sued every bit of it.
JIM:
Go to all the schools –
MR. A:
Oh, you betcha, and it’s such a great country if you want to do something
out of yourself. There’s no time limit.
JIM:
All it takes is your energy and
MR. A:
Willing.
JIM:
Right.
MR. A:
The desire to do. It’s the greatest country –
JIM:
Exactly.
MR. A:
And we take it for granted.
66
JIM:
I don’t!
MR. A:
I don’t either.
JIM:
Okay.
MR. A:
I don’t! That’s one thing and like the other day we went, I spoke in a
school. Who said this? One of the kids said to you –
MRS. A:
My granddaughter.
MR. A:
“Whey do we have the pledge of allegiance?” I said to them, “This is not
just a pledge. This is actually an oath.” This is a very serious thing, and I
will not open my place – I was an old soldier in this country, that I will not
enter the room if I cannot pledge of allegiance. You will not deny me this,
and I walk out.
JIM:
Good.
MR. A:
Good.
MR. A:
That’s my country and I love it.
[Tape/interview ends abruptly]
[End of Interview]