Audio Gallery

You will be hearing the voices of survivors. The immediacy of hearing someone’s voice is a direct and personal experience. Some of the audio recordings tell of incidents related in the texts of the Survivors Stories. Other recordings expand on the stories with additional anecdotes, and with songs and with prayers. A verbatim transcription is provided to help the listener understand the speaker and a translation is provided when a foreign language is spoken.

 

    Solomon Radasky

    Solomon Radasky

  • Covering the Ashes

    • Duration: 38 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: They got in Birkenau … they got a big 2 holes, big ones, you know, what the ashes was coming out in the crematoria in back through pipes in the holes. And we was 10 people, but we was pushing a wagon in Auschwitz with sand. Sechs [Yiddish for 6]… 6 o’ clock in the morning 1 until 12 o’clock, and from 12 o’clock until 5 o’clock, 1 wagon with sand to cover the ashes every day. This was my job for a few years there.

  • My Wife’s Beautiful Song

    • Duration: 42 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: My wife got a song in the Holocaust museum in Washington. And at first they asked her they wanted it in English, but they tested it … They saw that this don’t fit, never in another language …in Jewish. Because the people was going to Treblinka. They all was Jewish people. This was a song like they say they going the last step, you know, and never coming back. It’s a very, very beautiful song.

  • Nine Weeks in Majdanek

    • Duration: 82 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: I was 9 weeks in Majdanek, 9 weeks, you see, 9 weeks! And I never washed my face the whole 9 weeks because then in the barracks there was no water. We had to go out, you know, in a shed, washing the face, or needing to go to the toilet. Everything over there was the Ukrainer [Yiddish for “Ukrainian”], the Ukrainer they got a half inch… just a half inch, a quarter of an inch iron pipes and knock us in the head and every day fall dead … I never was not one time out washing my face … 9 weeks. When I wash my face, I was out of Majdanek and coming to Auschwitz. I just take off the clothes in 9 weeks what I wear in Majdanek and throw away and take the first shower. And they cut off my hair and everything. And I got a clean shirt and I say, I said to myself there, “God is still with me.”

  • Nobody was Supposed to Stand Up at Night

    • Duration: 48 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: When we were coming … coming to Majdanek, the women were so crazy--not they just hollered, they got out of their mind. A whole night they was lay down in the fields separate, and men are separate. I got a good friend. He was a furrier. He was working for somebody there, and he get up in the middle of the night, and they shot him. We never heard nothing. In the morning I looked around for him, where he is, and I find him dead. Nobody don't supposed to get up … stand up at night.

  • Saying Kaddish at Auschwitz-Birkenau

    • Duration: 33 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: To say the Kaddish, then they have to say for what, how they say Kaddish and for who. And then the Kaddish is not just saying Kaddish. To say Kaddish is to say how the young blood what is in the ground. You see, they killed a lot of children, you see, and the blood sinked in in the ground. That's why I say to say the Kaddish how the blood from the children is in the ground.

  • The Children

    • Duration: 121 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: 1944 when they give up the Lodz ghetto … they give up … they was some in them a people lot of people coming to Auschwitz from Lodz. A lot of people got killed in Lodz. In the ghetto got the children. The Germans hold the people with the children, hold the and the children was grown up a little, and 4 years is not a baby, you know. When they was coming to Auschwitz. When they was coming in 1944, September, October. In the two months, I don’t know what’s happened. Til now nothing can figure out with the Germans … they all was crazy. They… they … they holler to make it go fast …everything the crematoriums. They throw in the people, you know, in the crematoriums … the children. I never will forget … alive … they throw them in the crematoriums … They grabbed by an arm by a leg, by the head, and throw them into the ovens. There it was so tragic the … the … the cries and people when crying there, you know, was so terrible. I can feel it now … I can even see the other people … the other people was crying the … the children was hollering, “Mama, Daddy help me! Mama, Daddy help me!” You know, was was terrible …

  • Treblinka Song: “A Storm Raged”

    • Duration: 140 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: My name is Frieda Radasky. I was born in Warsaw, Poland, and survived the Nazi regime during World War II. When I was in the Warsaw ghetto there was a folk song that described the terribal tragedy that was happened to Warsaw Jews. It described how families were taken to the Umslagplatz amid terror and screams knowing that once they were transported to Treblinka they would never return.

      Treblinka Song: “A Storm Raged”
      Es iz a shturm durkh di velt iz oyfgegangen,
      A storm raged throught the world,

      Es hobn felker farvandelt on lender.
      Leaving people up rooted and homeless.

      On rakhmones yoysherdik khurev gemakht a velt.
      Without pity or justice, a world was destroyed.

      Di zin fun himl aruf gerisn, in fin tog gemakht nakht.
      The sun was torn from the heavens, and day turned into night.

      Dort nisht vayt, shteyt an umshlagplats shoyn grayt
      There, not far, the Unschlagplatz lies waiting.

      Men shtift zikh dort in di brayt in di vogonen.
      People push and shove there for space in the railcars.

      Dort hert men ayngeshray vi dos kind shrayt tsi der mame,
      There, you hear the sound of a child crying to its mother,

      “Vi lozt du mikh aleyn? Di vest shoyn mer zu mir nisht kimen!”
      “Why are you leaving? You’ll never come back to me!”

      Di politsay zay hobn gikh gehaysn--”Gayn!”
      The police shout the order--”Go!”

      “Ir vert nisht visn fink a noyt; ir vert mit kimen dray broyt!”
      “You won’t feel a bit hungry; you’ll get 3 loaves of bread!”

      Un mit di dray kilo broyt hob azy nisht gevist,
      But with those 3 kilos of bread, they did not know,

      Az zay geyen oyf dem toyt.
      That they were being driven to their deaths.

      Treblinke dort;
      Treblinka lies ahead;

      Far yedn eynems gite ort.
      For everyone a nice resting place.

      Ver oysgeyt ahin dort,
      For whoever goes there,

      Kim shoyn nisht mer tsurik.
      Never comes back again.

      Dos harts bavaynt ven men tit zikh nur dermonen,
      The heart weeps when one recalls a sister or a brother,

      A shvester brider zenen dortn umgekumen.
      Who were murdered there.

      Ot shteyt der vogn!
      The train is here waiting!

      Un dos aynz ken ikh aynsogn,
      And there’s only one thing left to say,

      “Az fin Treblinke bin ikh!”
      “That I am for Treblinka!”
      Frieda Radasky learned this song while working in the kitchen at a coal depot in the Praga district of Warsaw (outside the ghetto area) in 1943. The kitchen workers, all young women, witnessed many deportations. The song was written over a period of time. Each worker contributed to the lyrics. The Umslagplatz was the area where Jews were rounded up for deportation from the Warsaw ghetto.

  • Warsaw Looked Like a Cemetary

    • Duration: 69 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: When I was coming to Warsaw, and I saw this town, how this town was looking before and look now … Town looked like a cemetery now. Some 85 % of the buildings was demolished, and nothing there, just the ground, you know. So how … what kind … what kind of feeling I can have there. I look at there and I say where I am. I am in a cemetery lot, or I am in my home birth town, you know? So I never feel good there. Many times I turn around and I cry good, but my crying never helped me. What I saw there, you know, and it’s terrible. I feel it in me like I was nobody. See, I’m born and raised in Poland, in Warsaw.

  • Where is the Synagogue?

    • Duration: 52 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: The synagogue was around a special lot … nothing else know that synagogue. That synagogue is going maybe 2-3000 people. For the High Holidays there was coming that synagogue the best cantors for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the best cantors. And police was standing outside, and who want to go in used to have to have a ticket, you know, there. I come, I take a look. Where is there the building? Where the synagogue? Demolished to the ground. And little mamzers [Hebrew/Yiddish, lit. “bastards,” but here used affectionately, i.e. little rascals] playing around there in the sand, you know. I say, “Ribono shel Olam [Hebrew/Yiddish, “Master of the World,” i.e. God, a common exclamation], what’s going on here, what is this?”

  • With the Children on a Trip to Poland

    • Duration: 36 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: My memories are coming back right now. In the beginning when I saw there what’s happened, you know. When I saw there what’s happened, I was shaking like a fish in the water and nothing can come to me, you know. But I was with the children, David and Toby, and they hold me back a little bit. I wasn’t there too long. It was a few days. I can be longer, but I don’t want to be there. See, I got a feeling, I don’t want to go.

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    Shep Zitler

    Shep Zitler

  • Bei Mir Bist Du Shein

    • Duration: 32 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: Bei mir bist du shein,
      Bei mir host du chein,
      Bei mir bist du alles oif di velt.
      Oi was zu sheine meidlach,
      Hob ich doch zehn fon dir?
      Un oisgekliben fun zi alle.
      Hob ich nor dir, dir, dir, dir.
      Bei mir bist du shein,
      Bei mir host du chein,
      Bei mir bist du alles oif di velt.

      La, la, la, la, la, la.

      To me you are beautiful,
      To me you have grace,
      To me you are everything in the world.
      How many beautiful girls,
      Have I seen besides you?
      I chose one from them all.
      I have only you, you, you, you.
      To me you are beautiful.
      To me you have grace.
      To me you are everything in the world.
      La, la, la, la, la, la.

  • I Was Born in Vilna, Poland

    • Duration: 106 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: I was born in Vilna, Poland. Right now it’s Vilnius, Lithuania, the capital of Lithuania. I am very proud of being born in a town like Vilna because they gave the eminent name to the Jewish people, to the Jewish world. “ Jerusalem deLithuania” --What does it mean? That’s the Jerusalem in the
      diaspora
      Diaspora: the dispersion of the Jews among the lands outside of Israel, in Hebrew “Galut,” (literally, “exile”).
      Source: Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish.
      of the Jews in the Eastern … That made this the capital, like Jerusalem in Israel is the capital of Israel, that’s what they do. So they believed in Vilna is the capital of the Eastern European countries, and that’s why they gave it that name, “Jerusalem deLithuania.” And why? We did because in Vilna was … we weren’t Chassidic. We believed, the Orthodox Jews, they were Misnagdim … we believed in the book, not in dancing and singing. We didn’t do it. Right now I am saying I am not against it: we are going to the synagogue, you dance and you sing. We didn’t do it, because we were learning. And Vilna has a name. We had a library in Vilna, Strashun they called it, and before the war it was the biggest library of Jewish learning in the world. If anybody all over, from America, if they wanted really to learn and to know anything about Jewishness, they had to come to Vilna, to my home town. That is why I am proud of being born in that particular city. We had … we had everything in Vilna.

  • The Story of “The Partisan Song”

    • Duration: 84 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: Shep: You want me to sing “The Partisan Song”?

      Interviewer: Oh, that would be great …

      Shep: You see, again, when I begin, I said that I am proud of being from Vilna. There are so many little things of Vilna. Like here is “The Partisan Song,” which it means the hymn, the hymn of the holocaust survivors all over the world. It was written in many, many languages and of course in Yiddish, they say, “Zog nit keinmol az du geist dem letzte veg.” [“Never say that you are on the final road.”] It was written by Herschel Glick, a fellow from Vilna. He was a “Bundist.” He wrote that song. He went to fight in the Partisan … he was killed at age 22. He was born in 1922, and he was killed. He died in 1944. He was 22 years old, a young fellow, brilliant. Also from Vilna. Now this song was picked up, and if anything that has to do with the holocaust, the Jews sing it all over the world … in Israel, all over, everywhere where there are…we are singing them, and as a matter fact I lead that that song yearly in the last few years in the Jewish Community Center, where we are having the memorial after the six million.

  • Two Yiddish Songs

    • Duration: 102 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: Shep: Do you want me to sing you a few Yiddish songs?
      Interviewer: Yeah, that would be great.

      Shep: Sure.

      BALALAIKA

      [Shteit] a bocher un tracht, tracht, tracht
      Di gantze nacht, nacht, nacht
      Vemen tzu nemen,
      Un nit farshemen
      Vemen tzu nemen,
      Un nit farshemen

      Tumbala, tumbala, tum balalaika
      Tumbala, tumbala, tum balalaika
      Tum balalaika, shpil balalaika, tum balalaika
      Freilich zol zein

      Narisher bocher vos darfst du fregen
      A shtein ken vaksen, vaksen on regen
      A libe ken brenen un nit oifheren
      A hartz ken beinken, veinen, on treren

      Tumbala, tumbala, tum balalaika
      Tumbala, tumbala, tum balalaika
      Tum balalaika, shpil balalaika, tum balalaika
      Freilich zol zein

      DER REBBE ELIMELECH

      Az der Rebbe Elimelech iz gewalt zei a freilich
      Iz gewalt zei a freilich, Elimelech
      Hat er gerufen di Chassidm, un di Chassidim haben …
      Un di fidelers zei fidelen
      Un az di fideldike fidlers haben fidledik gefidelt haben fideldik gefidelt haben zei
      Un az di fideldike fidlers haben fidledik gefidelt, haben fideldik gefidelt, haben zei

      English Translations:

      BALALAIKA

      A young man stands and thinks, thinks, thinks
      The whole night, night, night
      Whom to take [in marriage] and not to offend
      Whom to take [in marriage] and not to offend

      Tumbala, tumbala, tum balalaika
      Tumbala, tumbala, tum balalaika
      Tum balalaika, play balalaika, tum balalaika,
      It will be joyful

      You foolish young man, what are you asking?
      A stone can grow, grow without rain,
      A love can burn and not be consumed,
      A heart can yearn, cry without tears

      Tumbala, tumbala, tum balalaika
      Tumbala, tumbala, tum balalaika
      Tum balalaika, play balalaika, tum balalaika,
      It will be joyful

      DER REBBE ELIMELECH

      When the Rebbe Elimelech wanted to be joyous
      Wanted to be joyous, Elimelech
      He called the Chassidim and the Chassidim …
      And the fiddlers fiddled …

  • Wedding Dresses in Clinton, Louisiana

    • Duration: 201 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: In this country when I went out on the road again selling ladies’ dresses, I called in a small town in Clinton, Louisiana. There was Mrs. Stuart. There was a general merchandise store. They had anything under the sun. When the movie with Paul Newman “Long Hot Summer” that was filmed in her store … And I came over there, and they sold everything under the sun. They sold almost everything: feed for the mules, and shoes, and ladies’ dresses, and sugar, and fat, and everything. And I walked in over there, and I had only one kind of dresses to sell, 4 dollars and 75 cents. And the old lady, she was an English lady, very rich as I understood. She was one of the richest women in this little town, Clinton. And she says to me, “Mister, I only selling house dresses, which they sells for 2 dollars and 98 cents. Now I cannot pay you 4.75. That’s all I sell is 2.98.” Then I say, “Well, I don’t have none for 2.98, but you do sell it to the same women, they are buying. They can buy at 4.95, you sell them for 6.95, and they are going to get wedding and they are going to get married in the dresses.” And I talked her in, and she says “O.K., I will take a dozen dresses,” and that is why I made this kind of money. She never bought anything, that price goods. And she said to me, “Mister, from where are you from?” And I said, “I am from England.” I have to laugh because it really looks funny with my accent right now after 50 years, and at that time it was even worse. I meant because I came from England. After the war I was shipped to England, and I was in England three years. And I learned a little bit English, very little. But she says to me, “Really? I thought the English people speak better English than you.” And that was really funny. But I made friends with her and after I came back and I sold her, she was a good customer for many years to come, for many years to come. But that was really funny: She says to me, “I thought people from England speak better English than you.”

  • Zog Nit Keyn Mol (The Partisan Song) by Hirsch Glick

    • Duration: 96 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: Zog nit keyn mol az du geyst dem letsten veg,
      Khotsh himlen blayene farsthtelen bloye teg.

      [Never say you are walking your final road,
      Though leaden skies conceal the days of blue.]

      Kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sha’ah,
      S’vet a poyk ton undzer trot mir zaynen do!

      [The hour that we have longed for will appear,
      Our steps will beat out like drums: We are here!]

      Fun grinem palmenland biz vaysen land fun shney,
      Mir kumen on mit undzer payn, mit undzer vey.

      [From the green lands of palm trees to lands white with snow,
      We are coming with our all pain and all our woe.]

      Un vu gefalen s’iz a shpritz fun undzer blut,
      Shprotzen vet dort undzer gevurah, undzer mut.

      [Wherever a spurt of our blood has fallen to the ground,
      There our might and our courage will sprout again.]

      S’vet di morgenzum bagilden undz dem haynt,
      Un der nekhten vet farshvinden miten faynd.

      [The morning sun will shine on us one day,
      Our enemy will vanish and fade away.]

      Nor oyb farzamen vet di zun in dem kayor,
      Vi a parol zol geyn dos lid fun dor tsu dor.

      [But if the sun and dawn come too late for us,
      From generation to generation let them be singing this song.]

      Dos lid geshriben iz mit blut un nit mit blay,
      S’iz nit keyn lidel fun a foygel oyf der fray,

      [This song is written in blood not in pencil-lead.
      It is not sung by the free-flying birds overhead,]

      Dos hot a folk tsvishen falendike vent,
      Dos lid gezungen mit naganes in di hent!

      [But a people stood among collapsing walls,
      And sang this song with pistols in their hands!]

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    Eva Galler

    Eva Galler

  • Escaping the Death Camp Train

    • Duration: 119 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: People started to pull out those barbed wires and jumped through those little windows. Even the SS people sat on the rooftop of the train and shot, but everybody took a chance. Whoever could, whoever it was possible to take a chance. Well, my father told us, when the young people started to jump, he said, “You the oldest three”--I was seventeen, and my sister sixteen, my brother fifteen--”You oldest try. Maybe somebody will survive, but we will stay here with the small children, because even if they go out they won’t be able to survive.” So the parents went with the small children. My sister … my brother jumped first, my sister second. Then I jumped, and I landed in a ditch of snow. They shot after us. They shot … they keep on shooting, but the bullet didn’t hit me. When I didn’t hear anymore the train, I got up. And the first thing I did, I took off my star, and I promised myself never again will I ever wear a star. I went first to look after my sister and brother and found them dead. And I found many corpses … many corpses. From that train one of my friends survived, too. She lives in New York. We were two people who survived that train, but many people jumped. Well, after that I survived under an assumed name, and I was caught to work in Germany as a Polish girl. And I worked on a farm, on a German farm, under a false name …pretended that I was Catholic and escaped until the end of the war.

  • I Want to Live Too

    • Duration: 24 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: We were a big family. We were eight children. I am the oldest of eight. When they took us to the trains to take to the death camp, I was seventeen years old and my youngest brother was three years old and I still hear him scream, “I want to live too.”

  • If Somebody Would Have Given Us a Chance

    • Duration: 149 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: They took us in January … I remember … January 4th, 1943. It was very cold. It was that time such a cold winter that when you walked, the snow crunched under your feet. The S.S. people came into the ghetto, and they walked us … they chased us with rifles to the train. That time when they chased us, they didn’t have television yet, so nobody saw whatever it happened. But now when you see on the television, and people they chasing out from Kosovo, and people … and they are going into tent cities, and it’s very sad to look at it. But, to compare to the Holocaust, if somebody would have given us a chance to walk out of Germany, if to live in a camp, in a tent city … together the whole family … everybody would have been grateful. They didn’t give us that chance. They took us into the train. It’s a chaos was by the loading the trains because children cried, and parents tried to keep together with the children, and families wanted to be together. Now we came in, into that cattle train when it was full and closed from outside, locked that nobody could … was able to go out. The small windows with barbed wires, it wasn’t any glass, only barbed wires. Of course, we knew that time what is awaiting us. Because we knew that time it was Camp Belzec, a few stations from our city, and there it was just crematoriums. You came in and they gassed you. They told you to go to the shower, but the shower had Zyklon gas in it and everybody was killed and later exterminated. Nobody survived. You don’t have one survivor from Belzec. You have survivors from Auschwitz, from Treblinka, because it was also a working camp. But Belzec wasn’t a working camp. It was strictly a death camp, and nobody survived.

  • Only the Bad Laws Applied to Us

    • Duration: 63 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: …they spoke about the laws in Germany. The laws … the laws didn’t apply to us. Only the bad laws applied to us, that we couldn’t walk on a sidewalk, only in the middle of the street. And we wear a star that everybody should recognize us. But it wasn’t a law that somebody couldn’t kill us. That law didn’t apply to us. It wasn’t any justice. We couldn’t go and sue anybody, and everybody could do to us whatever they wanted. And another thing that a war turned the people … the people turn into animals. People get demoralized in a war. You can’t trust anybody. The neighbors turned into enemies. The neighbors who weren’t Jewish didn’t want to know us anymore. They were friends before. During the war when everybody tried to kill us, nobody helped.

  • The Blessing of the Rabbi

    • Duration: 61 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: There lived a very Hasidic rabbi. Everybody, you know, they kept him like, like the Pope. And when he blessed somebody, everybody believed in his blessing. Well, he lived in our house for a few months because his house in another city burned. And I was a baby still, and he blessed me. So my father, being religious, he believed, he said if somebody will survive that will be you because you have the rabbi’s blessing. Well, I have to believe in it. I survived. I survived and married. And everybody here probably knows my husband, Mr. Henry the tailor. He has a tailor shop on St. Charles, corner Jackson. We have three daughters. One is a physician, one is a law professor, one has a masters in business. And we have now eight grandchildren.
    Isak Borenstein

    Isak Borenstein

  • Conscripted into the Russian Army

    • Duration: 39 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: I passed the little bridge, I believe this is the Elbe River. On the other side was a Russian soldier. He talked to me Russian. You know, if I explained to you in Russian you would know. The word is ‘Kuda idyosh?’ (‘Where are you going?’). So I told him, ‘I am going home.’ He said, ‘No, you are not going home, you are going into the army.’ So I looked at him like I am crazy. I asked him, ‘Who is going to carry whom, me the rifle or the rifle me? I weigh just ninety pounds.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry. You have bones, the meat will grow.’ And he took me to the army.

  • Defusing Bombs with a Chisel

    • Duration: 109 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: I was in a Kommando. They call this in German Bomb Kommando. This means, in English means dig out un-exploded bombs. So I dig out together around 60 some odd bombs. I dig out from the ground. I, We had just one explosion, which we was away about 100, 150 feet. This one explosion which I had I was lucky, saved. Another bomb was over there just just just making. They had over there a crane about 200 feet high which was bringing the coal to the factory. The planes tried to bomb the crane and they hit the bomb hit with the stomach on the cement railing. Was chipped up a little bit and slowed down the speed of the bomb and fall down down on the crystal coals which it couldn’t dig in too deep. They come to us to go to defuse this bomb. So I went to this bomb to defuse it. No way we could unscrew the fuse. So I ask them to bring me a chisel, a metal chisel with a hammer. So I sit down on the bomb. And try to knock it. So the head broke off. Everybody ran and I just got up and looked at this and went away like nothing. I don’t know. If I was so stupid or if I didn’t care for my life. There is something more to this. If I was so lucky.

  • Dressed Up in Potato Sacks

    • Duration: 50 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: When I was in camp in Dnepropetrovsk, I was not a Jew. I was over there a Pole in the Russian army. I had a little more freedom than the other 49 Jews was working there. Between the 49 Jews, was 25 men, 24 women. And the last minute when they took them out to kill, what I saw they took them in, in the washateria, undressed them, and put potato sacks on them, just cut out for the head and dressed them up in the potato sacks. They brought them out, and we never saw them again…

  • Trying to Talk

    • Duration: 15 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: I am trying to talk from my own home. My experience what I lived through. I cannot give you everything. I just will try to give you a portion of this.

  • Unbelievable Past

    • Duration: 22 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: When sometimes I try to go back to my past and is unbelievable for me. Anything what could be could happen. Sometimes I am thinking I am just dreaming. Something, something never could happen something, I could have lived through.

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    Joseph Sher

    Joseph Sher

  • Burying the Dead After the War

    • Duration: 185 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: In 1945 or 46 after the war we lived in a small little town, Neunburg vorm Wald. We lived DP, DP, displaced persons, they live in one building, all of them. And we got the UNRRA, they called the UNRRA, and they give us, they feed us and they give us every month packages. We got little shul and we got little sewing. So one day was a Yom Tov, a holiday, I don’t remember the holiday, either Pesach or … after a meal, a good Shabbos … a good Yom Tov meal, two boys from the house went … took a walk and they walked … they walked … In the Neunburg vorm Wald was a woods, forest, forest, and they walked in the forest and they got little dog with them. They got raised a little dog … and all of a sudden the dog got crazy started scraping, scraping scraping, and they didn’t know what it is, and they start to help, and they saw an arm from a … So they came back around and they find a dead man. And we went to the police, and the police call us, and we have our leaders, you know, and we went over there to start … they brought shovels and start grabbing … it was dead people… about maybe 50. Big, big, big … And we find out when I came here, somebody ask me how did you know they were Jews. We find out … we find tefillin in the pockets, most, not most, some got tefillin in the pocket. Some got little Jewish book, little book, a little bencherle, a siddurle and that’s we found out they were Jews. So we with the Germans’ help, with the German, with the Burgermeister, they all felt bad, and they gave us … the Burgermeister told us he can give you a way to bury them, he gave us on the cemetery a corner, you can see here crosses, so we was satisfied. We took piece by piece, and some arms fell off, and some limbs fell off, and we took big, big, what you cover up with, blankets and we put piece by piece, and we all worked, worked a couple days and brought them to the cemetery, and we make, we give them the rite. And we said Kaddish after them, we give them a El Malei Rachamim. And even a Rabbi, a Rabbi came, came to give them the rites. And this was 1945 or 46, I wouldn’t remember the months. And we all felt that we done some good deed to get the Jews a good burial.

  • El Malei Rachamim

    • Duration: 115 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: El Malei Rachamim shochein bamromim,
      hamtzei menuchah nachonah tachas kanfei hashechinah,
      bema’alos,
      bema’alos kedoshim,
      kedoshim utahorim,
      kezohar harekia mei’irim umazhirim,
      es nishmos acheinu B’nei Yisrael hakadoshim,
      hakedoshim vehatahorim,
      shenaflu bidei rotzchim venishpachu demom
      be’Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka
      usha’ar machanos hashemam beEuropa
      sheneheregu,sheneheregu, veshenisrafu,
      shenisrafu venishchatu
      venikveru chayim bekol misos meshunos ve’achzorios
      al, al, al kedushas Hashem
      ba’avur she’anuchnu baneihem, ubenoseihem, acheihem,ve’achoseihem
      nodrim tzedakah be’ad hazkaras nishmoseihem
      beGan Eden beGan Eden t’hei menuchasam.
      Lachein Ba’al Harachamim yastiram beseiser kanafav le’olamim,
      veyitzror veyitzror betzror hachayim es nishmasam,
      Ad-noi hu nachalasam, veyanucham beshalom al mishkavam,
      venomar Amen.

      English Translation:

      God, full of mercy, Who dwells on high,
      grant proper rest under the wings of the Divine Presence—
      in the lofty levels
      of the holy and pure ones,
      who shine like the glory of the firmament—
      for the soul of our brothers the Jewish people,
      the holy and pure, who fell at the hands of murderers,
      whose blood was spilled
      in Auschwitz, in Majdanek, in Treblinka
      and the other camps of destruction in Europe,
      who were slain, burned, and slaughtered,
      and who were buried alive with extreme cruelty
      for the sanctification of the Divine Name.
      For we, their sons, their daughters, their brothers, and their sisters,
      will contribute to charity in remembrance of their souls.
      May their resting place be in Paradise—
      therefore may the Master of Mercy shelter them beneath His wings for eternity;
      and may He bind their souls in the Bond of Life.
      God is their inheritance,
      and may they repose in peace in their resting place.
      Now let us say— Amen.

  • God Bless America

    • Duration: 59 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: When I came to America, I saw it’s a new life, an open, open world: I can go where I wanted, I can do what I wanted. It’s so different life in Europe we have in Poland or in Germany. So I got, I was 30 years old. I got young, I got little boy, and I know you have to get him a nice …nice … nice life. And we, we was very glad … we was like, like in Gan Eden [Garden of Eden]… we was we got everything. Next day I came here. I got a job. I brought home, I remember the first week I brought home 40 dollars. And this was plenty money. I went shopping to Canal Villere on Freret street and I spent 15 dollars and I got 35 dollar in my pocket. And I bought oranges, I bought apples, and I bought pears, and I bought what I couldn’t afford it in Poland. And this was a new life, thank God. I always say, “Thank God, God bless America.”

  • Together Through Everything

    • Duration:54 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: She was 18. I was 22. We wouldn’t get married in the war at this age. But this make us … But thank G-d, I am … we went through concentration camp, we went through the big ghetto then through the small ghetto … And for ten weeks I lost her … I lost her altogether. I didn’t know she’s alive. When I came back I found out she’s alive. We was together through everything. I’m good natured, she was good natured, we fit in. We never argued, whatever she say … I loved her. I say “your way,” sometimes she gave me my way, too. She wasn’t … has to be my way … no, no … She was a good mother, and a good wife. Everybody who will know Rachel will know this, she was, she was … I thank G-d today, 54 years married to a wife like she was. I enjoyed every minute. I miss her now. There is nothing I can do about it. That’s life.

    •  

    Jeannine Burk

    Jeannine Burk

  • I Cannot Forgive

    • Duration: 48 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: I have a very difficult time, and I have to admit it: I cannot…I cannot forgive. I cannot forgive, and I do blame…I blame the German people a great deal because I felt that they were passive, they turned away, they have the audacity still today to say that they didn’t know. I’m sorry. That’s unacceptable…that’s unacceptable…it can’t possibly…how can you not smell. They had to. They have to. And until they own up to it, I’m sorry, I can’t.

  • Not Just One Man

    • Duration: 84 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: Look at all the people that it took to run the camps…to run the trains. To make men, women, children…I mean, my father you know. I picture my father having to go into the showers. Do you know difficult that is? Do you know how…I can’t describe it to you. I cannot describe to you. And I wasn’t there. You know this is my imagining, hearing the New Americans where we are…that’s my extended family because I, I don’t have anybody. My sister, you know, is in New York; my brother is still in Belgium, but I don’t have anybody else, so they have become my family. But it is through them that I am able to do this. But I imagine from what they’ve told me…of what they’ve told you…what my father had to have gone through. And look at all the people that it took. Look at all the Germans, all the Poles, all the Ukrainians…so it is not just one man, and it is not just Milosovic either.

  • She Didn’t fit the Picture

    • Duration: 104 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: This was told to me afterwards. When one morning at five o’clock the Gestapo woke our neighbors next door, jumped over the wall and broke into our house and took my father and threw him into the truck. They wanted to take my mother, but she wouldn’t go because she told the Gestapo officer, “You can kill me here, but I can’t leave my daughter.”

      And they pulled the blanket off and saw that my sister was in a cast from here all the way down, and they told my mother that they would be back for her. You know that they came back, and by some miracle my mother had made one last phone call to a Catholic hospital, and they took my sister. And that’s how my sister was saved.

      My brother went to a Christian home for boys, and he stayed there. And once my sister was gone, my mother went to hide in a pre-arranged location, which was a nursing home.

      And the reason that my mother was okay, as John said, there was a stereotype. Jews had dark hair, hook noses--that was what they said we looked like. My mother was blonde, blue-eyed. She didn’t fit the picture, so she was okay, you see. She was just a person working in the nursing home. No one knew that she was Jewish because she didn’t fit the quote-unquote stereotype of what a Jew looks like.

  • Simply Because We Were Jews

    • Duration: 125 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: Belgium was supposed to be neutral during the war, but Adolph Hitler ignored that and invaded Belgium. There was a movement where you could inquire about hiding Jews…hiding children, and my father did that. He had a place for my brother to go; he had a place for my sister to go, and he found this place for me, and he took me on the streetcar to a woman’s house, and the reason that I keep saying “this woman” is I don’t know her name.

      The only people that knew her name were my parents. I was a little girl then. They took me to the house--my father actually--he brought me into the house, and that was the last time I ever saw my father.

      I was hidden for two years. I never went outside. I was not allowed to go outside because I didn’t belong to the family, and the woman who hid me sacrificed a lot to take me. Because had the Nazis discovered she was hiding a Jew, whether it was a little girl or an adult it didn’t matter, they would have killed her on the spot. Of course, as well as me. I was allowed sometimes to go out in the backyard, but for the most part that was my home for two years.

      I was never mistreated--ever! But I also was never loved, and I really lost a great part of my childhood--simply because we were Jews.

  • The Same as Hitler

    • Duration: 33 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: When I see news photos and news reports on television today, and I see Milosovic, and then I hear our own citizens question us doing something about it?! How can anybody question?! He is the same a Hitler. Listen to him. He's the same. He is exactly the same, and we cannot allow this to go on. We really can't.

  • To This Day I Cringe

    • Duration: 56 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: When I was hidden, the Gestapo, the Germans, the Nazis used to parade down the street. You have seen movies…you have seen pictures of how they march. They really do.

      This is truly how they march. Because I had to hide in the outhouse when they used to parade, because I couldn’t be seen. And everybody on the street where I was hidden, everybody had to keep their doors open. It was almost like mandatory for the neighborhood to watch them parade. And I couldn’t be seen, so they made me hide in the outhouse. And I remember I was petrified. I wasn’t quite sure of what it was, but I was petrified. And as long as I live I will never forget how they marched and the noise they make. To this day I cringe.

  • Why am I Alive

    • Duration: 50 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: I didn’t observe anything…for the longest time I did not believe in God. So for me it was really not a problem until I became older and I realized that…you see, I think a lot of survivors feel very guilty about surviving. For the longest time I kept asking myself, “Why am I alive? Why is my father dead? Why did 6,000,000 die and I am alive?” And when I got older, I began to realize that maybe God chose me because whatever little I have to contribute to telling of this, I am able to do that now.

  • Without a Father

    • Duration: 50 seconds
    • Copyright: ©1999, John Menszer
    • Transcript: I guess we were all back about three months when we learned that my father had been exterminated in Auschwitz. And, you see, I was never allowed to have a father. I don't have a picture except for one little picture of me and my father. I have no idea of what the five of us looked like together. None. I have no memory of anything before. I don't. I just don't have. And all because he was a Jew. I mean, he never killed anyone, he never robbed anyone, but yet they murdered him. They exterminated him simply because he was a Jew.