I was born in Zuromin , Poland on September 15 , 1924 . My father 's name was Shmuel Chaim . My mother 's name was Dvoyra Raizel . We were five brothers and three sisters , a total of eight children . The oldest brother was Israel Yitzhak , then Yechiel , then Moishe , then a sister named Leah , then a sister Rifcha , then I , Yankev Hersh , then Sarah and then the youngest , Simon . I started to go to the Talmud Torah at about age five . My rabbi was Hanech Shamas ( Frankel ) . Some of my fellow classmates were Moishe Plotka , Meyer Tilbor , Avram Staragupsky and I think the other one was Moishe Fuchs . There were many more that I can 't remember . The ones I listed are all dead . The few that are alive are Motah Moocha , Eliezer Olevnig , Zelig Taub , and Shlomo Dragon . The dead that I mentioned attended the Talmud Torah with me for two years . Our rabbi 's name was Yechiel Meyer . The third rabbi was Gedalyah Frankel . By this time I was eleven years old . From eleven to thirteen the rabbi was the Gaylar Malamcd ( Shlomo Ziontz ) . The town was a very lively town . We had a lot of Jewish organizations . It was a very religious community . My father belonged to the Alexander Hasidim . He was a good man , an honest man , a good father and a learned man ; my mother also was a very good woman , a good mother and a religious woman . We were very poor . My father always felt that God would take care of us . I also had two uncles , my father 's brothers . One was Hersh , the other was Josef Boruch . Hersh 's wife was Beila . His children were Israel Moishe , Sara , Zelman Boruch , Raizel , Leah , Udel , Yankov Yochanan and Ester Miriam . Josef Boruch 's wife was Malka and they had fourteen children . My uncle Hersh 's family , except for the oldest son Israel Moishe , did not survive . They all went to the gas chamber . Israel Moishe went to Russia , but then came to the United States . He passed away in the late seventies , leaving a wife and two daughters . Of my uncle Josef Boruch 's children , only seven survived . My brother Israel Yitzhak was deferred from military service for medical reasons when he was 21 . At 23 he got married and had two children . He was married in 1934 . My brother Yechiel was one year younger . He didn 't go into military service either . He got married in 1936 . He had one son . None of them survived . Moishe didn 't marry and never served in the military . Leah helped my mother in the house with cooking and taking care of things . She was a very good natured person . Rifcha learned a trade . She was a seamstress . Her boss 's name was Avram Derevitchar . My father was a mashgiach and didn 't make a living . Times were hard . By 1936 - 37 things became a little easier . The goverment passed a law that the hind quarter of the cow could be used . It had been forbidden before . My father became a menaker and he started to make a little better living . My brother Moishe helped him . There were three butchers whose meat my father took care of ' . The butchers names were Avraham Mucha , Pesach Osman and Rypinsky . Unfortunately , this didn 't last too long . In 1937 , I was bar mitzvah and stopped going to theTalmud Torah . My father wanted me to continue studying in the synagogue and at home . I didn 't care much for continuing the study but couldn 't say no to my father . He was very strict . I told my mother that I wanted to learn a trade and told my father . He finally agreed . My mother took me to a man named David Chaim Windytsky . He taught me the trade of kamasha macher ( shoemaker of the top of the shoes ) . I didn 't get paid , but after a year he gave me a pair of shoes . After a year and a half , I was supposed to get paid . War broke out before the year and a half . He was a very religious man and his father was also very religious . His name was Sana Windytsky . My boss had a wife and child ; nobody survived . In 1939 , the Germans invaded Poland . People panicked and started running to different places , not knowing where to run . A plane came in low , over the road , and started shooting at the people . One person was killed . His name was David Goldack . Eventually the German ( Nazi ) flag flew on the magistrate building . The first holiday was Yom Kippur . On the night of Kol Nidre , they demanded about $ 50 , 000 to allow us to go to synagogue , and then they demanded more . Just blackmail . Then they allowed us to go to synagogue on Yom Kippur and for Kol Nidre , tThe other order was for all Jewish men to cut their beards . They saw my uncle , Yosef Boruch , in the street and with scissors cut his face and skin as they cut off his beard on one side . They did this to many other men who had a beard . The next holiday was Sukkot . We didn 't build a sukkah , as we were not allowed . We also could not go to shul . All this was forbidden . As I was very young at the time , I don 't remember how we got food . We were afraid to go out into the street . We were in a constant state of panic . Then came the holiday of Shemini Atzeret night , when they burned the shul . A neighbor of ours whose window faced the shul was looking out of his window and saw something happening . His name was Avrum Rajik . He was a Hasidic man . When I attended the Talmud Torah , he used to come there to check on our work . He was in charge of promoting us to the next grade . His youngest son , Berish , was in my class in the Talmud Torah . Avrum Rajik came into my house about 10 o ' clock at night and told my father that it was like a miracle , that after a few attempts at burning the shul it didn 't burn . Unfortunately , they kept trying and finally the whole shul went up in flames . No one could stop them because if we went out , we would be shot . The Rajik family was a big family , but only one son survived . His name is Lipman Rajik . The next morning was Simchat Torah . A German soldier came to our house , banged on the door , and started screaming orders at us . We were very frightened . He chased me and a group of other men to clean up the burned wood from our beloved shul . Later in the afternoon , they came back with new orders forcing the young men to go to work on farms in other villages outside of our town . Our neighbor Mr . Rajik 's daughter had some Christian friends , who told them that the Germans planned to liquidate or deport all the Jewish people . They didn 't do it then , but they did a few days later . This was about November 1939 . I 'm not too sure of the month . One morning , we got the bad news that we all had to leave our homes . We had to be out by 9 : 30 or 10 : 00 in the morning . The Christians had to bring their horses and wagons and provide transportation for the Jewish people to a certain area , which I can 't remember exactly . My family and I had to walk . We each took a little something that we could carry . My father raised his hands up to the heavens and said , Now is Messiah 's time to come , with a cry . W kept walking to catch up to the other people . W saw people on their way in the wagons with children . W all met at the railroad station . g The train was not a passenger train , but a cattle train , a commercial train . It was evening by the time we were ordered to get onto the train . We didn 't know where they were taking us . After riding for hours and hours , we arrived in the middle of the night . The train finally stopped . The Germans started to bang on the doors , kicking at the doors , hitting the people , young and old , children , women and everybody . They were hitting everybody with sticks and bayonets shouting in German Out , out , make it fast , cursing the word Jews . By his time it was about 3 : 00 or 4 : 00 in the morning . Chi dren were crying , looking for their mothers and mothers looking for their children . It as so dark that we couldn 't see where we were . We ere panic stricken , not knowing what was going to happen next . The were shooting rockets off to scare us even more . My amily and I held hands so as not to lose each other . Fin lly we started to walk . We ere told to give up all our valuables or they would shoot us after searching us if they found anything . The had containers that we had to throw everything into . We ent through what seemed to me like a gate . By ow it was starting to get light and we were walking under the eyes of the S . S . guards . Lat r I found out the name of the railroad station : it was Pomieczuwek . We ept walking and finally came to a town called Nowy Dwor . By ow it was daytime . We ent into an area which was the headquarters of the Germans . It ad a big gate . We ere terrorized by German shepherd dogs and the S . S . guards . The picked out a few Jewish men , and they were attacked by the dogs . The were enjoying this and were having a lot of fun out of our misery . Aga n they demanded money and valuables , anything that we might have . Thi they did as were getting past the gate . < They handed us over to civilians , who called themselves Germans . They were a mixture of German and Polish . They spoke both languages . They collaborated with the Germans . From there on we were walking as they were riding their bicycles and guarding us . My father found it very difficult to walk as he had a hernia . We had to hold him under both arms to help him walk . After walking a certain amount of time they let us rest for a little while , as I think I remember ; I 'm not too sure about the resting . All this time , we didn 't get any food or water . As we walked and got more and more tired , people began to throw away the few remaining things they had . They discarded their quilts and anything they carried on their backs or carried in their hands , all along the road . We had no idea how long we had to walk yet . Finally we came to a town about five kilometers from Warsaw . The name of the town was Jablonow . From then on we were no longer guarded . We were told not to dare to go back . My father knew that a relative of his brother 's wife lived in the town . Their name was Ginsberg . My uncle 's name was Yitzhak and his wife 's name was Rifka . We found the Ginsbergs . They were about middle aged . When we got to the house , there were a lot of other refugee people there . They were sleeping on the floor . The Ginsbergs were very kind and let us stay over the Shabbes weekend . When we got to them it was Friday afternoon . They gave us food . They were very kind . Sunday morning about 10 o ' clock , we left the Ginsberg home . We took a train that took us to Warsaw . The station was called Praga . From there we walked across a bridge to the center of Warsaw . It was a very long walk and we didn 't know what our destination would be . My father 's brother Hersh 's wife had a sister living in Warsaw . We followed my uncle and his family to his sister - in - law 's house . They had a big apartment . We didn 't expect to stay there but just to ask their advice on where to go or what to do . They weren 't very nice . They insisted that we had to leave , even though it was dark by this time . My father 's younger brother Yitzhak lived in Warsaw . He heard that we were around there . I don 't remember how he found us but he came around and helped us find a place to stay . He took us to a shul which was located at Nalewkes 19 . It was very cold inside . All the windows were broken and we slept on the benches . We were the first family to come there . We came in contact with the Gedalia Frankel family and we asked them if they would like to come and stay with us . They accepted . There were lots of rooms in the shul . We shared one room with the Frankel family . We wanted to be together . The room wasn 't too big , and we were about 15 people . Two of my sisters got jobs as maids , just for room and board . We had to go to a Jewish headquarters which was located at Gzybowski 26 . We had to be there very early in the morning , . Then we were assigned to different groups , to go out to do all kinds of labor . Once we were assigned to a particular job , we went there every morning . My father and Rabbi Frankel were very religious . We had to take the tfilen with us and say our prayers just as it got light . Then Rabbi Frankel took the tfilen back to the house . I think I got paid the first week . After that , when I went to get paid , the lines were so long that they were out of money by the time I got there . I waited about two or three hours on line . My brother Moishe found out that the police precinct was also in charge of men to do all kinds of labor . They sent me out to different jobs every day . Some were good and some not good . I would get paid every time by the one who hired me . The money I earned every day was enough to buy about a three - pound bread . Later the bread cost more . This was about 1940 . We would bring home some wood from some of the jobs , to make the fires to cook a little potato soup . As time went on , it became harder even to get that kind of job just to survive . The Germans would come around with trucks and run after the Jewish people and beat them . They would take them away in fully loaded trucks , sometimes for hours or days . I don 't know where they took them . By the end of 1940 , the beginning of 1941 , they started to build heavy , high , thick walls . We had no idea why they were doing this . This was the beginning of the ghettos . Everyday life became more difficult . They stopped taking men out to work . We couldn 't get out of the ghettos anymore . The plan was to starve us to death . I saw with my own eyes people starving to death and falling down all over the place . We had no money , couldn 't buy anything , and work was not available . Rabbi Frankel had some small children about one year and a little older , crying from hunger . They gave us a ration card and started to ration the bread . They gave us bread which was supposed to last a week , but it wasn 't even enough for a day for the family . We looked in garbage areas to see if we could find potato peels or anything else that we could eat . Then we had to look for paper scraps or anything to make a fire to cook anything we might find . If we came a little late or not even late , other people who might get there before us got the scraps and we didn 't find anything . Every day was the same no food . y father and mother made a decision that we would have to escape the ghetto . hey decided that my brother Moishe would be the first to try to escape . n the summer of 1940 , the Polish police came at night to get Moishe . hey had a list of people ( young men ) that they wanted . hen we heard the knock on the door at night , Moishe hid under a very low wooden cot , which we used as a bed . hey arrested my mother once and held her for about four or five days , for not giving up her son . hen they released her . oishe 's destination was Mlava . here were still some Jewish people there . e had some relatives there . ext to escape were my mother and my sister Rifka . efore my mother left , she said that I should follow in a couple of days with my youngest brother , Simon . y father and oldest sister , Leah , and youngest sister , Sarah , were left . s we escaped we left our ration cards behind , so that my father and sisters could use it . When my brother and I were ready to escape , we had to have 15 zlotys to pay off the conductor . The trolley car slowed down for us . We had to jump up fast to get onto the trolley . My brother made it , but I kept falling down as I was very weak . I kept running and finally made the jump . We handed him the money and were told to get under the benches . As we rode by the check point out of the ghetto , the German police looked into the trolley but didn 't see us . When we got off the trolley , we were on the Christian side . We had to take another trolley , which would take us to Praga . While we waited for the trolley , a group of Christian boys saw us and started hollering Jews , Jews . T en they demanded money . W had to give them a certain amount . F nally they let us go . T e trolley came and we got on . T is conductor also wanted money . I told him we didn 't have any more as we had already given it to the first conductor . W were holding on to some money , as we had to buy bread . W en we got to Praga , we were supposed to get a train to go further to Legyonowo . W ile we waited for the train , a nice middle - aged Christian woman hid us in a stable until the train came . T en she called us out . W gave her one zloty each . I had a very bad cough at this time and the boys that were escaping with us wanted to kill me to keep me quiet , so we wouldn 't be discovered . W ile we were on the train , the conductor wanted extra money besides the money we paid to get on . W told him we didn 't have more . When we got to our destination , Legyonowo , we bought bread . We rested for an hour . We weren 't as afraid here , since there were more Jewish people . We had to go to the Chotomow railroad station and then follow the tracks to Nowy Dwor . There was a big forest to the right of the tracks , but we followed the tracks . We stopped for about half an hour along the way and we had the rest of the bread . It was about four o ' clock when we got to the city . We came to a little house and begged for food . When the woman saw us she cried Oh my God . S e gave us food and sewed the yellow patches on the front and on the back of our shirts . S e showed us the way to where the Jewish people were . U My brother and I went to a house with a Jewish family . They were shocked to see what we looked like , especially me . I had lost a lot of weight . We told them what was going on in Warsaw , in the Warsaw Ghetto . They were very nice to us and gave us food . We slept over in a little stable . In the middle of the night they raided the Jewish houses . Unfortunately , I was caught . I had gone out to hide in the toilet and when I came out an S . S . soldier caught me . I begged and cried for him to let me go , but he was so cruel he beat and kicked me with his boots . I fell down on the ground a few times and he screamed for me to get up and he chased me . He got me into the courtyard , where there were already a few hundred people . I was the last one they got . The people were sitting on the ground ; they had German shepherd dogs . They took out a few Jews and they were having fun ( like a sport ) : the dogs were jumping all over the people , scratching and biting them . My brother was outside the gate and I was able to get a bag from him , which had some potatoes in it that he had gotten from some people . He gave it to me , telling me that I would probably need it . My brother was 12 years old at the time . At about two o ' clock in the afternoon , they put us on trucks . They warned us that if we came back we would be shot . They took us back to Legyonowo . They let us off and then they went away . There was a shul there and I went there . I slept on the bench . There were more people there . I cooked the potatoes and I had about four or five meals from them . I cooked them separately for each meal . I stayed about two days and rested a little . I made friends with another boy about my age . We decided to go back to Nowy Dwor . I was going to follow the tracks to go back , but my friend said he knew of a way that was better . Unfortunately , he didn 't . We walked in the forest and got lost . There was a German guard who saw us with his binoculars . He motioned us to come over , otherwise he would shoot . There was a body of water and he made us walk in it . It got deeper and deeper until it reached our necks . We cried and cried and begged . Then he finally decided to let us come out of the water . He told us to go back the way we came and , when we got to the forest , to make a right turn . I recognized the place . Instead of going right I decided to go left , which I knew was the way back to Nowy Dwor . I got to the house where that nice Christian lady lived . She was the one who sewed on the yellow patches for us . She gave me food . She also gave me the yellow patches . Then I went back to the same Jewish house to try to see my brother . He wasn 't there . They told me he went to a place called Zakroczym . I slept over that night . The next morning the trucks that were taking the people to work for the Germans smuggled me to Zakroczym to find my brother . There were Jewish people living there too . They gave us food , but we couldn 't stay overnight . I didn 't find my brother , as he had gone on further . My brother was in a place called Plonsk . It was an open ghetto with a lot of Jewish people . I walked for hours from Zakroczym to Plonsk . It was evening by the time I got there . I went to the shul there and met a lot of refugee people from my home town . My brother went to work for some Christian family . He left word that he would come back every other day to check and see if I had come back . He was expecting me . The next day my brother came around to check , and I met him . He brought me a bottle of milk . He pleaded with me to let him stay where he was for a while . He promised me that he would come to our destination , Mlawa , where our family was . I believed him . I understood how he felt , I couldn 't walk anymore . I was too weak . I needed some kind of transportation . I was told to go to the Jewish Committee . The head of the committee was a man from my home town . His name was Yoyna Fuchs . I met him and pleaded with him to get me transportation , so he did . I didn 't have any money . I went from house to house to beg for money . One of the doors I knocked on was opened by people who lived in my home town . I was so ashamed at having come to this , begging for anything . I tried to run away but they grabbed me and took me into the house . They calmed me down and told me not to be ashamed . They asked me lots of questions , if I had seen anyone from their family . I told them I hadn 't . I told them about the Warsaw Ghetto and how people were starving and dying in large numbers . They gave me food and some money . The next day I was provided with a horse and wagon . The driver of the wagon took me to a town called Striegowo . There was also a small Jewish committee there . There I met a man whose father was a good friend of my father 's . His name was Eli Mayer . They were very good to me . They were happy and sad when they saw me . They asked me lots of questions about what was happening in the Warsaw Ghetto . I told them about the starvation and death that was going on . I slept at their house . Eli Mayer lived with his in - laws . Next morning they provided me with a horse and wagon . They took me to Mlawa , but on the way we were stopped by a German gendarme ( policeman ) . He asked for my passport , which I didn 't have . He made me get off the wagon and walk , which was hard for me to do . He was walking his bicycle along the road . I begged and pleaded and cried , but he paid no attention and made me continue to walk to the police station . There they arrested me and put me in jail . There was a woman there who was also arrested . I cried and cried . They must have gotten in touch with the Jewish Committee and I was released and given a pass . The next morning the Jewish Committee provided me with a horse and wagon . I then went to Mlawa . I was reunited with my mother , brother and a sister . I told my mother that I had seen my brother Simon and he promised he would meet us later . I told her we got lost and separated . I got caught and he went on without me . My mother was very upset and angry that I let him stay . She said I was older and should not have listened to him . I explained why he wanted to stay . He had plenty of food and a place to sleep . This was about April or May , 1941 . She saw that I was just skin and bones . In about a week or two , I started to feel a little better . I got a pass so that I could live there legally . My brother Moishe worked in a town called Czernice . He worked with a group of men building a road . They would come to Mlawa for a day or two on the weekend . On Sunday evening they would march back to the truck and go back to Czernice . My mother asked me to take Moishe 's place . I ran to them while they were marching and told Moishe that I would take his place , and so I did . After a few days ' work , we went to the barracks and were preparing to eat a little bread and some cheese when all of a sudden I blacked out . The boys took me outside to get some fresh air and revive me . I don 't know how long I was out but , when I came to , there was a man bending over me who lived in my home town . His name was Meilech Szklar . He lives in Israel now . He asked me if I remembered him and then he told me his name . I did remember his name , as my sister and his sister were friends . She always talked about him . He was a high school student at the time . After a couple of weeks , we were transferred to another roadway to work . This place was within walking distance of Mlawa . I worked there about a month , when I had an accident and cut my finger very deeply . I didn 't go back to that job anymore and the Jewish Committee got me another job . One day a man smuggled in some food and he was caught . They built a hanging post and hanged the man in public . Everybody had to go out to see him . I worked for the rest of 1941 into 1942 . All this was outside work . In the spring of 1942 my father and two sisters arrived from the Warsaw Ghetto . My mother told me to go see him . He was at his sister 's house . The family 's name was Rothstein . My father was very emotional when he saw me . He hugged me and cried and cried . I did too . The committee found us a large room so we could stay together . It was the spring of 1942 by now , and my mother reminded herself that Simon would be 13 by now and should be bar mitzvah . ShOne day I came home and my father said that the Jewish police were looking for me and that I should report to them . I did , and they arrested me and held me over . The next day they handed me over to the German authorities . We were about 20 men who were arrested . They put us in jail . I was there for about two months , having to go through very cruel treatment . By the time I got out it was June . My uncle Avram Rothstein was making candy in his home . Somehow the German authorities found out , and it was considered illegal . He was arrested and sent to Auschwitz . He was there about two or three weeks and the family was notified that he had died . He died from beatings and starvation . This I found out later . He belonged to a group of very orthodox men called the chevra kadisha . They buried the Jewish people who died . The Jewish Committee assigned his two sons to do the work my uncle had done . One afternoon we were told that the next morning all the Jewish people had to come out to the square . Something was going to happen , but we didn 't know what . We were scared . My cousins told my parents that my brother and I should go with them to help . We would stay overnight in the cemetery and we wouldn 't be there in the morning , as we didn 't know what was about to happen . We went back in the afternoon and found out that they had arrested 100 Jews . Among them were my two cousins , Jankel and Shlomo Goldberg . They were my mother 's brother 's sons . I went to work every day . When I came home one day , I was told that the 100 men they took were taken to a big field where a very large and long grave was dug . They separated the men into two groups of 50 each , the younger men in one group and the older ones in another group . The older ones were told to tie up the younger ones in groups of five . They tied their hands and their feet . The older men watched as the younger ones were machine - gunned down . They all fell into the common grave . All the Jewish people had to watch this cruel and heartless thing that the Germans did . My two cousins , the Goldbergs , were shot and killed . My mother told me not to go into my uncle 's house as their tragedy was so great . My cousin Toby , my uncle 's daughter , was the only survivor in the family . She didn 't want to stay there ; she went to the Russian border and went to Russia . This was in the beginning of the war . Later the border was closed . She is now living in America . She has two married children and grandchildren . One day they arrested all the Jewish police in the ghetto . They claimed they weren 't strict enough with the people . We had to build wooden gallows , where they were hung . This was done in the ghetto , where we all had to come out and watch the hangings . We were the ones who had to move away the tables , and they were hung . As we were running to go home , they opened fire with a machine gun and another twenty or more people were shot to death . One day we were forced to go to a workers ' camp . An order came from the German Command . We were about 400 or 500 people . This was originally a Russian prisoner - of - war camp . They had all been killed . We found a common grave . The name of the camp was Nosijewo . This was in the summer , about July . This was an open camp . Three people tried to escape but were caught and hanged . I was assigned to a group doing digging . I found it to be extremely hard to do . I just felt that I would collapse . I asked to be transferred to a different group . My foreman wouldn 't do it . He wouldn 't let me change . I had terrible itching on my body and hands . I told the German commander about it and he ordered me back to the camp . I went back and reported to a camp administrator who sent me to a barrack that had other people who were suffering from the same thing I had . Some were even worse . They kept us separated from the other people . After about four weeks , they gave us some medicine . After I healed , I was sent back to work . I didn 't go back to the same group , for which I was very glad . By mid - November the camp was dissolved and we were sent back to the ghetto . A day or so before I got back , they had selected different groups of people and assigned them as to where they would go . They weren 't allowed to take anything with them . My father , mother , and younger sister had to go to a certain place and stay overnight . There were a lot of people with them , about a thousand or more . My mother gave a piece of paper and a pencil to me and to my older sisters and told us to write to let them know where we were after reaching our destination . In the morning they were let out of the building where they slept . The German S . S . guards withmachine guns guarded them , and they marched to the railroad station . All the relatives from my mother 's and father 's side , young and old , were taken in that transport . In order to confuse the people , so they wouldn 't know where they were going , they had a second transport . They were allowed to take whatever they wanted with them . In the second transport were my brother , his wife and two children , my two older brothers one married , one single and I . W arrived after a couple of days , in the middle of the night , at a place called Birkenau . T e S . S . guards started opening doors and shouting Out , out . Whe we got out , we had to throw our luggage and everything else into a pile . The they separated us . The men were separate and the women and children were together . As e were walking , there was a German military man I believe was Dr . Mengele . He as pointing with his finger to the left and straight ahead . As e went straight ahead , they told us to go into a washroom . We ad to strip , except for our shoes and belt . We ad to remove all our jewelry and leave it there . Lat r we were given different clothes . The clothes didn 't fit us properly . It as all just junk and rags . Wit red paint we had to draw a cross on the back of the shirt and down the side of the pants . It as about six o ' clock the next morning by the time we were through with all this . No ood was given to us through all this . Thi all took place outside the gate . As e entered the camp , we saw a big sign that said in German Arbeit macht frei . An or hestra was playing as men were marching out the gate to go to work . The b rracks we were assigned to was Barrack 15 . Then hey tatooed numbers on our arms , on the left arm . My nu ber is 75170 . When e got outside , there was an inmate whose name was Boxer , his number was 45000 . He wa so cruel and mean to us . He ga e us a big speech about discipline and about what we could and couldn 't do . He pi ked five orIn the evening we were given bread , which was supposed to last us for 24 hours . They idn 't even give us the amount we were supposed to get . They heated us . If I ould complain about it , I would just be beaten up . By fo r o ' clock in the morning , we were chased out of the barracks . As we were walking out , they handed us a bitter hot drink . It ta ted so bad we couldn 't even drink it . We ha to line up , and they counted us . The c unt had to match the list the barracks ' leader had . Then group commander , who was called a Kapo , picked about 200 people and took us out to work . For eve y 10 inmates , there was a foreman . This wa he would have better control over the inmates . As we m rched out , we saw and heard the orchestra playing . We had o dig a very soft and muddy lime . The Kap would beat us and so would the S . S . guards . When we came back to camp at the end of the day , the orchestra was playing . You had to march according to the music . Then we had to line up again and be counted . When we got inside the barracks , they gave us a bowl with what they called soup . Then th y gave us a small piece of bread . This wa our meal for the day , till the next day . Life wa miserable and depressing with no end in sight . One day Boxer beat up a man very badly . He thre him on the floor and stepped on him , on his stomach and throat , until the man died . I don 't know why he did it , except that he was a very cruel man . gger te This was a death camp . As the days went by , people were dying from hunger and dysentery and beatings . We had no water to wash ourselves . We had lice on us . We slept in the clothes we wore all day . Every morning they took out the dead bodies and lined them up outside . Some people were too weak to walk and had to be helped out . We all had to get out of the barracks . Then all were counted together . They had to match the list that the leader of the barracks had . Every morning there were about twenty five or thirty dead people . People were so depressed and sick ; they felt they had nothing to live for . Around the barracks was a fence with electric wires . Many of the people just walked up to it , touched it , and were electrocuted . I just didn 't have the courage to do it . I knew there was no way out , but I still couldn 't do it . The women 's camp was right near ours . We could look through the fence and see them . Their heads were shaven . There were dead bodies lying all over . They came around with a truck and picked them up . One day , one of my sisters saw me as I was looking toward the fence . She called my name . She told me that my other sister was very sick . She didn 't know what was going to happen . In a few days the whole women 's barracks was taken to the gas chambers and all were cremated . My brother told me to stay in the front of the line when we lined up . Maybe it would be better there , as the S . S . would look for younger and stronger men . We thought maybe they would transfer us to another camp . This was in the morning , when we lined up to be counted . I was picked . We were always picked by numbers , not by names . We had our number on the coat or jacket , on the left side of the chest . We were then taken into an experimental laboratory . They wanted to sterilize the men . They put some kind of electrical machinery on the male organs . Then we heard the noise of radiation . I didn 't care at this point , as I didn 't think I would live anyway . The next time , as we were standing in line to be counted after coming back from a day 's work , my brother and I were in the front of the line . An S . S . guard picked my number and my brother 's . He asked me how old I was and I told him I was 18 . The next morning my brother and I were transferred to another barrack . There we went through a rectal examination . My brother was rejected as he had very bad diarrhea and he was not clean inside . I was accepted . My brother was sent back to our old barrack . I never saw him or my other brother again . That afternoon we were taken out of this barrack . We went to another place where they issued us different clothes . They consisted of pants and a jacket . They had stripes . We then had to walk to another concentration camp called Buna . This was about seven kilometers away . When we got there , they put us in a quarantined area for about two weeks . When we got there I had pneumonia . I had terrible lung pain . It got worse . They had a clinic and I went to it . They took my temperature , which was very high , so they kept me there . I didn 't go back to the barracks . They put compresses on my chest to get the fever down . I was there about ten days , which was a welcome relief for me , as I didn 't have to go to work . After that , I was transferred to another barrack . This was a convalescent one . I was there for about two weeks . After they released me , I went to a different barrack , from which I was sent back to work . Even though I was still very weak and just skin and bones , they still sent me back to work . I was still just getting bread and soup for the day . A very small portion of each . It was just enough to let us survive . The next morning we were marched for about two miles to freight trains . This was surrounded by S . S . guards and German shepherd dogs . The weather was freezing and we were dressed very lightly . It was brutal . We had to unload cement and very heavy wire from the train . It was construction wire . They made us work very fast . We were beaten by the S . S . guards and also by Kapos ( the inmate supervisors ) . They beat me over the head , which began to bleed . I couldn 't walk anymore . I was very weak from my illness , from the beatings , from the cold and also from not having proper nutrition . I had to be helped in walking , as I just couldn 't walk . We walked five in a row . The two men on either side of me held me under the arms or I would have fallen down . I absolutely had no more strength . After we got back to the barracks a landsman advised me to go back to the clinic , and so I did . The doctor asked me what was wrong with me . I told him I had no more strength and I couldn 't work anymore . They took my number . The next morning I had to go out to be counted . Then I was sent back to the clinic , while the others went out to work . Before going out to be counted , they changed our clothes to even thinner ones than we had . They were like tissue paper . It ws freezing weather . The night before I went to the clinic , I wished that I wouldn 't wake up the next morning . The suffering was so great . While we were at the clinic , we had to walk around an S . S . doctor . He was standing in the middle and we had to walk around him naked . He looked us over and he selected three of us , me and two other men . We had to be taken away . The two men were crying bitterly . I wasn 't crying as I thought it was the end and we would be taken to the gas chamber . I didn 't care anymore . A truck came and it had a red cross on it . We were taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp . I was separated from the other two men . I was assigned to Building 28 , which was a hospital . This place was clean . They gave me a brush to scrub myself in the shower . I couldn 't scrub my head which had dried blood from former beatings . It hurt too much to scrub . I didn 't get any food for about 48 hours . This hospital had mostly Christians . One morning an S . S . doctor came in and asked in German , Are there any Jews in here ? T e one in charge said that there was one Jew . H ordered me to come out in front . H looked at me and said for me to go back to bed . L ter the inmates told me I was lucky , as they had taken a lot of Jews from the other buildings and all were sent to the gas chamber . W had to take our temperature everyday . I was normal , but I rubbed the thermometer to make it rise higher . O e morning they found out about it . T ey gave me two thermometers to put one under each arm , and so they found out . N xt day I was released from the hospital . I was taken to another block . T e number on the block was 9A . T e administrator of this block was very mean . H didn 't cheat us with the food . H gave us what was allotted to us . O Tuesdays and Fridays he even gave us a little extra bread . W still had to watch out for the beatings , though . The work was not so hard here . Day by day I started to get a little stronger . The weather started to get warmer . By now it was the summer of 1943 . The transports with people kept coming in . They built four more crematoriums . As we were working , we could see the trains going by . We saw the smoke coming out of the chimneys of the crematoriums . By 1944 , in the summer , I was taken to another camp . It was a coal mine . The name of the camp was Yormina . I worked the night shift . I was there less than a month , when a number of us were called back to Auschwitz . We were taken to a hospital building where they castrated us . They took one testicle from me . I was there about seven days . Then I went to another building and stayed there about two weeks . Afterwards , I was released and went back to work . In the summer of 1944 , Hungarian Jews arrived at the camp and the gas chambers . Mass transports arrived night and day . Then came transports from Lodz , Poland . After the summer , around October , we were transferred from Auschwitz to Stuttof , near Danzig . The guards here were Ukrainian . They wore black uniforms with swastikas . They were very mean and cruel . They made us carry about five bricks at a time and run with them from one place to another . If they didn 't think we were fast enough , they beat us with their clubs and told us to run faster . Many men collapsed . They beat them even on the ground . Auschwitz was much cleaner than the other camps , but the beatings were very bad all over , in all the camps . After being here a month , they made a transport of about five hundred people , of which I was one . We were transported to a place in Germany near Stuttgart . I think the name of the place was Eishtandt . After being in this camp for about three weeks I got an infection in my toe , which travelled all the way up my leg into my thigh . I couldn 't walk ; they had to hold me under the arms to help me walk . There was a Jewish doctor there , also an inmate , who treated it and said I was lucky to have caught it in time . He gave me pills and with a knife cut it open after a couple of days . He put gauze in to keep it open for draining . I stayed in camp for about a week . I didn 't go out to work , but worked around the kitchen . In the next few days we were told that the camp would be shut down and we would be transferred to another camp . They separated the sick and weak from the well and able people . I was among the able , even though I still had the problem with my leg . I was able to walk but my leg still needed treatment . We arrived by rail at a camp called Odruff . It was a large concentration camp . We had to go to work . After a few days , I found it hard to walk . The infection was getting worse , as it wasn 't being treated . I was really scared . I didn 't know what would happen to me . I went to the clinic . They didn 't do much for it , except change the bandage . No treatment was given . After a few days , they approved of my staying in the hospital . They didn 't do much of anything for the infection . It was good for me , as I didn 't have to go to work . After a few days , they took all of us out of the hospital . We had to walk to the railroad and we were transferred to another camp . We rode in a commercial train . The time was about February 1945 , nearing the end of the war . There were no seats on the train and so many people were riding that we couldn 't even sit on the floor . I collapsed standing . I was weak from hunger and pain in my leg . Somehow I managed to sit down on the floor after a while . We rode for two days . When we finally got off the train , we heard that the name of the camp was Bergen - Belsen . It was a large concentration camp . This camp had no crematorium , so as people died they just piled them on top of one another . The peopEverybody , including me , was sick with dysentery . People were just dying . We had to remove the dead from the barracks . We were so weak that two men had to pull out each body . We tied a belt around the feet of the dead and we pulled them out . Many barracks were stacked very high with bodies piled on top of one another . In every barrack there were dead bodies . One evening before it got dark , as we were still pulling out bodies , I just laid down among them . I just didn 't have the energy to pull them anymore . When it got dark , I got up and went to a barrack . I could go to any barrack , as they didn 't count us anymore . We were full of lice . We were able to just push them off our bodies with our hands . We hadn 't washed ourselves since Auschwitz . In about a few days , which was April 15 , in the afternoon , the British tanks arrived at the camp and we were freed . We were free , so we went into the storehouses that had food and clothes . We broke up the wood that was in some of the barracks that had beds . We made fires outside and cooked some potatoes . We took bread and water and cooked it into a soup . The British gave us some cookies and pork and beans , which was in cans . The next day they made all the Germans from the town come and clean up the camp and remove the bodies to a common grave . They separated the very sick people who had typhus ( typhoid fcver ) from the other people . They burned down the barracks . They were all infested with disease and germs . We were then taken in trucks to another camp about a mile away . It was a very clean camp . I think the German military quarters were there . The British opened a kitchen for us , and then food was ample . We could get as much as we wanted . Slowly , I started to recuperate . We were free to travel now . We started to meet with other people looking for survivors . We were looking for family , friends and relatives . A committee was set up to try to help with this . We gave our name , age , where we came from and other information that might help us find one another . I went into a house where some women were living . We were talking about where we came from . I mentioned that I came from Mlawa . One of the young women mentioned that she had met two young men who came from Mlawa . She mentioned their names . One was Fishel and the other Mottel . They had also left a picture . I saw the picture and recognized my cousin Motel , and Fishel was a friend . I was overjoyed to see that they had survived . Later I met another man from my hometown . His name was Gershon Ryszow . We were very happy top see each other . We hugged and kissed . He told me he was going to live in a city called Marburg ; he gave me the address to which he was going . He told me to come to live there . To my surprise , I met my friend Fishel there when I went there about a week or two later . Fishel asked me to go back to Bergen - Belzsn to fetch the young woman Rifka , the one who had shown me the picture of him . I went back and brought her back to Marburg . I was also reunited with Motel later on . We moved in together in Marburg . Rifka and Fishel didn 't marry . She married someone else . She lives here in the United States in Boston and has two sons . Later , we heard that my father 's younger sister and her family had survived . They were somehow in Russian territory . They were the family Orlich . They went there to take the grandmother and figured they would come back to Mlawa . They couldn 't get back . There was no transportation . The Russian government asked people to take a passport . People were aftaid to take one as they didn 't know what would happen or if they could ever get back to their homes . Whoever didn 't take a passport was sent to Siberia . The ones who took a passport remained . The Germans invaded a few days later . My brother and his family were there and they were all killed . I am the only one who survived in my family . The Orlich family came to America later . I got a chance to see them in Germany , while I was living in Marburg . I went there to visit them . I came to the United States in 1949 .