teaching the holocaust 2004 summer workshop - Southern Institute ...

from my house but we had to run very fast out of the city to the bridge that was
demolished by the Polish army when they returned, you know. And so there were Jews
standing in water, it was September, it was very cold. I was appointed to work on a big
truck to go with the truck, the truck was driven by a German soldier, and we went to a saw
mill and picked up heavy timber, and loaded it on the truck, and then unloaded it on the
bridge, and we laid timber, rows of timber right and left, one on top of the other, so the
German tanks should be able to get through it, and I was working with a cap on, cause it
was very cold, I had my black cap on and I don't know from where, an SS man came
from, a German man, and he hit me in my back with a piece of wood. He took my cap off
and threw it in the water and he said, We don't work with caps on. It was cold. I didn't
wear it because it was religious, only because it was very cold and I tried to hide the cold
from my head. So anyway I threw the hat in the water. But I fell down in the water
myself. I couldn't work anymore. He hit me very hard. So a man saw me falling and said,
You're going to be shot and killed if you don't work. I said, I can't work. The man's name
was Klepner, Chaim Klepner. He was a friend of my father. He could speak a nice
German. He was also an older man, he said, come with me. He took me over to the driver
of the truck, and he told, he says, ‘Let this boy go home. This boy is hurt. He can't work
anymore. Please let him go home.’ So the driver calls me over, looks at me for a while,
then he said, ‘You can't work?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Would you take a chance to go home because
they can kill you in the street, patrols in the street, German patrols in the street, if they
catch you they'll kill you. Would you take a chance to go home?’ I said, ‘Yes, I'll take a
chance because I can't stay here.’ So he said, ‘Go.’ It's only ten minutes. It took me three
hours to go. I was afraid not only for the Germans. I was afraid that the Christians
shouldn't see me. The people from the city could turn me over. Because they were
standing in the streets and clapping hands for joy when the Germans were running us to
the bridge. When we were running to bridge, to work, with German soldiers with machine
guns, the people in the street were clapping hands and enjoying it.
PR And these were the people who had been your neighbors?
H The same people who had been my neighbors for many years. Yes. Unfortunately.
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