Question Response Clip Name I think I'm speaking for everybody when I say thank you for being here

Transcription

1 Question Response Clip Name I think I'm speaking for everybody when I say thank you for being here 5-5_OL-ATTITUDES-TESTIMONYtoday. Well, I believe it's necessary. NECESSARY_D001 Thank you. And it's a privilege. 5-6_OL-ATTITUDES- PRIVILEGE_D001 What is your name? My name is. 5-7_OT-INTRO-NAME_D001 If you can give me your name at birth and today and spell it please. Where were you born? My name is Aaron A-A-R-O-N, last name is Elster E-L-S-T-E-R. I was born with the same name. I was born in a small town in Poland called Sokolow Podlaski. The population of the town was approximately 12,000. There were quite a few Jewish people that lived in that town. If my numbers a correct there was close to 4,000 Jews that lived in that town. 5-14_OT-INTRO-NAME-SPELL- BIRTH_D _PREW- SOKOLOWPODLASKI- BIRTHPLACE- POPULATION_D001 When were you born? And can you tell me when and where you were born? What was your father's name? Could you describe your father to me? Could you describe your mother to me? 5-16_PREW-CHILDHOOD- I was born either in 1932 or in 1933, I'm not certain. BIRTHYEAR-NOT-CERTAIN_D001 Well, I was born in Sokolow Podlaski, in Poland, most likely 1932 but I'm 5-17_PREW-TOWNnot 100 percent sure of the year. BIRTHYEAR_D001 My dad's name was Chaim Sruel Elster and my mother's name was Cywia 5-18_PREW-FAM-PARENTS- Scherb Elster. NAMES_D001 My father was tall, slender, skinny with a very rough worn face an 5-19_PREW-FAM-FATHERextremely kind and gentle soul. I loved him extremely. I loved him very DESCRIPTION_D001 My mother, in my eyes, was the most beautiful woman. She had long black hair. She actually was the boss in the house, and I think she also was the boss as far as running the business. Frankly, I believe it was an arranged marriage. That s the way it was in those years. I'm not 100 percent certain whether my mother really wanted to marry my dad. I 5-23_PREW-FAM-MOTHERdon't think she did, and it was arranged through her parents and my DESCRIPTION-MARRIAGE_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 1/209

2 My mother, in my eyes, was an extremely beautiful woman. She was a tough lady. She actually ran the business which is our meat market or the butcher shop. She comes from a very large family so they had to be tough. There was 12 children in that family and my little grandmother Let me ask it again and just have you was probably no more than four foot six, but she had 12 children - one tell me about your mother. Could you was bigger and tougher than the other. So she came from a pretty tough describe your mother to me? family, while my dad was just the opposite... a much more gentle soul, Aaron, how old are you and feel free to tell us about the confusion about your birth certificate? Can you describe your family home to us? I'm really not sure when I was born. When I was brought to the United States I had to give them a date of birth so I made up a date of February 4, There was something that happened in my life on that day so that s the date I chose and my family has observed that birthday, but then later on somehow through some communication I was able to find some documentation that indicated that my dad brought me in front of the magistrate's office and supposedly I was born September 15, 1931, which in reality is an impossibility because my older sister, Irene, was three years older than me and my baby sister, Sara, was three years younger than I. So if I was born in '31 that wouldn't work. That would We lived in a building with four apartments downstairs, three apartments upstairs. It was traditional for those years. There were no inside plumbings, water had to be carried into the house. I have some fond memories of my life it just came to me in reality on Friday night... I believe it was Saturday night, we used to take a bath in a big washtub and my older sister... no not my older sister, my younger sister and I would be in that tub. I guess we would wash just about once a week. That was pretty good. Then I remember my mother carrying me into bed. She would put the covers against the hot stove and warm them up, and it was such a wonderful feeling. I just can't forget that. Those are very fond memories for me. Those incidents, small things that probably don't mean a lot, but to me it was such a wonderful experience. I used to look 5-24_PREW-FAM-MOTHERS- FAM_D _PREW-FAM-BIRTHDATE- CLARIFICATION_D _PREW-MEMORIES-HOME- DESCRIPTION_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 2/209

3 What I want to do is ask you just to maybe walk us through your family's home in that building. Can you describe your family to me and talk a little bit about your extended family and what their occupations were, whether you were rich or poor? Tell me briefly about your brothers or sisters? The physical appearance of my family home was a large kitchen, an eating area and then a large, large room that contained the two beds where my mom and dad slept and a small bed on the other side of the room where my sister, Irene, slept. I slept with my dad and Sara slept to the side where my mother slept. We had some holiday silverware and in that particular room it was all one big room... it was a warm house. I don't know if there is anything exceptional about that. I felt my life was fairly normal. I had a habit or not wanting to eat and my mother did all kinds of things to try to fatten me up which I regretted because of my teachings in Hebrew school. My rabbi convinced me that I was going to be in hell for eternity because my mother would bring home some kielbasa and take me in the back yard and make me eat that. She wanted to fatten me up. 5-28_PREW-CHILDHOOD-HOME- Basically I was a skinny runt. I used to walk around spitting. That was her DESCRIPTION_D001 My family was composed my mom, my dad, my older sister, Irene, my baby sister whom I loved so dearly, Sara. My grandparents had 12 children, so I was surrounded with cousins and uncles on my mother's side. Family on my father's side my memory is limited to that. I don't think there were too many survivors because I was named after my grandfather. Were we rich or poor?... I really can't tell you. I never needed anything. In fact I used to trade my food for toys. There was no need for me to have anything else. I had a soccer ball which made me the hero of the neighborhood, you know when you control the ball... that was my... those are my memories. We used to play on the cobblestones of the street because there was no traffic. There were no cars. If you saw a truck or something pass by we all used to chase it. We didn't know anything about that. I remember on the street there was a pump to get water. It was not water to be drunk, it was water to be used for washing. The 5-29_PREW-CH-MEMORIESsweet water was a way... and there was a man that used to carry two DESCRIPTION-TOWN_D001 Well, I had two sisters. My older sister was named Irene. In Yiddish, she was called Ita or Itka in an endearing way, and my baby sister was named Sara. That was the size of our family. We were three children. 5-31_PREW-SIBLINGS-SISTERS- NAMES_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 3/209

4 Did you have a nickname what was it? Can you tell us a happy or favorite memory from your childhood? What was school like before the war? I don't recall having a nickname but I recall something that it won't have any meaning to you, it was called "Sehotnik" why because I was so skinny. My mother was always afraid that I wasn t going to make it. "Sehotnik" is some kind of disease. I don't even know how to translate that. But I remember as a kid... I think that's what she 5-32_PREW-CHused to refer to me. Somebody that's Polish will know what that is. NICKNAME_D001 One of my favorite memories, my absolute favorite memory was spending one day with my dad. My dad had to have a tooth pulled. So he didn't go into the shop. I remember that so distinctly, he brought home a bunch of eggs in his cap and he made an omelette of some kind and I joined him and we ate it together. It's a most memorable day for me. I don't remember my dad ever reprimanding me or punishing me or spanking me. I truly loved him. He was such a gentle soul. My mother on the other hand was tough. If you didn't want to eat she'd grab you by the cheek and twist it. That was her favorite thing to do. But she wanted to make sure that I survived. So she fed me things that perhaps she shouldn't have fed me but she did her job. She came from a tough family children. The saying is, when they sat around the table who grabbed first - the food - got the most. My uncle Sam was a great soccer player. They were all very active. I mean, I was surrounded with some loving family. My uncle Abel - he probably was around 16 - I would trade my food and he would take shingles from the roof and make a rifle for me 5-33_PREW-MEMORIESwith a rubber band and a trigger mechanism and I would walk around FAVORITE-FAM_D001 I didn't go to school before the war. I was too young to go to school and by the time I got old enough the war broke out and I was not allowed to go to school. My only education that I had was in cheder or Hebrew school. The teacher or the rabbi I have a picture of him with a long red beard with a long black coat and if you possibly misbehaved, he had no problem grabbing you by the ear and throwing you out of the room. If you go and complained to your parents what he did they would double the punishment. That was the... that's the way it was. But he scared the hell out of me... he really did a number on me... he convinced me because 5-34_PREW-EDU- I ate treif - non-kosher - that I would spend eternity in hell. I carried that MEMORIES_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 4/209

5 I have no memory of any particular friends that I had. They were boys in the neighborhood. We used to play soccer together, but I don t remember any names or any faces in fact. I was probably, in those days maybe five or six years of age, it was really... they didn't make a great Aaron what kind of friends did you impression on me. The people that made impressions on me are my have before the war? Can you tell us a relatives... my uncle, my uncle Able, my uncle Sam who was a great little bit about them? soccer player. I so desperately wanted to be like him. Did you have any pets when you were a child? No, I did not have any pets. What were you favorite sports or games you played when you were young? How would you describe your childhood? So, tell us about your family's religious identity before the war. Now can you describe generally, what is a Jew or Jewish person? Soccer was the game was the only game. There was something else we used to play with a paddle and a piece of wood and hit it I don t know what it's called. 5-41_PREW-MEMORIES- FRIENDS-NOT- REMEMBERED_D _PREW-FAM-PETS- NONE_D _PREW-MEMORIES-GAMES- SPORTS-SOCCER_D001 What is normal? I don t know how else to describe my childhood. I would imagine it was a normal childhood. I had no need for anything in particular. I believe my parents loved me. You know we were limited as to what exists today but we didn't know any better... didn't have inside plumbing, the water had to be carried in, kerosene lamps were used, but 5-44_PREW-MEMORIESthat was part of our lives. That was normal. So my life was normal. CHILDHOOD-DESCRIBED_D001 My family was not very religious. In fact their business, being that it was a butcher shop, only had meat that was not for Jewish consumption it was not kosher. Therefore, all our customers were Polish. Frankly, I truly believe that s one of our reasons... one of the reasons why my sister Irene 5-48_PREW-RELIGION-NOTand I survived, because of our relationship with the general Polish KOSHER-BUSINESS_D001 What is a Jew? Somebody that believes in God, follows the Ten Commandments, does mitzvot just a decent person. Quite frankly no different than a non-jew. We just have a little different approach as to the Almighty. 5-49_OL-RELIGION-JUDAISM- DEFINED_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 5/209

6 Can you tell us what a Jew is, and how would you describe the Jewish approach to the Almighty? Were you bullied or beat up as a child before the war? What did your father or your family do for a living before the war? What was your daily life like in your hometown before the war? What was your favorite food? What was your favorite thing to do as a child? How did you parents meet? It's hard to describe what a Jew is I think it's a decent human being that believed in God, that gave charity, that was kind to his family and to other people and the old adage of, "reat others as you want to be treated." It's basically a decent human being. I don't know how else to describe it. That's not saying that a non-jew is not a decent human being, I'm just... I don't know whether there is a definition of what a Jew is. We have a different approach perhaps to the Almighty... somewhat different but basically we all believe in the same God. Not before the war. I have a recollection of during the war. A young boy, a Polish boy, I was walking the street with, we were friends suddenly turned to me and called me a "Christ Killer." The truth is I didn't know who Christ was. I went home and asked my parents, "Why did I kill Christ... who is Christ?" So I was brought up in a fairly concentrated... not a ghetto, but a concentrated Jewish area. Frankly, I was not exposed to any other religion at that particular time. So it came to me as a shock, They owned and operated a butcher shop, non-kosher meats. In other words it was not for Jewish consumption, and all our clients all our customers were Poles. Frankly, I truly believe the one of the reasons for my survival and my sister Irene's survival is because of our relationship with the general Polish population. Before the war, I was like five, six years old. There was nothing exceptional or different about my daily life. I went to cheder, I ate, I 5-50_OL-RELIGION-JUDAISM- DEFINED_D _PREW-ANTISEMITISM- INTRODUCTION-FIRST- EXPERIENCE_D _PREW-FAM-BUSINESS- BUTCHERS-CUSTOMERS- NONJEWS_D _PREW-CH-ROUTINE-DAILY- LIFE_D001 I can't think of any food that I liked. My mother used to force me to eat. If I didn't eat, she used her favorite method to make me eat - she'd grab me 5-54_PREW-CH-FOODby the cheek and twist it. She was the one that dished out the discipline. FAVORITE_D001 I would say play soccer my favorite thing to do. It was the only thing to do quite frankly. Never heard of baseball or football or any other game. Soccer was it. My parents, I believe I truly believe that that their marriage or their meeting was arranged by my grandparents on both sides. I also believe that it was not my mother's idea. I feel that she married my dad because she was told to marry him. The truth is, I never saw much affection between them. I never even thought about it as a kid but as an adult, I 5-55_PREW-CH-GAMES-SPORT- FAVORITE_D _PREW-FAM-PARENTS- HOW-MET_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 6/209

7 Good, okay. Did your parents come from different backgrounds? Where did your grandparents live, and did you see them often? How did your family's business do before the war? Did you work for your family in the butcher shop? Did you have any hopes or dreams for your future when you were a child? Yes. My parents came from totally different backgrounds. My mother came from a family that was tough and rough. There were 12 children in the family. They were survivors. One was tougher than the other. While my dad came from a more religious family, quiet. So they were total My grandparents on my father's side I didn't know because my sister and Irene and I were named after them. But I had a great affiliation or association and a kinship with my grandparent's on my mother's side. They had 12 children. I had lots of uncles and cousins. It was really a great, great relationship. It was a loving relationship. It felt warm to have My family's business did well. Were they rich? I don t know. Did we have what we needed? Absolutely. So how do you measure that? So they had a successful business based on certain criteria. You know success is a measure a means of determining how high or how low. They were successful. By success I meant, they were able to provide for their family, we had a home. We had needs that were covered for us. To me, that's No, I didn't work for my family. I was too young. I used to walk into the butcher shop once in a while and see my mother do her thing. She wielded that axe they used to cut the bones and the meats. She was a tough lady. But I never worked. I went to cheder, Hebrew school. 5-57_PREW-FAM-PARENTS- DIFFERENT- BACKGROUNDS_D _PREW-FAM- GRANDPARENTS- BACKGROUND_D _PREW-FAM-WEALTH- SUCCESSFUL_D _PREW-FAM-BUSINESS- DIDNT-WORK_D001 Come to think of it, I had hopes. I had a picture of myself. It's a I look at it as an irony. I pictured myself with a white shirt and tie on the third floor of an office building exactly what I was doing I don't know but that's what I foresaw for myself. The irony is I worked for a company, had an office on the third floor in Lincolnwood, Illinois... I always wore suits and shirts and ties. But that's what I envisioned for myself when I was a young child... when I was a kid. I didn't envision myself coming to the United States. I mean I didn't even... never heard of the country. I mean you know what did I know? The question that you may ask, what would I have 5-61_PREW-CH-MEMORIESdone with my life? Would I wind up in my father's or my mother's DREAMS_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 7/209

8 Tell me about your uncle Sam, what you re relationship was like with him when you were growing up? What was your relationship with him like when you were growing up? Why did your family decide to have a non-kosher rather than a kosher butcher shop? My uncle Sam has been my hero most of my life. He just passed away a few years ago. He was a tremendously successful and good soccer player. I used to go to the fields when they played different teams to watch him. He was tough, he was short, he was stocky. He could kick a ball as high as you can see. I wanted to be like him. Yet later in life when the war was over he came back... he escaped to Russia, joined the partisans, came back with the Polish army looking for survivors in 1945, and he found Irene and I. He helped us get out of Poland. He was only in his early twenties. He took us under his wing. Ultimately we wound up in Germany. Why Germany? Because that's where the American zone was, because Germany was split four ways... Russians, English, French, and the Americans. So he was responsible for the good things that happened to me in life. I was placed in an orphanage when we got to the larger city in Poland and then he decided it's time for us to leave because it was not a very friendly place for us. So we smuggled across the border, we got Keep in mind before the war I was probably five, six, seven years of age. I knew him. A relationship between and adult and a child was not something that was very common. I used to look up to him. I used to watch him play soccer because he was such a tremendous soccer player. They used to call him, in Yiddish, Imela, meaning that he kicked the ball so high that it reached the sky. That's my memory of him. Relationship to speak of... I can't tell you. In other words we didn't sit down and talk to one another and discuss world affairs. I watched him, I loved him, I respected him, I wanted to be My family's decision I believe to operate a non-kosher butcher shop was because of competition. There were a whole bunch of kosher butcher shops. So it was easier for them to do business because the non-kosher butcher shops were limited. There was only a few of them. After all the general population didn't eat kosher meats. So they were able to do... prosper...and they were able to do well in their business. I believe that's the decision why they did... why they went in and created a non-kosher 5-62_PREW-CH-HEROES- SAM_D _PREW-CH-HEROES- SAM_D _PREW-FAM-BUSINESS- REASONS_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 8/209

9 Did you family keep kosher at home? How did the Jewish community in your town view your family particularly since they had a nonkosher butcher shop? Was there an incident or something happened that gave you that idea? How did you feel about God when you were growing up? Can you just tell us out of the total population approximately how many Jewish people were living in Sokolow Podlaski when you were a child? My family kept semi-kosher at home. That s not saying much. We didn't mix milk and meats but especially my mother she used to take me in the backyard and feed me kielbasa so I can get fattened up. That created emotional problems for me because it was non-kosher. So I would say... my dad went to synagogue but was the house totally kosher? I would say I believe that my family was not respected because they had a nonkosher butcher shop. Details, I don t know, but that s my belief. I don t really know what else to say. We had friends my family had friends. But were we the elite of the town? Absolutely not. No. It's amazing how you perceive things how perceptive you are even as a youngster. I believe this. I practice this with young people today. That s my feeling. Perhaps a lot of it came to me later in life thinking about the past. I don t think I made those decisions as to their status in life when I was five, six years old. 5-65_PREW-RELIGION-KOSHER- LIMITED-PRACTICE_D _PREW-FAM-COMMUNITY- NOT ACCEPTED_D _OL-REFLECTION-FAM- ACCEPTANCE_D001 I was afraid of God. I was afraid of God because of what was taught to me in Hebrew school. God was a punishing God, you had to tow the line, you had to do all the right things in order to be accepted by God to live in heaven. I did not have that type of perception of me because I felt I committed sins all the time with food, especially with food. You know you 5-68_PREW-RELIGION-GODlook at God now as a loving God, as an accepting God, but not in my BELIEFS_D001 When I was a child, the town's population was approximately 12,000. The Jewish population was over 4,000 heavily populated with Jews. You know the saying was you couldn t walk 50 yards without running into a Jew. There was much commerce, trade most Jews had some type of business or store of some kind or were tradespeople. I remember Thursdays, the marketplace, the town's marketplace... the farmers would come in with their wagons loaded with things that the city people needed and the Jewish people would have their stands... shoemakers, the tailors - commerce would go on. Those were the most wonderful time for me. The horses, even the manure to me it was like Disney World... the noise, the smells even though I never heard of Disneyland but it was a joyful 5-69_PREW-TOWN- DESCRIPTION- POPULATION_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 9/209

10 Out of the total population how many were Jews? Great. Now tell me about Thursday. What was commerce like on Thursday? In general, how religious was the Jewish community in your town? Out of the total population of the town, approximately 4,000 or better were Jews. A lot of them were tradespeople - store owners or business owners. There was quite a bit of commerce that went on in that town. I remember restaurants, I remember taverns run by Jewish people... butcher shops, candy stores, bicycle shops. I remember my dad promised to get me a bicycle for my birthday and I hadn't the slightest idea when my birthday was going to be and he took me into the bike shop and let me sit on a bike. I never got the bike. I think what happened is by that time the war broke out. But I remember that distinctly. I wanted a bike so bad. You know what it would be like to have a bicycle all to yourself? It Commerce big marketplace. I would imagine you would compare it today to a shopping mall the horses, the wagons, the farmers would come in with butter and chickens and all kinds of things that the city people needed and bought, and then trade would go on. The tailors would be there, the shoemakers would be there, the stores would be open, commerce would go on, the smells in that marketplace were to me... they were great. I say this, even the horse manure smelled good. To me that was the most exciting thing that could have happened during the week and that was Thursdays. That was the big day. he marketplace on Thursday to me was Disney World, although I never heard of Disney 5-72_PREW-TOWN- DESCRIPTION-JEWS- TRADES_D _PREW-TOWN- DESCRIPTION- COMMERCE_D001 A great portion of the Jewish community, the Jewish population was extremely Orthodox. A great portion. Then there was a portion of the population that was not quite as dedicated, but I would imagine that this is what happens even today. God played a very important part in our lives. The synagogues were always full, prayer going on all the time. We had an old synagogue, we had a new synagogue, we had a prayer house, we even had a mikvah, you know what a... I don't know how to describe _PREW-TOWN-RELIGIONa bathhouse. I guess that's the wrong definition. DESCRIPTION_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 10/209

11 Can you talk about what the effect of the Soviet occupation was? Tell me about your maternal family escaping to Russia? Why didn' t your immediate family go to Russia with your mother's family during the Soviet occupation? Well, when the war broke out in 1939, Germany occupied Poland and they occupied our town and apparently not apparently, but Russia and Germany made a non-aggression pact. So the Russians were in our town at the same time as the Germans were. Actually we looked at the Russians as liberators because the rumors were terrible what was going to happen to us under the German occupation. When the Russians withdrew a small portion of the population escaped with them, whole families did. Most of them got caught after Germany invaded and died like the rest of the Jewish people, but then some -because Stalin referred to them as "traitors" or "spies," so he sent them to Siberia. But the I don t know the reason why they decided to escape to Russia. I think because of the rumors or what was going to happen to Jewish people, what was happening... my aunt, her husband, her two sons escaped across the Bug River to a place Bialystok three of my uncles escaped. Two of them survived. One survived in the underground with the partisans. The other survived in Siberia. So those people... those relatives survived. Although I really never had a chance after the war to live with them, to stay with them to know them. We were all in different displaced persons camps and so on. Quite frankly, that's been a hurtful thing to me because after the war I had no family. I was in Germany. My aunt, her husband and two sons were also in a displaced persons camp I believe that my family did not escape to Russia when the Russians were retreating because we had an established business, we had a home. We were doing well and in spite of the rumors my parents still felt that it's not going to be that bad. We lived with anti-semitism all our lives. So that's the reason I believe... I believe, I know that most of the population stayed. Nobody could imagine the travesty that was going to occur, the 5-75_PREW-EXPERIENCE- OCCUPATION-RUSSIANS- 1939_D _PREW-FAM-ESCAPE- RUSSIA_D _PREW-FAM-ESCAPE- NO_D001 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 11/209

12 Can you talk about your relationship My relationship to my sisters... My older sister was going to school, I think she was probably in first or second grade. But the love of my life was Sara. She loved me, I was her hero. She used to hang on to me. She's part of my having this broken heart because of her, because I have these horrible thoughts of how this poor little girl died, and they won't go away. I accepted the fact that my parents were killed, my aunts, my uncles, everybody around me, except her. Because you see when we were dragged out of our hiding place waiting to be shipped to Treblinka I went and I left her there with my dad. Could I have done something to help her? Possibly not, but there is an awful lot of guilt because of my perception of what finally happened to her as a six year old being taken to this terrible place called Treblinka, chased into a room with other women and children. Her beautiful pigtails were shorn from her head, her clothes taken away from her, and then chased into another room on the pretense of taking a shower with shower heads, but instead of water poisoned gas would come upon then in order to choke and kill them. I carried this with me, and I feel the pain that she went through before she died. I don't even know if my dad was with her or she was alone with 5-78_PREW-FAM-SIBLINGSwith your sister. What was that like? strangers. The truth be known, part of me died when she died, and yet as RELATIONSHIPS_D001 How you doing? Doing okay. How are you doing? 5-81_OT-Q-HOW-YOU_D002 If you can just tell me in maybe two sentences which of your sisters you were closer to as a child and why? I was closer to my little sister Sara. She was such a sweetheart. She used to hang on to me, I was her hero. I loved her so dearly. My relationship with my older sister was not quite the same. Frankly she's been the cause of my broken heart all my life. 5-84_PREW-FAM-SIBLINGS- FAVORITE_D002 Do you have a specific memory about Sara? Do you have any specific memories of your sister Irene? No specific memory just her behavior towards me her hanging on to me her wanting to be with me. It was something that I cherished and I loved her so much she was such a tiny little, beautiful little girl and she was so warm. She was a joy. It shouldn t have happened to her. I don t have any particular memories of my sister Irene. She was older, she went to school. I don t think we had much of a relationship with one another like I did with Sara. 5-85_PREW-SIBLINGS-SARAH- MEMORIES_D _PREW-SIBLINGS-IRENE- MEMORIES_D002 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 12/209

13 How did you family react to the rise of Hitler and Nazi ideology? Before the war were you confronted with hatred or anti-semitism? When did you first sense that things were changing? Were there any favorite festivals or holidays when you were growing up and if so which one? Did you have any friends that were not Jewish before the war? Were you aware of Kristallnacht? Did it affect your family? My family's reaction was no different than any other Jewish reaction in the town. We anticipated that terrible things was going to happen to the people but not to the extent that was really happening. You always hope that the rumors are not what the reality is going to be. Frankly most Jewish people have lived with anti-semitism for all their lives. Was this going to be any different? After all you're talking about Germany an educated, progressive people. So we didn't anticipate the ultimate 5-87_PREW-FAM-REACTION- HITLER_D002 As a child, I don t remember any anti-semitism. I was not confronted with 5-88_PREW-ANTISEMITISMany of that. I basically lived in a Jewish community. My friends were EXPERIENCES-LIMITED_D002 Jewish. Everybody around me was Jewish. My involvement with the general population was very limited except for the time when I used to go to the store and see customers, and my mother would say things and they would say things... that was my... there was nothing negative except when this young man that I was walking the streets with suddenly turned around and called me a "Christ killer." I didn't know who Christ was. I went home and I asked my parents, "Why did I kill Christ" I had no perception, no understanding of any other religion except my own. As soon as the war as soon as the war broke out things began to change. They changed drastically. German soldiers came into our town. The first thing they did is they pulled the chief rabbi out of his quarters chased him up to the marketplace sheared his beard off while their cameras were taking pictures of this humiliated Jew. Things began to changed on a Favorite holidays I don t recall. I didn't like holidays because you had to spend a whole day in synagogue. So it was not my favorite time. I didn't understand the meaning of the holidays, just that I had to be in synagogue all day and I was hot and sweaty. I didn't like it at all. Not really. Most of my friends were in my neighborhood within that certain block that I lived on. That was my world. Most of those kids were I did not know anything about Kristallnacht until after the war until I became an adult. I learned more about the Holocaust and about the history and everything after the war. When we lived in the ghetto we knew nothing. There was no newspapers, there was no radio, we were 5-89_PREW-MEMORIES- GERMANS- HUMILIATIONS_D _PREW-RELIGION- HOLIDAYS-FAVORITES_D _PREW-TOWN-FRIENDS- NONJEWS_D _PREW-EVENTS- KRISTALLNACHT- UNAWARE_D002 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 13/209

14 What do you remember about your extended family grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins? I remember my grandfather he had a butcher shop kosher. He didn't know how to read or write but he ran a successful business. My grandmother - probably no more than four and a half feet tall - and they had 12 children, and one was bigger and tougher than the other. I also remember her... my grandmother, apparently she had high blood pressure. They used to put leeches on her face. I dont know the exact reason for it but that's what they used to do. I think it was to relieve the blood pressure. He actually, my grandfather is the first one that ever made me or gave me a drink. He used to come over to the house with the proceeds from the day's receipts and my sister used to help him count it - not that he didn't know how to count - and then he would have a shot of Bimbeer or homemade whiskey and he gave me a shot and it burned like hell. So he told me to take a piece of black bread, put it to my nose and breath in and that clears your palatte. That was my introduction to it. I was probably no more than seven or eight years of age. So I have good memories of my grandpa. On my father's side, I have no memory because 5-93_PREW-FAM- GRANDPARENTS- MEMORIES_D002 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 14/209

15 What happened to the rest of your family? What about your father's family? What languages did you speak as a child? What happened to my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles 1942 was the finality to our lives where the Gestapo, Ukrainian police, local police 5-94_W-FAM-PERSECUTIONsurrounded the ghetto and started the final killings. People were dragged ROUNDUP-DESCRIBED_D002 out of their home, their hiding places, some shot, some chased to the back of our house where there used to be a potato field, and a big hole was dug and men, women, and children shot and dumped in there, some still alive while they were being buried. The rest of us chased up to the town's marketplace and made to sit in rows one behind the other waiting for more people to be brought there. The marketplace was something I can describe... dead people on the cobblestones in all contorted positions and Gestapo walking around beating people for not being lined up right. I'm so scared and I'm crying because I wanted to live so desperately and I knew what was going to happen to us because of the rumors, because of some people escaping from the camps that came back and said what was happening to the Jewish people. I wanted the earth to open up, I prayed to God to open the earth and swallow all of us, them and us, some justification for our death - but that was not to be. And you prayed to God to save you. And then you wonder, "Why would be save you? Out of all the children why should he save you... what's so different about you?" Never had the perception or never had the feeling that I was worth saving, but I wanted to live in spite of it all. Don't know where the will came from, why I had such a strong will to try and survive... wanted to live... wanted to taste what adulthood would be like. My dad and my little sister Sara sitting in his lap on the cobblestones and what should I do, what should I do? And he says, "Run Aaron... in Yiddish, he said "leuf Araley leuf," "run Aaron run." You see before the liquidation my parents had made arrangements with a Polish couple by the name of Gorski to take in one of the children and my older sister Irene was chosen and No, I never knew my father's parents because they passed away. My sister Irene was named after my grandmother and I was named after my grandfather. His name was Menachem Aaron. I couldn't handle both of these names. So I just stuck with Aaron. 5-96_PREW-FAM- GRANDPARENTS-DIED_D002 The language that we spoke at home was Yiddish. Polish was spoken on 5-97_PREW-FAM-LANGUAGEthe streets with the general population if you had any dealings with them. YIDDISH_D002 But my language at home was Yiddish. Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 15/209

16 What kind of music did you like when you were young. Sorry. Let's start one more time. Did you get into trouble as a child? If so how and why? I had no music. I don t recall any music at all when I was a kid. You know by the time I had some reality of what life was like we couldn t have a radio anymore. So I knew nothing about music. I remember my parents one day there was a movie house that opened up and they took my sister and I - never saw a movie in my life till the Russians came in. They used to show propaganda movies in the marketplace. So music was not 5-98_PREW-ENTERTAINMENT- MUSIC-NONE_D002 Music was not part of my life.by the time I had the reality of what life was 5-101_PREW-ENTERTAINMENTabout, we were already in a ghetto. You couldn t have a radio. So music is MUSIC-NONE_D002 not something that I knew. Although today, Frank Sinatra is still my boy. I listen as far as I'm concerned he's alive. I listen to his music. I don't handle... or I can't handle today's hip hop and all the other stuff. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett... those were the people I grew up with. There was an African-American gentleman by the name of Billy Eckstein... man, life Before the war there was no reason for me to get into trouble. I didn't know there was no occasion for me to get into any trouble. But after the war I was in plenty of trouble. I caused it myself. I became a totally different person. I became a street kid. I learned how to survive. I did things as a kid that you don't talk about...to survive. Am I proud of it? Absolutely not. But do I regret it? Maybe, but I had to live... I had to survive... I had to accomplish certain things... I had to live day by day. I was in the black market when I was 12, 13 years old selling cigarettes and candy bars. It was taboo... it was American candy bars. We couldn't have it as civilians... not in Germay anyway. But... I used to take the train from Nuremberg to Munich... never bought a ticket in my life. Conductor would be in one car, I would be in another car or vice versa. You learn how to survive. Necessity... necessity makes you do that... creates things within you that you don't know you possess. You know when I speak to young children today, I tell them that they have powers, they have strength that they don't know they have. They are much stonger and tougher than they give themselves credit for, and that they can achieve their dreams if they believe and if they are willing to pay a price. I believe this with all my heart. I say this to them because of my own personal 5-102_PREW-FAM-BEHAVIOR- GOOD_D002 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 16/209

17 So if you can sort of summarize in just a few sentences, what were you thinking once the war started? Did you know there was going to be a war? I remember sitting when the war started when Germany invaded Poland, I was sitting in cheder and the bombers came over our town and we all went out of cheder and went into the forest - never saw an airplane before. Laying on the ground between the trees the thunderous noise was unbelievable. The bombs falling in our town... never experienced that. It was such a fearful experience. It's something I wasn't... I wasn't accustomed to, I didn't know that it existed. Some of the bombs falling all over our town and the noise that those bombers made was unbelievable. The earth would shake. That's my experience when the I don t believe I knew anything about the politics of what transpired. I only knew when the Germans came into our town. When they invaded Poland I didn't know all the political motivations that caused the Germans to do what they did the Russians to do what they did. It was not part of my life. I was too young to understand all of that. But I grew up fast _W-BEGINNING-ATTITUDE- FEAR_D _W-BEGINNING-ATTITUDE- NOT-AWE_D002 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 17/209

18 How did life change once the war started? Did you wear a yellow star or some kind of other identifying symbol? Life began to change on a daily basis. Germans came into our town. The first thing they did was they pulled the chief rabbi out of his quarters, 5-105_W-PERSECUTIONSchased him up to the marketplace, sheared his beard off while the SUMMARY-5MIN_D002 cameras were taking pictures of this humilitated Jew. Then supposedly everything was euphemism, lies, for our own safety they created a ghetto to protect us from the general population. And they took about a four, five block area where we lived and built a 12 foot wall... the inhabitants of the town had to build those 12 foot walls with barbed wire fences, and if you live outside that area or in the farming community the Gestapo would come to your house, say you got 15 mintues to gather your belongings and you must move into the ghetto. So what happens? Suddenly an area where 1,000 people lived... you suddenly had 5,000 souls living there. And the designation by the German authorities was seven people had to live in each room that existed and we were put on starvation rations. You couldn't survive on that because we're not human beings anymore... we're subhumans, we're untermenschen, we're the scum of the earth, we were rats, we were nothing. And then, what happens when you have seven, eight people living in a room? Doctors not allowed to practice medicine, no medications, there are no soaps to speak of. Disease breaks out. People dying of typhus. I remember walking the streets as a kid in the ghetto seeing dead people lined up against the walls of buildings waiting for a detail to come, throw them on a wagon and dump them in a hole in the field. That didn't affect me. But then seeing little children in the same condition with their eyes popped out... some dead, some dying, and then you wonder to yourself, are you going to be next? That changed my perception, that changed my thinking. It created such fear within me because you never know when you're going to be next. And people disappeared on a daily basis. Then the German No, I did not wear a yellow star. First of all in my town they didn't wear 5-106_W-GERMANSyellow stars, they wore white arm bands with the Mogen David attached PERSECUTION-YELLOWto it. And if you were a certain age, under 12 or whatever, you didn't have STAR_D002 to wear one. So I never wore one. Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 18/209

19 How much did you or your family know about what was happening to Jews in German and other territories? And specifically did your family know about the concentration camps or the death camps, and if so what did you hear? And just in two sentences, what do you remember about the beginning of the war? Rumors was the only thing that people knew in my town. Not just my parents, everybody else. Rumors because what happened there was a German Jew living right next to our house he was expelled from Germany. So you know people bring rumors. I remember sitting at the kitchen table... not at the table, only the adults sat at the table, I'm sitting on the floor against the wall and absorbing all these terrible things that were happening or that were going to happen to you and this is the fear that's created in you, and you're a kid and you can't join adult conversation, it's just not the thing to do, not when I grew up. But you heard and you learned and you became so fearful and in spite of it all you wanted to live. You're hoping and there was nothing for us to do. Where do you go? Nobody wanted us... couldn't get out of the ghetto. If you were caught outside the ghetto you'd be shot. So I believe I began to think about death and dying probably when I was about eight, nine years My parents knew about Treblinka. Treblinka was located probably less than 20 miles from our town. And it existed for less than two years, and during that two year period of time, I found out later after the war, 670,000 men, women and children were slaughtered there and then the camp was destroyed to destroy the evidence. So did they know specifically... somebody would escape, the rumors would be there... that's how people knew. And people were dying, people were being taken away from the town. It was common knowledge already but in spite of it, human beings being what they are, as close to death as they may be, they still hope and think that maybe they will survive, maybe couldn t go outside, couldn t go in parts of the town that I used to go to, couldn t go to the marketplace where Thursday was such an elated, such a beautiful time for me. And food became a problem. My parents did everything they possibly could to try to feed their children. Black market, risking their lives outside the ghetto to buy food and bring it in. It was an... job. But they did _W-BEGINNING-RUMORS- ATTITUDE_D _W-TREBLINKA-KNOWN- DISBELIEF_D _W-BEGINNING-MEMORY- RESTRICTIONS_D002 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 19/209

20 And again, just very briefly, when did your family start feeling the effects of the persecution? Do you remember what the reactions were of the non-jewish people around you as the Jews were being persecuted? The persecution started when the Germans came in but it progressively got worse. The persecution took on a reality when the ghetto was created. Food was rationed, housing was a problem because of the condition because of the number of people that had to live in the same place. And people disappearing... all lies... they were going to work, you know - lies. At the last minute even they lied to people. So that's what we You're asking me something that I am trying to avoid not really want to talk about because I don t want to start another war, but unfortunately our Polish neighbors some helped, a tiny, tiny percentage but an awful lot who were complicit. Now in my life, I try to build bridges between Poles and Jews but at that time... look, one of my neighbors... one of our neighbors turned my poor mother in. Tied her up, wrestled her to the ground - she was hiding in his barn - threw her on a wagon... and how do I know this... because Mrs. Gorski came crawling up to the attic to tell me "They just brought your mother in." And my mother was pregnant and she was killed... she was shot in the town cemetary. And I wrote about it in my book. I named the name because I knew the people. Czeslaw Uzieblo was his name. So there was an awful lot of complicity. In fact when the war was over, we were not very welcome there... in our own town. People were killed after the war. Why? Because they were afraid 5-110_W-PERSECUTION- EFFECTS-PROGRESSED_D _W-PERSECUTION- REACTIONS-POLES_D002 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 20/209

21 Start again so that it's clean. Give me a count to three after I finish talking. You can start one more time. Great, very clear. Did you witness yourself any violence at the start of the war? My mother escaped the liquidation with another man a German Jew, 5-117_W-MOTHER-ESCAPE- Gedala she survived in hiding in different places, and three months BETRAYED_D002 before we were liberted Mrs. Gorski comes crawling up to the attic to tell me, "They just brought your mother in." I found out after the war she was hiding in Mr. Uzieblo's barn... he found her there, he called his field hands, they wrestled both of them to the ground, they tied them up, threw them on his wagon and brought them into town to turn them over to the Gestapo, the gendarmes, and she was shot in the town cemetary. We took this man to court after the war and his wife and daughters came to Irene and I... threatened to kill us if we didn't sign letters indicating how wonderful this man was to us... how he used to help me when I was in hiding, when I was roaming the streets... how he used to give me food. I signed my name to it... I didn't know how to read or write. They wrote the letter and I signed it. Supposedly the man got five years but we were not around there to know whether he really served the time or not. In my understanding being in the town last year that one of his daughters is still alive. Yet there is a dichotomy in my life: one Pole basically helps kill my mother, another Pole saves my life. You can't expalin away these things. When people ask me, I'll tell them, "My mother gave me birth, but Mrs. My mother escaped the liquidation the second liquidation with another man, a German Jew who used to live right next to us, and they both survived in hiding. Three months before liberation came Mrs. Gorski came crawling up to the attic to tell me they just brought my mother in. One of our former neighbors by name of Mr. Uzieblo caught her hiding in his barn. He called his field hands, they tied her, they wrestled her to the ground and tied her up, brought her into town, turned her over to the No, not at the start of the war. What I witnessed was in the ghetto the dead people. In fact my dad his arm was broken, he was pulled out of his our house at midnight by a gendarme called Loleck. He was what they called a volksdeutsche beat my dad up... I don't know the reason. I think it had something to do with still running a business or partly running a business and maybe he didn't pay off enough... I don't know. But it was such a frightening thing to see your dad... it's hurtful to see your dad 5-121_W-SURVIVAL-ESCAPE- BETRAYAL_D _W-PERSECUTION-FATHER- BEATING_D002 Created by USC Shoah Foundation, in partnership with concept developer Conscience Display Created 1/23/2017; 21/209