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"The entire sky of Warsaw was red. Completely red. But the flames were so concentrated around the whole ghetto..." | |||
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Leah Hammerstein Silverstein Born 1924 Praga, Poland 
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Praga [a suburb of Warsaw] was bombarded very heavily. He, my father had a brother living on the left side of the River Vistula. You know, Warsaw is divided by the River Wisla, in English Vistula. We lived on the right bank. His brother lived on the left bank. So, he collected us children and we ran from Praga to Warsaw, hoping that Warsaw is not bombarded so heavily as Praga is. The truth turned out to be the, the reverse. Warsaw was even worse bombarded than Praga. And the, the flight from Praga to Warsaw, you know, we had to cross the bridge, and the bridge was one of the main targets of these planes. You know, I don't have exactly the right words to describe the panic that existed among these running people. The screams and, you know, the cries of the children, the women, the, the, the, the terrible panic that seized the population. And, and the planes coming down on you. It was a miracle that we made it through that bridge, but we did. And we came to Warsaw to my uncle. They were surprised to see us, what happened you know. And for the first time in my life I felt the smell of burning domiciles. This was the invitation to the terrible five years that came later on. | ||
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Benjamin (Ben) Meed Born Warsaw, Poland 
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The war [the German invasion] came to an end, and the Germans marched in. Then starts a different chapter of my life. We were all hungry. I do remember the first days when the German came in. It was a parade. I was not coming to that parade because it's not in our neighborhood. I was living in the Jewish section. But I recall that...I know that people told us there was a parade in the...in the main areas where the Germans, the victorious Germans, marched into Poland. And... everybody was more interested in that time in finding a piece of bread. Finally, we heard that a few trucks arrived at the corner not far where I was living and... they were giving out bread. So naturally, I am the first one of the family...the young people, me and my brother and my sis...my sister, we all run to the...to the places where they giving... truck, where the bread arrived. And, that's true. We saw the trucks with, looking only at the big trucks with bread, our eyes shined up that we're going to get a piece of bread. There were so many people were waiting in the line, the bread was not given out. There were two Germans on the trucks throwing out the breads and there, and there I saw there were in that time cameras filming this whole thing, how they throwing bread to the population. And I was also waiting to grab a loaf of bread, but somehow I was recognized by one of my neighbors. He says, "What are you doing here? This is bread for the Poles." I says, "So I'm here." He says, "You a Jew." That was the first day when I was probably shocked and will never forget. | ||
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Abraham Lewent Born 1924 Warsaw, Poland 
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When the war broke out, there, the water was cut off. There was no gas in the house to cook anything. There was no food. So my father used to go out once in a while and we used to get some bread or the necessary things. And I remember for a couple weeks, we lived just on sour pickles because not far where we used to live, a couple streets further was a factory, they used to produce pickles. A Polish factory. And they used...they call it "Origi...Original," and they used to have the pickles in, in tins like...small tins, and large ones. As I found out. So I went with a friend of mine and somehow we got into that building in the night, even when the bombs were falling and we used to run in the middle of the night, and we grabbed about six or eight cans, about five pounds, and we dragged it home, and this we lived for a couple of weeks. Just on pickles, and once in a while we got bread. | ||
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Norbert I. Swislocki Born 1936 Warsaw, Poland 
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Uh, yes, one of...on one of the days that my mother and I were, fleeing essentially from Warsaw, I lost the teddy bear that I had been given. And what had happened was that the train stopped somewhere, and in the crush of people trying to get out my teddy bear was torn out of my hands. So I bent over to pick it up and as I bent over to pick it up I lost my mother's...the grip of her hand. I mean I just lost contact with her. And I bent over to get the teddy bear and I couldn't get the teddy bear and all the people started moving out and I was sort of swept along I think with the crowd. And when I emerged from the train, I couldn't find my mother. So I...it seemed like forever, you know I had been just a few minutes or less. But she eventually found me on the platform. So I lost the bear but I found my mother. | ||
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Leah Hammerstein Silverstein Born 1924 Praga, Poland 
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We came to live in the ghetto in, in October 1940. By, by March my father was dead, starved to death, literally. Because once he was cut off from the ghetto, he was cut off from his clientele and from his, from his subsistence, you know, he, and a terrible hunger was in my father's house because sometimes I was running from the kibbutz to see how my father is doing. And it was a sight which I will never forget. And I run to see my grandmother, whom I loved because she was the substitute of my mother, you know. And Randy, what can I tell you? These sights of my father and of my grandmother dying from starvation, in terrible hygienic conditions, is a picture which haunts me till this very day, you know. And this is over half a century ago, and it torments me in terrible nightmares to this very day. | ||
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Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed Born 1923 Warsaw, Poland 
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I bought ten pounds I would say...it was of dynamite and also I made the contact with the ghetto through telephone, certain calls, that I will be in this and this particular place and they have to wait for me and I will smuggle this into the ghetto. And this is how it goes. The Aryan side was always in contact through telephone from certain places with our people in the ghetto and we notified, and through different ways, when we are going to smuggle in, what time and what place. One of the very easy places which smuggling was going on was on Franciszkanska [Franciscan Street]. It was a place where one part of the ghetto, of the wall, was on the side of the Polish side and the other part of the wall was the Jewish side. And smuggling, mostly those who were buying clothes and bringing in food into the ghetto were the smugglers and doing it for very high prices. So one of the smugglers, the so-called foreman, he had a ladder and he was putting the ladder close to the wall and bribing sometimes the Polish police or the Jewish police, but it was impossible to bribe the German patrols, so the police was bribed and the smuggle was going on and I came there with mine package in in in...greasy paper that it should look like butter, and I paid the foreman and I was one of the smugglers, er one of the Polish girls, and to my luck when I came on top, going on the ladder on top of the wall, su...suddenly shooting was heard from far away, and they got scared. They snatched the ladder away. And I was sitting on top not being able to go back into hiding. They ran away. All of them hide. And I was with mine package on top of the wall, and the shooting got closer and I was sure that I, this time I am done. I didn't see anybody on the Jewish side and I didn't see anybody on the other side (laughter) and I on top. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid to jump. I was afraid that maybe dynamite can blow up. I didn't know even if it can in this...I didn't know too much about dynamite. But suddenly from the Jewish side, two of mine colleagues from the Jewish underground saw me, came running to the wall. They made a human ladder and they brought me down. | ||
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Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed Born 1923 Warsaw, Poland 
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While being there at night, I saw the flames of the ghetto. And I saw also certain pictures which were seared in my mind. Some Jews running from one place to the other and also seeing some Jews jumping from buildings, but I was observing this from a window and I couldn't do anything. And then flames burst into the ghetto. The Germans couldn't take over the streets, they start putting block after block on fire. They start burning the ghettos...the buildings, and this was the uprising which we...the small group on the Aryan side, we tried to get through. We tried to communicate. We decided even to go into the into the ghetto to be with them but it was, everything was in vain. We didn't have any communication. We saw only tanks coming in, tanks going out, or some ambulances going in and we're listening to the shooting and in that time it was...they...we have to let the outside know what is going on. | ||
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Benjamin (Ben) Meed Born Warsaw, Poland 
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The entire sky of Warsaw was red. Completely red. But the flames were so concentrated around the whole ghetto that it illuminate the whole city. The next week, the same week was Palm Sunday. I couldn't be anymore in the...in the...with my parents, in the hiding [place]. I walked out on that Palm Sunday and I went to Plac Krasinski where there was a church, a very old church, and I felt that my safest place is in the church. I went to that church and I attended the Mass and the priest spoke. Not a word was mentioned that across the street people are fighting, dying by the hundreds, and fire. I was just like a good Christian listening to the whole sermon. Then it is, traditional in Poland that when the, after the services, the priest goes out in front of the church and he greets the parish...the people, probably is practiced here in every country the same way, but in Poland it is a traditional thing. And he greeted all the Poles and across the street was a carousel with a playground and the music was playing and the carousel was...the people took the children on the carousel, beautifully dressed. Sunday. Palm Sunday. And... music was playing and I was standing in that group watching the other side of the block, of that burning ghetto. From time to time we heard screaming, "Look. Look. People are jumping from the roofs." Others will make remarks, "Jews are frying." That's just a free translation from Polish. But I never heard any sympathy voices. Maybe there were people who looked in a different way, but I never heard it. And it was very heartbreaking for me that here I am, helpless, I can do nothing, and I gotta see and watch, and I cannot even protest, I cannot even show my anger. Sometimes I felt in tho...in there that I have to do something physically, even have to pay with my life, start screaming, but I didn't do it. I didn't scream. I didn't do anything. I just was hurt. But that scene will probably remain with me for all my life. | ||
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Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed Born 1923 Warsaw, Poland 
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I felt that really everything is finished. That it's the end. I didn't think about myself, that I will live or life will go on or I will meet people or...It's the end. I...sometimes I was mad at myself that I remained, that why am I not there? I should have been there. This was the place to be together with them. I was constantly with them. I was living only for them, and it was for me like the end of everything. Of course, it was very painful when I was going as a Polish girl and listening to the surrounding...how they talk about the people being there, that they...good that they have such an end. Good that at least the Germans took care of them this way. Not all of the Poles were like this, but you heard this. Around the, the ghetto walls, instead of being part [of] what was going on there and after all they were neighbors for so many years. I didn't feel...not only not solidarity but not pain, not compassion, of people whom they knew for so many years and who lived door by door and seeing that everything is going into flames, is going into smoke. So it was pain. It was a lot of pain. | ||
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