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SUSAN SNYDER:
Good afternoon. While people are still getting settled and coming in I just would like to-- I have a few announcements. First, welcome to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. My name is Susan Snyder and I’m a curator here at the museum. Thank you for joining us today. This is our 10th year of First Person. Our guest today is Mr. Morris Rosen and we shall meet him shortly.
This 2009 season of First Person is made possible through the generosity of the Louis and Dora Smith Foundation to whom we are grateful for sponsoring this program.
This is a series of weekly conversations with survivors of the Holocaust who share with us their firsthand experiences associated with the Holocaust. Each first person serves as a volunteer here at the Museum. With few exceptions we will have a First Person guest each Wednesday through August 26th and we will also have First Person programs additionally on Tuesday through July. The Museum’s website www.ushmm.org provides a list of upcoming First Person guests.
This year we are offering a new feature associated with First Person. Excerpts from our conversations with survivors will be available as Podcasts on the museum’s website. Several are already posted on the website. The First Person Podcasts join two other Podcasts that the Museum has, Voices on Antisemitism and Voices on Genocide Prevention. The Podcasts are also available through iTunes.
Mr. Rosen will share his first person account of his experience during the Holocaust and as a survivor for about 40 minutes. We will follow that with an opportunity for you to ask him some questions. Before you are introduced to him, I have a few announcements and requests of you. First, if possible, please stay in your seat during the program so that we can minimize any disruption while Mr. Rosen is talking.
Second, if we have time for questions which I’ll make time for questions, actually, please make your questions as brief as possible and allow me before Mr. Rosen responds I will repeat the questions so everyone can hear them. Finally, please turn off any cell phones or pagers that you may have on. I would also like to let those of you know with passes for the Permanent Exhibition today, they are good for the balance of this afternoon.
The Holocaust was the state sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and it’s collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims. Six million were murdered. Roma and Sinti, or gypsies, people with mental and physical disabilities and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic or national reasons. Millions more including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi Germany.
More than 60 years after the Holocaust, hatred, antisemitism and genocide still threaten our world. The life stories of Holocaust survivors transcend the decades and remind us of the constant need to be vigilant citizens and to stop injustice, prejudice and hatred wherever and whenever they occur. What you’re about to hear from Morris is one individual’s account of the Holocaust. We have prepared a brief slide presentation to help with Morris’s introduction.
Morris Rosen was born Moniek Rozen, son of Jakub Rozen and Golda Chaya Warszawski in 1922. He was born in Dąbrowa Górnicza where his father was an official distributor of tobacco and acetylene. This is a 1924 portrait of one of Mr. Rosen’s sisters, Rozia Rozen Bilauer, who survived in Russia during the war. This is a photograph of Morris with his friends on a hillside in Dąbrowa. He is the first person from the left. Mr. Rosen survived several Nazi camps such Annaburg, Gruenberg and Kretschamberg. After a six week forced march, Mr. Rosen arrived in the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. This is a picture of forced labor at Buchenwald and a photograph-- the next picture is a photograph of the train station at Theresienstadt-Bohusovice taken during the arrival of the transport of Dutch Jews in February 1944.
Mr. Rosen went from Buchenwald to Theresienstadt concentration camp near Prague in the Czech Republic where he was liberated by the Soviets on May 6, 1945. Here is a post war photograph of Moniek Rozen posing with Regina Silverstein from Olkusz after her recuperation from the death march from Helmbrechts to Volary. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Mr. Morris Rosen.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Thank you, Suzy, for the nice introduction. Hello and good afternoon. It is very difficult to condense five years of the darkest chapter in mankind history into 40 minutes what I’m allowed to talk. Even a week wouldn’t be enough but I will do my best and of course, I will have to omit a lot of-- lot of months from my experiences.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Thank you, Morris. I really appreciate it and as you can understand there is-- Morris had quite a history. He was moved from camp to camp which is not necessarily the norm for a Holocaust survivor, so I will try to-- give you enough time to talk about that. First though I wanted you to talk about your life in Dąbrowa because this, this is very important. You had a very full life. You had-- you were one of ten children.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yes, well, we were 10 children in Dąbrowa and my father had a nice business. We were live-- we lived very comfortable. I should say till 1938, have a lot of Gentile friends, mostly of them gentile friends in the school and they were very jealous because in the school I all the time have special kind of gifts from the teacher because I was so good, but I know about later on. And in 1938 when the “Crystal Night” started in Germany, the same thing started in our city. Hooligans—Yes?
SUSAN SNYDER:
Let me just stop you for one second. Morris is referring to Kristallnacht which was a pogrom that happened in Nazi Germany in November 9th and 10th in 1938 where many Jewish synagogues, businesses were destroyed and thousands of people were arrested.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yes, so hooligans tried to knock out windows of the Jewish businesses. They boycotted our store and I know we have only gentile customers in our store and two ladies—sisters—they were protecting our store and she chased away the hooligans but we were forced to close our store. And then when started the war 19— September 1st, 1939.
SUSAN SNYDER:
And you had said that there were non-Jews who had aided—tried to aid— in preventing the store and then after the war began did you also have the assistance and friendship still of your non-Jewish community?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, some of them, but of course, it was very difficult. I don’t know why, our city was called the “red” Dąbrowa, a communistic city, because there was a lot of coal mines and foundries that they were-- but during the war everything changed. Of course, they said, “Well, you didn’t go to Palestine. Now you’re going go some place else and we will get rid of it.” Not everybody but a lot of them and we-- I still have good friends.
SUSAN SNYDER:
And how did life change for you? Did you still go to school?
MORRIS ROSEN:
No. School stopped. In 1939 we didn’t go anymore to school there, so I have to stop my education and this actually was my biggest loss; education means so much for a person and I was looking forwards to go to a gymnasium, go to university. Everything stopped and, of course, five years I didn’t have no schooling. After the war I started to go in Germany to a school which I didn’t feel right but I made it up when I came here to Baltimore later on after the war.
SUSAN SNYDER:
And after 1939, between 1939 and 1942 Dąbrowa became occupied obviously by the Nazis and how did it change? Was the city— did the city where the Jewish area was become a ghetto or when did the ghetto become established?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, it was very difficult. First of all, was posters in every corner, every kiosk. Jews are not allowed to go after six in the evening in the street till seven in the morning. Anybody was being caught would be shot on the spot. Jews can own no stores- no stores, any kind of businesses. You got to give up radios. Anybody with a radio be caught would be shot, even if you own a gun you have to give it up and you were not allowed to have anything. You were not allowed to go even on the pavement but if you walk on the street-- in the middle of the street, pavements were not for Jews to walk. And streetcars, you have to have a special section in the streetcar and it was very dangerous because if the German police needed somebody for labor there or something they usually look at the streetcar on the corner there on the end and they took him off for labor. So I actually if I have to go somewhere, I went on foot.
And then what happened, the Germans formed a Jewish council. That means the Jewish council have to do everything what the Germans wanted from the Jewish people. They didn’t do the dirty work; the Jewish council had to do it. If they needed 100 or 150 people for labor for that day, the Jewish Council had to deliver it. And if they needed later into Germany send away, the Jewish Council had to send away the 200, 400, whatever they demanded. Then they demanded money for the upkeep for the German occupation, so we have to deliver so much and so much gold, so much and so much silver. Whoever didn’t have, had to buy whatever and it was very, very difficult.
SUSAN SNYDER:
And did your father— what did your father do during this time period for his livelihood? How did he make it day to day for his family?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, it was very tough. The only thing what was that my sister—she lived in the next city, in Będzin—when she saw they were hanging 35 Jews in the market, they burned down the synagogue, she came running home to say goodbye to my father. He says, “I saw enough. I’m going to leave here.” At that time, you know, between the Soviets and the Germans were good conditions to escape at the time because they have a pact there between the Russians and Germans. So my sister escaped toward the east and she swim through a river and made it to the Soviet Union with her husband and she left us a lot of new clothing from their businesses and with this what we made a living. I usually smuggled myself over with my older brother to the country or to a farm and made exchanges for food, sweaters, clothing, anything for food and, of course, we couldn’t carry the food but they have to deliver it to our home. That’s how we made ends meet.
SUSAN SNYDER:
What about money? Did your father have money?
MORRIS ROSEN:
No.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Bank accounts?
MORRIS ROSEN:
First of all the Polish money was no good anymore and the only money what I make is my older brother, myself, they formed— the Jewish council formed— a Bauleitung. It means a building association and the building association was the ones that they have to deliver everyday so many, so many people what the Germans need, either for building new homes, either building the police stations, whatever they needed. And this wasn’t easy to get through because I have a special kind of permit to go in the street, even a little longer if it came out late because I work for the Germans. So they paid me somehow and I helped myself with organizing some food on the farm or other things and it wasn’t easy.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Around 1942, people began to get deported from Dąbrowa.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yes.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Can you describe that?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, they started—first of all, they started out a ghetto in Dąbrowa. Not all the streets were the ghetto yet but in the other part of Dąbrowa they started with— the ghetto— people couldn’t get out except going to work which they started a tailor shop and also shoemaker shop and there were hundreds of people involved working there. They had special permits. They have to go with the Jewish police there to the place. I had a special permit that I could go anywhere. Our neighborhood was not the ghetto yet. Our ghetto started in ’42 when they took my parents away.
But what started was in March 1942 came the order-- all young girls between the age 12 and 30, had to come to near the Jewish community in a field to register. They go and get new IDs and also cards, special ration cards, and if they’re not going to show up they won’t have anything to eat. They won’t get any ration cards and they’re going to be punished. So of course, my sister was 12 years old. She went also and when they came there to register about an hour later the SS came for them and they picked all the 450 girls to Sosnowiec which is also in Silesia and were checked out by a doctor and they send away to a camp. And you can imagine how we felt at our home; it felt like after funeral. My mother cried constantly, as a 12 year old to be lost, get out from the home, my father also. It was terrible. But four weeks later we got the first postcard from her that she works in Gruenberg with the rest of the girls and other girls from another city—they were about 800 people—but please send, if it’s possible, something to eat. It means they didn’t have enough eat and they work 12 hours a day in clothing factory where they made all kind linens and all kind materials.
SUSAN SNYDER:
So in the meantime you were moved into the ghetto in Dąbrowa.
MORRIS ROSEN:
No. I didn’t move to the ghetto yet. We moved to the ghetto actually in 1942 also but in August. August the 10th came the order, the whole city has to register. We are going to get new IDs and whoever is not going get the new ID will be shot on the spot. And the Jewish community gave special orders: put on your nice clothing—if the SS or the Gestapo will come look at you, that you look presentable—the best clothing and we have to be there at five in the morning. So everybody-- the whole city of Jews—left to the place near the Jewish community and it was such a hot day I will never forget. We waited till 8:00 in the morning. A lot of people fainted from the heat, no water, no nothing. You couldn’t get out.
Then suddenly, came a couple truckloads with soldiers, with SS. They started to surround the whole place where we were stationed and then I noticed some SS with machine guns on the roof and they formed a selection. They put up three tables and the head of the family have to be with the rest of the family and we have to register. Although they have preparation already, they have everything listed. How many people were in your family. I know where they got it; they got it prepared before already. And every elderly person, over 40, they have to go on the right-- women and kids to the right and people with ID like I had, that I worked for the Germans, on the left side and the center was still young people— Jewish people—that didn’t have special permits for work but they were still able to work.
And after two hours they took all—there were about four and a half thousand Jews—all the elderly people—after 40 it’s not elderly people— but they took them away to Będzin to an orphanage home. And of course, I didn’t have the key at that time even to go into the house or anything. We slept on the outside and the next morning I found out where they are, so I went there to the city. I walked—took me only 20 minutes— and they didn’t let me up, the Jewish police, to see my father. I says, “He has the keys, everything, let me up.” The Jewish policeman, that he knew me, he says, “Just go for a minute or you will be locked in.” At that time, I work with my older brother. Oberscharfuehrer, he was Oberscharführer; he was the head of the whole police and SS that was responsible for sending away all the Jewish people from Silesia to Auschwitz.
So we came day and next day, to work, my brother and I we ask him, “How about my parents?” “Oh, don’t worry. I take them out wherever they are and you will have them.” He never did anything and of course, about three days later when I came for the job that I worked for him and I didn’t go through the city—I was still afraid—but through the fields, suddenly, I saw a train going by. And from the train I saw SS on the roof on the train with machine guns and one was waving to me with the hand. It was the father Najfeld from my best friend Moniek Najfeld, he waved to me. I waved back. Sudden I heard some shooting toward me, so was a little ravine there. I fell in there and I stood for about 15 minutes. When I didn’t hear the train no more, I walked out and came home and told this to my older brother what happened, what I saw. It means that the Jews that they took away from our city they went somewhere. We didn’t know where or anything. Auschwitz, we didn’t even know what Auschwitz meant. And two days later we didn’t even have time to cry about my parents that I left that day but they send us to the ghetto.
So you came to the ghetto where about 14 people in one little room; there were nine girls and the rest of them boys. We left the girls-- we left them to the room which was no floor even but just dirt with a little straw and we slept on the outside. When it rained, we went to sleep in the foyer. We couldn’t sleep, sit down—it was no place where to sit—but we stood up. But there was one lady that she was pregnant and she begged me all the time, “Can you take this package, send it to my husband in the camp?” And her husband was a tailor that tailored my suit for my Bar Mitzvah. He was a tailor for our home also. And I went to the post office, which I was allowed, send him packages. I mentioned this because later on this is very important that I point out the pregnant woman with the packages. Okay. Didn’t go by two weeks, I get invitation. They gave me a ticket to the train and take some clothing with you and they send me to a camp which was not a police camp or anything but a factory-- a leather factory in Szczakowa, Makosz leather factory.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Let me interrupt you for a second. So you were deported-- you were then deported to forced labor-- the forced labor camp?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, not deported but sent away, yeah, Szczakowa
SUSAN SNYDER:
Right. Did you live then at Szczakowa?
MORRIS ROSEN:
No. We were there in the factory. We were about 30 youngsters were there. We work in leather factory and I was the one that put in the machines for the leather that they polish the leather, everything they confiscated in Czechoslovakia from another Jewish factory. And I put them in, in cement, have to dig out about three feet deep to set in the machines and put in all cement with stones and set to make sure that the machines don’t move. And I became there a painter and a brick layer. And we got food from the Jewish community in Sosnowiec, the central Jewish community. But I went home, like, every two weeks because I promise something, the head of us, that I bring in something. And I went home and there I saw what happened that our city was already free of Jews. They send everybody into Szrodula from all Silesia at that time. And then I was afraid to go anymore because I was scared even if I have special permits.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Were you-- let me interrupt again. Were you-- did you have a Jewish star mark on your arm?
MORRIS ROSEN:
I had but in the train I took it off.
SUSAN SNYDER:
You took it off?
MORRIS ROSEN:
That nobody should see me there, yes.
SUSAN SNYDER:
But what if you had been discovered?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yes, but no, I had a special permit.
SUSAN SNYDER:
You had a special permit?
MORRIS ROSEN:
I had a special permit. I worked for the Germans. The leather factory was owned by Germans, so I have a special permit. I wasn’t afraid but even so you have to be very, very careful. So as long I could hide myself not wear the Jewish star, I was okay. And then came about eight months later I went there because we got the food from the Jewish community but then we didn’t get no food. But bread, we went to the bakery, I went with another guy every week and we took about 60 breads for the whole week and sudden I hear a whistle somewhere from the church-- in the basement from the church. So one guy called me over, “Why don’t you leave the bread here? I have a Polish woman, she’s bringing me food every day. We can be hiding in the church. It’s a very safe place.” I said, “No. The guys won’t have what to eat. Maybe tomorrow I come”. But it never happen tomorrow because I came with the bread. With me was another guy, an electrician, and the morning—five in the morning—came the SS for us. Since we couldn’t get no more food from the Jewish community, it was free of Jews in all Silesia, so they took us away.
That electrician that came with me, he was not there even; he must have escaped. He had gone the night over there to the church. I don’t know what happened to him. I don’t know if he did good or not but anyway they took us away. There was one lady with a young kid that her husband was taken away. He went to see a cousin and they took him away. Although he’s the chief engineer for fixing machines, it didn’t help. And so she gave me the baby to hold about two years old. She had her little suitcase, went to the station and we came to Sosnowiec. Lucky me that I gave right away the kid back to her, otherwise came a special car for her with the kid and they took away to Auschwitz (what I found out later). If I would have held the kid I would have go with her because I’m a father. And we were the ones that emptied the ghetto from all the goodies, like, leather has to be on a different mountain; good clothing on a different mountain. We piled up. And we—
SUSAN SNYDER:
Let- let me just backtrack for a second. When you say that you were emptying the ghetto, are you talking about the ghetto in Sosnowiec in Poland?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, well, this was the ghetto from all Silesia because all Silesia had to come first to the ghetto to Szrodula. Yeah, Sosnowiec.
SUSAN SNYDER:
So you were actually tasked by the Germans with clearing the material possessions?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, oh, yeah.
SUSAN SNYDER:
And what was the purpose of that? What did they do with the material possessions?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Oh, they send it away to Germany—all the goodies—because no Jews were living there; it was free of Jews. Furniture we took out, some Poles helped themselves for the furniture. So on the third day we slept there in the transition camp, which was where they took people away to send to Germany, and we slept there. On the third day came Ludwig. Ludwig was the one who was responsible for sending away everybody to Germany for slave labor and he ask, “Is here among you a painter?” “Ein Maler?” So I kept my mouth shut. What? I’m sixteen and a half, skinny as can be, I’m going say I’m a painter, he’s going to kill me right away. One guy had a big mouth. “Oh, the Rosen’s a painter.” So he calls me over and he says, “Bist du ein Maler?” --“Are you a painter?” I said, “Ja, ein gutter Maler.” --“I’m a good painter.” He gave me right away in the face that I started bleeding from the nose and I got like unconscious for a minute.
When I came to myself, I told them, “If you send me to Dąbrowa…” (I thought maybe I can escape) “I don’t have no tools. I don’t have no paints, anything.” “Du wirst alles haben.” --“You will have everything.” So the rest went to work again to empty the ghetto. I stood on the side. Two SS men approached me with machine guns. They took me. I had to walk within the middle of the street. We went to a paint store and we got all material, tools, everything. They took me to the place to paint. Yes, by the way, he said he has three rooms to paint and he took out his pistol, pointed to my temple “Wenn du nicht fertig in drei Tage, hast du genug gelebt.” --“If you are not finished in three days, you lived enough.” I thought I faint there on the place.
Well, anyway, I came there to work what was a beautiful, beautiful apartment. He had a mistress there, a Polish woman about 28 or 29, tall, blonde hair. I started painting the first room. She didn’t even give me a glass of water all day long. I was so hungry and thirsty. It was hot and I thought, maybe I do something where she will give me something to eat. They have a chandelier like in the dining room and I was very good in school in free hand drawing. So I drew there a twig from the chandelier and a snake coming out with the tongue out.
Painted this in the nice colors with a little brownish and green the tongue, everything, to impress her. It didn’t help. I even cleaned her kitchen floor. I brought up coal. Nothing helped. Okay. Then the SS came for me. They picked me up. We went there again where we slept on the floor on cement with a little straw. I have a little black coffee with one slice bread; this was the dinner. In the morning, a little black coffee, a slice bread, the SS waited for me.
On the second day, I started the next room. Sudden who comes in? Ludwig, and he starts smiling. If he smiles it’s a good sign. He calls me over. “You only about-- how old are you?” And I told him, “Sixteen and a half.” “Where did you learn so nice to paint?” So what I’m going tell him my father was a business man. So I told him, “My father was the best painter in our city. We didn’t have much to eat. When I have six-- when I got six years old instead of going to schul, we couldn’t afford, I went to work with my father to have what to eat. “Wir haben kein Fressen gehabt.” [We had nothing to eat.] That’s what I told him and “I had to work and I learned from my father the trade. That’s why I’m a good painter.” He went away. Didn’t go by a half hour. He comes in. He gives me a bag. “Lass dich gar nicht erwischen.” “Don’t get caught with it.” It’s so funny. He’s got life and death; I shouldn’t get caught. I looked in it. There was a whole kielbasa with a big loaf, two kilos which is over four pounds bread with a cigar. “Lass dich gar nicht erwischen.” [Don’t get caught.] He walked out.
First thing, the kielbasa, within 10 minutes, nothing that nobody can take away from me. The bread-- how much bread can you eat? So I kept for the next day and then I took along the rest in the evening for the other guys. But I wasn’t afraid already, so I helped myself with water, whatever I needed for myself in the kitchen. The third day, the same thing. He brought me food. Then I became a maid. I washed the windows. I did the floors but they have parquet floors. He bought shellac I should do fine. Then to work in a police station.
Well, anyway two weeks went up well, “Maler, we are finished here with the work. You are not going to Auschwitz,” which I never knew what Auschwitz meant. You going to a camp-- to a labor camp. When I-- when he was so good to me was all time with a smile. I stood at attention and I told him, “I don’t have nobody from my whole family. I only have one sister. She’s in Gruenberg, lower Silesia, in a woman’s camp.” Then he says, “Gruenberg. --“This is a woman’s camp.- Gruenberg, das ist doch ein Frauenlager. You be there. First, go a transition camp.” So-- which I went to a transition camp which was murder there. All we ate is kohlrabi soup three times a day. No bread. We don’t work. We don’t deserve food.
We’re about 2,000 Jewish people, only men. Then Ludwig came. So he came with a list who’s going to go to other camps and this, but I wasn’t on the list, so I jumped over the fence. I saw where he was going and I knock at the door. He looked so funny without shirt, without pants, undershirts with the boots and “Was wollst du denn, Maler?” I said, “You promise me to go to Gruenberg. There’s 20 people going; I’m not on the list.” And he says, “Was?” [What?] He put on his pants without the shirt. I ran after him already, through the gate and he tore up the list. Nobody goes.
Then during the night the SS men threw me down from my bunk on the third-- top from the bunk. “Zieh dich mal an!” –“Get dressed!” Was outside there a woman that she became a Juden-Eltster the head of the Jewish camp for women and a man from Berlin that was in the transition camp for all the years, a Juden-Eltster, he’s in camp. So all three we went there and we arrive in Gruenberg and he became the, of course, the Juden-Eltster.
So I wanted to see my sister. He knew what was going all about. So in order to see my sister I had to say that I am sick and I’m going to see to the doctor which I saw my sister. The next day, I went and I became a painter there that I painted the windows black, painted the machines in gray. So I picked up gray paint and went to my sister’s machine. I cleaned there and I make up I’m painting there, I talked to her and we have a good boss there. Not a boss but one elder man, he was probably 75 years old, a German, he says, “Hab kein Angst.” [ Don’t be afraid.] Don’t be worry about me; I’m a communist. But watch out for that dog; he’s an SS man, the boss. For him, you got to watch out.” And he brought me everyday a little, tiny piece bread. He can’t afford no more or a vitamin pill but on Monday he brought what his wife baked something, he gave me. Okay. And--
SUSAN SNYDER:
Okay, one second. Let’s just-- let me just clarify what year this is?
MORRIS ROSEN:
This was in 1943.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Okay. And this-- so you’re at Gruenberg which is a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen concentration camp which was--
MORRIS ROSEN:
At that time it wasn’t a concentration camp. At that time it was a labor camp.
SUSAN SNYDER:
It’s a labor camp that was attached to a concentration camp called Gross-Rosen.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Later on. Later on. I come to it.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Okay. But we can argue about that later so-- but what I’m trying have you clarify though is what were the conditions like? You’re talking about staying-- you know, when you are taken out of the bunk, what were the general conditions like on a daily basis? What were the-- were people dying around you? Were people starving to death?
MORRIS ROSEN:
In Gruen-- well, there people were starving yes in the transition camp but not in Gruenberg. In Gruenberg they already took some 80 men from another camp—it became a men’s camp—and you want-- when I came there I have to give up my clothing because it could be dirty. They gave me two new suits, brand new suits, beautiful, two shirts. I have to be shaved. I have to bathe everyday because we work with the Germans together. This was like a…--in Gruenberg.
SUSAN SNYDER:
But this was you. Was this the general population?
MORRIS ROSEN:
General-- only the men.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Only the men.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Only the men.
SUSAN SNYDER:
And what about the condition of your sister at this point?
MORRIS ROSEN:
The condition? Terrible! They didn’t have what to eat, they worked 12 hours a day, night shift also a lot of times, beatings, also.
SUSAN SNYDER:
What did she do? What was she doing during the day as slave labor?
MORRIS ROSEN:
She was doing Weberei [spinning shop], what do we call--they work on machines where they make the materials-- spinning machines. Yeah, that’s what’s--
SUSAN SNYDER:
Textiles.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, textiles and they had to walk forth and back for 12 hours without interruption.
SUSAN SNYDER:
So her-- it was quite difficult.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Very difficult. They looked terrible. Besides that, they have the name well, German-- it’s Janusch. He was the head of it. If he saw just one stays away from the machine a minute she got hit from him right away and Janusch, it means a doll. He looked like a doll and that’s what they gave him the name “Janusch”.
SUSAN SNYDER:
So from Gruenberg-- you’re in Gruenberg with Bluma, then you are transferred. Was Bluma transferred as well?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, but what happened-- I didn’t have it bad because I helped myself. I cleaned there in the shop. I cleaned up every morning and there was a German young woman, the secretary, she said, “Take out the garbage,” and she pointed. She have something there. So every morning she gave me a sandwich there with the egg. Right away, I took it over to my sister there and threw it in the hedge with the garbage can. But this didn’t last long. For about eight months-- of course I have to skip a lot-- who comes in-- we don’t go to work. Why? We don’t know. Who comes? Ludwig again. The first thing-- we were at the roll call. The first thing he says, “Wo ist mein Maler, Rosen?” “Where’s my painter, Rozen?” I stood at attention, saluted him and I thanked him. I said, “I will never forget you, in my whole life, what you did for me.” He smiled. “Did you see your sister?” “Yes, I saw my sister thanks to you.” “Okay.” Then he went away. We went to work. We come back from work, comes the head of the SS from the camp. “Rozen,” --I should come to his office. “Sit down.” He gave me a soup with a whole loaf bread. Every evening you come for work you come here. This is what-- Ludwig told him to do it. He gave me a bread with the soup. Right away the bread I gave it-- I went to the doctor. I gave it to the girls there that I knew and that’s what’s going but not too long.
Then came an order in 19-- March 1944-- came an order that Gruenberg became a concentration camp. So the men can’t be anymore with the women together and we got to go to a different place. Then where miserable life started. So they took us by two trucks, 80 men, and we went about two hours ride. It was the snow still, very cold in March. We arrived there to a new camp, Kretschamberg. The SS came right away, with one of the lager elders which, by the way, he was also a civilian. He was number two in Buchenwald. That’s the people that they select-- the Germans-- to be the head of the camps because they were not afraid to kill people. “Macht’s Schnell!” –with the dog. We formed a circle. He threw down two guys right away on the ground. He stepped on them. He killed them on the spirit-- on the place. This is how you’re going to look if you don’t give up all your belonging, watches, money, everything. Nobody had anything. So people threw in whatever they could. So the Lageraeltesten [camp elder], you know the one-- the Jewish guy from Berlin, “What do you want from them? They didn’t do anything. Why do you kill them?” He threw him down to the ground. Was there an SS man that was in Gruenberg in camp, “Don’t you know he’s the Lageraeltesten from this? You are not a--you don’t have the right.” He threw even the SS man down to the ground. We stood there all day long toward the evening because it was not ready. We went into a barrack, no windows, no beds or anything. Just wet cement, to lay down on the wet cement. It was miserable cold. With a bucket that-- you have-- if you have to use the latrine, in the bucket. That’s all.
SUSAN SNYDER:
What did you do during the day?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, wait. I come to it. This just the first evening.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Jumping the gun there. Sorry about that.
MORRIS ROSEN:
No. So what I did the first thing, I have about 200 pictures with me. That’s very important. From home and one of my girlfriend there-- the first time girlfriend, so you want to rescue your things. I jumped over the fence. I knew where they took my little suitcase. I knocked out a window. I looked for it for about an hour. I found my suitcase. The only thing I took was a toothbrush with the pictures. When I came in there, what they gave me, the can for the soup? I had the pictures and put them in the ground there in the thing. Next morning--
SUSAN SNYDER:
Stopping for a second. You put the pictures-- you buried the pictures in the ground?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, near the barrack.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Can I ask you to describe what the pictures were?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, they were mostly from home, from the organization-- scout organization.
SUSAN SNYDER:
They were family photographs.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Family and also from the girl that I knew. That’s what most of it-- that was important for me at that time, you know. When you’re 16 years old, you know, your first girl, like you say. And I went in there. Five in the morning we got to get up, roll call. Fast, fast, fast! We got black coffee. No water to wash. There was no water to wash. I brushed my teeth with the black coffee. Wiped a little my face. Out in the bitter cold on the outside and we stood-- six blocks were there-- every block stay separate; in the row five of them. And the guy that killed the two people with one SS man stood outside to make that everybody stays right, and hit him right away that he stays not straight and your head is not straight. Every time they got hitting, we waited for about an hour and a half till the SS came. They counted us-- have to be counted. If it’s a dead person, you have to lay them in the front. And then I saw what’s go on that the front row all the time get sit. I was a little selfish and a little smart I could say. I all the time picked where rows in five to stay behind the tall guy that I won’t be seen. I wasn’t tall, so every time I look where a tall guy in front of me and the cen-- in the middle, never in the front, so I never got hit. And--
SUSAN SNYDER:
But how demoralizing was this on a daily basis to be witnessing this?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Daily basis, yeah.
SUSAN SNYDER:
And how did you keep your sanity about you so that you didn’t give up?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, later on we got- later on we got water. Two weeks later we got running water, so we washed our self quick and when you came from work you washed up then, yes. But you didn’t have no toothbrush, brush with your finger.
SUSAN SNYDER:
So you basically went through the motions?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yes.
SUSAN SNYDER:
So that you could keep yourself going?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Right. I kept myself very clean. This was the most important. Believe me. Food wasn’t as much important but to keep yourself clean. People went-- yeah?
SUSAN SNYDER:
I want you to-- right, elaborate on that a little more. Why? Why is that?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, why? Because if you kept hygiene first of all you didn’t have the lice on yourself, first of all. And I kept even my-- I have only one pair of pants. Pajamas, not pants. They took everything away. No underpants, no undershirts. Just a stripe pajama with wooden shoes and you have to stay in the bitter cold shivering for an hour and a half or two hours outside and you can imagine with very little food.
So I had one of the worst jobs there. We went to a forest-- about 50 guys. It was a burnt out forest, so there were-- the whole group with axes and they start cutting down the trees, the branches that some of them lost their toes and I had the worst job. They didn’t have gasoline at that time but they burn the truck where we put out the wood on it, they burned with wood and I kept, all day long, for twelve hours, feeding the truck with the wood and the smoke came in toward me all day long that I couldn’t breathe and I became after four weeks a muselmann. A muselmann is just skin and bone. You don’t have long to live because I thought I couldn’t breathe even at night from the smoke.
SUSAN SNYDER:
It was actually-- prisoners called each other musselman. [Muslim] It was a--
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, musselman, yeah, but they were ready to die. That’s what they call the musselman.
SUSAN SNYDER:
It was a way-- right, it was a name they called each other when people were so thin that they were going to be picked for selection.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Not selection at that time. If was a selection, they die.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Right, well--
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, there was no selections at this camp.
SUSAN SNYDER:
And so-- but-- this is the weird thing. But you’re working in the winter, so you’re near the fire at least?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Where near the fire? The smoke was worse than the fire!
SUSAN SNYDER:
Smoke was worse than the fire, so it didn’t help at all?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Sure. You couldn’t breathe. Didn’t help. My eyes were burning, my mouth was burning and my—everything! You inhaled this for 12 hours with no food. So in the evening-- one evening-- after the roll call comes a guy in with a piece bread with a soup. “You have this for Mr. Grossman?” I didn’t want to accept. Mr. Grossman is the one that I told you in the ghetto, the pregnant woman that I sent the packages through me was our tailor. He knew I’m on block one. He was on block six. Next day again. So he came to me, “What do you think, you a big shot? You are not home. You are going to die.” I says, “I want to die. Is this life? I can’t breathe. You want to help me? Take me out from this world. You know in the ghetto I was a painter, maybe I know painting I will survive better. The food doesn’t mean anything to me but the different kind of job.” Two days later, I didn’t go to work. I became a painter.
So it’s a funny thing. When we stood at the roll call, every colony, we were 2,000 people, six blocks-- every colony they went 20 men or 50 men or 60 men. Our colony, the painters, were only three guys. We had the same amount food-- soup in a big milk can-- the same what they have 50. I see those guys give away the soup. I was screaming, “I’m hungry. What are you giving away my soup? You won’t give away your--“ --“You have plenty to eat.” And what happened? We came to work. Right away went there to a magazine and we work in a hospital that they send in wounded German soldiers from the eastern front-- a new hospital-- and there a lot of people who work there underground because they have parts for airplanes underground. And we helped our self there. We got plenty food. Why? When we painted one of the big halls, there was about 25-30 wounded soldiers, they got to take them out. Every soldier had their own cabinet, so we helped our self. One stood with a ladder near the door. Nobody can get in and we ate their bread and butter. Not bread and butter but butter and bread. That high
But in the camp itself was murder. Getting up five in the morning. Staying for the roll call for an hour and a half, sometimes two hours in the rain, snow, with the pyjama, you were shivering. And so many deaths everyday and the smell was terrible in the room because, you know, sometimes they give you only kohlrabi soup, not-- no meat or anything. The food was so poor. We didn’t deserve any even if we work 12 hours a day and beating all day long. One day the head of the camp, the Lager Fuehrer, says, “We need paint.” We have to paint from the cobblestone, the kitchen, this, so we stole paint. So one day it happened that SS checked everybody who came into the camp because was some of the people smuggling food. So they discovered the paint by us. “You stealing paints.” So after the roll call, everybody goes in to have food and go to bed and we stood outside. We are going to do gymnastics. We did for a full half hour. We have to jump like frogs on your knees, that here
SUSAN SNYDER:
Morris, I actually have to-- I want you to talk about-- because we’re running out of time-- and I want you to talk about your experiences in going to Buchenwald and then to Theresienstadt.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, what happened at that time it was miserable, the whole thing. I had it better I went over to block six but then it was happen February the 5th, 1945. We don’t go to work. We heard--you know, people work with the other prisoners-- Frenchmen or this or that the Russian army already entered Germany, this or this. We don’t go to work. Everybody takes their blankets. Everybody got a loaf bread with a piece margarine with marmalade and we start walking for eight hours straight because actually we heard already tanks running down rolling and the head of the SS, we had to walk so fast whoever stood behind got a bullet in the head right away. Then we came to a little city, we saw the German Army retreating.
So one officer came to the Lageraeltesten and say, “What do you want for them? Don’t you see the war’s almost over. Leave them go?” Mm-mm, he had other instructions where to take us. He took us into the woods again for another eight hours walking. I could hardly walk; my feet got swollen. And whoever stood behind, got a bullet; they shot about 30 guys at that night and it was miserable. Then finally we rested up, so you went in to a barn to sleep on hay and what happened, the farmer prepared there food for the horses and for the pigs. We ate up everything that the farmer didn’t have anything left for the horses or the pigs there, what he prepared. So he complained to the SS men. For punishment, no more sleeping in the barn. We slept on the outside in the bitter cold on the snow. We huddled one between the other. Okay, about two weeks later we—
SUSAN SNYDER:
Okay. Sorry, I have to interrupt you again. You’re walking all this time?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah.
SUSAN SNYDER:
So two weeks later-- so from the barn, two weeks later, you’re walking every day?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Every day till we came to Dresden.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Tell me about where you’re walking. Are people looking at you while you’re walking?
MORRIS ROSEN:
We didn’t know-- no--
SUSAN SNYDER:
Were there civilians seeing you?
MORRIS ROSEN:
No, no civilians. Some they smile, they laugh, anything.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Did anyone try to help you?
MORRIS ROSEN:
No, nothing. Then we pass by Dresden, the Elbe River. He says, “Aus hier.” Everybody gets undressed and you full with lice and wash your clothing in the Elbe River.” It’s wintertime. We have to scrub our—what we walked in. It was so bitter cold and we jumped around. I have some friends. We rubbed our backs back to back. Then “Aus hier.” We have to go get dressed. I want to put on my pants. I lost half of my pants. It was frozen like a ball. So the right side I have to unglue inch by inch. At that time, within three days, we lost about 400 men at that time from the cold weather. Who can stand that cold with no food, with no nothing? And what-- I was angry, there was some women there from the house, they looked at it and they were smiling. I said, “My God, where’s God? That’s the punishment we get for being Jewish.”
And we walked-- we walked again till we came to Tübingen, toward Buchenwald, up hill. And that man started yelling, “Walk like soldiers. Eins, Zwo, Drei.” And he start hitting. When we came to the gates from Buchenwald-- at Buchenwald, where a lot of them, the block elders, the Kapos, were mostly political prisoners—communists, socialists—when they saw what happened that he beats everybody, hit somebody, when he came over to the gate they threw him down to the ground, “Are you any better than they are?” Although he was with leather pants, with a leather jacket, with a nice beret that he got a beating. He was bleeding form everywhere; one eye was all closed up. And when they let him go, we wanted to kill him, but he escaped somewhere and on the next day somebody saw him already not with his clothing, probably from the dead man, put him in the pajama of it, let him go, and we were there.
The smell was unbearable there. First of all, they gave us some food. We couldn’t enjoy the soup. There were guys there--they grabbed your food. We were hungry-- they grabbed your food away. They put hoses with water to hose them off; it didn’t help. At night, they checked for you we have bread and they kill you for the piece bread. Next day, the smell-- where does the smell come? I went to see. My God, several, several rows of dead bodies about 20 to 25 feet long and about three to four feet high. When I come there to see, I’m all the time very, you know, as a collector and this, I’m all time curious to be able to tell this. On the top of thing was one man that was a German guy which the Germans threw him out because his parents were Polish. We played in ’38, ’39 ping pong together in the Maccabiah. And he says, “Oh, Moniek, one eye open, one closed, I will never forget this.” And he cried. I says, “Don’t worry. The Americans are close by here. We hear the Americans are not far.” And there were two guys performing cannibalism. Can you imagine with knives cut people that they were still alive? I screamed at them so they yelled at me with the knives. I ran away. I will never forget this in my life and I shouldn’t be that-- not everybody’s that-- but whenever I hear or see somebody from Bessarabia they come, I’m more angry at them than for the Germans because what I saw what they doing.
And life was miserable there. I was in the block 56. Then they started calling, “All the Jews go out!” I didn’t go. I have enough with the-- they stood I think and they shipped them out for another death march. Then I saw one guy, he ran-- in the middle of the wall was a hole, they were like sheets like from straw and cement, the sheets, and I ran in with him for half hour, then some other people came running in. Sudden I hear with the machine guns shooting up the wall. I managed to get out. Broke a window pane from the back, ran in there and quick out I shouldn’t get shot and there was people standing already on the outside. I ran between them that nobody should see me and this was the last, last transport that went out from Buchenwald. If I would have to remain that evening still in Buchenwald, the next day they were liberated.
Then they took us on foot and we came to-- we came there to the station. They put us on the train where about hundreds of people and one wagon for about 120, 130, open wagons, cold, hungry, thirsty. For a whole week, no food, no water. We started to throw out bodies, so we have more room and then we kept the bodies as pillows because lay on the floor was very cold, so we slept on the bodies. We came toward Chemnitz, which was already more than a week-- more than 10 days, no food, no water. So we saw they had pump that they pump water through locomotives from the train. So we begged them-- one of the motormen, “Can you give us some water. We didn’t have for so long.” So they put buckets water. Then they served us hot soup, which I tried it. I spit out right away and I told the guys, “Don’t you dare to eat. This is poison.” Which it was poison. They tried to poison off every survivor that there should be no witnesses. Everybody threw away.
While we were there was so many sections-- different trains, they came from all over Germany there with evacuations. On the last one were German soldiers-- came two Russian plane and they started with machine guns to shoot up the locomotives-- to disable the locomotives. Not only ours but all of them that nobody can go and the Germans were shooting toward them. They never hit them. Five minutes, again. It lasted for about a half hour then was no more locomotives.
We tried to jump down because one, I was wounded, but we tried to run away. The German soldiers jumped down. They surrounded us, went back. Well, we can’t go anymore by train, so we walked on foot. We walked on foot again toward Theresienstadt. We walked by Dresden at that time and everything was burning at that time from the bombing. He said, “Oh, maybe we still have a god.” They punished us, now the Germans are getting punished because if you know history about 100,000 Germans got killed in Dresden which they all the time cry till now, they knew the war was over and they still killed us. Where were they when they knew the war’s over and they still killed us in the last days. They knew they lost the war.
So then we came to Theresienstadt on foot. They didn’t let us in because they didn’t have place. We slept on cobblestone but they gave us hot coffee, hot soup with bread and the next day we had to take off all our clothing. It was full with lice. They burned everything. They gave us new shirts. Not new but worn shirts from the ghetto, with pants, with leather shoes and they put us in the barrack there. It was the different Kaserne [military barracks], and we were about over 30 people in one Kaserne, in one room, and I don’t know what happened. I must be out of my mind or something that the only thing I know that I must have jumped out the window from the first floor on the field and when I came to me it was a Russian soldier with a Czech partisan, wiping off my face. They gave me a little water and I will never know how long I was unconscious there. And they put me back to the room. Was there one guy, he must be a Kapo, because everything was quarantined, typhus epidemic, terrible. They didn’t let out. The Czech police stood outside.
SUSAN SNYDER:
But at this point you’re- you’re liberated.
MORRIS ROSEN: Liberated--the liberation.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Because the Russians have--
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, the Russians were there. And he brought on a horse and wagon, cases and cases of wine-- good wine and Portuguese sardines with the gold labels which they’re very known in Europe. And we ate the sardines and wine all day long and packs and packs of hundred mark bills. We used it instead of toilet paper because people have diarrhea. They put that thick
SUSAN SNYDER:
Morris, I actually am going to stop you here because I-- it’s almost 2:00 and I want to give a couple of people time for questions. So does anyone have questions? Yes, sir?
AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Yeah, I- I was wondering how do you feel toward Ludwig, the German person who helped you so much but might have killed many other Jews, so what was—
SUSAN SNYDER:
Let me ask the question first so that people can hear it. How did Morris feel towards Ludwig who helped Morris but might have killed other Jewish prisoners and victims?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yeah, I was just interviewed by two gentlemen from Germany for the German press and I told them the same thing. How if I would catch Ludwig, how in the world can I say something against him? Although I knew he killed a lot of people but he saved my life. I wouldn’t be able to be a witness. In fact, I wanted to look for him, see him after the war, which I couldn’t find him but then I found in the Archives in Suitland that he died of natural causes in Stuttgart, as a tailor. He was a tailor in Stuttgart. I wouldn’t be able to do anything because he saved my life and I saw my sister which was a big thing.
And what I want to tell that in the war I lost my parents. I lost four sisters, two of them got killed by the Ukrainians with axes when they try to go back to see my father for the last time then run away to Russia. And one sister was in the Partisan with her husband and a kid and the Polish partisans from the AK, the People’s Army, they killed her. There were four girls; they cut their stomachs and killed her but the boy was alive. When her husband came back—he was on a mission to dynamite a train—he saw the girls dead. He washed off the boy from the blood. Left him in Krakow near a monastery and we found the baby two years later. He’s in Israel. He was in the Israeli army. He looks like my younger brother. Yes, any other questions, yes?
AUDIENCE MEMBER:
When you came to the United States how did you make your living in the United States? Were you a painter?
SUSAN SNYDER:
When you came to the United States how did you make your living in the United States? Were you a painter?
MORRIS ROSEN:
First of all, when I came over here, I didn’t like at all. Not only because I didn’t know the language, but people were very nasty to me. I was like a ten cent-- a tenth grade citizen. They couldn’t find-- if somebody came over from Europe here, they just disliked them. First of all, we didn’t speak English and they all the time-- if I came to a store or something, they all the time laughed that I can’t talk or anything, so I answered them all the time either in Polish or in German, cussed them out that they didn’t know what’s go on. But then, you know, I didn’t have no choice.
I started painting because this was my living. Of course, I got only paid $18.00 a week, hard labor, 10 hours a day. Later I found out, in the school I went to-- number one school on Green Street in Baltimore-- and then I went to the Maryland Institute of Art, which I went six years there. I graduated from there-- post graduated as an interior designer, yes, and I got used to it. Although Baltimore, to me, was a small city. Whenever I wanted to enjoy, I went-- every weekend I got paid I went to New York to have a good time, to see my friends. But Baltimore was like a small city.
SUSAN SNYDER:
One more question? Yes?
AUDIENCE MEMBER:
It’s clear form your presentation that you have many qualities that enabled you to survive. Could you put into words what you think the qualities were [inaudible]?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, it’s not qualities.
SUSAN SNYDER:
It’s-- let me just repeat the question. It’s clear that from your [inaudible] do you have any qualities that helped you to survive? Can you verbalize some of these?
MORRIS ROSEN:
Yes. First of all, I have the will to survive and I said I have to survive. I have to survive to tell what’s happening-- what happened during the war. My buddies, all my friends, perished, they got killed and they died on the death marches and I said, “I’m going to survive.” Like people in the street on the death march when they saw a little cigarette bum they run out. I says, “What are you doing? You going to get killed.” They got hit and when they got hit they got bloody, they died; they didn’t have no way to stop the blood.
I was all the time clean. I never went in camp—even I was hungry—I would never went to see something about something-- from some soup or something was left over. We were a bunch, eight boys; we kept our self together. No matter how much hungry we were-- how hungry we were, we all the time talk about books. What did you read? Which movie did you see? Which girlfriend did you have? Not to talk about food. You talk about food, “Oh, I ate rolls and this—” You got hungry. We all the time eliminated about food. I had the will to live no matter what happened, no matter-- I got once a beating there. I have to live and I did my best and I’m glad I survived to tell the story.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Well, Morris, I think I’m going to end here and I’m going to allow you to make one last comment but I would-- before I let Morris do that I just wanted to invite you that afterwards if you have some additional questions you’re welcome to come to the stage and talk to Morris.
MORRIS ROSEN:
Well, first of all for you youngsters, what I want to say, that education is the most important thing in your life. If you’re not educated, you’re nothing. You have to work hard all your life. If you have your education, you be somebody. I was not lucky to have the education. I wish I would. That’s what I’m missing the whole thing and the next I want to say, please, you see what happened when prejudice-- if you against white or black or whatever religion it is, this can bring another Holocaust. You see what was in Rwanda, what was going on in Yugoslavia. You see what’s going now on Darfur. You’re the generations that they can prevent this. And please, listen to me, you hear from a survivor, don’t let it happen again. Thank you for listening.
SUSAN SNYDER:
Thank you, Morris.
