Abraham Lewent
Born: 1924, Warsaw, Poland
Describes conditions in Skarzysko camp [Interview: 1989]
And when I came into that camp, so the first thing they asked me, "what do you...What do you know what to do?" So I told them this. Everybody says if you say you are good in mechanics and metal work, you will have a better job. That's what I said. Some people said as a tailor, some...So they asked me, "A young kid like this?" I said "I learned it at school." So they gave me...they put me in a...building, and they used to make parts for...ammunition parts, and, and I was working over there maybe two months every day, sometime nights, sometime days. Food, very little. Very little food. You couldn't even exist on that food they give you. But
somehow you...you just survived.
And when I came into that camp, so the first thing they asked me, "what do you...What do you know what to do?" So I told them this. Everybody says if you say you are good in mechanics and metal work, you will have a better job. That's what I said. Some people said as a tailor, some...So they asked me, "A young kid like this?" I said "I learned it at school." So they gave me...they put me in a...building, and they used to make parts for...ammunition parts, and, and I was working over there maybe two months every day, sometime nights, sometime days. Food, very little. Very little food. You couldn't even exist on that food they give you. But
somehow you...you just survived.
Like other Jews, the Lewents were confined to the Warsaw ghetto. In 1942, as Abraham hid in a crawl space, the Germans seized his mother and sisters in a raid. They perished. He was deployed for forced labor nearby, but escaped to return to his father in the ghetto. In 1943, the two were deported to Majdanek, where Abraham's father died. Abraham later was sent to Skarzysko, Buchenwald, Schlieben, Bisingen, and Dachau. U.S. troops liberated Abraham as the Germans evacuated prisoners.
— US Holocaust Memorial Museum - Collections
