KSIĘGA PAMIĘCI - Izrael Dutkiewicz / Norwegia - cz. 4/4

cz. 4/4

Spośród tych, którzy oddani byli myśli syjonistycznej, przypomnieć należy towarzyszy:

Mosze Zylbersztajna, Abrama i Mosze Rajzmanów, Mosze Wdowińskiego, Mosze Prajsa, Majera Finkelsztajna, Lejba Waksbojma, Izraela Henocha, Chaima Dykiermana, Altera Ingbera, Jehudę Breslera, Jechiela Mejersona, Wolfa Wygnańskiego, Motla Solowicza, Lejbusza Pleszowskiego, Cwi Machtyngiera, Lejbusza Lipmanowicza, Mosze Ledermana, Tuwje Apelsztajna, Menasze i Izraela Mauerów, Altera Pleszowskiego, Jechiela Zakhejma i Izraela Dudkiewicza.

Na koniec chcę poświęcić kilka zdań mojemu towarzyszowi i przyjacielowi Mosze Prajsowi błogosławionej pamięci. Ze swej natury był bardzo delikatnym młodym człowiekiem, niezdolnym do czynienia zła. Był bardzo lubiany wśród swych towarzyszy, a jednocześnie szanowany nawet przez swoich politycznych przeciwników. Mosze Prajs błogosławionej pamięci wiódł przykładne życie rodzinne i cieszył się estymą wśród całej żydowskiej społeczności. Zapisał się jako człowiek inteligentny i dobrze wychowany.

Przeżył pierwszą akcję likwidacyjną żydowskiego getta w Jędrzejowie i znalazł się w małym getcie. Jego żonę Zośkę oraz ich 4-letnią córeczkę Minele wysłano do Treblinki. Mosze Prajs znalazł się w małym getcie samotny i zgorzkniały. Jego tęsknota za żoną i dzieckiem była nie do opisania.

Po likwidacji małego getta wysłano go, razem z pozostałym jędrzejowskimi Żydami, do obozu pracy w Skarżysku. Wraz z dwoma towarzyszami udało mu się uciec i powrócić do Jędrzejowa. Wszyscy trzej zostali tam jednakże zabici przez polskich morderców.

Niech tych kilka strof o nim będzie kadiszem - nigdy niezmówionym nad nieznanym grobem mojego najlepszego towarzysza i przyjaciela Mosze Prajsa błogosławionej pamięci.

 

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Tłumaczenia wybranych tekstów z Księgi Pamięci Żydów jędrzejowskich

[Sefer-HaZikaron LeYehudi Yendzhyev pod redakcją Shimshona Dov Yerushalmi, Tel Aviv, 1965]

Autor tłumaczenia z języka jidysz: MICHAŁ MAZIARZ 

Zrealizowano w ramach stypendium Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego

 

KSIĘGA PAMIĘCI - Lejbusz Edelist / Toronto

Co się stało z naszymi braćmi podczas drugiej wojny światowej

Kiedy poproszono mnie o spisanie moich wspomnień o Jędrzejowie, okazało się to trudnym zadaniem.

Od 1928 roku mieszkam w Kanadzie. Pamiętam, że urodziłem się w Jędrzejowie, tam mieszkali moi drodzy rodzice - mój ojciec, błogosławionej pamięci Jekl Edelist i moja mama Chana Fejga. Moja rodzina była, dzięki Bogu, liczna [w oryginale: kenejna hore czyli  „bez złego oka” - słowa wypowiadane by ustrzec się uroku. Za: https://delet.jhi.pl/pl/psj?articleId=17776]. Dom był pełen dzieci - moich braci i sióstr. Większość z nich została wymordowana przez Hitlera, niech jego imię będzie wymazane.

Pamiętam dwie rzeczy z mojego dzieciństwa.

Po pierwsze, mój tata błogosławionej pamięci  chciał abym został rabinem, ale nigdy do tego nie doszło. Owszem, uczyłem się w jesziwie. Moim nauczycielem był Josele z Chełma, zięć Jechiela Szejnfelda z Kielc i wnuk Judla Kaminera z Podzamcza, rabinów z Góry Kalwarii, a mówiąc wprost - mój teść.

Reb Josele z Chełma był ważną postacią podczas Strasznych Dni [w judaizmie dziesięć dni nowego roku - od święta Rosz Ha-szana do Jom Kipur - przyp. MM] na dworze dynastii Ger [jedna ze słynnych chasydzkich dynastii wywodząca się z Góry Kalwarii - Ger w języku jidysz - przyp. MM ]. Jego niguny śpiewane są do dziś w sztiblach Ger na całym świecie.

Druga rzecz, którą pamiętam (mówi się, że pamiętamy tylko głupstwa) to to, co wyrabialiśmy będąc uczniami bet-hamidraszu. To były naprawdę straszne głupstwa, których żałuję do dzisiaj - i być może żałują ich razem ze mną wszyscy, którzy brali w nich udział?

W miesiącu tamuz [dziesiąty miesiąc kalendarza żydowskiego - czerwiec-lipiec w kalendarzu gregoriańskim - przyp. MM], w pierwszą jorcajt [rocznicę śmierci - przyp. MM] Benjamina Zewa Hercla błogosławionej pamięci [Teodor Herzl, ideologiczny twórca Państwa Izrael. Chodzi więc o rok 1905 - Herzl zmarł 3 czerwca 1904 r.], jędrzejowscy syjoniści chcieli urządzić ceremonię w bet-hamidraszu. Syjonizm był wtedy trefny [w znaczeniu: zakazany - przyp. MM] wśród ludzi religijnych. Dlatego wszyscy uczniowie bet-hamidraszu zaczęli modlić się na głos aby zagłuszyć głos chazana, który odmawiał słowa upamiętnienia. I udało im się!

Myślę, że Księga Pamięci służy właśnie przywoływaniu takich kuriozów [jak opisane powyżej]. Chodzi o to by opowiedzieć naszym dzieciom, a potem ich dzieciom, co mogło się wydarzyć w miasteczku ich przodków.

A teraz kilka zdań o tym jak zareagowaliśmy na wielkie nieszczęście, które spotkało polskich Żydów i naszych jędrzejowskich męczenników. Dowiedziawszy się, że żyje jeszcze niewielka liczba jędrzejowskich Żydów, którzy znajdują się w Niemczech, szybko zorganizowaliśmy Jędrzejowskie Towarzystwo Pomocowe i choć było nas niewielu - mój brat Chaim, Abram Pleszowski, jego siostra Bajla, Rubinsztajn, Gołda Zernicka i ja - pracując ponad siły wysłaliśmy do Niemiec tyle paczek z żywnością ile tylko mogliśmy. Nawiązaliśmy również kontakt z ludźmi z Jędrzejowa w Nowym Jorku, którzy wydelegowali do nas przyjaciół - Mosze Chencińskiego i Berla Mordkowicza. Wspólnie opracowaliśmy plan akcji pomocowych dla naszych jędrzejowskich współziomków i robiliśmy wszystko, aby  mogli jak najszybciej opuścić te przeklęte Niemcy i znaleźć schronienie w Izraelu lub w innym kraju, w którym Żydzi mogą być wolni.

Z radością i zadowoleniem przyjęliśmy decyzję o wydaniu Księgi Pamięci poświęconej naszej zniszczonej żydowskiej społeczności, naszym męczennikom. Postanowiliśmy pomóc w urzeczywistnieniu tak ważnej inicjatywy. Szczególne podziękowania należą się jędrzejowskiemu ziomkostwu z Nowego Jorku za zorganizowanie tej świętej pracy również w Kanadzie.

Każdy z nas, pochodzący z Jędrzejowa, z podziwem brał do ręki Księgę Pamięci i błogosławił tych, którzy wystawili naszemu miastu ten historyczny pomnik.

 

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Tłumaczenia wybranych tekstów z Księgi Pamięci Żydów jędrzejowskich

[Sefer-HaZikaron LeYehudi Yendzhyev pod redakcją Shimshona Dov Yerushalmi, Tel Aviv, 1965]

Autor tłumaczenia z języka jidysz: MICHAŁ MAZIARZ 

Zrealizowano w ramach stypendium Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego

 

 

 

Abraham Bomba - relacja

Everyone, who worked in Treblinka, went around with a plan to escape, but carrying the plan out was a very difficult task. Firstly, one had to have a great deal of money and that was one of the most difficult things to obtain, as anyone found with even one złoty or other valuables, would be directly shot. In addition, one had to choose with whom to escape, because one feared to let the vapour from one's mouth out about escaping - even to the best, good friend. [Even if] one already had all this, one of the hardest tasks was how to go about [actually] rescuing oneself from Treblinka.

We were a group made up of Hersz Goldsztajn, Herszel Kaufman, Chaskel Kaufman, Izaak Zajdman, Jechiel Berkowicz, Lajbel Rozental (Schnellzug [Express-train]), Jankiel Ajzner and me. Once it became known that I was a barber, from time to time, I would cut the hair of the kapo Benjamin Rakowski, and also that of the head kapo, Blaj. The kapo Rakowski came from Jędrzejów and he was fond of me because I resembled one of his brothers, whom I had aided to escape from Treblinka with ten other people - all from the city of Jędrzejów. By the way, from this group of eleven people, only one survived - Lajbisz Pleszewski, who, to this day, lives in the State of Israel. This Rakowski directed me to work in his brother’s place, at the barrack, and I took in another ten men to take the place of those who had escaped. There, it was possible for me to gather money and valuables. Thus we, the aforementioned group, stockpiled in a large rucksack until, on a certain day, we decided that tonight we will escape!

We wrapped the rucksack very carefully in a quilt, to convey the impression that we were taking a quilt with us into the barrack, where we slept, in order to cover ourselves. After roll-call, when it was very dark, we crawled out of the barrack on our bellies. The first was Izaak Zajdman, then Hersz Goldsztajn and then me. When we were already some twenty metres from the barrack, we saw two Ukrainians threw themselves upon Izaak Zajdman. When we saw that they were not shooting him, but just speaking with him, we drew back into the barrack. They immediately entered the barrack with Izaak Zajdman and ordered the commander* (this was Engineer Galewski from Warsaw, a Jewish apostate)

* [TN: In the historical sources, he appears as having been the camp’s “Lageraltester” (Camp Senior Prisoner), or Head Kapo, before Rakowski. That said, as in our text he is invariably referred to as “kommandant,” we shall use “commander,” albeit in a loose sense.]

that all the people of the barrack were to go out onto the [assembly] square. When we emerged, we were put in [rows of] four and the two Ukrainians led Zajdman out, so he should say who else had been with him. But Zajdman did not betray anyone. They talked for a while with the commander about something, after which they ordered everyone to go back inside the barrack. It would seem that the sack of money they had taken from Zajdman had enticed them and they did not inform the German SS.

A couple of days later, we again began gathering money and planned to escape. Once more, we had a considerable sack of money. [Then,] Lajbel Rozental approaches me, saying that he wanted half of the rucksack with money. He was escaping with someone from Warsaw and [said] that we were too large of a group. He had found out that the man from Warsaw knew the road by which to escape. I discussed with Hersz Goldsztajn as to what I should do. Hersz told me to give Lajbel half of the rucksack with money and that is what I did. Lajbel took the money and, at roll-call, we already did not see him, nor in the barrack to sleep. That meant that perhaps he had succeeded in escaping - or that he had been shot.

Some four weeks later, [as] we are going to work in the morning, a certain Kuzecki (his father was a cobbler in the Old Market) comes up to me and tells me that Lajbel Rozental had returned. I thought that he had lost his mind. How did he mean, “Lajbele’s back?”. I enter the barrack where we worked, sorting tresses [of hair]. I take a look. It was true, Lajbele Schnellzug was back in Treblinka. I ask him, “What happened? Why have you come back?”. He tells me it was for our sake that he returned, because he wished to show us the escape route. Soon, the entire camp knew that someone had stolen back into the camp.

Commander Galewski, who also dreamed of how one could escape, came up and spoke with him and instructed him to return to work.

At night, in the barrack, we grilled him as to how he had escaped and by which route one could flee. He glances at us and says that only one of us can escape. That is Hersz Goldsztajn, because he looks like a Christian. He also showed us an identity card in the name of a Christian living in Praga, near Warsaw.

It was not long before Commander Galewski summoned Lajbel and spoke with him for hours, late into the night. When Lajbel came back to our group, he told us that the commander had grilled him on how one could escape.

The following morning, when we were going to work, I noticed that Lajbele was consorting with the kapos of the camp and that they gave him something, which he very quickly concealed. When the day passed and we returned to the barrack, Lajbele Schnellzug was no longer there. At once, we understood that Lajbel had again escaped, but that he had not taken anyone with him - not even Hersz Goldsztajn, who looked like a Christian.

Lajbel was in Praga, near Warsaw and, later, in Wola [a suburb of Warsaw]. But a couple of months later, Lajbele was brought back to Treblinka, in a convoy of Jews. By then, people were no longer being selected for work, so that the entire convoy, [together] with Lajbele, was killed in the gas chambers.

My friend Boraks from Radomsko told me this later. When Lajbele was brought back to Treblinka, I was no longer there, as I had already escaped.

On the day following Lajbele’s escape, we saw that the SS men were going about, whispering to each other. I understood that someone had let the SS know what had transpired here - that a Jew had broken in to steal money and had fled back out with a great deal of money, and that the commander had also had a conversation with him.

We soon saw the SS men summon the commander. They shouted at him and let him have it over the head with their boots. He [tried] justifying himself a little and they went directly over to the group in which I was working. And here, the commander pointed at Szlojme Czapnik, Hersz Goldsztajn, the two Fajner brothers from ul. Warszawska, the two from Piotrków and at me.

They led us away from the working group, but kapo Rakowski at once came running and said something to the commander. The commander came over to me and asked me if I was the barber. I said that I was. He said, “Pardon me, I didn’t mean you”, and told me to go back to work. The six other men were led to the lazaret [infirmary], where they were shot. As I understood it, the kapo Rakowski had repaid me for helping his brother to escape.

The day following these events, I noticed that kapos were speaking about something and constantly looking at the group in which I was working. Chaskel Kaufman, Jankiel and Jechiel Berkowicz were working with me. A little further away, Mojsze Rapoport, Szymon Amsterdam and the Wolman brothers (they were called “the comedians of ul. Kozia”) were woring.

We talked it over and decided that three men should escape - Mojsze Rapaport, Jankiel Ajzner and one of the two brothers who had worked for Neufeld at the skład apteczny [pharmaceutical warehouse (in Częstochowa)]. I do not recall their names. We could not send two brothers together because, if one did not succeed, the second could try his luck - maybe the second would make it.

Prior to roll-call, they concealed themselves in the piles of things that were there. This was on a Thursday. On the morrow, it was quiet at work, from which we understood that the three comrades had successfully escaped. We decided that, on Saturday night, we - me, Jechiel Berkowicz and Chaskel Kaufman - would attempt to escape.

As Chaskel Kaufman was with a brother Herszel, it was decided that he, Chaskel, [and not his brother,] would be in the group.

On Saturday, all day long we made a bunker. We took turns every hour so that, by roll-call, we had completed the bunker.

Before roll-call, as we were hurrying to hide ourselves, we noticed that someone was snooping around too much in the same place where we had the bunker. This was a certain man who had collaborated with the Gestapo in Czestochowa. His name was Kolenbrener. We pulled back, understandably, and decided to go into the bunker a day later, on Sunday.

On Sunday, we calmly worked [through] the day and, in the evening, hid ourselves in the bunker. After roll call, Ukrainians and the SS snooped about, searching if anyone had concealed themselves. From the hiding place, we saw that they were stabbing things through with the lances and checking if anyone was not hiding.

We observed that, after a few minutes of searching, they left the square and we breathed a little more freely. We lay there thus for a couple of hours, until we decided to crawl out. The only place through which it was possible to escape was the infirmary, because there were only a couple of barbed wires there. We scraped out of the hiding place on our stomachs and [began] crawling. The fire in the infirmary burned on the side and we crawled to the barbed fence. The first to crawl over was Jechiel Berkowicz, the next was me and then Chaskel Kaufman. On the other side, there were watchtowers with searchlights. The searchlights were on, but there was no one inside [the towers]. We rolled [slithered?] on our stomachs in this manner for a couple of hundred metres and then we stood up and began to run. We ran for hours into the night, until two in the morning - until we heard, not far from us, talk in Ukrainian. We realised that we were in the camp, at the Ukrainians’ [billets]. This meant that, during five hours, we had run in circles and that we had not progressed more than one kilometre at most.

Immediately, we turned into another direction and began running, until we came to a river. That was the [River] Bug. We were six kilometres from Treblinka. It was about five o'clock in the morning and soon dawn began breaking. From some way off, we noticed a rural cabin. Jechiel Berkowicz went in and soon emerged, telling us what the peasant woman had told him - that the entire area was surrounded by the Gestapo and that we needed to flee immediately in another direction.

We began running until we came to a bridge. This was the Malkina Bridge but, in the distance, we noticed a German guard. We feared crossing this bridge. It was already broad daylight. At nine o'clock in the morning, we decided to hide in a pit in a field until nightfall and to continue running at night.

As we lay in the field inside the pit, we saw a peasant pass by in a wagon. We called him over and told him that we had escaped from Treblinka and would it be possible for him to take us into his barn. He tells us that he must ride to work. We asked him if perhaps we could pay him for the work. We finally convinced him. He pointed out his barn to us from afar and we went inside. But he knows nothing about this. If we are asked, we are to say that we stole in. That is what we did. We were there all day. At night, the sołtys [leader] of the village came and told us that he would lead us out of the village and show us which way to go. He did, in fact, take us to the main road and we walked through the night until daybreak. In the morning, we came to a village. At the front of the house, we saw a woman opening the door. We approached the house and the woman told us to go inside. We were there for a week. The second week, we stayed with one of the peasant’s friends in that same village. I remember that peasant's name - Piotr Supeł.

We left the house of the good peasant Piotr Supeł. This was in the village Zagrodniki, near Ostrówek Węgrowski. The peasant travelled with us to Warsaw. In Warsaw, we gave him money and he bought us tickets to Częstochowa.

As we were saying our goodbyes, Piotr Supeł’s wife wept and she beseeched us to write to her, should any of us survive.

After the War, I wrote her a letter, to which I received the reply that her husband and his friend had perished in Mauthausen. She had married a Jew. I could have sworn that she was a Jewish woman.

Of our entire group, [the only] survivors were Jankiel Ajzner, who lives in Israel, Mojsze Rapaport, Jechiel Berkowicz and I [who live] in the United States.

Źródło / source:

Abraham L. Bomba - My Escape from Treblinka

http://www.czestochowajews.org/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiv2Kig3PvtAhUnlYsKHctxCwcQFjAAegQIAhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.czestochowajews.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FCzestochowa-1958-Book-Treblinka-pp-57-59.pdf&usg=AOvVaw07ym5-9LzxRUaQ-TKXBlxT

Wystawa Ruchoma Prób i Wzorów Przemysłu Krajowego

 

(…)
W roku 1910 została w Warszawie zorganizowana Wystawa Ruchoma Prób i Wzorów Przemysłu Krajowego, mająca na celu szerzenie wśród społeczeństwa polskiego idei samowystarczalności gospodarczej.
Wystawa ta w ciągu swej pracy od 1910 do 1914 r. odwiedziła prawie wszystkie większe miejscowości b. Kongresówki, urządzając przeszło 100 wystaw. (…)
Odrodzona Polska odziedziczyła po czasach niewoli cały szereg grzechów. Jednym z nich to nieznajomość ze strony społeczeństwa całokształtu własnego życia gospodarczego. Handel i przemysł w dalszym ciągu, jak przed wojną, zaopatrują się w towary przez Berlin i Wiedeń, pomimo że te same produkty wytwarzamy w kraju. Tak się dzieje, ponieważ niestety dawne dzielnice jeszcze dotychczas wzajemnie dobrze nie poznały się. Drugim grzechem jest bezmyślne hołdowanie zasadzie, że co zagraniczne, to lepsze. Kupujemy nieraz tandetę obcą za drogie pieniądze, mając tańsze i lepsze wyroby krajowe. To też często przemysłowiec zmuszony jest dawać swym towarom etykietę obcą lub kupuje prawo używania marki zagranicznej, aby tylko znaleźć możność zbytu swych wyrobów.
(…)
W roku 1924/5 reakcja przeciw takiemu stanowi rzeczy wywołała powstanie organizacyj, mających na celu popieranie wytwórczości krajowej i doprowadziła do wznowienia działalności Wystawy Ruchomej.
(…) Wystawa urządziła 90 postojów, które łącznie z przedwojennemi zwiedziło przeszło 2.000.000 osób ze wszystkich sfer społeczeństwa. (…) ilośc zwiedzających dosięga od 30 do 120% ludności danego miasta. Są więc nieraz takie ośrodki, gdzie tylko starcy i dzieci nie byli na Wystawie.

(…)

Wystawa Powiatowa w Jędrzejowie trwać będzie od 6 do 9 lutego r. b. [1930] w Gmachu Straży Ogniowej.
Dla zorganizowania jej zawiązał się Komitet Powiatowy Wystawy (…)
Do Prezydjów Sekcyj weszli:
S. Przemysłowa: pp. I. Ickowicz i I. Szpilberg
S. Rzemieślnicza: pp. (…) S. Pelman (…)
S. Spółdzielcza: pp. (…), I. Giberman
S. Kupiecka: pp. (…), D. Zelcer
(…)
Wystawa w Jędrzejowie została otwarta w dn. 6 b.m. o godzinie 12-ej w południe przez p. starostę Białego przy dźwiękach Hymnu Narodowego, odegranego przez orkiestrę Straży Ogniowej. (…)
Wystawa przedstawia się dobrze. Podkreślić należy wybitniejszy udział stolarzy (…).
(…)

List Pochwalny:
S. Pelman - Zakład Stolarski w Jędrzejowie - za solidnie i estetycznie wykonane wyroby stolarskie.
(…)
H. Pleszewski - Zakład Krawiecki w Jędrzejowie - za solidnie wykonane prace krawieckie.
J. Śledzik - Zakład Krawiecki w Jędrzejowie - za dobrze wykonaną robotę krawiecką.

(…)
Podziękowanie:
Rubinek - Wytwórnia Wyrobów Skórzanych w Jędrzejowie - za wyrób pasów przepuklinowych.

Wystawa cieszy się znaczną frekwencją. Trzeba podkreślić specjalnie obywatelskie stanowisko Straży Ogniowej, która nie tylko ofiarowała bezinteresownie lokal lecz urządza codziennie koncerty swej orkiestry.
(…)

Źródło:

Wiadomości Wystawowe Wystawy Okręgowej Przemysłu Krajowego w Kielcach - Kielce, 7 lutego 1930

Abraham Bomba - relacja

Avraham Bomba was born in Boyden – Oberslazen, Germany. His family moved from Germany to Czestochowa, Poland. He was deported from Czestochowa Ghetto, to the Treblinka death camp, on 25 September 1942.

A barber by profession, he was selected to work, whilst his wife, son, brother and other members of his family were murdered on their arrival at Treblinka. He escaped from Treblinka in January 1943 and returned to Czestochowa Ghetto. He later settled in Israel, and also appeared in the Claude Lanzmann film "Shoah" produced in 1985.

(...)

I worked in a barrack where people were hiding. I did it myself too before I escaped from Treblinka. What was … the barrack was full of clothes.. bundles made out of clothes. So what we did we put the bundles in the barrack, one on top of the other until the roof.

People tried to escape.

What they did they went in the daytime during the work in the barracks and they remained there. And they hid themselves between the clothes. But it happened by accident when the clothes moved, they could never go out and got choked there. At one time we took out from a barrack the size I would say maybe about 40, 60… 40,50 meters, over 30 people. Dead ones! I did the same thing when I escaped. But before that I worked over there and I tried to help some people any way I could. At one time he came in, he was a Kapo. His name was in Jewish Ben Yamin Yakoski. Have you heard that name? You did – he had a brother over there. Very nice, religious individual boy. He was from a town of Yen Jeif [Jedrzejow] which is not far from Kielce.

He came in he said, “Abe, I trust you. Tonight, my people, my brother they are going, they are planning an escape. Eleven of them.”  What should I do?” He said, “You know you have some landsmen from your town working outside, not in the barrack, but outside?” I said “Yes.” “Tomorrow morning after the Appell, you bring in your friends. If somebody comes in to you and tell their friends they are working all the time here.”

Naturally I did whatever he told me.

In the morning … group I worked with them, eleven of them disappeared. Then in came the assistant commandant we called him Lalka, that name you heard already many times. He came in the barrack and he looked at me, “What are you doing?” I said I am working on the cloth… looking what is there , cotton, this and that. “Are the same people working here what worked yesterday?” I said, “Yes, everybody’s the same were working.”

It wasn’t true. 

What those people crouching the other side of the gate, they left some kind of sign on the trees. At night they couldn’t take away this from the trees. And he saw that somebody went through that.

He came over to me, he took my hat he started to knock in a wooden block which hold... But I was like paralyzed. Didn’t feel at all. Just for the thing what they had I was scared. They are taking out to kill me. I didn’t feel it all. Behind him was a friend of mine Eisack Sidman. He was standing with a knife over there behind him. And if he would take out the gun, he would kill him.

But it happened that he knocked and knocked and I didn’t say a word to him, so he thought maybe I didn’t know nothing. So he let me go.

Then at night after work, people came in, “What happened?” I told them, for those people they escaped. After that I found out what happened to them, from all those eleven people, two were alive when I returned to Czestochowa. All the other nine were killed by Poles. They went back to their home town in Yan Jeif  [Jedrzejow] and they were very rich. They were like I would say Rockefeller. They had possessions; they call themselves I would say in German, the Bundt’s.  They got killed.

Two of the men I met in the ghetto of Czestochowa when I came back from Treblinka, they couldn’t stay there and they went somewhere away. I never saw them again. That was one part, but the second part we decide to run away. The first thing is we had to get money. When you go out, when you come to the Poles, its impossible to live without it. So we tried to get some money and that wasn’t a hard job to get. The money wasn’t a hard job to get the money, but to get the money was our job. If they find on you one zloty or one dollar you get killed. So about eight or nine from our hometown. One is still alive, he is 85 years old, he lives in Israel, Yakia Bisner, a friend of mine.

And this one, particularly this one, I took him away from the gas chamber three times. He had such kind of eyes, you look at him and you get scared. And twice the Germans took him in told him to go to the gate which goes into the gas chamber. And I was form the side. I threw clothes on him. I took him away. And the third time he went and he worked together with me.

We were together all the time and we collected money together to escape. And matter of fact, he escaped before me. Also organised this thing, we decided who’s going to go. He went away with two other ones, the other ones got killed where he is still alive.

(...)

The above oral history testimony is the result of a videotaped interview with Avraham Bomba conducted by Linda Kuzmack on 28 August 1990 on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

Źródło:

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/bomba.html