Our guest this week on Veterans Chronicles is Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum. The impact
of the Holocaust on his family is staggering and we are honored to have him
with us in studio to share his story. And mister Greenbaum, thank you
very much for being here. My pleasure tell our listeners and our viewers when
and where you were born? Bob was born April fourth, nineteen twenty eight.
I called from my family of nine children, star Jovids, Poland.
It was seventy five kilometers ato Warsaw. Where were you out of the nine
children? It was before the Nazis invaded Poland that one of your sisters went
to the United States. Correct, she came here in nineteen thirty seven.
In one of my responses of that, when was my brother, my father's
brother, Charlie. He had two brothers and a sister, and the immigrated
to New York and nineteen old four. It was easy to come to this
country in those days. In nineteen thirty seven when she left, was it
because she was worried about Germany? Or was it for different reasons? No,
just a different reasons. Tried to make a better life for herself.
We all tried to come here, but the immigrational OSMO kind of tough before
the Nazis invaded. What was your childhood like? My child was just a
normal upbringing. I went to public school. I went to Hebrew school and
played a lot of games with other children, mostly soccer. Was there any
animosity towards the Jewish families before the Germans and what? I don't remember anything
like that. I don't think we had that m chanta Semitism in my town
too much. They were worries. Your father was worried long before the invasion
that it was coming. Yes, he got us jobs in the munition factory.
My three sisters and myself already working in the munition factory. You're just
ten or eleven years old. I was twelve years old, twelve years old?
What was that like? It was good. I mean I looked forward
to it. If I didn't go to school. I went to the factory
to work mostly at schools until they identified us with the yellow staff David in
the front and then the back. They put the yellow saw on us and
we came to school. The teachers said, no school for Jews anymore.
You can't come to school anymore. But Hebrew school. We finagled around somewhere
somebody else's house. He were able to keep it up for a little while,
even before the Nazis came. You suffered a major tragedy when your father
passed away. Yes, two months before he passed away, he's going he's
the one that made a living in the tailor's shop. But the older brothers
and the other brother. But then one of the was drafted in the Polish
army and he had to fight the war with Germany. The other brother was
home with us, so we thought. Mom thought that day will take over
the business and run it the way we were made a living. That the
big of a deal. But nevertheless we had a shop to take care of.
People come in, they want to fix things brand new or maybe shortened,
maybe lengthen let out again. And also the girls would come in two
with ladies close and Mom would have the girls helping along with that. Had
your father trained them over the years, Oh yes, I'm sure he learned
the two older ones. My job was very easy. I had to keep
the eye in gold hot. In those days, we didn't every electric irons.
We had iron with a hollow tummy and it was filled up with coal,
I guess, and I had to lay on the floor with a piece
of corboard paper. It either blown out of my breath or either moving along
get some air started so the iron get hot. If I didn't go to
public school. Tell me about September first, nineteen thirty nine, when the
invasion came. What did that mean for you? Well, I was,
I was actually scared, but Mama showed us she remembers World War One that
they didn't bother us too much. The Jewish people now and then you know,
somebody got beat up. How did you experience the invasion? When did
they come to your town? Oh, when they came to my town.
We wore on a farm then, and my father passed away. God Mom
got very protective, especially over the girls. And the one brother was only
home with us, the oldest brother. The other was with the during in
the Polish army. She got a horse and buggy for my neighbor and they
took us ten miles away onto a farm. And the farmily knew us because
he would bring every Thursday eggs butter or to our either he was on the
marketplace or sometimes he would come in if he had some work to do.
And they put us up for three days, and by they were invading my
town, except them by the ten I think when they took over the town
and my mom told the girls they can't go nowhere. They had to stay
put in the home, and she gave all the protection they need. Did
little did she know what was waiting for her that she cannot give her any
protection at all. If the girl had or free to go, maybe they
can find a job on her farm's aware, but she didn't let no one
leave. They had to stay put there and with the protection of her.
And then while we were there on the farm put for two days, we
were eating our breakfast outside. The farmer gave us bread and butter and we
had to think of a tomato off the vine. And if you finished that,
you're a good breakfast. You were not hungry. And we say that
for two days, and we heard all the commotion going on in town because
we were only ten miles away, so we heard the bombardment and all that
going on. But she didn't want us around there, so no ladder was
got hurt in two days. On the second day, when we were eating
our breakfast outside, we saw I approaching I soldier coming our way, and
we didn't know who the soldier was. The Polish was Russian was the German?
We didn't know. As they got closer, my brother knew of him.
They knew each other like friends. They either from school or the either
he was a customer in our shop. He was a Polish uniform, a
soldier, had a lot of medals on him, so he was not a
private. He escaped from the Germans in the Upsite direction, away from the
Germans family in my years, he got close him. My brother addressed in
by his first name, and he called my brother by his first name,
and then he says, so him, where are you running away from?
He said, I'm running away from the German army and on the Upsite direction,
so I'll be free. So my brother asked him, is it okay
if I go along with you? And I, of course, I didn't
like to hear that. My oldest protector. I didn't think bombs will give
me that much protection or the girls who will give me any protection. It's
my older brother. I thought he was a hero in my book, but
he decided to run away and I didn't like that, so I chased that
to him for a couple of miles. Every time I lifted my head over
the bushes because we want a farm, he would say, go back to
your mother, go back to your mother. And I did listen to him
because I was mad at him. Why he was doing that. Then the
Polish soldier turner are in the elder be real loud. You're too young.
You cannot come with us. You better go back to your mother. I
said, okay, I her. I ran back a couple of miles and
told my mom what happened. She was upset. Dave run away. First
they came out of my mouth. Who's going to make a living for us?
Oh? She started crying, carrying on, and the girls assured that
that they're going to help three girls. Then you out to sew and you
know I can only make they are in heart, that's all likely, And
we settled for that, and then she calmed down. My sisters said they
could work on the man's clothes as well as they're tailoring on ladies clothes.
Not to worry about. And on the third day we picked up and we
went back to our house where we had to come through the at the market
place, and there I saw a picture of ten people hanging like on a
spring, you know, a swing without the change. Bodies were hanging.
Ten people, civilians were hung. And I asked, my mama said,
is this what they're going to do to us? She says, no,
no, no, no. Those were the Intelli against their people. They
were the lawyers, the doctors, very smart people from the town or maybe
communists, they don't know. So my mama showed me that they are to
take a word for it, and we by pass. And they were left
him over there hanging a whole week like a scarecrow. And then they took
him off and they had to bury the bodies because we didn't have any cremation
yet or there shamers, so that there felt better when I didn't have to
look at when I went outside of a walk or go to visit my sisters,
I was able to go yet. And then after they put us on
the yellow Salve David, then they were driving up at the trunks and grabbing
us on the trunks and they would take us out of the fields and we
would have to dig trenches for them. And sometimes my shift in the factory
was from three to eleven at night. I showed them the ID cards.
I said, I work. I have a job. Well, what time
would your job eleven? Well, we'll bring you back to the factory.
You work for us, and then we'll take you back. I said,
okay, So one day or two I had two shifts work over the army
and then going for the for the Polish governmental factors were still in the poor
ships. And then until Herman Going took over, they changed the factory name
to Hermann Goering Factory. Sarah, let's pause right there. We'll pick up
your amazing story in just a moment. I'm speaking with Henry Greenbaum, Holocaust
survivor on Veterans Chronicles. Welcome back to Veterans Chronicles. Honored to be joined
in studio today by Henry Greenbaum, a survivor of the Holocaust. I'm Greg
Corumbus. We've been just talking about the Nazi invasion of Poland and the immediate
impact on your family. How long was it after the invasion that your remaining
family was sent to the ghetto. Well, it was the middle of sending
it. They get those right there. We lived near the synagogue. The
ultra Hasidic Jews lived near the synagogue. We were like the third fourth house
from the synagogue, and the rest was scattered all over. And one day
they didn't let anybody go to work for twenty four hours, and they bought
extra soldiers in, extra dogs in, and they chased us out of the
ghetto area to a more open field. And there we saw the Jews that
did live in this area. My two mirror sisters didn't live in our area.
They lived somewhere else, but we saw them at that market place where
they marched us to. And then when you walked up, you had to
come through the soldiers and they were directing traffic which way you go. So
we walked up as a family, myself, my mom, my five sisters.
Three actually were married, but we gave one open, gave up the
little girl to go with the grandma because she was already working in the factories.
If we didn't know, they go to take him and kill him.
Wed to find out to left the war that all those they were separated from
us, able bodied people, pregnant women, handicapped people, olderly people,
people that just gave birth to a child, carrying the little tiny tots in
their hands, they were all separated from us. The only ones that they
lived there was able bodied people, on the ones that worked in the factory
and they had the IDs. So I'm ma sure that almost half of our
population they separate us from never made it. And we found out after the
war because we were looking for them after the war, going to different camps.
We came to bergen Belsen and there there was the British soldiers. They
freed bergen Belsen. I was freed by the Americans on the death March.
So I ran in to my first cousin. She says, what are you
doing here? Is that I'm looking for Mom, your aunt, and I'm
looking for your cousins with their children. She says, nobody from your family
or my family is in this camp at all. But I am going to
Poland after it was all over, after the occupation and looking for my brother.
I said, why are you there looking for your brother and look for
your cousin for his cousin Zachary, he was in the Polish army. So
she and I told her, I can I go with you? I'm too
scared. I want to be with Mom and staying there in the ghetto.
They took them away. We no longer saw them at all. To lift
at the wall. We were looking then and my cousin said, they nobody's
here, so we stopped looking for Then we ran into the highest people that
organized or on this election. The people that they survived, they said,
they don't look where they were killed. Two days later, in Treblanca,
they were all guessed to death. Because treb Blanca didn't have a didn't have
any more camps there, they came by train. They were ordered to the
guest chambered for a shower, and then they were guessed to death, and
then they were cremated. So that's all that happened in That's all happened in
true blanket. That's what they told me. If anything else you can investigate,
they must be more to it than that. But as far as I
know, the people that got there, they said, leave your luggage and
will deliver it to you. So the leg the luggage was left on the
train and they went to take a shower, undressed, take a shower,
and they were guests to death, and then they had to be buried,
you know, but they didn't have to be buried because they already had gas
chambers there. You were sent to a labor camp with I was right there,
and and the ghetto from October forty to October forty two, and that's
when they had that selection. They took the people away to Treblanca. They
didn't let us go back into our home. They chased us past our home
for six kilometers uphill the extra soldiers and the dogs. They were literally chased
to So whatever volleyballs, if you left and they in the ghetto area say
that the ghetto, you could not retrieve anything anymore. They chased you past
the ghetto. On top of a stone quarry. They built for us a
slave labor camp with the tower and the guards and the search lights and the
dogs and the barracks. The barracks will sitting stilts. And then if we
arrived at our destination, the low speaker came up, Attention, attention,
you must empty all your pockets, all your belonging. No money or gold
or jewelry can come through the gate other than yourself and your clothes. Otherwise
we will kill you. So everybody that didn't give away to the soldiers in
the ghetto, they were able to bribe the Eucreatians. They were not able
to bargain with the SS guys. But the Eucreatans, you give them a
watch or necklace or bracelet. It would begin bread extra bread, because in
the ghetto we wore on or I what they call it. They had to
bring in our food, and every week the food would get less and less
and less like us and soap. We did it about two weeks. We
were going with the soap, so we could not keep ourselves clean at all.
And then we had arrived. Nobody got hurt. Everybody furnished a little
blanket about three feet wide, rolled up, and then on the way to
the barrack, when the barrack was full, they each our signals. If
it was full, we went to another barrack, and the barrack consisted of
a wooden shack with bunks three bunks, but the bunks were not put any
straw or mattress or blanket or anything, just a plain wooden shelf. Three
guys to a wooden shelf. We had to sleep one mostly on the side.
Should be comfortable. So if one turn all on that the turn and
the blanket that we used it was all up like this anxious. They use
it for a pillow like so the board wouldn't press into your neck. If
we stayed there for one more year, we stay there, and that slave
lived became and we all returned to the factory to work. Communition now there
was all Germany already had it, and then we worked for them, and
then now and then they would take you away from the immunition printing out anti
air car shells to make springs or maybe bullets, or any other things to
teach you other than just stamping out and the air car shells. So by
the time you get through, you could almost do anything that the Polish men
did. Pause right there, We'll come back and do another segment with mister
Henry Greenbaum, survivor of the Holocaust on Veterans Chronicles. Welcome back to Veterans
Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus, honored to be joined today by Henry Greenbaum,
a survivor of the Holocaust. And sir, you were just telling us about
life inside the labor camp. This was the labor came with her jobs continued.
One of my sisters that gave up a child to grow with Grandma because
she was boy. She had an idea that she worked in the factory,
so she didn't want to, so she had to separate it from the child.
If she wanted the child, she could have known gone with her sisters
to Treblenca. They didn't know where they were going in those days, but
she had she could have done that. And by the way, her husband
was already in America too. Her husband came to New York set up a
lady's shoe factory. And how lucky could she have been with lady's shoes?
Her husband honed, it would have changed every half hour pay shoes. But
she did lift to to enjoy that because she was with me, but the
other two sisters, and she became a tailor. They were looking for volunteer
tailors to work on the German uniforms, on the high ranking officers uniforms,
and they told them, for six months you're going to be running a uniform
shop and you're going to repair things, and I'll tell you a week before
when you should have us ready, because all of you are going to be
deported out of here. So the tailors didn't like what they heard. They
said they were deported. They didn't tell us where, and you can't ask
questions. And after the almost the year was up, he came. The
high ranking officer came to the tailors and they told them, next week you
as most have all these things ready, because all of you are going to
be deported no more, no more slavely they became here, but they will
be sent away somewhere else where. They didn't tell us. So what happened.
They didn't let anybody go to work for twenty four hours. They always
have twenty four hours because of the different shifts, So there was twenty four
hours everybody was they may show everybody's under one roof. And then all of
a suddenly their trucks pulled up and they picked up all their uniforms intact,
and the tailors in the meantime organized that escape out of there. Oh,
we were guarded by the UK by the Ukrainians and the German Nazis, and
the dogs and the floodlights and their guns they had. They were guarding us
on the top of the tower. At nighttime, it was pitch shock.
All of a sudden, sister that joined the tailors came by with a Jewish
policeman. When I get back to thee to the barrack, from by eleven
to three, nor from seven thirty to eleven, we'll mix up from seven
in the morning to three in the afternoon. But then I had another shift
from eleven to three in the morning, then for three the morning to seven.
Anyway, she told me, do not go in when you're returning from
the slave labor camp. Do not go pain into the to live to the
factory, and don't go into the barrack. Rather stay outside and wait for
me, and it'll be pitched dark. I was already fifteen years old that
time, and she says we are going to escape. She wouldn't tell me
a week before, but that in case they beat you up and they get
some secrets out of you, I don't think I would ever reveal it,
but anyway, you never know. So she didn't help me till the night
before it. I'll come by to morrow at eleven when you have the shift.
When you come back, and I'm gonna come in, we're gonna run
out of fear. I was pitch dark. She came by with a Jewish
policeman that she had befriended. If she held his hand, she grabbed my
hand. If we were running maybe ten feet away to the hall, and
we were lined up chen in a group. So the tailors alone took k
of chen groups. There were a hundred tailors, and then whomever they told
lining up behind them in tendering the group. But the only thing happened that
only one can slip through at the place where they came to run away,
only one can slip through it at the time. So the third party,
the third of the ten who got out quietly, they brought up a clippers
from the factory and they cut the wire open on the fence. So two
people can or three people when you arrive at ten more people can squeeze through.
It will be faster. And that's what they did the third party.
Then they started breaking open the outdoor fence, and there was a wooden fence.
Even a hackle or a saw would make no lot of noise. They
kept breaking the wood to make the whole bigger. They made it bigger,
and then all of a sudden that attracted the dogs because they were barking and
screaming. The dogs and their guards knew something was wrong, so they flipped
the lights on. They flipped the lights on, and people were running towards
the escape route and they started shooting at them, shooting at them. They
were facing almost the hall too. The soldiers, we were facing the hall,
but we were standing up anyway. Some we killed some mead he just
injured, and some got out, and all of a sudden, when the
people stopped running out, already there was quite a few, I do all
remember how many a ten row more whomever the tailors stoled, like a cousin,
an uncle, a good friend, yo, a relative or whatever.
We didn't know that what happened. So we were standing there waiting for our
neck. And then they put the floodlights on us, and they started shooting
on us, and then they screamed, they screamed, some of the women
screaming in the group to the police Jewish policeman, what should we do?
Should we proceed to the hall or should be a suspicion to spurs. They
could only kill one at a time. They had the rifles only they did
have a machine gone, just a rifle, so they could only shoot one
at a time. And we all started making back to thee to the barracks.
I had mind not to go back to my barque where I belong,
to go into the women's barrack looko for my sister Fager, because the other
two one of them died of typhoid and the slave labor camp and one of
them high fever she didn't go line up for work. They shot her.
The ansare scrup and they killing her it. So I only had this one
sister husband in America and the daughter. Her daughter went by grandma to to
Treblenca, so I hardly had the one fagure. The one fager was not
there, and then I could not find her. So I said, well,
I'm going to start. He was running with the lights everywhere, but
if you lowered your head, and our barracks were on the opposite direction,
and I ran in to the woman's barrack, opened the door. The woman
stayed there. They can't tak her of thee of their barrack. You can't
come in here. You're full of blood. You're gonna get us all killed.
I said, I'm gonna go get you killed. I almost got killed
myself. I'm not going to kill you. They're not going to kill you.
They don't know I'm here. Yeah, but if they catch you here.
She was trying with all their strength to get me out. I sat
in the doorway and I didn't move. I said, you're gonna have to
pick me up and throw me away somewhere, but I'm not leaving this place.
So when everything quieted down. People stop already running back to their places.
Those two guards from the tower had their floodlights still going and anything they're
so moving. They shot and then all of a sudden people stopped running.
What they were doing in random They picked different barracks and the one of the
barracks were Lady Barrack, and they were shooting right through the wood. In
that wood cannot stop a bullet. The bullet went right straight through. The
women jumped off their bunks, their shell rother or bunk and on the floor.
They went on the food. They were sitting up like position like I
was sitting on the door, sell down on the bottom, and they sat
down in the front of their bunks on the bottom, on the floor,
and I was I contact with every one of them, and I looked for
my sister Vega. I didn't like the answer she gave me. She said
she's not here. You left to leave, no, And then I saw
I ran into my first cousin either the one I ran in. They jumped
myself ahead of time in the other camp where the British organized that, and
she asked me to go to Poland with her. She made it. She
did not escape she made it into this barrack and she said, I'm going
to Poland. Do you want to go with me? I said, either,
I am not going to Poland. I'm too scared. I even don't
want to be here with the British soldiers. I want to be with the
American soldiers because I had a sister in America, and I know if I
get in touch with somebody else, they might have leaped me into America.
That was in my head for I said I didn't want to go with her.
And she left for poland left the liberation. But before that we did
the extra soldiers and extra dog They put us. They did marshes back uphill
their marshes for six kilometers to the slave labor camp. But down they did
not march her. They put us on truck. They emptied out everything out
of that barracks that were there, make sure nobody everything was there, and
they took us to the railroad yard and they put us in those freight cars,
one hundred to a car, like sardines. No water, no bathroom
for day, for four days at least, no no bathroom, no water,
and there was kind of hot in there. You could hardly breathe in
there and that little window that they had maybe it was like fifteen inches by
ten inches. Bob d y on that and there, if you can make
it over there to get a breath of fresh air. You here had helped
you. But some people were subbering. They didn't want to move away from
there. That's where they're standing. Eventually they got to fight. They got
him away from there. I was fifteen years old. I was sitting in
the corner on the floor and just dozing off. I said, let me
go to sleep. I won't have this, just promised in the trouble with
the other inmates. I have the trouble with I just sit quietly, and
then later on the quiet on they let the churns over to get a breath
of fresh air. We were troubling for like four days. When the third
days we arrived at our destination. And I was fifteen years old that I
came to Auschwitz Birkenau at fifteen and they had to the German Nazis had to
all open our wagons from the outside to let us off. I just want
to go back to your escape attempt, because while you talked about the guards
shooting at you, at the escape attempt. You didn't mention that you got
shot. Where did you get hit? I'm I'm jumping ahead on MYSELFE it
got hit. A bullet hit me in the back of my head. A
bullet grazed me. They listed on my bio bullet in his head, but
the bullet never got into my head, just cut an opening, two inch
opening right here. And I was bleeding furiously. And that's where my cousin.
When I was in the woman's barack, she says, let me help
you. Your sister's not here. I know more bunksy she was on because
I looked for her this morning. They were first cousin. She says,
and let me help you with your wound. I said, I was shot
injured. She had a bucket of water there, and she had the rags
that they use in the barrack to clean up something. She put it clean
me off. She stopped the bleeding without dry rag, and she told me
to put her beret that she was wearing on top of me. She put
it on my head and the blending stop. Then I got out of there,
and then I got back into my barack in the slave labor camp,
and then they fixed the hole and then they shut all the wounded people in
the front of that hole. And this is what will happen to you should
you we get an idea and trying to escape again, we will kill you.
And we had to watch them killing all the wounded people. There was
the policeman. He was still alive. He was on the floor on the
grass, sitting up upright position with his cap on and the white band,
I think, and he was sitting up moaning and moaning. He was wounded.
But I didn't see my sister until he was killed, when he tilted
over and he fell. There's with my sister figure. She was dead the
night before. Maybe she ran instead of running back to her barraque, the
two of them. Maybe the policeman decided to go with her to escape,
and maybe at the escaped her out. He was injured. She was killed.
And I was fifteen years old by myself, and I was put on
those on those trains, and I wound up and asked Fitzberg and her by
myself, and I said, dear Lord, you will have to watch over
Menah. I am wholly alone. H I don't have the sisters to the
follow me. My three sisters on the death I said they were going so
you will have to watch over me so I can come to America and be
a good citizen. Here Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum. In just a moment,
Henry will tell us what life was like inside the infamous Nazi death camp of
Auschwitz berken Now. I'm Greg Corumbas Veterans Chronicles will be back in a moment.
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition
is Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum. Just before the break, Henry told us about
his arrival at Auschwitz berken Now and his prayer for God's protection there. We
now pick up Henry's story as he explains, the first thing the Nazis did
at Auschwitz was to dehumanize the prisoners, and Auschwitz broken. Now. The
first thing they did is they took away your name and they gave you a
number. They gave you a number on the arm. If I can open
up my sleeve, sure, Okay. After this, they finally had a
haircut. I didn't have a hair cut, and in three years, no
shower in three years because they didn't give us any soap in the summertime.
We would undress from the waist, torn up a man and he didn't have
any soap. You took dirt and put it all over you like a mud
bed, and the next one would pump their water on you and cleaned you
off. But that didn't kill the lice. And the lizafestation was so bad
that some people would die over it. And they also when they grabbed us,
yeah, where we wore in the yellow with the yellow stove, David,
they would grab us on the truck and they took us into the farmlands
and we had to dig trenchers there and they didn't tell us they the trenchers
who would be for the people who they killed to be buried. Because we
didn't have any gas chambers or cremation, the body had to be buried.
It's bad publicity for the Germans to leave bodies all over the place. So
whoever didn't line up for work and came down with typhoid, the only thing
saved you. Low fever, high fever. I had low fever, my
older sister low fever. But the two of them in between, they had
high fever. They couldn't stand on their feet. One of them died in
the barrack. But for that because she couldn't get out at all because they
found their dead. And then the other one they helped them with the other
soldiers. They put her on a truck and they went to the next barrack.
When it was full, they would take him into the farm lens.
It was only like six kilometers away, and they'd take him to the farm
lens and they would undress them naked and they would shoot him into the ditch
they went, and if that grave was full, they went to another one,
another other one. They told us when you dig the trenchers. The
trenchers were not for graves, there for military tanks to fall in in zig
zag shape, because the war is still going on and they were going to
be used for tanks to fall in. After the war, we found out
the farmers came out in squealed where those holes war because they took the clothes.
They gave them the clothes full of lice. The farmers from ladies or
mans, whoever were there. They had to dry, undress naked, and
that's how they were killed. Inn't there so how many graves they were there
that I can't remember, But they could not wait ten days until that sickness
would wear off if without medication, if you waited, I was told ten
days. We have no time for ten days. We can get as many
prisoners as we want, okay. So they brought in prisoners from other camps
they contested. They caught the typhoid immediately they put them in on the bunks,
so somebody was missing with other people who were already invested with it.
So they got sick too. So there was an old wind situation. But
for them just to kill the people at the end, in quite a few
they did. It's two of mine sisters, they did. One of them
died of typhoid, but the other one they shot. But anyway, then
after the third place, after Hacut, were so thirsty. For four days,
we didn't have any water, never mind bathroom, never mind food,
just water. We finally saw water coming down in the shower room. We
had to undress naked, and they finally gave us a piece of so in
the hand. And I'm holding like the handkerchief in one hand and drinking water
that I was running down already running from the shower and I'm just trinking,
not just me, all of us transport who they saved. We drank enough
water so we won't be thirsty, and then we clean ourselves up real good
with the soap. You could almost like rub off the skin that we didn't
have the wash for so many years, like three years, not to wash
two years, and they get on one year and the slave labor camp,
we could not get clean there. So we so we were cleaned up,
and they took away their clothes full of lice. They put it on a
conveyor and they goes through a tremendous heat and that kills the lice. And
then they send them back to our camp somewhere where they bundled them up and
they send them back to Germany for recycling. And then they gave us our
striped uniform, the striped cap, the striped jacket, striped pants, wooden
bottom shoes, canvas stops, no underwhere of socks, and a trip with
wide little blanket that we used as a pillow. Every barrack was the same,
built with their shelves and no metros on it at all, and the
three people to a bunk and that's where we stayed. We got cleaned up,
and luckily we only stayed in that auschwitz Berkenale For six months. There
was not really any work for us to do except except helping along with the
commando who was in charge to pick up dead bodies on the compound of the
Auschwitz Berkenale, and sometimes they could lift it. We happened to be near
us, we helped them with the body and they would take those bodies for
cremation and pile them up in the front of the cremation house like a lumber
yard. Bodies this way, but as this way in the stinct was a
high heaven from dead bodies. And you're you're fifteen years old, and you
didn't smell that smell where you came from because people were shot and then they
buried him and you didn't have that. And we did have it. On
the train. Three people died on the train from exhaustion. They never get
off the wagon. The dogs got in there and they could not revive them
at all. They were dead already, I'm sure. Anyway, while we
were in there, six months prior to that, a German civilian men came
into Auschwitz Berkenal. He came in with two guards, two dogs. He
chose our barrack because we were still in working condition. We were not skeletons,
yet he sent him in to chase us out of the barrack. In
the front of him, he looked you in your face. Over here you
go this way, you go right, left, right, left. Heave
on. My transport was murdered the same night. We didn't know that until
all the people that were there before us, they know the news what's going
on. They've been there long, maybe a year or so, so they
know what's going on. He says. They were all killed, murdered because
they had an order howmedity to kill that night, or hammed, or they
didn't have any room. I think they probably had an order howmedy they need
to dispose of. It's so not to take away anybody. They don't care
if you sleep on top of each other. What would they care? Anyway?
That that German savior, he was like a life saver. He took
us out of the Auschwitz Perkunar with this guard and he marched us for three
kilometers to a place called Buona Manowitz Bunar Bna Manowitz, a sub camp of
Auschwitz. That man was either a manager or maybe a partner or owner of
the ig Farbon company. If you've heard that one the ig Farben Okay,
this is the suppliers of cyclone gas box sprays, automobile tires, bicycle tires,
sentetic fuel. But the fifty that that man, the civilian men pick
was to build us or we should build a road in the compound of the
Ig Farber company, Cobblestoul Road and a sidewalk. Three months we were building
that, we did quite a preach, big chunk, and the supplies three
wagons were sitting on the rail may have been five feet away if we had
run out of this stone gold gap at the train and help each other with
cobblestone and pile up here with gray or gravel or sand or emen whatever they
needed to build the road was. And we were like three months at the
time we're building that road. We did quite a little bit, quite a
few feet away, and all of a sudden they finally the United States.
That was already in nineteen forty five, the United States decided to send the
Air Force to I. G. Fabur and to get the rail system.
So they would always bomb the rail ahead of the locomotive. So when the
locomotive got to the destination, you had to stop because they would turn over
everything, and they were doing this like three days in the row. On
the third day they came back, they demolished. On the first day they
came back, they passed by for us. They had a push card with
picking up little papers from the ground with a stick or something that they had
put the ground, and they were to keep the compound clean. The British
soldiers they were pushing just a cart. They looked like in good shape,
shaving clean, their uniform both taken care of. Their little cap was underneath
here under the shoulder. The shoes were shined, and they came by us.
We they had a bunker in the ig Farbbing company. As soon as
the siren blow forever eight, they ran to the bunker. The Jews did
not get the bunker. We had to work through because they were in the
hurry to build a road for the big trucks to be able to pull in
and take a delivery or bring in some stuff. So they told us,
don't give up. This is American Air Force bombing, so don't give We
never saw those guys again after that. We never saw them. We had
to work through because our guards bore our workcouts or couples. The worst of
divorce. He hide himself behind something when the bombs will fly. But he
expected us to lay the stone and keep everything lucky. Nobody got hurt.
No sharpnings came our way, and we did that. They came back on
the third day and demolished everything. The whole I G Company was broken up,
the pieces. The three freight cars were upside down with a bomb upside
down, the wheels were on top. So no more, you don't have
supplies to build a road with. Even their road that we did was upside
down. And they also later on they had to empty deport us out of
Bunamanowiz. But so we had no job in the IG and the other people
that had jobs before was the same thing that we will put on trains and
go to another camp call Flossomburg, six kilometers from the Czechoslovakian border. Chased
us up literally up there two miles. We had to come in walk in
because they had they had the rail by two miles into the camp, all
demolished. They knew we wore on those trains, so they never hit one
of our cars. They only got their locomotive or demained rail ahead of time.
And then we came to one place. We came into Bavaria after we
were released from Flossomburgh six months. Into Flossomburgh a few months, but every
month was like two three years, you know, until you get out of
there. So we were told that Flossomburg is going to be liberated by an
army. But who the army was, we don't know. We were thinking
Russian because of Czechoslovaki, that the would be closer to us than American.
But guess what there was American soldiers that came to liberate Flossomburgh three days before
that. They found out with their spies, they know each other what they
doing. He said. Before the American army got to Flossomburgh, they took
all of us on trucks and they took us into a rail and they put
us on rail and they rode us through Bavaria Germany. We all stood there
a few months and the work over. There was nothing to do but just
bundling up clothing from civilians who they murdered, or maybe they came from all
over, from people. There was a story high. We had to bundle
those clothes up with the rope and they were sent to Germany. For a
recycle, and the meantime we wore on trains and then we hit a Saxonhausen.
We all state that two nights there and they set us to go loaded
up again on the trains, and then we rode the whole Bavaria, Germany
on trains. No water was given to us at all, no food was
given to us. And then we came to a place called schwartz Field in
Germany. Schwartz fieldsway makes translation black Field. We came there. Now there
was a situation where they had a car load full of Nazi soldiers on that
Schwartzfield stair trip. The locomotives when they came through the countryside very quietly,
you heard them singing German songs and drinking and livering themselves up and this little
high hitler in this that whatever they used. So we know there were plenty
of them here that we three, which it's not going to be a good
sight. Well, anyway, Blackfield was stopped that time. The air force
had enough. That time they fly low flying the American planes low flying.
They told us they had to open up the doors of our wagons. But
that time the women had half cars open class. They told us to jump
over them. They told them, the women to get off and run into
the wooded area. He said, if you they go too low, you
run into the woods. If they are up higher and away from you,
run into the woods and drop ten feet. You have to drop. Because
they were already there on a tripod, mounted their guns, already, the
Nazis and there again with the air force that day. They bumped from the
rail and the locomotive and every car was bombed. Every car who survived didn't
get off the car. They got killed, but most of them they chased
out. They get stapless, the doors and the screaming rouse, rousing the
dog. They got them out of there. So I don't think anybody got
killed. Maybe when they were running away, maybe, but I don't think
so. I didn't hear a shot fire. From then on, we started
marching from Schwarzfield. We started marching to different places. We didn't know where
we were going. And the two guards and the two dogs were guarding us.
One was a Ukrainian and one was a Nazi soldier, and they were
guarding us. They ran our supplies. So they located a farm because they
the dogs need to eat, They need to eat they located a farm.
The farmers German. They're German. They look at their eating. We were
eating leaves or bushes who dropped in the late march. The bushes wore,
they were already dead, but the leaves fell off, brown leaves and soffened
in their mouth to shoot them up in gale grabs some water from the creek
because we had a ball for soup, but we didn't get an his soop.
We would get the water off the creek and drink the water to wash
those leaves out. While they're eating a six scores meal. To get one
a raw potato. We the marches got one potato and water to drink at
the wait till they finished eating. The dogs in they finished eating, and
we marched again. We march again till the end of the week of outswit
of March of nineteen forty five, and also the twenty fifth of April nineteen
forty five. They marches answer League March March March. They can't. They
didn't stop in the farm every day, maybe twice a week to stop on
the farm. They took supplies with him. We were not allowed to wear
one portraito. You line up, they gave it to you in your hands,
and don't get rid of a theater. Chew it up fast, and
they gave us some water to drink, and then we came to one spot.
We stopped there and we no longer marched anymore. After that, the
two soldiers saw the American planes flying low. They knew was Americans. We
didn't know who the planes were. We thought it was German planes guarding the
army that was on the highway. But guess what on the highway maybe a
half of black away. We could see if the tiesite, but we didn't
know what marketing of the equipment was. We thought it was German equipment.
But those two guards knew that there were American equipment. So they had us
sitting there in a circle. And why they ran away from us, They
saved their lives running away from us. They didn't want to Normally they would
kill us first, so you can't tell them the story what they did.
But thus they left alone because the American army was so close and when they
gun fires makes a whole lot of noise, and they would have been caught
by the American for war crimes, and they would have been charged with war
crimes. So they ran away. They must have gone on farm. I
didn't see it, but they must have gone on farm, took their uniform
wharf, put civilian clothes on, and they just another German. The Germans
knew the war was coming to a close, but for Henry Greenbaum and other
prisoners, the story wasn't quite over yet. In just a moment, Henry
shares the rest of his story and why it is vital that everyone remembers and
learns from the Holocaust. I'm Greag Corumbus. Veterans Chronicles will be right back.
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corrumbus. We now bring you the
final moments of our interview with Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum as he takes us through
the immediate aftermath of his freedom from German captivity and explains why the legacy of
the Holocaust matters to every one of us today. And we were left unattended
for a few hours, and then the main tank took off from the main
highway on the military tank took off towards us. The tank came with two
soldiers on it. They parked five feet away. The hedge opened up on
the tank, if we were sitting there. We said, now we're going
to get killed for shoe. Now they won't get killed for shoe, which
still didn't know it was an American. Thank until the hedge opened up,
and their hedge opened up, and their beautiful man came out of the hedge.
Crew caught America written here in a uniform. Put his hands on his
out he says, we are Americans, and all of you are free.
I was seventeen years old by that time, and I said, dear Lord,
thank you for guiding our two American guys with the ride the tank to
give us back our lives and our freedom. Thank you so much, But
why did they take you so long to give us our freedom back? The
two guys he had one yelled to the other part the dump out all the
rations that you have on the tank. He got on the American tank.
We got on the floor and try to grab a ration. We always killed
one another. So he stopped. And somebody was still speaking English in our
group and to translated from English to Jewish. But he's talking about He told
us to stop with the supplies that you give them, and they line up
behind the tank, not on the side, but behind the tank. The
two of them took us to a farm. They took us to a farm,
and one jumped off the tank, opened the door of the farmers and
the other one jumped off, and they told us with hand language to go
in, go in it, come inside. But we were five years hungry,
really hungry. I don't mean twenty four hours. We were really hungry
and thirsty. And we saw in the front of the farmer three or four
big pails or potato peelings, a white flower on it. We never looked
at our freedom, give us our feed, our liberal hitters, our angels.
We never looked at them. We got down the floor on our knees,
shoved as many as potato peelings you can shoved and swallow. We cleaned
those trays off, and then we walked inside. We came inside and looking
at each other like crazy easy. They had a table for us. I'm
sure the Americans had a table for us. Maybe they told the farmer to
line that up. That are tables for us with normal, a regular food,
beautiful, the delicious food. I can't remember what, fruit cakes,
cookies, whatever he wanted was on the table. But they would not let
us eat anymore. You had enough for the peelings. You have to drink
lots of water. And then we had we heard voices two rooms away in
the farmer that God please help us, doctor doctor dot please tell us save
us, save us. We heard voices. So the two angels that gave
us our freedom went into the next rooms. So what happened? They were
liberated the night before, but still two American soldiers, but these didn't know
the group, and they told them to get the doctors out here. He
dialed. Three hours later, the medics came out into that farm and they
gave everybody medication in including they gave that in the room deliberators. The people
who were survived that night, there was something wrong with the stomach. They
must ovay eight and their stomach couldn't tolerate normal food, or maybe they're over
eight. I think they're probably over eight, because the feelings didn't hurt us,
which we just wanted to drink water after that, and then I mean,
they gave us enough water, but they wouldn't let us eat at all.
Anyway, the two angels got the medics out there, and the medics
came handed out medication and gave to the people that were injured in that room,
and I showed him the wound on my head. I wouldn't show no
one, no German ever saw my head or except that Jewish man. I
gave me aush was broken out cut my hair the clippers. He says,
what's this wound on top of your head? I said, I was trying
to escape with my sister and we were in a Jewish policeman. They were
both killed and I was survived. He didn't say another word to me,
and we were talking to yeards in Jewish. He didn't say another word to
me. And then then there was the number first haircut and a shower,
and then they didn't ask me any more any questions. So so there was
still a scab on the top of my wound, and underneath was infected.
He shaved part of my area where the hall was, and he put medication,
put a blade of bandage on there, and he had worked for three
months. I took the banded till I changed it. Maybe I have a
month later. I can't remember that, but all I know they were with
medication. They healed my spot. All that the head is a scar,
and everything was beautiful. That was seventeen years old that time by myself and
they said I weighed seventy five pounds, so it must have been a skeleton.
So a week later on the farm and they load us up on truck
and they put us near frank put a mine in Germany, a displaced person
camp calls Altzheim is Alzheim with a Z and there was organized by hol Noir
and also by a high Us. And we had three good meals a day.
We had no guards with us, no electric fencers, an open field.
They took a neighborhood and they put us into that neighborhood. This is
where this house you eat, this house where you celebrate, and this house
where you want to play cards or whatever you want to do. And no
guards. And that's what we were doing. Make sure you come for your
food. We would like for you to dome some meal because they wanted to
get us in shape so we'll be able to do everything humanly possible. If
we stayed there for about a year. We stayed in that It took a
year to get back to normal with the three meals a day, and I
was occupied by the Americans. But later on, after the year was up,
we were working with the High us, and they honor our people to
find try to find my sister in America. So the beautiful American soldiers that
they had, there's no praise enough for me to praise the American soldier.
They were so kind to us. They give me the shut off their back
while we were sleeping. They got up early. They woke us up later.
Go wash. She said, take a col shawer. I was always
someone that, so you can hand out the food. You know, if
very good good American soldiers, I like, I say, the best in
the world. I think the High US and the Honora people helped us located
my sister. That cousin went to Poland. She located the have brother in
Lodge, Poland, and he brother knew of my brother who was in the
Polish army. So her brother visited my brother and he told him that that
I was liberated by myself. No sisters in the wall, only by myself,
seventeen years old, and I'm near frank Port of Mines Alzheim. They
came. He came three weeks later. How we came, I don't remember.
Became a plain of my boat. I don't that, I don't remember.
But anyway, he showed up at first thing. He came to me
and we grabbed and hug and you know, he was not that that I
lost sight of him. I knew I was looking and he said. I
said to him, we have a sister in America, but I don't know
where. All our noise, I tell these beautiful soldiers, the American soldiers,
that they are in America, but they can't find my sister. Do
you have an address? He said, the best I can do. She's
in the Washington area. And that's how they found her. The soldiers talked
to the Hona people and the highest people, and they found my sister.
And the only spelling differently was mine. They spelled at America gruble e nbaum.
We spelled at the Europe gry nbaum. So between the y and a
double, my sister would find the two brothers. She found us. She
said, those are my two brothers. She sent papers for us. Within
a year, the pakers came. I went back to their just person came
later because the soldiers moved, moved, moved out. But I learned everything
from the soldier, even even bad language. I learned from the soldier.
But my sister said, you don't talk like that you know, you don't
say those words. No, no, no no, So I said,
okay, I don't know how to speak English. I didn't know what they
meant to say it. Anyway, anyway, my sister found us and then
she sent to York my brother, the other brother who escaped with it with
the soldier, with the Polish soldier. He escaped on foot, not all
away with the soldier part of the way, and he made it to will
Know, Lithuania and to her there and there they had a Japanese and bassador
who was helping the ulto Hasidic Jews with false passports. He gave help my
brother to go to Manchuria with the with their false fast forward. My head
is picture on it, but their false all the other information was false,
and he got to Monjuria. He said a telegram to my sister and he
came to America in nineteen forty one, before Pearl Harbor. He came to
America and moved in with my sister. So when we came to New York,
not Ellis Island, but a different port we came. My sister didn't
show up. She was pregnant. That acted told him not to travel because
they can have the baby anytime. So he said he'll go pick us up.
He came picked us up. When he got closer, I said,
are you Dave. I have seen him since September of thirty nine. He
changed a little bit where we look alike? What he changed a little bit?
I said, are you the one who ran away with the Polish soul?
And you would not take your little brother twelve years old? And I
would have been an American nineteen forty one instead of coming in nineteen forty six.
Oh, you were too young. I didn't know what to do with
you. You. I thought maybe the mom would be the perfect place for
you be with the mom, but my mom was separated with me. A
year later we were separated. One went to the slave labor came and one
went to the to the other place, who were just a killing center.
I said, okay, your brother, you're still my brother. I said,
I'll give you in a hug, but where you're going to take her
to my sister's house. He took our train and we left for my sister's.
How came sisters? How shared the head quick for us? Me and
my brother Zachary that was in the ple. Jamie and Dave the oldest.
He was already have a room. There was a four bedroom or three bedroom
house in Cherry Chase in the Washington area, and there he took us there
by cap and she says, you sleep obsessed. We got it was hardwood
floors, there was no air conditioning nowhere in the house, nowhere in the
area. Fans, yes, two fans on each side of the edtic.
It was kind of nice, nice and cool, comfortable where I came from.
This was like a five star hotel. Absolutely, But what am I
going to complain? And there was it, and that was I was freed
at seventeen, but I thought, I'm going back to my freedom fighting to
day. You re stale lives to give me back my life. And I
just could not help it to think him and I told and I called him
my angels, and I called them my angels. When I don't remember when
what the year it was when Bush number two became present and and the Listener
Auditorium. Vice President Cheney organized the World War two veterans to come to the
Listen Ditorium and there was I think about five thousand that could fit in the
room. At ten I don't remember. Homed was every sheet was taken in
the front. All the generals of the army was sitting in the front of
the littorial and I was a little bit scared, and I was supposed to
talk, and there was my second time telling my story. Now you're very
active with the Holocaust Museum, Yes, a memorial museum in Washington. Tell
our listeners what it means to you to be able to share your story and
what you want people to remember. I want people to remember to both don't
be bycestanders. Whenever you see anybody is doing injustice to a human being,
speak out. If you can't handle it yourself, go here with your parents,
go for your school teacher, principal, rabbi priests, anybody that can
help. Don't be a bystander, and don't bully anybody in your school where
the person that can't help themselves has to commit suicide. Don't do that to
emity human being. And then make sure they mainly make sure that their injustice
has not done to any human being that pain can't help himself, disfigured,
he was created by God. That's where he was created. So I know
he was speaking on him in laughing at him. So he commits suicide.
And this is what I want people to remember. That we'll keep talking as
long as we got a voice. If we told each other on their death
on my that if you survive, make sure you tell what they did to
us, because you have a lot of deniers that it didn't happen, to
say it did happen. Well, sir, it's an honor to have you
with us. Thank you for sharing your story, and thank you for making
sure we never forget. Well you mean to now you meet. Oh.
I want to thank you guys for taping alders, and I want to thank
all the veterans that remember me me. I am very sorry that I don't
remember what their names are. In the Liberated US two Angels, Henry Greenbaum
sharing his vivid memories of the horrors of the Holocaust during our visit with him
in twenty seventeen. Mister Greenbaum passed away just a year later. I'm Greg
Corumbus and this his Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus and thanks
for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For
more information, please visit American Veterans Center dot org. You can also follow
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