大象传媒

A Polish lad when he went back to Poland stole a computer. Wanted to sell it but it needed a password to open up the computer. He opened it up and it was paedophile stuff. Took it to the police in Poland and they contacted the Dorset police and they wanted the computer back in the UK. He brought it back to Poole they looked through it and the guy got wind of what was up for in the meantime the police searched his house and the guy took his boat to Bangkok and there is a warrant upon him.

In 1939 1st September I wasn鈥檛 even 9 years old. We were living at the time in a holiday resort in the mountains and we were a family of five, mother and father myself and an older brother and sister and on that day my father decided to run away and not be captured by the Germans because he was in the reserves, an officer from the first war and Jewish. They would have detained him without question. He took my brother with him, that was the last time I saw my brother. He was killed and is buried in a war cemetery in Palestine. I go there it is a beautiful place. Heartbreaking to see all those young men.

Large military camps in Palestine, the backbone. Military hospital.

From the survivors, there are very few that went through the camps from beginning to the end.

My mother sister and myself stayed behind. That was in 1939, because the place was so beautiful, out of the way, we escaped the main turmoil of the war we had no idea it would last as long or be as ferocious as it was. We also had no idea of the extermination programme. We did not have the daily harassment of the cities, the food was cheaper availability was there. We thought we would sit the war out in this place. Because it was so beautiful the Germans found out also (Tatra Mountains a continuation of the alps) and took a liking to the area. The commander in chief was based in rabka they established convalescence areas there. After treatment they would be allowed so many weeks leave before being sent back. The troops and the commander of that unit was an Austrian. The troops were mountain divisions. We had a lot of Germans come. We had problems they were shoplifting and stealing they were fully armed rifles and helmets. They would say Oh look Heinz how nice it is and then they would walk out of the shop. My mother she was a captain in the intelligence division in the ww1. She was a Morse code operator. She wanted to have a word with some of the officers and she
Asked the lieutenant colonel and found she knew that they had served in the same unit in ww1. He was delighted to see her and very friendly, she told him about the pilfering and for a time we had army police outside our shop and the pilfering stopped.

He was not allowed to become too friendly because my mother was Jewish. We did not know it then but one of the Roman Catholic girls schools was taken over by the SS, we discovered very quickly what they were about. They came over to find a suitable building and the next thing some skeleton group came over they hung two flags the black ss and the red swastika over the building. Across the building they put SS and the commander of that school was Rosenb and my sister was ordered to be a maid in his house. He was living with a female not his wife. One day she told my sister Make sure you disappear overnight. When it became dark we left everything and went. During the day I asked a peasant woman if she would accept us and she did. The following morning they rounded up every Jew and that was that. He put up reward for us. My sister went to his trial after the war and he could not get it in his head that she had a survived. They suspected that she was an impostor, she was looked after by wives of clergy in Hamburg and someone was with her all the time she was there.

I am very lucky thank god. What I saw from that period to the war was indescribable and I am convinced that I had about a regiment of angels guarding me throughout the war. I have in each case been shaded from the ultimate danger, even to this day in business and things you would not think that it could happen in this country. May

I worked in an ammunition factory run by Germans in Skarzysko, Poland. There were 27 thousand people working in this complex. There was a factory and warehouses one of which had the finished products. They made every type of gun used because there was a lot of equipment used in many different countries. I had a horse to work with. If I was told to take guns to firing range I would harness my horse and take it and boxes of ammunition there because they were too heavy to carry.

I had access to the warehouses where the ammunition was stored. Ammunition has to be placed in a watertight box and I could see they were soldered on and around the corners they had a one-inch wide strip of rubber when you sealed the box. They would then be hermetically sealed. Now I looked at that rubber and thought 鈥淭hat would be good for shoe soles in the camp鈥� I would rip them off and stuff them in my trousers and sell them for bread. I did a lot of those trips and as a result I did not know how many men are still alive today because of my doing this. It was a pleasure to know that I had done this even though I did not have it in my plan. The ammunition was sent by rail and no-one would know where it came from.

The Germans were sustaining losses so the demand for manpower became urgent. It is like any factory, materials came in and products needed to go out. Tracers ammunition, anti personnel ammunition, many different types of products. To change from one to the other the factory had to be tooled, the paint changed for example red for explosive, red and black for armour piercing. They needed the manpower to do this, for instance when they had orders for millions of armour piercing ammunition the tools would have to be changed overnight and it was. As the war progressed and the shortages became more acute the dependence on the labour became more acute. We had predominantly Polish Labour at our factory. One man was an extremely good mechanic, we had all different kinds of machines from different countries, this man he could make himself at home with any one of these machines. One day a German beat him up and broke his arm. When the factory supervisor heard this he was furious he made the German who hit him get food and medical supplies and look after him until he could work again. It was his punishment.

A week before we were liberated, we had to parade in the camp he went up to me and said 鈥渨ell it won鈥檛 take long now do you want to change uniforms鈥�, I was too scared to reply. The first day of the war the sky was black with German aircraft, it was horrendous there were thousands of them. They did not bomb us they went back and forwards all day. My mother said we should go because we will get same. We walked towards the border and hoped to spend day in forest as we approached the forest which was only two miles from where we lived. There was a field with haystacks for drying we had to cross this to get to the forest. It was pitch dark we kept together, suddenly we were illuminated by two searchlights. It gave us a shock we hid inside the haystacks. After a few minutes the lights went out and we did not dare to leave the haystacks and decided when it was daytime we would drop the idea of going to the forest and went back home. which we did. Day two of the war the main forces of the army came down for two weeks they were stationed in the forest that we had been heading for.

The last day of the war, the same thing happened to me, we ere in buchenfield and we could see the camp is on a mountain and we could see the Americans coming towards the camp The barbed wire is breached and I was among them to go towards the tanks, we picked up pieces of equipment out of joy and bravado. I had a machine gun we were waving it about going tanks. The leading tanks were opened suddenly they closed the machine guns moved not firing then the turrets opened and a voice in German said lay your weapons down the tanks Are you mad it is a war zone advancing towards tanks with arms in your hands we nearly shot you. Later on we ran away and went to Krakow, sometimes on foot under cover of darkness sometimes in horse drawn vehicles. I went voluntarily into the ghetto, my sister with me. Then another place and back to the ghetto

After liberation I was notified by the international Red Cross that my brother had died and my father was a prisoner of war in Siberia. He was working a regimental office as a clerk, one day on a hot day in Italy he was bore and he went on a reconnaissance trip, the tank went over a mine slipped down over a ravine and one of the shells fell out of the tank and hit him on the head and fractured his skull, took to the Palestine hospital and he died. His chances of survival were hundred to one and mine 100 to one against. I survived he died

There was a day when I found myself with any family any friends and no money but in Krakow I was in a labour camp working as a farm hand on a narrow gage railway, my sister was outside with a Jewish person I have the money and the connections we will get out of here. One day my sister came into the camp and my sister had in her handbag a camera she had to take a photo of me, I had been forewarned to shave and clean shire she had false document declaring that she is not Jewish she took the photo and left quickly. Then once later she came to visit me at the place we were working and then nothing I did not hear form her at all then one day this policeman with his brother we woke up in the cam and they were missing they had run away from the camp. The war ended and I was in contact with my sister, she had the papers prepared for me they had to run and they reached Budapest they hired a polish guide gave him money and clothing to go to those policemen and s
Ask him to make contact with me. They did that and the policemen asked him 鈥榳hat do you want鈥� he said 鈥業 have documents and clothing and I have to get him to Budapest鈥�. They said 鈥榊ou are wasting your time he is no longer alive. We will pay you the money and get ourselves over the border鈥�.

One day my sister would not give me the address of the policemen and I spoke to a policemen when you meet what would you do don鈥檛 know I knew he was in Israel. He said he would not give in case I killed him. Ok you can go for me find his address don鈥檛 give it to me. On Jewish New Year go to him make sure you speak to the right man and wish him a happy new year from Mark Goldfinger and do it every year. He did it and he said he went ashen. Then the guy disappeared from Israel no one knew where, then many years later in London I had a friend come to visit us from Australia. They were having dinner with us and I told them that story and they asked us his name and I told them. She went ashen and said he is a partner with my father. When she went back she went to speak with him and he went ashen. I never followed him but whether it was in God鈥檚 hands I found him.

I was a skier from the age of three, I would jump at anything that would help me, I would fire the engine as the engine drivers mate, clean it at the weekend. At Buchenwald I was with a team that went out to rescue people from collapsed buildings. Went out to look for access to cellars they would open up a hole and I would pass up the food that was stored in them. The guards were very please to see the wine, sausages etc.

Danger was always there we lived from hour to hour and day to day. We went through a typhoid epidemic, you have over and over again incidents.

Week before liberation we were not given food or water because the Germans wanted us to walk out the camp so they could burn it down. We hid and through the gaps in the wood we could see no human beings. Please God let me live to see these bloody Germans defeated.

My mother was murdered in Krakow, my sister and cousin went on a train to Krakow and she followed on a different train. After liberation we stayed in Buchenveld we stayed where the Germans had been staying and they stayed in the camps then we went to France and lived in Rothschild鈥檚 palace. Baron Rothschild let us stay in the building occupied by his staff and it had a town underneath the building. They had orchards there and I had never seen anything like it. I had a relative in France and would take fruit to them. I have never seen fruit like it since. It was handpicked and packed and sent to the best hotels in Europe. You see them in Harrods still. The people that worked there were prisoners of war. Baron Rothschild鈥檚 was a collector of trees, botanical hobby and the dignitaries from all over the world would send him specimens and he had a large collection of exotic birds as well.

When my father got in touch with me I came to England, he was still in Italy looking after the books. I did not return to Poland for many years I have been about six times mostly in the last ten years.

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