Veteran Transcript
Michael Blain
[b. 2/ 3/ 1928]
[001]
“Today is September 25, 2007. I am Synthia Steiman and I am interviewing Michael Blain on Hoover Road at the JCC. Mr. Blain is a member of our local Jewish Community Center. He is 79 years old and was born on March 2nd, 1928. Mr. Blain is a survivor of the Holocaust.”
SFS: What is your full name?
MB: Michael Blain, B-L-A-I-N.
SFS: Where were you born and when?
MB: I was born in the former Czechoslovakia. The province where I was born was occupied by Hungary in World War II and Nazi Ukraine.
SFS: Where did you grow up?
MB: I grew up in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Soviet Union.
SFS: What was your childhood like?
MB: I didn’t have much a childhood. We worked very hard, helped the family with the farm and what not. I grew up in a small village, and we had to go to Hebrew school in the morning. Then [we] went to public school the rest of the day. Then [we went] back to Hebrew school in the evening.
IS: Back to Hebrew school?
MB: Back to Hebrew school. When I was fourteen, I left home, and so that wasn’t much of a childhood.
SFS: Okay.
MB: As is—as children live today, it’s different.
[018]
SFS: So, when did you realize the war was going to affect you?
MB: In 1939—I was eleven years old—the Hungarian army occupied my village. It was Czechoslovakia prior to that. That’s when I realized that we were in trouble.
SFS: Describe your family, your parents, grandparents, and siblings. Give their names and their approximate ages when the war began.
MB: I don’t remember any of my grandparents. They were all dead by the time I was born. [They] died very young over there. I had—before the war—I had seven siblings. My mother had ten children, three who died in mere childbirth or at a young age. So, we ended up seven siblings before the war. And after the war, only three of us were alive. You want the names of my siblings?
SFS: Yes.
MB: Okay, the oldest one was Clara, who would have been ninety years old now. She was married and had three children. The next one was Miriam who stayed alive in the war. She is eighty-eight. The next one was Anshel, and he was killed when he was about ten years old. He would have been maybe —he was born in 1922. The next one was Sam—Samuel. And he was born in 1924. He survived the Holocaust. He went to Auschwitz and then to two other labor camps and survived. And the next—I was the next one, Michael, born in 1928, as you already know. And then [we] had younger sisters. Hannah—who was two years younger than I—[was] born in 1931. And the other—my sister, Sheitle or Shari, she was born in 1932.
[044]
SFS: What did your family do as a profession? Did they have a business?
MB: Life was very difficult there. My father had to do a number of things to support the family. We had a little farm. We also traded different things. [We] buy and sell—sell milk, buy hides, like cow hides, buy and sell them. He was also a contact to the government. He was in charge of building roads and bridges and what not in Czechoslovakia, [for] the government before the war.
SFS: Did you have a job on the farm? Or was it just your father?
MB: Well, I was fourteen—fourteen years old when I left, but yes I was helping on the farm. I was taking corn and stuff like that. So, I would get up at eight in the morning, go to the farms and collect the crop. [Then] a little later I would take it to the railroad station and ship it to a larger city. Then in late afternoon, we [would] go back to the railroad station to pick up the tips and the next ones were shipped.
[060]
SFS: Where were you and how old were you when the Nazis came to power?
MB: Actually, before I was eleven years old, in 1939, the Nazis were already in power in Hungary. Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Hungarian army. So, my area was occupied by an army allied with Nazi Germany.
SFS: When did you notice changes for your family? And how did they affect you personally?
MB: As soon as—as soon as the Hungarian army came in, they placed restrictions on the Jews and everything. My father was drafted into a labor camp [unintelligible]. We, the little kids had to take care around the farm to allow for business to recover as well.
SFS: How did things change for you and your family as a result of the Nazi occupation?
MB: Well, Hungarians—Hungary as a nation was allied with Nazi Germany. Hungary did not deport Jews in mass as [what] happened in other countries until 1943. I left home when I was fourteen, on to Budapest—and we were in a train. What was the question again?
SFS: How did things change for you and your family as a result of the Nazis?
MB: Well, as I mentioned they—my father and brother were drafted. Restrictions [were] put on Jews to practice their professions. But until 1944, we were relatively—we were relatively decent life compared to what was happening in our neighboring countries of Poland, Lithuania and all the other countries in the surrounding areas. In 1944, Nazis became impatient with Hungarians and the Jews and there was the March of 1944. They sent an army headed by an SS officer by the name of Adolf Eichmann. He was captured later in Argentina by Israelis, tried in Israel and executed in Israel. He was the only person ever executed in Israel. He came in to Budapest and I was there at that time, [during the] March of 1944. We immediately had to—first of all I lived in a home for children, a shelter for apprentices. It was a new building. It was about three years old. The Nazis always came in and saw us because it was suitable for their army. It was built with double locks so they kicked us out of there. And 1944 — [unintelligible]
[097]
IS: How did you find this place in Budapest? You went alone?
MB: I went alone. You see we grew up in this village. After you finished the eighth grade, [there was] no more school in the village, so you have to move to another town. It was very difficult for Jews to do that. And so children my age, fourteen went to bigger cities to learn work. It was very common.
IS: So what were you studying?
MB: I wanted to design and make ladies handbags, leather bags. As soon as Eichmann came with the army—right away—they put restrictions on us, they kicked us out and moved us to another house. We had to wear yellow stars like this [he shows a picture.] You can have this. The houses that we were squeezed into—were also—had big yellow stars on the houses. They looked like this [points to picture.] I was moved into another part of the city to another children’s home and I was there for a while and as soon as the—Do you want to know now what happened to my family back home or later?
[112]
SFS: That can be now.
MB: While I was in Budapest by myself, my family was home in the village. After Pesach in 1944, they were—all the Jews were taken to bigger cities, to ghettoes. My family was taken to a ghetto and they were waiting there just for their turn to—waiting for trains to take them to Auschwitz to the death camps. About a month later, May 1944, they were all put into cattle cars and sending them all with two buckets, one for relieving yourself and one for water. They were locked in there—the cattle cars and two days later, they arrived in Auschwitz. Auschwitz, as you know, was a death camp. My brother was on this train, he survived it. My father and mother and the others did not.
[127]
They arrived in Auschwitz in the middle of the night. People had no idea where they were going. They were told they were going to be relocated to the farms in Poland to have a better life. That’s what they were told. But they were very good at keeping secrets. They arrived in the middle of the night—lights, bright lights, dogs, and Nazis screaming, “ Get out! Get out!” When doors of the cattle car were opened, half of the people were already dead. Those who were alive—their belongings—they were all told, you could take a suitcase with your stuff. All [of] their beautiful things [were] taken away. They were separated, the women and children on one side, and able bodied men on the other side. My mother and my sisters, my sister’s three little boys, were all put to one side. My brother [went] to the other side and he was sent to other labor camps. My mother and my sisters and the children—all the relatives were taken to the gas chambers. They were just waiting in line to—and they were told they would take a shower. They were told to undress and make neat piles of their belongings because they would need them when they came out of the shower. Once in the shower they locked the doors and squeezed in as many people as they could, somebody announced [to] start the gas, (cyanide gas) and within minutes most of the people were dead. They opened—they opened the gate to the gas chambers and there were other remains. [They] cleared out the dead bodies. Before they got there, their heads were shaved. The hair was saved and sent to Germany to be used in mattresses and other things. The other people cleared out the gold teeth. By the way, those people who were doing all this, they were killed themselves. And then, the bodies were shoved in to the crematorium—cremated. Their bodies were burned, their ashes gone.
[156]
I was very lucky. I had a number of lucky breaks, and that’s how I survived. And it wasn’t because I was stronger or, or smarter, it’s just luck. The first lucky break was the fact that we were occupied by Hungary and not Nazi Germany. But as I mentioned before, the Hungarian government was more hospitable to Jews. When the Nazis came to Budapest—and as I mentioned before, I was in the house. Many of my friends came from the same area that I came from, and rushed for the railroad station to go home to their families. I—I found out later that they were all arrested and shipped to Auschwitz. I was hesitant, and that kind of saved me because I said I want to see what was going to happen and I found out that my friends were sent to Auschwitz. Then, the Allies started to bomb, bomb Budapest. And we were bombed in Budapest three times a day.
IS: How many times?
MB: Three times. The British would come in the morning— [paused the tape] Oh the bombing—
IS: Yeah.
MB: The Allies. The British—I’m not sure of the right order, but the Russians came in the morning, I think. The English [bombed] in the afternoon, [and] the British [bombed] at night. So we were regularly bombed three times a day. And again, I was lucky because all the houses around me were bombed down. The one I was living in, remained standing. But my job was, I was drafted, my job was to clear the next morning after each bombing. I had to clear the rubble and the bodies from the bombed out homes. So that was my job for a while.
[180]
IS: So your job was—
MB: —was to clean the rubble, and clean the bodies—take out of the rubble from the bombed out homes. This was going on for a while and this was the time when all the Jews from all over Hungary were already taken away to Auschwitz. For some reason, I’m not—I still don’t know for sure but the Hungarian Jews, I mean the Jews in Budapest were left alone for the time being.
[185]
Later I learned and I’m not sure that the truth, that the—Eichmann wanted to buy and sell some of the Jews. He made an offer to the Jewish leaders to obtain the Budapest Jews for drugs and other raw materials for the German army from the Allies (from England and America.) The Jewish leaders managed to get to Turkey where they met with leaders and made—that. This proposal was presented to Jewish leaders in Palestine and to the Allies and of course, the Allies rejected the offer. They wouldn’t make any deals with the Nazis about trading Jews—Jews for drugs. To show they really mean business, they organized a trainload of Jews and they permitted them to go to Switzerland. This was in the middle of the war, 1944. I was one of those. I was told that I’d be going on the next transport to Switzerland. But it never happened because it fell through, so I never made it to Switzerland. As I mentioned, the Jews from Hungary were taken to Auschwitz, and by that time most of them were dead. I was in Budapest and the Russians were coming closer and closer.
IS: Now, how old were you at that time?
MB: I was your age, fifteen or sixteen. How old are you?
SFS: Fourteen.
[205]
MB: Fifteen, I was fifteen. I said I was fifteen, I said how could have I done it? For a while there was a lull and we were left alone more or less. And the Russians were coming closer—and the Russians were coming closer. In October of 1944, the Hungarian government petitioned the Soviet government for peace. The Hungarian government realized that the war is relented and they lost the war, and that they wanted to make a deal with the Russians. Well, Hitler did not like that and sent in more troops to Budapest, Hungary. German troops—they arrested the Hungarian government to come to Germany. They installed a Nazi Hungarian Nazi government, chosen by Hitler. And that’s where the rest of us—who were still alive in Budapest, began to feel the pressure. A ghetto was built in Budapest where all the Jews were herded in. I was one of them. I was lucky again [because] I managed to escape. A few weeks later they arrested me again.
IS: How did you escape?
MB: I just, more or less walked out through the gates.
[224]
IS: And then did you hide somewhere?
MB: Well actually I went back to the place where I was taken away from. And they left us alone there for a few days. Then they came back and they arrested us again and they marched us—and I’m talking now about mostly kids—to the Russian front. And this was about 100 kilometers, maybe seventy-five miles from Budapest. That’s how close the Russians were—the Soviet army was to Budapest. We were—our job was to dig trenches for the German army, and [to dig] anti tank trenches and anti personnel tanks, where the soldiers would hide and shoot the Russians. The shooting was getting closer and closer. We were there for a while. We were housed on a farm—in the stable. The stable [was] in a room, I don’t know what its called, but you had to climb up to it.
[239]
As the Russians [were] coming closer and closer, two of my friends escaped. They went to Budapest. And as the Russians closed in we were marched closer to Budapest. We were taken to Budapest. Two days later, two Hungarian soldiers came, and they point at me, and two others, and they said, “You come with us.” They marched us to Budapest. Now, those are the two boys that escaped earlier. They went to the Hungarian army and got Hungarian uniforms and machine guns, and they came back for us. I always break down at this point, because they were just kids—so brave. And so another lucky break, they marched us back to Budapest. We were hiding out in one of the houses. We were there a few weeks. In December 24, 1944—Christmas Eve—they finally came for us. These are all Hungarian Nazis—not German Nazis at this point. And they were marching us to—Is this the point were you want all this information, is it okay?
SFS: Yes.
MB: They were marching us from the house to Austria. At that time there were no more trains or tracks. In the beginning, they used the track and the train to take the Jews to Austria to camps there. The Russians were not close to Austria, but they were close to Budapest. So we were marching, and I remember carrying a little kid on my shoulders—
[266]
IS: What was the capital of Hungary?
MB: There were two towns, Buda and Pest, two different towns. We were in Pest and they want to march us to Buda. We arrived there, in Buda, closer to Austria. There was a bump bridge standing—it wasn’t much that bump bridge. All the other buildings over the Danube were all gone. We come on the other side of the Danube and Nazi soldiers and motorcycles come. They surrounded us and started screaming, “Take them back! Take them back! Take them back!” With all the confusion, we had no idea what was going on. They marched us back. They divided my, that group in two groups. Half of the group was taken to the Danube, line up and shot and killed. And their bodies—their bodies were thrown into the Danube. It was very common there.
[277]
IS: And you watched it?
MB: No, no I was in another group. And they didn’t know what to do with my group. So they— they had all this—this street called Sheep—Sheep street, which was in the ghetto. And the soldiers who marched us were confused, and found a street, similar to the name, Seef Street. So they marched us there, and there were empty homes where the Jews had been taken away from. So they left us there—left us there for a few days. We didn’t eat and oh, and then I find out why we were marched back. I forgot a very important point. On December 24, 1944, the Russian army—the Soviet army completely encircled Budapest. That’s why they couldn’t take us out, it was totally encircled and we were now in Budapest. So they take us to this house and we were there a few days. Again we see—you know, the houses in Europe—courtyards and balconies and all of a sudden, we look down in the courtyard and see soldiers, machine guns and screaming, “get together we’re going to march again.” Again, I thought this would be the end of me and my group. They marched a few blocks to another empty Jewish home and again we found out that these were Jewish boys—soldiers who got the machine guns and they took us to another home and they said, “we are gonna guard you until we are liberated by the Soviet army.” In January 15, 1945, the Russian army agreed to go to Budapest and I was liberated on that day.
IS: How long did you stay in that house before the soldiers came?
MB: Well, it was December 24th that we were marched and [were] brought back to that place. [We were there] maybe a week because January 15 was three weeks away so—What’s your next question?
[307]
SFS: What was a regular day like in hiding? Depending on the places.
MB: Hiding, we were starving. We—after we were liberated we were able to get out of the house. A friend of mine and I went on the street and there was a dead horse. And people were already carving out meat. So my friend and I carved out a chunk and went back and prepared a goulash. It tasted very good at that time, but now it makes me sick thinking of it. There was nothing to eat, before the last few weeks everything was rationed. The Jews had special ration cards for smaller portions then the rest of the congregation. But there was nothing in the stores, even if you could get out, you couldn’t get out. You were restricted, for the last few weeks; you could only go out a certain hour of the day. So inside we just waited for the Messiah to come and save us.
[328]
SFS: Did you continue celebrating Jewish Holidays? If so, how was it different from before?
MB: You know I tried to remember, and I can’t remember a thing about it. I can’t remember now. We celebrated until 1944, when the Nazis came into Budapest. But after that, I can’t remember.
[334]
SFS: About how many kids were with you at the time and what were their ages?
MB: They were all at least fourteen. Kids were able to leave home after finishing public school to learn their trade. [About] fourteen to I’m guessing now, seventeen eighteen, to eighteen maybe.
IS: Was there a leader, or one person who was with you in that time period?
MB: There was somebody, a leader. Yeah, we had—when I went into this home for apprentices, for kids. The director for us was a theological student—a Jewish theological student in Budapest. He was with us. Later on, when we were kicked out of this house, we went to another one and there was a director in the building. The key for us from taking us to the ghetto, he whispered to some of us, “go back to bed and pretend you are sick.” To the sick ones they said, “we will come back for you later, and they did.” But yeah we had somebody with us.
[357]
SFS: Did you make any close friends? Do you have any stories about them?
MB: Yeah, we made very close friends. I am still close with one of them especially. We were together when I was taken to the Russian front to dig trenches. He also came from my area where I was born, not the same village but in the same area of Budapest. In 1945, my area was annexed to take over the Soviet Union. So, we were now Czechoslovakia not Hungarians, and [we were] part of the Soviet Union. I didn't like it there so—Well first of all, this man, that I am still friends with today, we were on the farm there on the Soviet German front. We would sneak out at night and go to the next farm and try to get some food. After we were liberated, to kind of raise hell, we let ourselves take army uniforms and we spoke Russian to the Hungarians who were scared of the Russians. The Russians were not very nice to the Hungarians. So, we kinda—we were only seventeen years old and we would scream out in Russian and they were scared of us. We were just raising hell, which was not very nice, [but] we wanted to get even with what they did.
[384]
Anyway, months after we were liberated we went home together, to the village and we found no one there. So, we went to Bucharest, the capital of Romania because at that time all of the survivors for some reason—I can’t remember why—were concentrated in Bucharest waiting for other relatives or looking for other relatives. So, we went back to look for relatives, but we did not find anybody there. Then we came back home and, I was told, by my neighbors, that the police were looking for me. And I said “why?” This was already after liberation and the Soviet occupation there—because somebody saw me poison the water, the wells. This was—they were accusing Jews who survived for poisoning the wells, just like that—just like the Middle Ages. So, I end up with other incidents that I decided it’s not for me. I did not want to stay there.
So, in February of 1946, five of us friends—and this friend I talked about before wasn’t among the five friends. We decided to escape into Czechoslovakia. We went to the border of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. We hired two smugglers. They had farms right on the border. They were smuggling people across for money. There were five of us and they came with two horse and buggies. Listen to this story. So, in the first horse and buggy took three of my friends and their horse took off. My friends—another friend and I went in the second buggy. My horse wouldn’t budge because it was February, snowing like crazy. [It was] snowing deep, deep, deep snow. My horse wouldn’t budge and I said, “Oh this is it, we are going to get arrested, this is it.” Well again, I mentioned how lucky I was, and another break was what happened. First group was captured by the Soviets, and while they were taken away, the two of us managed to—eventually the horse took off and we managed to get across the border, so another lucky break. This man remained in the Soviet Union for another forty years. About fifteen years ago—so he managed to come to the United States. So together in Brooklyn, we visit each other and we talk to each other. [Now] I talk to him more than my own kids. So we are that close.
IS: Wait, in between the time you never talked to him? Was it the first time in forty years? And you got a call from him?
MB: First time after forty years. Actually, I went back to that area twice because my brother, who survived, remained also stuck there. So, I went to visit him twice. But I lost track of this friend and now we are friends today. There are some others that I am still in touch with.
[441]
SFS: Did anything give you comfort or hope?
MB: Nothing gave me comfort. Hope, yes, we were hoping that my family would survive. We were very naïve. We thought once the war was over, that there be peace and love forever, and no more anti-Semitism. We were naïve because once liberated—and I went back home—even after the Nazis, my friends, my former friends and neighbors were not very happy to see me survive. Then of course, I don’t have to tell you what is going on in the world now, with anti-Semitism and war. So, I was naïve to believe that this would never happen again.
[460]
SFS: Can you explain life when you were in the barn?
MB: Barn, well we slept on hay which was more comfortable considering what my other friends and relatives went through. We got up very early and we were marched a few kilometers to the front—the front lines. We were there all day until dark digging those trenches. I really can’t remember the food situation; I know there wasn’t much of it. They sometimes brought lunch, but I do remember being very Hungary. Late at night they took us back to the barn.
[475]
SFS: Did you have any confrontations with authority?
MB: Confrontations with authority? Well being arrested, you would call that confrontation. Can you explain?
SFS: Did you ever fight when you were arrested?
MB: No, no we didn’t fight. We were just kids.
IS: Were you afraid you’d be killed if you fought back?
MB: It didn’t ever occur to me to fight back. As I mentioned before there were friends of mine who did escape and did get the uniforms and did fight. I think now, we didn’t fight because we didn’t believe what the final solution was gonna be—[as] the Germans called [it], the final solution to the Jewish problem, when we are exterminated. We just didn’t believe that. The Germans are very clever. They were hiding the truth. And when they take the Jews away and they said we are going to resettle you to a better life, we’re promising and [many] people believed them. The people who managed to escape and came somewhere—Came from a state of Marshall [referring to the Marshall Plan], two boys from Czechoslovakia. They came to America to tell President Roosevelt and the Justice, the Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, what is happening. They just didn’t believe it. They did not believe it. Are you on a time, time frame?
[508]
SFS: No, no. How did you get along with the other kids that were in your group? Were there any fights?
MB: No we, we got along very nicely. I can’t remember any fights. I don’t know. No problems as far as I remember. We were all in the same boat, and all orphans at that point, relatively. We didn’t know it for sure and we didn’t expect it, but it was happening to our families.
SFS: How did you find your hiding places?
MB: Well as I mentioned, we were kicked out of one home and taken to another home. These homes were—belonged to the Jewish Community of Budapest. They looked after children artisans. When I escaped from the ghetto, I went back to the same place. I stayed at that place again, and then my friends came to rescue me and took me back to that place. It wasn’t very smart, but there was no other [place.] We had to go to the same place because they kept coming back to us and there was no other place to hide.
SFS: So, who were the people who hid you?
MB: We hid ourselves. In that home we had a director who hid us. But it was not really hiding because they knew were to find us. So, we had to have a big star on the building. So, they knew exactly where we were, and they kept coming back for us. They just came in and beat us up or came back and took us to the ghetto or came back and [then] the last day they marched us to Austria. So, they knew where we were. So, it wasn’t real hiding, compared to somebody hiding in a cellar or a hayloft. That’s what happened to many other people on countryside to stay safe. There were some kids who were hidden by gentile friends.
[559]
SFS: So, if you knew people were coming back to get you, what was your reaction?
MB: Well, we were still, we were still—you asked me about hope—and we were still hoping that this was not the end that they would just take another place and we would survive. We were just praying (if you want to use that term) that what ever happens to us, we will manage to escape again and survive again.
[570]
SFS: Since you were you able to relocate some of your family members, where did you do this and how?
MB: Okay. As I mentioned before, three of us survived. My older sister when she was—just before the war, when she was maybe sixteen or seventeen, she left home. Again, the same story I mentioned before, there was nothing to do in my village. You had to go to bigger cities and other countries. She got to Belgium to find a job there. Sure enough, the Nazis were in Belgium. So she escaped to France and guess what, my sister was now in France, and the Nazis came to France, they went to Paris. She managed to escape to Southern France. I remember there was a Nazi government in Southern France, separate from the Paris area. It was Vichy, Vichy government, V-I-C-H-Y, it was with General Vichy, and he was the head of this government. Some Jews managed to survive and hide out and my sister was another saved. In 1942 she managed to come to America [on] one of the last boats out of Europe. So, it went to Africa and then finally came to New York.
We had three aunts in America, who came here as children long before. They sent the papers and finally she got a visa to come to the states. So she survived this way. I—after the war, we looked for each other at the Red Cross. I had one aunt—I had three aunts here and one aunt—my mother used to—she had three sisters—she used to correspond with and I would address the envelopes. I could remember the address in the Bronx. So, I wrote a letter to that aunt and found out my sister was alive there. So, that’s how I found my sister.
My brother, as I mentioned before, who survived Auschwitz—he was sent to other labor camps, slave labor camps in Germany. He came home when the war the ended and he liberated by American troops. He came home looking like a skeleton. I didn’t even recognize him. He was—so I was told that when he came home. He remained in the Soviet Union another 45 years or so. I visited him twice then he made aliyah and he went to Israel about fifteen years ago. He died in Israel five years ago. So, the two of us remain. My sister is 88 years old. You want to hear the rest of my story? How I happened to come to America and all that? Is this the time?
SFS: Mm hm.
[617]
MB: Okay. I managed to escape from the Soviet Union. Now I am in Czechoslovakia. As I said, I found my sister living here. She sends me papers and I apply in Prague at the American Consulate to come to America. In the meantime, I hear there are groups of children going to England. [So,] I signed up and I was lucky enough—in June of 1946—in a group of 100 children—fifty boys and fifty girls. My train went through Germany and Belgium and went to Paris. We spent two weeks there and then we took ferryboats to England. We were taken to London and I lived there. In London, we were housed in a whole building; it was called the Jews Temporary Shelter. It was built for Jews who use to go to America from Russia and other countries [and] where they were temporarily housed in this building before they catch a boat to America. So, the first two floors were girls, the other two were boys. It was great coming from bombed out Europe to London, even though London was very much destroyed from German bombs and rockets. It was a relatively good life.
[632]
Before I left Prague, I sent a telegram to my sister. I said, “Should I wait a year for my visa or go to London.” She said go to London. That was a good thing because later on the Communists completely took over the Czech government and it was not as easy to get out. So, I waited in London [for] four years to get my visa. I came to America in 1949, December of 1949. In London, we were taught English and I—later on we go jobs and I continued my work with lady’s handbags that I started in Budapest as a kid. I went to night school. I got certificates in English. I speak good, believe it or not?
And in December 1949, I came to America. My sister waited for me at the boat. I came over on the Queen Mary, very nice, in style. I still have friends in London. I was in America now a year and a half; I got a job again in my trade, lady’s handbags.
In the meantime, the war breaks out in Korea and I was drafted. So, a year and a half, after I landed in America I ended up in Korea. I was in Korea a year and a half during the war. Then I came back [and] I decided I needed to go to college. I went to Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY, where I got an engineering degree, where I met my beautiful wife and we have three sons. [We also have] twelve grandchildren [and] three great grandchildren. You want to know all that?
[655]
SFS: Yeah. Before you went to Korea, were you in New York?
MB: I lived in Manhattan, NY. I worked and I also went to night school. I got my high school diploma. I don’t know. I always wanted to get more educated all my life, so I went to night school.
IS: Now, when you got drafted, were you a citizen of the United States?
MB: No. That was very interesting too because all my friends that came over from England with me here we were all drafted. I was told—I don’t know if it was a joke or serious— that you don’t have serve, but if you don’t we can ship you to back to Europe. So, I didn’t have much of a choice. I didn’t want to go to Europe. Now again, I don’t know if it was serious.
IS: Who told you that?
MB: The draft board, I don’t remember now exactly.
IS: So, how old were you when you went to Korea?
MB: About twenty-one, I think, twenty-one.
[665]
SFS: Were you very close to your family before the Holocaust?
MB: We were very close yes, very close knit. The older children would teach the younger children. By the time you entered kindergarten, you already knew how to read and write because our older siblings would teach us. We were very close. My parents—when I left home when I was fourteen—my parents didn’t want me to leave. They did not want their kid in Budapest, a big city. But I wanted to leave because there was nothing to do there. I got on the train, and I said, “Oh my God what am I doing?” I was homesick already just being on the train—a fourteen-year-old kid. I looked at the fourteen-year-old grandson of mine, and I say, “How did I do it?” This was like going to a foreign country because I didn’t know the language at that time.
[675]
IS: What language did you know or learn at your school? What language did you speak?
MB: Okay, this is very interesting. We all had to learn at least three languages. At home, in the village, all the Jews just spoke Yiddish, so we all spoke Yiddish. Then, our neighbors spoke a language called Ruthenian; they were Ruthenians, similar to Ukrainians. So, I had to learn that language to speak to my non-Jewish friends and neighbors. Then, I attend a Czech school, Czech language—like Czechoslovakia—Czech language school. I still can’t believe I learned anything because the only place that I spoke Czech was in school, and it was like a foreign language. It was a one-roomed school. There were four grades and one teacher in the morning and four grades and one teacher in the afternoon. I just can’t imagine how I learned anything, but we did. Then when Hungarians came in, and I went to Budapest, I had to learn Hungarian. So, by the time I was fourteen, I attended Hebrew School, (they called it kheyder over there) Hebrew school, Czech school, Ukrainian school and Hungarian school—by the time I was your age. Can you picture yourself doing that? I don’t know how we learned anything, but we did. Kids, some of the kids came out very smart.
[690]
IS: What kind of Jewish community lived there? Was it small?
MB: We had about fifty families in the village. Not long ago I drew a map. I mapped out where every family lived. I still tried to remember. Then I sent it to other people who came from that village, and they collaborated.
IS: Now, what was the name of your village?
MB: It was called Silc, Silc, and in Czech it was called Selce, and it all means little village. In Hungarian it was called “Kicsi falu,” which also means little village.
[699]
SFS: At what age did you start school?
MB: Hebrew school, I’m told—and I can’t remember for sure—[but] I started when I was about three years old. I can’t believe it happened, but people were older than me, [and] they assure me that we started at three. The other school we started at six and—at six we had to go to Hebrew school and public school.
IS: So after eighth grade there was no high school, you went for your trade?
MB: Not in my village, there was like a junior high school two towns away. My sister went to Belgium because she attended it [the junior high school.] She went every morning by train. She went by train to the bigger village, bigger town. They had like a junior high school there. She came home every night by train and it was a schlep.
IS: Were your grandparents also from that village?
MB: Yes, but as I mentioned before, they were dead by the time I was born. People died in their sixties. I never expected to live to be eighty. I’ll be eighty next March.
[711]
SFS: Do you have any final comments?
MB: Final comments. We just hope that our slogan, “Never Again,” is “Never Again.” We can’t go through this again. We heard the Iranian president yesterday, who wants to wipe Israel off the map. Yesterday he talked a little differently. Anti-Semitism is a huge incidence all over Europe and the Middle East. It is very scary. Yet, we just have to hope and pray that this never happens again.
SFS: So do you have any final words of wisdom for this and future generations that you would like to share?
[723]
MB: I thought I just did. [Giggle] No, I think we just have to be very tolerant and accepting of other peoples and learn to get along—brotherhood and sisterhood. Like right now, I am invited to speak at a Darfur rally. At least we are doing something; I don’t know how much it will help. We are letting the world know and our leaders know, what is going on in some other parts of the world. When this happened to us, the world stood still. Nobody stirred. A million and a half children were murdered in cold blood and the world didn’t say a word—not the pope, not President Roosevelt. President Roosevelt knew what was going on. Winston Churchill knew what was going on. Jewish leaders asked them to please bomb the railroads, which are taking my family away, and they said, “no,” wait until after the war.
[736]
You want to hear all about this now? There was—the Warsaw Ghetto was one of the worse, hundreds of thousands of people were pushed into a small area. People were dying of starvation, of typhoid and other diseases by the hundreds and thousands everyday. So, the Polish underground smuggled in a young man to the Warsaw Ghetto to find out—to see for himself what is going on, and he did. He smuggled him out of the ghetto, smuggled out of the country and he was brought to England and then to the United States. He was seen by President Roosevelt. He told him what was happening. President Roosevelt listened. Later on, this man became a professor at Georgetown University in Washington. And a year later, he said, “Mr. President, I am going back to Poland now. What should I tell my people?” And would you believe this, President Roosevelt said, ��you go back and you tell your friends that after the war, we are going to take care of these criminals.” After the war, take care of these criminals, while my mother, my sisters and my brothers are being murdered? So, we can’t let this happen again.
We must teach every generation. I hate to talk about this as you see how emotional I get. But it must be done because your generation, and your kids have to know what happened to our people.
To continue what President Roosevelt said, we will take care of the criminals after the war. Many of the criminals were taken care of, but many of the criminals managed to come to the United States. [They] lived a very good life, and the Nazis came [too.] Many, many of them moved to South America, and they lived a good life without any punishment. The Vatican, the pope wouldn’t say a word during the war about saving the Jews. They were smuggling Nazis to South America.
[768]
[There were] a couple of bright spots. Denmark—you probably heard of this. Denmark— word spread and there was a high-ranking Nazi who found out they were going to take the Jews to camps. He let the Jewish community know somehow, that this was going to happen. So the Danish people organized—there were only about five or six thousand Jews. He organized ships, fishing boats, small boats [and] within a few nights they smuggled the whole community out of Denmark and they were saved. This was one bright spot in the picture of World War II. The other one is Bulgaria. We can say now, nothing could have been done. The fact is that most of the European countries cooperated with the Nazis to get rid of the Jews. The French, for example, they were starting to round up Jews even before the Nazis told them to. They were very cooperative with the Nazis. Eastern Europe, Poland, Ukraine, the local population were helping the Nazis. When Bulgaria was occupied by the Germans, and [the Germans] said that they want to take the Jews to concentration camps, the church leaders—the Parliament leaders, the King—they all said, “No, we are not going to let it happen.” And guess what, the Germans relented and the Jews survived in Bulgaria. Not too many people know about that. A friend of mine wrote a book about it. Anyway that’s how the Bulgarian Jews survived and that’s one of the few bright pictures. Anything else? [All giggle] [Paused the tape]
[794]
We all had to have identity cards. This—after all the Jews had to wear a yellow star—this was one of the pictures [points to picture.] The way it survived—on the back I found that I sent it to a cousin and I can’t remember how I got it back from this cousin. That’s how this picture survived. There is nothing mysterious here. I just like to show this picture because it shows that I was young once and I had hair. [Giggle] But mainly the way the Yellow Star had to be worn.
[go to second interview for Korean War service]
