rg stringlengths 14 17 | sequence int64 0 3.15k | text stringlengths 2 80.3k ⌀ | category stringclasses 2
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RG-50.030.0001 | 200 | How did you or anybody else know where these trains were going? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 201 | Where I'm going? | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 202 | No, how did you know where these trains were heading? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 203 | I told you the first time I found out the truth the baker, he told me that in this direction, goes down there to a place called and from there it goes down to and they knew. The local population knew. They were witnessing it. I don't think they were happy the Polish people regardless of their feeling. They still knew ... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 204 | Was there any effort by the Polish people to sabotage this? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 205 | From what I knew, do you mean sabotage the Jewish problem or sabotage against the Germans? | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 206 | Against the Germans? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 207 | There was quite a bit, I want you to know. From what I know and from what I observed the Polish people were very patriotic, and they hated the Germans regardless and let me tell you the Germans, the SS, they did not treat the Poles nicely, not even nicely. They were killing them off quite a bit. They were killing them... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 208 | Were you aware of any specific incidents? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 209 | Where they put on a resistance. Not a specific but I knew and I saw because the people I worked for, they were really engaged in that underground activity. I wasn't on a specific did anything specifically because I was young. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 210 | How long did you go from village to village hiding out as a catholic boy? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 211 | You want to know how much time. I was even late before, I was after that I worked in a gun powder factory, and also they had a lot of Jewish people down there working for those good chemists. They got together all those people who they didn't liquidate if they asked look what did you do, if he was a good chemist of ph... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 212 | Were you in hiding essentially for the rest of the war of how long? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 213 | Hiding through the rest of the war 1s the answer. I was never free. I either was inside, jail was inside or I was hiding outside. I was not hiding because I had to hide, I was hiding because I was scared. Just about I would say a year before the end of the year, the Polish resistance was very great, and I was scared a... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 214 | Can I just ask you a couple general questions. | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 215 | There's still a lot more for me to say, but it's very hard for me to go on. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 216 | Did you go back to Warsaw then? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 217 | Why certainly. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 218 | I wanted to ask you if you saw the city, the Ghetto burning? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 219 | The Jewish Ghetto, no, but I saw Warsaw. I was aware of the burning and I was aware that there was a Jewish uprising because it was full. Everybody was talking about it in the villages and the cities. I came back down to Warsaw and Warsaw was completely destroyed because after the Jewish uprising, after the Jewish upr... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 220 | You were liberated by the Russian army, when was that? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 221 | I didn't see the Russians, but that was about the time somewhere in 1945. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 222 | Did you in the time you were hiding, did you feel terribly isolated that you knew you had to be safe that you had to be a catholic boy, but you knew that you're people were somewhere else. Was that a strange feeling? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 223 | Well, number one it was I wasn't too smart to think about those things. I was trying to save myself. I knew that I'd never see my brothers and sisters. That I knew, yet the will to live and to one day survive and like now to tell people, it was a certain thought of it and I was lucky. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 224 | How did you feel about being Jewish at the time? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 225 | Well, let me tell you, I went to church for quite a while, but whenever I could avoid, could avoid. I never heard because the church never teaches anything harsh against Jews. I just felt strange amongst it because I was brought up in a Jewish religion, so I let it go by what the priests say with a grain. Let it go, o... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 226 | You didn't resent being Jewish? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 227 | I was resenting a lot of times. There were times when they took kids, in the villages, they took them to Germany and I was very scared because I was circumcised and I thought that whenever they had something like that surround and take the kids to Germany from the villages, I was hiding and very fast because they used... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 228 | After the war, were you eager to be Jewish again? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 229 | Let me tell you, during the war, I really thought that God as a German. I thought they'll never be defeated, the kind of cruelties, the way they were. I would say the SS and all the Gestapo and all the apparatus. I will tell you, you would never they were barbarians. They were not human beings, these people who were r... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 230 | After the war? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 231 | Well, when I went to America, of course, in American I found out that I would not circumcise my kids if it wouldn't be that they said in America they are circumcising everybody. I was Jewish. I got married and my in-laws they were Jewish too, and I let them circumcise my two sons. If I were to live in Poland, in Europ... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 232 | I guess did it take you a while to readjust to being a Jew again after the war? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 233 | Believe me, I knew I was Jewish, because there was some persecution in Poland too, after the war. And some of them came back from Russia or those who survived never made it even amongst the Polish people. There were some Poles who were not happy yet with Jews surviving. I wouldn't say some, majority were just people. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 234 | You're tired aren't you. Do you want to stop? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 235 | Yes. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 236 | After you were liberated, where did you go? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 237 | Eventually a year later I escaped from Poland and made my way to Germany. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 238 | Right afterward did you go back to your village to see if you knew anybody? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 239 | Definitely I went back. I was looking. I was trying to find out if anybody's 1s alive. I know they're not, but maybe, of course, I was trying. I went from village to village and I even put my name in on certain areas because I was afraid I was taken into the ARmy. I was afraid that somehow my sister by the writing on ... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 240 | You're sister is the only surviving? | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 241 | Yes. | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 242 | Is there anything else you think should be recorded about this whole experience. | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 243 | To record I could just tell you one thing. The worst for me was the Ghetto Warsaw. It was worse than hell. You couldn't imagine -- hell was worse. I can't imagine that the people could be surrounded, not fed, children my age and worse was smaller children, were just laying in the street begging for food, dying and no ... | answer |
RG-50.030.0001 | 244 | Thank you. | question |
RG-50.030.0001 | 245 | You're welcome. Conclusion of Interview | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 0 | I need you to start off by telling me your name, where you were born, what year you were born in, and your name as it was then? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 1 | All right. My name is Rita Kerner Hilton. I was born in Warsaw in 1926, July 22, 1926. I lived in Warsaw until I was six years old, seven years old, and then we moved to my mother's hometown Pomortsy. This is near Lodz, exiled city. My grandfather was a practicing dentist there and since my mother was a dentist, they ... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 2 | Tell me a little bit about your life growing up? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 3 | When I was a small girl, my parents were doing very well financially. My father was a entrepreneur. My mother wasn't working at that time, and we always had a maid. I had a nanny when I was small. When we moved into Pomortsy, my grandmother was running the house, but she always had sleep-in help. Since my mother worke... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 4 | Were you particularly religious? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 5 | No. My grandfather strongly believed in reformed Judaism, which did not exist in Poland as such. They never kept a kosher home. We did observe holidays. We observed Passover, and he used to go to the synagogue on high holidays, sometimes would take me, but it was different. He strongly felt that if there would be a re... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 6 | How integrated were you in the larger community? Were most of your friends Jewish? Did you go to a public school? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 7 | Well, I went to a public school, which was hard to get in, but this was the best -- I'm talking about primary school. We lived in a so-called new section of town, not the Jewish section, a new section of town. There were maybe about few Jewish kids there, mostly from the prominent families, doctors, lawyers and stuff ... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 8 | Were there social and cultural activities? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 9 | At one time I know my mother used to go to all those fancy charity balls, a lot of them. And I think closer to the war, there were a couple Jewish charity balls. I think she still used to go to the Red Cross ball and so on. But there were less social contact. My mother had a friend, a school friend, who was of a Germa... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 10 | So, let's talk a little bit about how things started to change. Were you aware of what was going on in Germany? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 11 | Oh, yes. My aunt lived in Germany. They came to the States before the war. They knew it was coming on. Also, there was a group of Polish people who lived in Germany, never had their German passports. They were never citizens, and in 1937, they all sent them out and we used to collect money for them. We used to give th... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 12 | What happened when the Germans occupied your town? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 13 | One of the first actions they put a bunch of restrictions. We couldn't use the street cars. We couldn't use the cafe downstairs where everybody used to sit. No Jews were allowed there. We couldn't go to the park. Schools were closed. I don't know when they told us to wear the -- before the stars, I think we had to wea... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 14 | Did that surprise you? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 15 | At that time, yes. At that time, he was so -- seemed like my father knew him and we knew him. We stayed with him. We paid rent, but we stayed with him for a couple of months. There was also a situation where we wanted to go to Warsaw. My mother decided to smuggle herself, smugglers and go to Warsaw. She had some fabri... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 16 | Now, I'd like to get a sense of the mood when the Germans came in. Were people fearful? Were people being abused? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 17 | No. The fear was when we were all running to Lodz before the Germans came. I don't think people were so fearful. It's hard to say how they felt. We all didn't know what would happen. By 11th of November, this is a Polish holiday, and just before they arrested all the prominent people in town, not only Jews, they arres... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 18 | You don't know what happened? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 19 | No. And then, as I said, it was winter, I think it was March, maybe February, when the Ghetto was formed, the Ghetto. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 20 | 1940? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 21 | Yes. And we didn't have a place to go. There was my grandmother's sister. She had a three or four bedroom apartment. By that time, there were two other families living in part of that apartment and we wound up in a little room. Some other relatives were there. It was just bedlam. Finally, we found out that there was a... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 22 | Polish people? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 23 | Polish people. We had access to food. We had access to a lot of things. She was making money, and she was helping the whole family. She had aunts and uncles and she was supporting everybody at that time. I worked with my grandfather in an outpatient clinic. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 24 | This was a dental clinic? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 25 | No. Grandfather before he became a dentist, he was something you called a feltcher (ph). It's almost like a medic. My grandfather was doing it. My grandfather was doing it. So, he was very well educated in medicine basically. Never became a doctor. And there was a need for an outpatient clinic, so this was free of cha... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 26 | Tell me about the organization of the Ghetto. Who was preventing you from coming and going? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 27 | There was a so-called Jewish , originally there was one lawyer in charge of it. There was a bunch of people who took over, and there were all kinds of unsavory things. Unsavory in terms of there were rations coming in, the food was coming in, and I think they were selling it in the Black Market. There was another grou... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 28 | This group was corrupt? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 29 | The first one, yes. I mean, I wouldn't say the first one. That one lawyer was not, but the group which took over, they were corrupt, very corrupt. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 30 | How did people get chosen for these duties? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 31 | I don't know. I think they just got a group of people together and went to the Germans and what they did, I don't know. This third group they were a couple of brothers and someone else, and they denounced the second group as corrupt, because I guess they got wind of what was going on. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 32 | Were there any women in positions of responsibility? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 33 | I don't think so. Not at that time, no. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 34 | Do you remember how you all felt about these Jewish police taking orders from the German. | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 35 | Well, they were not really taking orders from the Germans. They had to do a job and there were friends among them. I mean, they were not in any way abusing people or killing people, or hitting people. They were just standing there and wouldn't let you go. The Germans and the Poles could come into Ghetto, and they told... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 36 | Did they have any other responsibilities like organizational schools? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 37 | No, in Ghetto, there was absolutely nothing, no schools. The only thing we had organized, they organized a hospital. It was an old factory, and we organized it as a hospital. We had a bunch of fundraisers, which were like reviews, and people volunteered to entertain and perform and we would all go to the shows and tha... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 38 | Now, you said your mother worked and she had outside patients. Did you have enough to eat? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 39 | Oh yes. My family, at that time, we had too much to eat, because we had access to everything at much lower prices than the real Black Market. Those items were on the Black Market, but we were going directly from the Poles to us as I guess going to some middle man in the Ghetto. So, we did have enough to eat. Grandma a... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 40 | Were times hard for other people in the Ghetto, or was this Ghetto not too severe? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 41 | No, it wasn't too severed. But it was, like those two women who were teaching me, there were two sisters that lived with their mother, and they had absolutely no way of getting any money. They were tutoring me and they were tutoring my other friends, so that was their main way of making money. My mother gave orders th... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 42 | Was your sense for other people, was there food rationing? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 43 | There was rationing. There was a Black Market. There was rationing, but again it was not so bad like in Lodz. I mean, people survived. No one starved to death. The Jewish administration, I think they had some kind of a welfare department because Mom was taking in any patient who couldn't pay, Jewish patient, would get... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 44 | Were most people in the Ghetto working, older people or not? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 45 | I don't think so. I don't think so. That Ghetto lasted about two years. People still had things. People were selling things. They were selling linens. They were selling, if they had any jewelry, they were selling, so I don't think at that time, and look, I was a young girl, and I was concerned with working and meeting... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 46 | So, you were still doing all of those things? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 47 | I was still doing all of those things until the Ghetto was closed. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 48 | Now, how at this point you had really lost touch with all of your non-Jewish friends? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 49 | All right, there was an interesting encounter I had. In high school, we had one girl who was of German decent, and as before they would taunt Jewish girls, the year before the war, they started taunting her. We would not go to the -- they had catholic classes in school. The priest would come in and teach them catholic... | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 50 | So, it sounds like in the Ghetto you were able to carry on somewhat of a normal existence? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 51 | Basically. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 52 | It didn't change things, but you were still able to eat? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 53 | In my family. | answer |
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