Kestenberg Archive

13-50A (18-33A): AK was born in 1928 in Katowice and has a younger sister. AK's father had a large jewelry business. When the war started, AK, his mother and sister fled Katowice which is close to the German border. They were in Warsaw during the fighting and returned to Katowice afterwards. The Germans required all Jewish men, including AK's father, to report for forced labor. AK's father went to Lvov in the Russian occupied zone. Acting on the advice of AK's father to leave Katowice for a small town with few Jews, they moved to Wolbrom. Later, their mother sent AK and his sister to their grandmother in Sosnowiec. War broke out between the Germans and the Russians in June, 1941. AK's father decided to take Russian citizenship and stay in Lvov; later he moved to Klaj where he had a cousin. There were only 15-20 Jews in the village, so he decided to hide there. In January, 1942 AK celebrated his bar mitzvah in Sosnowiec without his parents but with many good friends. His friend Merin was the son of the Judenalteste in Sosnowiec and he has seen his name in many publications. In the summer of 1942, it became too dangerous to remain in Sosnowiec, so he and sister joined their mother in Wolbrom. They lived with their father in Klaj for a short while until returning to Wolbrom. They travelled by train accompanied by a non-Jewish woman. AK's father moved to the Cracow ghetto. They exchanged letters until late fall 1942 when the ghetto was liquidated. AK's father was never heard from again. A doctor friend of his mother's rescued them from the transport from Wolbrom by pretending that they were his family. ; Then they paid smugglers to lead them on foot across the border to Sosnowiec. The Srodola ghetto in Sosnowiec was established in spring 1943. When the ghetto was liquidated, they hid for about 10-14 days in a bunker they had built under their apartment. AK would go out at night for food and water and to empty the waste bucket. They left the bunker to join a remaining group of Jews. AK worked in the storage houses collecting things from the ghetto and sold some of them to Aryan Poles in exchange for food. He mentions a book by Eichmann Trial witness Yehiel Dinur called Salamandra dealing with the Sosnowiec Ghetto. In January, 1944 they were sent to Auschwitz. He was initially put with his mother but she pushed him explaining that it would be safer with the men. He told the Germans he was an electrician so he was sent to a labor camp. He mentions the infamous Kapo Jakov Gorselczak. In the spring of 1944, he was moved to Jugendlicher Block living with 200 to 300 youths and working on the Rollwagenkommando. They were not short of food. On January 18, 1945 they were taken by foot to Althammer, a division of Auschwitz and then by train to Mauthausen where some prisoners resorted to cannibalism. In April, they were evacuated and walked for three days to Gundkirchen. They received food packages from the Red Cross. There were children between 5-15 years old. They were liberated on May 4, 1945. ; 13-50 (18-33B): For the first time in his life, AK was able to decide where to go next. He was arrested for stealing food by American military police and taken to a DP camp near Linz, Austria. He told them that he wanted to go to the USA to join an uncle in Brooklyn but the authorities never found the uncle. AK was in the Polish camp with three boys from Lodz with whom he is still in contact. They were fed but he continued to steal food. Jewish Brigade soldiers came to the camp looking for refugees willing to go to Palestine. AK registered and was trucked to Salzburg crossing the border to Brigade headquarters in Treviso, Italy at night. There were about 120 youth, many survivors of Auschwitz. Arje Awissar, a soldier from Palestine, was assigned to organize the children. In the summer, they lived in a villa in Vilambroso financed by the JDC and UNRRA. In the winter they moved to a big house in Fiesole near Florence. They received basic education and intensive Hebrew instruction. AK's uncle was finally found and he offered to adopt him. ; But the very next day he was moved to a secret camp near Genoa from which they would sail to Palestine. The Italian police were bribed to allow them to sail. There were about 1200 people on the boat. They were stopped near Haifa by the British Navy and sent to Atlit detention camp. About a month later, he was sent to Kibbutz Alonim under the auspices of Youth Aliyah. They were encouraged to talk about their Holocaust experiences. He also joined the Haganah. He left the kibbutz aged seventeen, working as an electrician and studying electrical engineering at the Technion until the War of Independence in 1948. He served two years, 1948-1950 in the infantry. He saw action but was not wounded. After his service, he lived in Acre and worked in Haifa constructing automatic telephone exchanges. AK's uncle persuaded him to move to America but it took years to obtain a visa. He finally arrived in New York when he was 28 years old. He studied at night in the RCA Institute. He met his wife who worked in a bank. She is from Vichy France and neither she nor her entire family were ever deported. At the time of these interviews, they have two sons, 20 and 14. The older one is retarded so his wife does not work.