Holocaust Memorial Day Meeting – Video and Transcript

The speakers from the recent Brighton UCU Holocaust Memorial Day Meeting on 10th of February, Herman Weiser, and Prof. Henry Maitles provided consent for the event to be recorded. The recording includes the speaking and presentation segments of the event, which was held on Zoom.

This post includes a transcript of Herman Weiser’s personal account as a Holocaust survivor. It is our hope that as many people as possible will read Herman’s account. Please share this as a learning resource with your students if appropriate.

Transcript of Herman Weiser’s personal account in conversation with Jeremy Weinstein. Wednesday 10th of February 2021.

Jeremy Weinstein
Nice to see you. Today I really appreciate you coming and talking here, we’ve, we’ve been having these conversations for a while now, and I know how difficult and painful. Your history is and how difficult it can be to speak. And it’s more what you’ve been through is more than the 20 minutes that we have to share here. I just start wherever you want to start. And I’ll just be here to help. At times if necessary.

Herman Weiser
Well, I’ll start from where I was born…Well, I was born in Carpathia in a tiny little village. The reason I’m telling you this is because it’s a small village. And there was only about I don’t know about 10-12 Jewish families and we where in a tiny little village, there was no shop, no roads. There was, never seen a car, never seen a plane. But if the Hungarians come up, Hungarian police come up and rounded up all the Jews, and marched us off. They said, take some food, right. So they marched us off to a school a bit further down to the next village, which is a little bit bigger and there was the school square. And then we were surrounded with machine guns, that’s the first time I’ve seen anything like that, and I realised that it wasn’t good. Seeing the guns and machine guns surrounding us. And from there, we were taken to a ghetto. And the food we had was getting low, my parents were giving the food to the children, and they were really starving. Eventually, they put us on a train, you know, we had to walk to the, to the station to another place. And then they, they took us, then we went into a cattle train. And we’re all lined up. Sitting in between each other’s legs. People were sleeping, rows and rows and rows of people I don’t know, it might been a hundred or more, in one cattle truck. There was no food, there was no drink, and there was no toilets. Now for two days and two nights we were in that train, with no food and drink. Very thirsty because it was in the summer, very thirsty and one day we did stop. Over a river, and I could see the water and I thought they were gonna let us out and have a drink. Of course not, they wouldn’t do that. And eventually, after the two days, we, we got to Auschwitz. And then, they opened the doors and then the Germans with their dogs were barking. Get out. Out, out, get out quick. And it was a whole lot. There must have been like 2000 people altogether, and I lost my family, I lost my family, I was on my own. So, I’m walking along. I don’t know what’s happened here it was really frightening there. And remember, I was just under ten, when that happened. So, you know, I was really scared now it’s gone along this line. By the sides of the line, and nearly got to these three Gestapo men who choosing the people for work. And the ones who are going to go to the gas chambers because we didn’t know we all thought we’re going to go to work. Instead of them, though. So I think, oh, the old. Women and children and the old went straight in the gas chambers. The one to the left went to the gas chamber, one to the right, went to work. And as I walk along, one, one, villager is showing him he’s got a wooden leg. So he wanted an easier job, he thought he was going to get better and easier job. While they were looking at him. I saw my father on the other side, and I ran over, they didn’t see me but the poor man’s lost his job, lost his life, because he showed him the legs and he couldn’t, he probably couldn’t work properly. So he went with the rest with the women and children. I loved my mom and my two sisters. And then I was with my father for quite a while, we went, we stayed in Auschwitz with one 24 hours, and then we were moved on to another concentration camp. And we stayed there for a while and we’ve got moved and moved, and eventually we got to different camps, and the one, the last one was well I can’t remember the name. Well, that’s where they were building, Dora ¹. Yes. That’s where they were building the rockets. So the people who work there in the tunnel had a terrible life, they didn’t last very long. So, after four or five months my father got ill. And he went into the hospital and I never see him again. And I used to go out in the morning before work, looking for him with the hundreds of bodies outside, naked bodies, looking for his face, but I never found him. So, I was in there, and I worked in the kitchen in that particular camp and had a 100 litres of potatoes I had to peel for the SS. And if you if I didn’t get through all the potatoes, I used to get hit with a rubber hose. And that is quite a lot of potatoes, a 100 litres. And eventually, the Russians were getting near, so I’m cutting this a bit short. And then the Russians were getting near, so we were moved, we were put on a train. On a train. They were going to move on to another camp. But what happened during the night, the train got shot up, either by the Americans or by, or the British, and a lot of a lot of people died there, and the ones that were left. We’re marching. We got on the March, we got five potatoes, a day. We had march on that all day. And we slept in the open and that carried on for, I don’t know. A week or two, well I can’t remember exactly on five potatoes. And one day, we were one night by the side of a forest. And when we woke up. There was two tanks, Russian tanks, no doubt so we were freed. I’ll leave it at that. I think, I won’t carry on from there. If you don’t mind. That’s roughly what happened. But it was obviously this thing happened, it’s gone on for three and a half years. I have trouble, too when it got too bad I think about it.

Jeremy Weinstein
What always strikes me, Herman is that first story about when you arrive at the camp and you had no idea what was happening, it was just by chance you saw your dad, and was able to get over to him I mean, the number of times that you were in that in the campaign over that period when you just escaped death. You had nine lives really didn’t you

Herman Weiser
I had a stack of lives, even after the war. I mean I can’t explain the things were happening to me. You know, I have no idea where, when we got free, where I was supposed to go. I mean, there’s no way I’ll possibly find a village a little village in the mountains. So I was sort of going around from village to village, no place to place, and eventually. Apparently my brother survived the camp but he also got lost, you know, everybody. When we got off the train, sorry I got lost, I lost it again. No, sorry about that. You carry on.

Jeremy Weinstein
What is the main thing that you want people to, to know about your experience, what is there a lesson there, or is that a silly question?

Herman Weiser
Well, what I want people to know. Just because you were born a Jew. We suffered so much for no reason. And I want the people to know we suffered. I mean, we were just working the land. There was no shop. We just worked the land everybody. Even I at eight or seven had to work the land, you know, pick the potatoes and things we have to get enough food for the winter. So everybody worked the land. There was no tractor, there was a cow, we used to milk the cow, and also used to pull the plow. Right. I don’t, you know, there was no money. There was nothing but they, just a hatred of the Jews. They come all that way up the mountains, just to collect a few Jews. Old people, you know right away there was two people died on the train journey. And you know there we are the two people are dead, couldn’t do anything about it we couldn’t get out. We couldn’t even get up to go to the toilet. Now, that’s a really unbelievable you wouldn’t treat animals like that again making just because you are Jews. It’s not like here, in England, or America, where they got money and things. We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have anything really just a bit of land. So, that’s the difficulty and I find it very hard that my parents died just because they were Jewish. And I found my brother, and my uncle. He was in the, he survived, he was in the Czech army. He, my father’s family most of them went including him. My mother’s family, all of them went, everybody in my mother’s family, nobody survived, except my uncle. And he was in the army. Anyway, apparently. He went to the Red Cross, and he wanted to know if anybody survived. And he find myself, my brother, and he got us together, and we. I was in the hospital and was lean and my brother was working in Bata shoe factory. And I was in the hospital for about a month. Getting extra milk to built me up, because I mean I was only skin and bone.

Difficult to say more.

Jeremy Weinstein
Yeah.

Herman Weiser
I just want you know people should think. And also, I tell you, I haven’t been to edge, I have not had any education at all I find that really difficult. I can just about read. If it’s not too difficult work, but I can’t spell. So through life, either get a job. And not able to read and bluff my way around to get the job and I managed to keep a job not losing it though I couldn’t read and write. So its been a hard, hard life. And I find it. And I shall never, never get it out of my system. I think that’s it.

Jeremy Weinstein
Okay. Thank you Herman. Thank you.

Herman Weiser
You know, obviously I can’t go through everything.

Jeremy Weinstein
No, well, there will be an opportunity to for people to ask questions which you might want to answer.

Herman Weiser
Pleased to answer, pleased to answer them if I can.

Jeremy Weinstein
And it may be things that Henry picks up on, you might want to come back on, on that, and if you don’t want to say anymore that’s absolutely fine as well. Thank you.

Herman Weiser
If I can answer them, I certainly will yes. That would be fair. People come.

Jeremy Weinstein
Yeah, and I want people to know what happened. Understand what happened. Okay. so okay. Thanks a lot.

Fiona MacNeill
Thank you so much Herman for taking the time to speak with us today, we really deeply appreciate it.