Our guest this week on Veterans Chronicles is Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum. The impact of the Holocaust on his family is staggering and we are honored to have him with us in studio to share his story. And mister Greenbaum, thank you very much for being here. My pleasure tell our listeners and our viewers when and where you were born? Bob was born April fourth, nineteen twenty eight. I called from my family of nine children, star Jovids, Poland.
It was seventy five kilometers ato Warsaw. Where were you out of the nine children? It was before the Nazis invaded Poland that one of your sisters went to the United States. Correct, she came here in nineteen thirty seven. In one of my responses of that, when was my brother, my father's brother, Charlie. He had two brothers and a sister, and the immigrated to New York and nineteen old four. It was easy to come to this country in those days. In nineteen thirty seven when she left, was it
because she was worried about Germany? Or was it for different reasons? No, just a different reasons. Tried to make a better life for herself. We all tried to come here, but the immigrational OSMO kind of tough before the Nazis invaded. What was your childhood like? My child was just a normal upbringing. I went to public school. I went to Hebrew school and played a lot of games with other children, mostly soccer. Was there any
animosity towards the Jewish families before the Germans and what? I don't remember anything like that. I don't think we had that m chanta Semitism in my town too much. They were worries. Your father was worried long before the invasion that it was coming. Yes, he got us jobs in the munition factory. My three sisters and myself already working in the munition factory. You're just ten or eleven years old. I was twelve years old, twelve years old?
What was that like? It was good. I mean I looked forward to it. If I didn't go to school. I went to the factory to work mostly at schools until they identified us with the yellow staff David in the front and then the back. They put the yellow saw on us and we came to school. The teachers said, no school for Jews anymore. You can't come to school anymore. But Hebrew school. We finagled around somewhere somebody else's house. He were able to keep it up for a little while,
even before the Nazis came. You suffered a major tragedy when your father passed away. Yes, two months before he passed away, he's going he's the one that made a living in the tailor's shop. But the older brothers and the other brother. But then one of the was drafted in the Polish army and he had to fight the war with Germany. The other brother was home with us, so we thought. Mom thought that day will take over the business and run it the way we were made a living. That the
big of a deal. But nevertheless we had a shop to take care of. People come in, they want to fix things brand new or maybe shortened, maybe lengthen let out again. And also the girls would come in two with ladies close and Mom would have the girls helping along with that. Had your father trained them over the years, Oh yes, I'm sure he learned the two older ones. My job was very easy. I had to keep the eye in gold hot. In those days, we didn't every electric irons.
We had iron with a hollow tummy and it was filled up with coal, I guess, and I had to lay on the floor with a piece of corboard paper. It either blown out of my breath or either moving along get some air started so the iron get hot. If I didn't go to public school. Tell me about September first, nineteen thirty nine, when the invasion came. What did that mean for you? Well, I was, I was actually scared, but Mama showed us she remembers World War One that
they didn't bother us too much. The Jewish people now and then you know, somebody got beat up. How did you experience the invasion? When did they come to your town? Oh, when they came to my town. We wore on a farm then, and my father passed away. God Mom got very protective, especially over the girls. And the one brother was only home with us, the oldest brother. The other was with the during in the Polish army. She got a horse and buggy for my neighbor and they
took us ten miles away onto a farm. And the farmily knew us because he would bring every Thursday eggs butter or to our either he was on the marketplace or sometimes he would come in if he had some work to do. And they put us up for three days, and by they were invading my town, except them by the ten I think when they took over the town and my mom told the girls they can't go nowhere. They had to stay
put in the home, and she gave all the protection they need. Did little did she know what was waiting for her that she cannot give her any protection at all. If the girl had or free to go, maybe they can find a job on her farm's aware, but she didn't let no one leave. They had to stay put there and with the protection of her. And then while we were there on the farm put for two days, we were eating our breakfast outside. The farmer gave us bread and butter and we
had to think of a tomato off the vine. And if you finished that, you're a good breakfast. You were not hungry. And we say that for two days, and we heard all the commotion going on in town because we were only ten miles away, so we heard the bombardment and all that going on. But she didn't want us around there, so no ladder was got hurt in two days. On the second day, when we were eating our breakfast outside, we saw I approaching I soldier coming our way, and
we didn't know who the soldier was. The Polish was Russian was the German? We didn't know. As they got closer, my brother knew of him. They knew each other like friends. They either from school or the either he was a customer in our shop. He was a Polish uniform, a soldier, had a lot of medals on him, so he was not a private. He escaped from the Germans in the Upsite direction, away from the
Germans family in my years, he got close him. My brother addressed in by his first name, and he called my brother by his first name, and then he says, so him, where are you running away from? He said, I'm running away from the German army and on the Upsite direction, so I'll be free. So my brother asked him, is it okay if I go along with you? And I, of course, I didn't like to hear that. My oldest protector. I didn't think bombs will give
me that much protection or the girls who will give me any protection. It's my older brother. I thought he was a hero in my book, but he decided to run away and I didn't like that, so I chased that to him for a couple of miles. Every time I lifted my head over the bushes because we want a farm, he would say, go back to your mother, go back to your mother. And I did listen to him because I was mad at him. Why he was doing that. Then the
Polish soldier turner are in the elder be real loud. You're too young. You cannot come with us. You better go back to your mother. I said, okay, I her. I ran back a couple of miles and told my mom what happened. She was upset. Dave run away. First they came out of my mouth. Who's going to make a living for us? Oh? She started crying, carrying on, and the girls assured that
that they're going to help three girls. Then you out to sew and you know I can only make they are in heart, that's all likely, And we settled for that, and then she calmed down. My sisters said they could work on the man's clothes as well as they're tailoring on ladies clothes. Not to worry about. And on the third day we picked up and we went back to our house where we had to come through the at the market place, and there I saw a picture of ten people hanging like on a
spring, you know, a swing without the change. Bodies were hanging. Ten people, civilians were hung. And I asked, my mama said, is this what they're going to do to us? She says, no, no, no, no. Those were the Intelli against their people. They were the lawyers, the doctors, very smart people from the town or maybe communists, they don't know. So my mama showed me that they are to take a word for it, and we by pass. And they were left
him over there hanging a whole week like a scarecrow. And then they took him off and they had to bury the bodies because we didn't have any cremation yet or there shamers, so that there felt better when I didn't have to look at when I went outside of a walk or go to visit my sisters, I was able to go yet. And then after they put us on the yellow Salve David, then they were driving up at the trunks and grabbing us on the trunks and they would take us out of the fields and we
would have to dig trenches for them. And sometimes my shift in the factory was from three to eleven at night. I showed them the ID cards. I said, I work. I have a job. Well, what time would your job eleven? Well, we'll bring you back to the factory. You work for us, and then we'll take you back. I said, okay, So one day or two I had two shifts work over the army and then going for the for the Polish governmental factors were still in the poor
ships. And then until Herman Going took over, they changed the factory name to Hermann Goering Factory. Sarah, let's pause right there. We'll pick up your amazing story in just a moment. I'm speaking with Henry Greenbaum, Holocaust survivor on Veterans Chronicles. Welcome back to Veterans Chronicles. Honored to be joined in studio today by Henry Greenbaum, a survivor of the Holocaust. I'm Greg Corumbus. We've been just talking about the Nazi invasion of Poland and the immediate
impact on your family. How long was it after the invasion that your remaining family was sent to the ghetto. Well, it was the middle of sending it. They get those right there. We lived near the synagogue. The ultra Hasidic Jews lived near the synagogue. We were like the third fourth house from the synagogue, and the rest was scattered all over. And one day they didn't let anybody go to work for twenty four hours, and they bought extra soldiers in, extra dogs in, and they chased us out of the
ghetto area to a more open field. And there we saw the Jews that did live in this area. My two mirror sisters didn't live in our area. They lived somewhere else, but we saw them at that market place where they marched us to. And then when you walked up, you had to come through the soldiers and they were directing traffic which way you go. So we walked up as a family, myself, my mom, my five sisters.
Three actually were married, but we gave one open, gave up the little girl to go with the grandma because she was already working in the factories. If we didn't know, they go to take him and kill him. Wed to find out to left the war that all those they were separated from us, able bodied people, pregnant women, handicapped people, olderly people, people that just gave birth to a child, carrying the little tiny tots in
their hands, they were all separated from us. The only ones that they lived there was able bodied people, on the ones that worked in the factory and they had the IDs. So I'm ma sure that almost half of our population they separate us from never made it. And we found out after the war because we were looking for them after the war, going to different camps. We came to bergen Belsen and there there was the British soldiers. They freed bergen Belsen. I was freed by the Americans on the death March.
So I ran in to my first cousin. She says, what are you doing here? Is that I'm looking for Mom, your aunt, and I'm looking for your cousins with their children. She says, nobody from your family or my family is in this camp at all. But I am going to Poland after it was all over, after the occupation and looking for my brother. I said, why are you there looking for your brother and look for your cousin for his cousin Zachary, he was in the Polish army. So
she and I told her, I can I go with you? I'm too scared. I want to be with Mom and staying there in the ghetto. They took them away. We no longer saw them at all. To lift at the wall. We were looking then and my cousin said, they nobody's here, so we stopped looking for Then we ran into the highest people that organized or on this election. The people that they survived, they said, they don't look where they were killed. Two days later, in Treblanca,
they were all guessed to death. Because treb Blanca didn't have a didn't have any more camps there, they came by train. They were ordered to the guest chambered for a shower, and then they were guessed to death, and then they were cremated. So that's all that happened in That's all happened in true blanket. That's what they told me. If anything else you can investigate, they must be more to it than that. But as far as I know, the people that got there, they said, leave your luggage and
will deliver it to you. So the leg the luggage was left on the train and they went to take a shower, undressed, take a shower, and they were guests to death, and then they had to be buried, you know, but they didn't have to be buried because they already had gas chambers there. You were sent to a labor camp with I was right there, and and the ghetto from October forty to October forty two, and that's when they had that selection. They took the people away to Treblanca. They
didn't let us go back into our home. They chased us past our home for six kilometers uphill the extra soldiers and the dogs. They were literally chased to So whatever volleyballs, if you left and they in the ghetto area say that the ghetto, you could not retrieve anything anymore. They chased you past the ghetto. On top of a stone quarry. They built for us a slave labor camp with the tower and the guards and the search lights and the
dogs and the barracks. The barracks will sitting stilts. And then if we arrived at our destination, the low speaker came up, Attention, attention, you must empty all your pockets, all your belonging. No money or gold or jewelry can come through the gate other than yourself and your clothes. Otherwise we will kill you. So everybody that didn't give away to the soldiers in the ghetto, they were able to bribe the Eucreatians. They were not able
to bargain with the SS guys. But the Eucreatans, you give them a watch or necklace or bracelet. It would begin bread extra bread, because in the ghetto we wore on or I what they call it. They had to bring in our food, and every week the food would get less and less and less like us and soap. We did it about two weeks. We were going with the soap, so we could not keep ourselves clean at all.
And then we had arrived. Nobody got hurt. Everybody furnished a little blanket about three feet wide, rolled up, and then on the way to the barrack, when the barrack was full, they each our signals. If it was full, we went to another barrack, and the barrack consisted of a wooden shack with bunks three bunks, but the bunks were not put any straw or mattress or blanket or anything, just a plain wooden shelf. Three guys to a wooden shelf. We had to sleep one mostly on the side.
Should be comfortable. So if one turn all on that the turn and the blanket that we used it was all up like this anxious. They use it for a pillow like so the board wouldn't press into your neck. If we stayed there for one more year, we stay there, and that slave
lived became and we all returned to the factory to work. Communition now there was all Germany already had it, and then we worked for them, and then now and then they would take you away from the immunition printing out anti air car shells to make springs or maybe bullets, or any other things to teach you other than just stamping out and the air car shells. So by the time you get through, you could almost do anything that the Polish men
did. Pause right there, We'll come back and do another segment with mister Henry Greenbaum, survivor of the Holocaust on Veterans Chronicles. Welcome back to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus, honored to be joined today by Henry Greenbaum, a survivor of the Holocaust. And sir, you were just telling us about life inside the labor camp. This was the labor came with her jobs continued. One of my sisters that gave up a child to grow with Grandma because
she was boy. She had an idea that she worked in the factory, so she didn't want to, so she had to separate it from the child. If she wanted the child, she could have known gone with her sisters to Treblenca. They didn't know where they were going in those days, but she had she could have done that. And by the way, her husband was already in America too. Her husband came to New York set up a lady's shoe factory. And how lucky could she have been with lady's shoes?
Her husband honed, it would have changed every half hour pay shoes. But she did lift to to enjoy that because she was with me, but the other two sisters, and she became a tailor. They were looking for volunteer tailors to work on the German uniforms, on the high ranking officers uniforms, and they told them, for six months you're going to be running a uniform shop and you're going to repair things, and I'll tell you a week before when you should have us ready, because all of you are going to be
deported out of here. So the tailors didn't like what they heard. They said they were deported. They didn't tell us where, and you can't ask questions. And after the almost the year was up, he came. The high ranking officer came to the tailors and they told them, next week you as most have all these things ready, because all of you are going to be deported no more, no more slavely they became here, but they will be sent away somewhere else where. They didn't tell us. So what happened.
They didn't let anybody go to work for twenty four hours. They always have twenty four hours because of the different shifts, So there was twenty four hours everybody was they may show everybody's under one roof. And then all of a suddenly their trucks pulled up and they picked up all their uniforms intact, and the tailors in the meantime organized that escape out of there. Oh, we were guarded by the UK by the Ukrainians and the German Nazis, and
the dogs and the floodlights and their guns they had. They were guarding us on the top of the tower. At nighttime, it was pitch shock. All of a sudden, sister that joined the tailors came by with a Jewish policeman. When I get back to thee to the barrack, from by eleven to three, nor from seven thirty to eleven, we'll mix up from seven in the morning to three in the afternoon. But then I had another shift from eleven to three in the morning, then for three the morning to seven.
Anyway, she told me, do not go in when you're returning from the slave labor camp. Do not go pain into the to live to the factory, and don't go into the barrack. Rather stay outside and wait for me, and it'll be pitched dark. I was already fifteen years old that time, and she says we are going to escape. She wouldn't tell me a week before, but that in case they beat you up and they get some secrets out of you, I don't think I would ever reveal it,
but anyway, you never know. So she didn't help me till the night before it. I'll come by to morrow at eleven when you have the shift. When you come back, and I'm gonna come in, we're gonna run out of fear. I was pitch dark. She came by with a Jewish policeman that she had befriended. If she held his hand, she grabbed my hand. If we were running maybe ten feet away to the hall, and we were lined up chen in a group. So the tailors alone took k
of chen groups. There were a hundred tailors, and then whomever they told lining up behind them in tendering the group. But the only thing happened that only one can slip through at the place where they came to run away, only one can slip through it at the time. So the third party, the third of the ten who got out quietly, they brought up a clippers from the factory and they cut the wire open on the fence. So two people can or three people when you arrive at ten more people can squeeze through.
It will be faster. And that's what they did the third party. Then they started breaking open the outdoor fence, and there was a wooden fence. Even a hackle or a saw would make no lot of noise. They kept breaking the wood to make the whole bigger. They made it bigger, and then all of a sudden that attracted the dogs because they were barking and screaming. The dogs and their guards knew something was wrong, so they flipped the lights on. They flipped the lights on, and people were running towards
the escape route and they started shooting at them, shooting at them. They were facing almost the hall too. The soldiers, we were facing the hall, but we were standing up anyway. Some we killed some mead he just injured, and some got out, and all of a sudden, when the people stopped running out, already there was quite a few, I do all remember how many a ten row more whomever the tailors stoled, like a cousin, an uncle, a good friend, yo, a relative or whatever.
We didn't know that what happened. So we were standing there waiting for our neck. And then they put the floodlights on us, and they started shooting on us, and then they screamed, they screamed, some of the women screaming in the group to the police Jewish policeman, what should we do? Should we proceed to the hall or should be a suspicion to spurs. They could only kill one at a time. They had the rifles only they did have a machine gone, just a rifle, so they could only shoot one
at a time. And we all started making back to thee to the barracks. I had mind not to go back to my barque where I belong, to go into the women's barrack looko for my sister Fager, because the other two one of them died of typhoid and the slave labor camp and one of them high fever she didn't go line up for work. They shot her. The ansare scrup and they killing her it. So I only had this one sister husband in America and the daughter. Her daughter went by grandma to to
Treblenca, so I hardly had the one fagure. The one fager was not there, and then I could not find her. So I said, well, I'm going to start. He was running with the lights everywhere, but if you lowered your head, and our barracks were on the opposite direction, and I ran in to the woman's barrack, opened the door. The woman stayed there. They can't tak her of thee of their barrack. You can't come in here. You're full of blood. You're gonna get us all killed.
I said, I'm gonna go get you killed. I almost got killed myself. I'm not going to kill you. They're not going to kill you. They don't know I'm here. Yeah, but if they catch you here. She was trying with all their strength to get me out. I sat in the doorway and I didn't move. I said, you're gonna have to pick me up and throw me away somewhere, but I'm not leaving this place. So when everything quieted down. People stop already running back to their places.
Those two guards from the tower had their floodlights still going and anything they're so moving. They shot and then all of a sudden people stopped running. What they were doing in random They picked different barracks and the one of the barracks were Lady Barrack, and they were shooting right through the wood. In that wood cannot stop a bullet. The bullet went right straight through. The women jumped off their bunks, their shell rother or bunk and on the floor.
They went on the food. They were sitting up like position like I was sitting on the door, sell down on the bottom, and they sat down in the front of their bunks on the bottom, on the floor, and I was I contact with every one of them, and I looked for my sister Vega. I didn't like the answer she gave me. She said she's not here. You left to leave, no, And then I saw
I ran into my first cousin either the one I ran in. They jumped myself ahead of time in the other camp where the British organized that, and she asked me to go to Poland with her. She made it. She did not escape she made it into this barrack and she said, I'm going to Poland. Do you want to go with me? I said, either, I am not going to Poland. I'm too scared. I even don't
want to be here with the British soldiers. I want to be with the American soldiers because I had a sister in America, and I know if I get in touch with somebody else, they might have leaped me into America. That was in my head for I said I didn't want to go with her. And she left for poland left the liberation. But before that we did the extra soldiers and extra dog They put us. They did marshes back uphill their marshes for six kilometers to the slave labor camp. But down they did
not march her. They put us on truck. They emptied out everything out of that barracks that were there, make sure nobody everything was there, and they took us to the railroad yard and they put us in those freight cars, one hundred to a car, like sardines. No water, no bathroom for day, for four days at least, no no bathroom, no water, and there was kind of hot in there. You could hardly breathe in there and that little window that they had maybe it was like fifteen inches by
ten inches. Bob d y on that and there, if you can make it over there to get a breath of fresh air. You here had helped you. But some people were subbering. They didn't want to move away from there. That's where they're standing. Eventually they got to fight. They got him away from there. I was fifteen years old. I was sitting in the corner on the floor and just dozing off. I said, let me go to sleep. I won't have this, just promised in the trouble with
the other inmates. I have the trouble with I just sit quietly, and then later on the quiet on they let the churns over to get a breath of fresh air. We were troubling for like four days. When the third days we arrived at our destination. And I was fifteen years old that I came to Auschwitz Birkenau at fifteen and they had to the German Nazis had to all open our wagons from the outside to let us off. I just want to go back to your escape attempt, because while you talked about the guards
shooting at you, at the escape attempt. You didn't mention that you got shot. Where did you get hit? I'm I'm jumping ahead on MYSELFE it got hit. A bullet hit me in the back of my head. A bullet grazed me. They listed on my bio bullet in his head, but the bullet never got into my head, just cut an opening, two inch opening right here. And I was bleeding furiously. And that's where my cousin. When I was in the woman's barack, she says, let me help
you. Your sister's not here. I know more bunksy she was on because I looked for her this morning. They were first cousin. She says, and let me help you with your wound. I said, I was shot injured. She had a bucket of water there, and she had the rags that they use in the barrack to clean up something. She put it clean me off. She stopped the bleeding without dry rag, and she told me to put her beret that she was wearing on top of me. She put
it on my head and the blending stop. Then I got out of there, and then I got back into my barack in the slave labor camp, and then they fixed the hole and then they shut all the wounded people in the front of that hole. And this is what will happen to you should you we get an idea and trying to escape again, we will kill you. And we had to watch them killing all the wounded people. There was
the policeman. He was still alive. He was on the floor on the grass, sitting up upright position with his cap on and the white band, I think, and he was sitting up moaning and moaning. He was wounded. But I didn't see my sister until he was killed, when he tilted over and he fell. There's with my sister figure. She was dead the night before. Maybe she ran instead of running back to her barraque, the two of them. Maybe the policeman decided to go with her to escape,
and maybe at the escaped her out. He was injured. She was killed. And I was fifteen years old by myself, and I was put on those on those trains, and I wound up and asked Fitzberg and her by myself, and I said, dear Lord, you will have to watch over Menah. I am wholly alone. H I don't have the sisters to the follow me. My three sisters on the death I said they were going so you will have to watch over me so I can come to America and be
a good citizen. Here Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum. In just a moment, Henry will tell us what life was like inside the infamous Nazi death camp of Auschwitz berken Now. I'm Greg Corumbas Veterans Chronicles will be back in a moment. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum. Just before the break, Henry told us about
his arrival at Auschwitz berken Now and his prayer for God's protection there. We now pick up Henry's story as he explains, the first thing the Nazis did at Auschwitz was to dehumanize the prisoners, and Auschwitz broken. Now. The first thing they did is they took away your name and they gave you a number. They gave you a number on the arm. If I can open up my sleeve, sure, Okay. After this, they finally had a
haircut. I didn't have a hair cut, and in three years, no shower in three years because they didn't give us any soap in the summertime. We would undress from the waist, torn up a man and he didn't have any soap. You took dirt and put it all over you like a mud bed, and the next one would pump their water on you and cleaned you off. But that didn't kill the lice. And the lizafestation was so bad
that some people would die over it. And they also when they grabbed us, yeah, where we wore in the yellow with the yellow stove, David, they would grab us on the truck and they took us into the farmlands and we had to dig trenchers there and they didn't tell us they the trenchers who would be for the people who they killed to be buried. Because we didn't have any gas chambers or cremation, the body had to be buried.
It's bad publicity for the Germans to leave bodies all over the place. So whoever didn't line up for work and came down with typhoid, the only thing saved you. Low fever, high fever. I had low fever, my older sister low fever. But the two of them in between, they had high fever. They couldn't stand on their feet. One of them died in the barrack. But for that because she couldn't get out at all because they found their dead. And then the other one they helped them with the other
soldiers. They put her on a truck and they went to the next barrack. When it was full, they would take him into the farm lens. It was only like six kilometers away, and they'd take him to the farm lens and they would undress them naked and they would shoot him into the ditch they went, and if that grave was full, they went to another one,
another other one. They told us when you dig the trenchers. The trenchers were not for graves, there for military tanks to fall in in zig zag shape, because the war is still going on and they were going to be used for tanks to fall in. After the war, we found out the farmers came out in squealed where those holes war because they took the clothes. They gave them the clothes full of lice. The farmers from ladies or mans, whoever were there. They had to dry, undress naked, and
that's how they were killed. Inn't there so how many graves they were there that I can't remember, But they could not wait ten days until that sickness would wear off if without medication, if you waited, I was told ten days. We have no time for ten days. We can get as many prisoners as we want, okay. So they brought in prisoners from other camps
they contested. They caught the typhoid immediately they put them in on the bunks, so somebody was missing with other people who were already invested with it. So they got sick too. So there was an old wind situation. But for them just to kill the people at the end, in quite a few they did. It's two of mine sisters, they did. One of them died of typhoid, but the other one they shot. But anyway, then
after the third place, after Hacut, were so thirsty. For four days, we didn't have any water, never mind bathroom, never mind food, just water. We finally saw water coming down in the shower room. We had to undress naked, and they finally gave us a piece of so in the hand. And I'm holding like the handkerchief in one hand and drinking water that I was running down already running from the shower and I'm just trinking,
not just me, all of us transport who they saved. We drank enough water so we won't be thirsty, and then we clean ourselves up real good with the soap. You could almost like rub off the skin that we didn't have the wash for so many years, like three years, not to wash two years, and they get on one year and the slave labor camp, we could not get clean there. So we so we were cleaned up, and they took away their clothes full of lice. They put it on a
conveyor and they goes through a tremendous heat and that kills the lice. And then they send them back to our camp somewhere where they bundled them up and they send them back to Germany for recycling. And then they gave us our striped uniform, the striped cap, the striped jacket, striped pants, wooden bottom shoes, canvas stops, no underwhere of socks, and a trip with
wide little blanket that we used as a pillow. Every barrack was the same, built with their shelves and no metros on it at all, and the three people to a bunk and that's where we stayed. We got cleaned up, and luckily we only stayed in that auschwitz Berkenale For six months. There was not really any work for us to do except except helping along with the commando who was in charge to pick up dead bodies on the compound of the
Auschwitz Berkenale, and sometimes they could lift it. We happened to be near us, we helped them with the body and they would take those bodies for cremation and pile them up in the front of the cremation house like a lumber yard. Bodies this way, but as this way in the stinct was a high heaven from dead bodies. And you're you're fifteen years old, and you didn't smell that smell where you came from because people were shot and then they
buried him and you didn't have that. And we did have it. On the train. Three people died on the train from exhaustion. They never get off the wagon. The dogs got in there and they could not revive them at all. They were dead already, I'm sure. Anyway, while we were in there, six months prior to that, a German civilian men came into Auschwitz Berkenal. He came in with two guards, two dogs. He chose our barrack because we were still in working condition. We were not skeletons,
yet he sent him in to chase us out of the barrack. In the front of him, he looked you in your face. Over here you go this way, you go right, left, right, left. Heave on. My transport was murdered the same night. We didn't know that until all the people that were there before us, they know the news what's going on. They've been there long, maybe a year or so, so they
know what's going on. He says. They were all killed, murdered because they had an order howmedity to kill that night, or hammed, or they didn't have any room. I think they probably had an order howmedy they need to dispose of. It's so not to take away anybody. They don't care if you sleep on top of each other. What would they care? Anyway?
That that German savior, he was like a life saver. He took us out of the Auschwitz Perkunar with this guard and he marched us for three kilometers to a place called Buona Manowitz Bunar Bna Manowitz, a sub camp of Auschwitz. That man was either a manager or maybe a partner or owner of the ig Farbon company. If you've heard that one the ig Farben Okay, this is the suppliers of cyclone gas box sprays, automobile tires, bicycle tires,
sentetic fuel. But the fifty that that man, the civilian men pick was to build us or we should build a road in the compound of the Ig Farber company, Cobblestoul Road and a sidewalk. Three months we were building that, we did quite a preach, big chunk, and the supplies three wagons were sitting on the rail may have been five feet away if we had run out of this stone gold gap at the train and help each other with cobblestone and pile up here with gray or gravel or sand or emen whatever they
needed to build the road was. And we were like three months at the time we're building that road. We did quite a little bit, quite a few feet away, and all of a sudden they finally the United States. That was already in nineteen forty five, the United States decided to send the Air Force to I. G. Fabur and to get the rail system. So they would always bomb the rail ahead of the locomotive. So when the locomotive got to the destination, you had to stop because they would turn over
everything, and they were doing this like three days in the row. On the third day they came back, they demolished. On the first day they came back, they passed by for us. They had a push card with picking up little papers from the ground with a stick or something that they had put the ground, and they were to keep the compound clean. The British soldiers they were pushing just a cart. They looked like in good shape, shaving clean, their uniform both taken care of. Their little cap was underneath
here under the shoulder. The shoes were shined, and they came by us. We they had a bunker in the ig Farbbing company. As soon as the siren blow forever eight, they ran to the bunker. The Jews did not get the bunker. We had to work through because they were in the hurry to build a road for the big trucks to be able to pull in and take a delivery or bring in some stuff. So they told us, don't give up. This is American Air Force bombing, so don't give We
never saw those guys again after that. We never saw them. We had to work through because our guards bore our workcouts or couples. The worst of divorce. He hide himself behind something when the bombs will fly. But he expected us to lay the stone and keep everything lucky. Nobody got hurt. No sharpnings came our way, and we did that. They came back on the third day and demolished everything. The whole I G Company was broken up,
the pieces. The three freight cars were upside down with a bomb upside down, the wheels were on top. So no more, you don't have supplies to build a road with. Even their road that we did was upside down. And they also later on they had to empty deport us out of Bunamanowiz. But so we had no job in the IG and the other people that had jobs before was the same thing that we will put on trains and go to another camp call Flossomburg, six kilometers from the Czechoslovakian border. Chased
us up literally up there two miles. We had to come in walk in because they had they had the rail by two miles into the camp, all demolished. They knew we wore on those trains, so they never hit one of our cars. They only got their locomotive or demained rail ahead of time. And then we came to one place. We came into Bavaria after we were released from Flossomburgh six months. Into Flossomburgh a few months, but every month was like two three years, you know, until you get out of
there. So we were told that Flossomburg is going to be liberated by an army. But who the army was, we don't know. We were thinking Russian because of Czechoslovaki, that the would be closer to us than American. But guess what there was American soldiers that came to liberate Flossomburgh three days before that. They found out with their spies, they know each other what they
doing. He said. Before the American army got to Flossomburgh, they took all of us on trucks and they took us into a rail and they put us on rail and they rode us through Bavaria Germany. We all stood there a few months and the work over. There was nothing to do but just bundling up clothing from civilians who they murdered, or maybe they came from all over, from people. There was a story high. We had to bundle
those clothes up with the rope and they were sent to Germany. For a recycle, and the meantime we wore on trains and then we hit a Saxonhausen. We all state that two nights there and they set us to go loaded up again on the trains, and then we rode the whole Bavaria, Germany on trains. No water was given to us at all, no food was given to us. And then we came to a place called schwartz Field in
Germany. Schwartz fieldsway makes translation black Field. We came there. Now there was a situation where they had a car load full of Nazi soldiers on that Schwartzfield stair trip. The locomotives when they came through the countryside very quietly, you heard them singing German songs and drinking and livering themselves up and this little high hitler in this that whatever they used. So we know there were plenty of them here that we three, which it's not going to be a good
sight. Well, anyway, Blackfield was stopped that time. The air force had enough. That time they fly low flying the American planes low flying. They told us they had to open up the doors of our wagons. But that time the women had half cars open class. They told us to jump over them. They told them, the women to get off and run into the wooded area. He said, if you they go too low, you run into the woods. If they are up higher and away from you,
run into the woods and drop ten feet. You have to drop. Because they were already there on a tripod, mounted their guns, already, the Nazis and there again with the air force that day. They bumped from the rail and the locomotive and every car was bombed. Every car who survived didn't get off the car. They got killed, but most of them they chased out. They get stapless, the doors and the screaming rouse, rousing the dog. They got them out of there. So I don't think anybody got
killed. Maybe when they were running away, maybe, but I don't think so. I didn't hear a shot fire. From then on, we started marching from Schwarzfield. We started marching to different places. We didn't know where we were going. And the two guards and the two dogs were guarding us. One was a Ukrainian and one was a Nazi soldier, and they were guarding us. They ran our supplies. So they located a farm because they the dogs need to eat, They need to eat they located a farm.
The farmers German. They're German. They look at their eating. We were eating leaves or bushes who dropped in the late march. The bushes wore, they were already dead, but the leaves fell off, brown leaves and soffened in their mouth to shoot them up in gale grabs some water from the creek because we had a ball for soup, but we didn't get an his soop. We would get the water off the creek and drink the water to wash those leaves out. While they're eating a six scores meal. To get one
a raw potato. We the marches got one potato and water to drink at the wait till they finished eating. The dogs in they finished eating, and we marched again. We march again till the end of the week of outswit of March of nineteen forty five, and also the twenty fifth of April nineteen forty five. They marches answer League March March March. They can't. They didn't stop in the farm every day, maybe twice a week to stop on the farm. They took supplies with him. We were not allowed to wear
one portraito. You line up, they gave it to you in your hands, and don't get rid of a theater. Chew it up fast, and they gave us some water to drink, and then we came to one spot. We stopped there and we no longer marched anymore. After that, the two soldiers saw the American planes flying low. They knew was Americans. We didn't know who the planes were. We thought it was German planes guarding the army that was on the highway. But guess what on the highway maybe a
half of black away. We could see if the tiesite, but we didn't know what marketing of the equipment was. We thought it was German equipment. But those two guards knew that there were American equipment. So they had us sitting there in a circle. And why they ran away from us, They saved their lives running away from us. They didn't want to Normally they would kill us first, so you can't tell them the story what they did.
But thus they left alone because the American army was so close and when they gun fires makes a whole lot of noise, and they would have been caught by the American for war crimes, and they would have been charged with war crimes. So they ran away. They must have gone on farm. I didn't see it, but they must have gone on farm, took their uniform wharf, put civilian clothes on, and they just another German. The Germans knew the war was coming to a close, but for Henry Greenbaum and other
prisoners, the story wasn't quite over yet. In just a moment, Henry shares the rest of his story and why it is vital that everyone remembers and learns from the Holocaust. I'm Greag Corumbus. Veterans Chronicles will be right back. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corrumbus. We now bring you the final moments of our interview with Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum as he takes us through the immediate aftermath of his freedom from German captivity and explains why the legacy of
the Holocaust matters to every one of us today. And we were left unattended for a few hours, and then the main tank took off from the main highway on the military tank took off towards us. The tank came with two soldiers on it. They parked five feet away. The hedge opened up on the tank, if we were sitting there. We said, now we're going to get killed for shoe. Now they won't get killed for shoe, which
still didn't know it was an American. Thank until the hedge opened up, and their hedge opened up, and their beautiful man came out of the hedge. Crew caught America written here in a uniform. Put his hands on his out he says, we are Americans, and all of you are free. I was seventeen years old by that time, and I said, dear Lord, thank you for guiding our two American guys with the ride the tank to give us back our lives and our freedom. Thank you so much, But
why did they take you so long to give us our freedom back? The two guys he had one yelled to the other part the dump out all the rations that you have on the tank. He got on the American tank. We got on the floor and try to grab a ration. We always killed one another. So he stopped. And somebody was still speaking English in our group and to translated from English to Jewish. But he's talking about He told us to stop with the supplies that you give them, and they line up
behind the tank, not on the side, but behind the tank. The two of them took us to a farm. They took us to a farm, and one jumped off the tank, opened the door of the farmers and the other one jumped off, and they told us with hand language to go in, go in it, come inside. But we were five years hungry, really hungry. I don't mean twenty four hours. We were really hungry and thirsty. And we saw in the front of the farmer three or four
big pails or potato peelings, a white flower on it. We never looked at our freedom, give us our feed, our liberal hitters, our angels. We never looked at them. We got down the floor on our knees, shoved as many as potato peelings you can shoved and swallow. We cleaned those trays off, and then we walked inside. We came inside and looking at each other like crazy easy. They had a table for us. I'm sure the Americans had a table for us. Maybe they told the farmer to
line that up. That are tables for us with normal, a regular food, beautiful, the delicious food. I can't remember what, fruit cakes, cookies, whatever he wanted was on the table. But they would not let us eat anymore. You had enough for the peelings. You have to drink lots of water. And then we had we heard voices two rooms away in the farmer that God please help us, doctor doctor dot please tell us save us, save us. We heard voices. So the two angels that gave
us our freedom went into the next rooms. So what happened? They were liberated the night before, but still two American soldiers, but these didn't know the group, and they told them to get the doctors out here. He dialed. Three hours later, the medics came out into that farm and they gave everybody medication in including they gave that in the room deliberators. The people
who were survived that night, there was something wrong with the stomach. They must ovay eight and their stomach couldn't tolerate normal food, or maybe they're over eight. I think they're probably over eight, because the feelings didn't hurt us, which we just wanted to drink water after that, and then I mean, they gave us enough water, but they wouldn't let us eat at all.
Anyway, the two angels got the medics out there, and the medics came handed out medication and gave to the people that were injured in that room, and I showed him the wound on my head. I wouldn't show no one, no German ever saw my head or except that Jewish man. I gave me aush was broken out cut my hair the clippers. He says, what's this wound on top of your head? I said, I was trying to escape with my sister and we were in a Jewish policeman. They were
both killed and I was survived. He didn't say another word to me, and we were talking to yeards in Jewish. He didn't say another word to me. And then then there was the number first haircut and a shower, and then they didn't ask me any more any questions. So so there was still a scab on the top of my wound, and underneath was infected. He shaved part of my area where the hall was, and he put medication, put a blade of bandage on there, and he had worked for three
months. I took the banded till I changed it. Maybe I have a month later. I can't remember that, but all I know they were with medication. They healed my spot. All that the head is a scar, and everything was beautiful. That was seventeen years old that time by myself and they said I weighed seventy five pounds, so it must have been a skeleton.
So a week later on the farm and they load us up on truck and they put us near frank put a mine in Germany, a displaced person camp calls Altzheim is Alzheim with a Z and there was organized by hol Noir and also by a high Us. And we had three good meals a day. We had no guards with us, no electric fencers, an open field. They took a neighborhood and they put us into that neighborhood. This is where this house you eat, this house where you celebrate, and this house
where you want to play cards or whatever you want to do. And no guards. And that's what we were doing. Make sure you come for your food. We would like for you to dome some meal because they wanted to get us in shape so we'll be able to do everything humanly possible. If we stayed there for about a year. We stayed in that It took a year to get back to normal with the three meals a day, and I
was occupied by the Americans. But later on, after the year was up, we were working with the High us, and they honor our people to find try to find my sister in America. So the beautiful American soldiers that they had, there's no praise enough for me to praise the American soldier. They were so kind to us. They give me the shut off their back while we were sleeping. They got up early. They woke us up later. Go wash. She said, take a col shawer. I was always
someone that, so you can hand out the food. You know, if very good good American soldiers, I like, I say, the best in the world. I think the High US and the Honora people helped us located my sister. That cousin went to Poland. She located the have brother in Lodge, Poland, and he brother knew of my brother who was in the Polish army. So her brother visited my brother and he told him that that I was liberated by myself. No sisters in the wall, only by myself,
seventeen years old, and I'm near frank Port of Mines Alzheim. They came. He came three weeks later. How we came, I don't remember. Became a plain of my boat. I don't that, I don't remember. But anyway, he showed up at first thing. He came to me and we grabbed and hug and you know, he was not that that I lost sight of him. I knew I was looking and he said. I said to him, we have a sister in America, but I don't know where. All our noise, I tell these beautiful soldiers, the American soldiers,
that they are in America, but they can't find my sister. Do you have an address? He said, the best I can do. She's in the Washington area. And that's how they found her. The soldiers talked to the Hona people and the highest people, and they found my sister. And the only spelling differently was mine. They spelled at America gruble e nbaum. We spelled at the Europe gry nbaum. So between the y and a double, my sister would find the two brothers. She found us. She
said, those are my two brothers. She sent papers for us. Within a year, the pakers came. I went back to their just person came later because the soldiers moved, moved, moved out. But I learned everything from the soldier, even even bad language. I learned from the soldier. But my sister said, you don't talk like that you know, you don't say those words. No, no, no no, So I said, okay, I don't know how to speak English. I didn't know what they
meant to say it. Anyway, anyway, my sister found us and then she sent to York my brother, the other brother who escaped with it with the soldier, with the Polish soldier. He escaped on foot, not all away with the soldier part of the way, and he made it to will Know, Lithuania and to her there and there they had a Japanese and bassador who was helping the ulto Hasidic Jews with false passports. He gave help my
brother to go to Manchuria with the with their false fast forward. My head is picture on it, but their false all the other information was false, and he got to Monjuria. He said a telegram to my sister and he came to America in nineteen forty one, before Pearl Harbor. He came to America and moved in with my sister. So when we came to New York, not Ellis Island, but a different port we came. My sister didn't show up. She was pregnant. That acted told him not to travel because
they can have the baby anytime. So he said he'll go pick us up. He came picked us up. When he got closer, I said, are you Dave. I have seen him since September of thirty nine. He changed a little bit where we look alike? What he changed a little bit? I said, are you the one who ran away with the Polish soul? And you would not take your little brother twelve years old? And I would have been an American nineteen forty one instead of coming in nineteen forty six.
Oh, you were too young. I didn't know what to do with you. You. I thought maybe the mom would be the perfect place for you be with the mom, but my mom was separated with me. A year later we were separated. One went to the slave labor came and one went to the to the other place, who were just a killing center. I said, okay, your brother, you're still my brother. I said, I'll give you in a hug, but where you're going to take her to my sister's house. He took our train and we left for my sister's.
How came sisters? How shared the head quick for us? Me and my brother Zachary that was in the ple. Jamie and Dave the oldest. He was already have a room. There was a four bedroom or three bedroom house in Cherry Chase in the Washington area, and there he took us there by cap and she says, you sleep obsessed. We got it was hardwood floors, there was no air conditioning nowhere in the house, nowhere in the area. Fans, yes, two fans on each side of the edtic.
It was kind of nice, nice and cool, comfortable where I came from. This was like a five star hotel. Absolutely, But what am I going to complain? And there was it, and that was I was freed at seventeen, but I thought, I'm going back to my freedom fighting to day. You re stale lives to give me back my life. And I just could not help it to think him and I told and I called him
my angels, and I called them my angels. When I don't remember when what the year it was when Bush number two became present and and the Listener Auditorium. Vice President Cheney organized the World War two veterans to come to the Listen Ditorium and there was I think about five thousand that could fit in the room. At ten I don't remember. Homed was every sheet was taken in
the front. All the generals of the army was sitting in the front of the littorial and I was a little bit scared, and I was supposed to talk, and there was my second time telling my story. Now you're very active with the Holocaust Museum, Yes, a memorial museum in Washington. Tell our listeners what it means to you to be able to share your story and what you want people to remember. I want people to remember to both don't
be bycestanders. Whenever you see anybody is doing injustice to a human being, speak out. If you can't handle it yourself, go here with your parents, go for your school teacher, principal, rabbi priests, anybody that can help. Don't be a bystander, and don't bully anybody in your school where the person that can't help themselves has to commit suicide. Don't do that to
emity human being. And then make sure they mainly make sure that their injustice has not done to any human being that pain can't help himself, disfigured, he was created by God. That's where he was created. So I know he was speaking on him in laughing at him. So he commits suicide. And this is what I want people to remember. That we'll keep talking as
long as we got a voice. If we told each other on their death on my that if you survive, make sure you tell what they did to us, because you have a lot of deniers that it didn't happen, to say it did happen. Well, sir, it's an honor to have you with us. Thank you for sharing your story, and thank you for making sure we never forget. Well you mean to now you meet. Oh. I want to thank you guys for taping alders, and I want to thank all the veterans that remember me me. I am very sorry that I don't
remember what their names are. In the Liberated US two Angels, Henry Greenbaum sharing his vivid memories of the horrors of the Holocaust during our visit with him in twenty seventeen. Mister Greenbaum passed away just a year later. I'm Greg Corumbus and this his Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American Veterans Center dot org. You can also follow
the American Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral histories and special features, and of course please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time for Veterans Chronicles