1997. We are going to interview David Szpigler.
My name is Jan Levy.
We are in Stockholm, Sweden, and the interview language will be Swedish.
My name is Jan Levy.
Today's date is May 20, 1997.
I will interview David Szpigler, and we are in Stockholm, Sweden.
I'll start by asking you to state your name.
My name is David Szpigler.
Do you have a middle name?
Chaim David.
When were you born?
February 11, 1920.
And that means you are now...
77.
You were born in...
Bendzin, Poland.
Can you spell Bendzin?
B-E-N-D-Z-I-N.
It's in Poland, and the nearest major city is Katowice.
Can you also start by telling me your father's name?
My father's name was Ojzer, and my mother's was Miriam.
And your father was born...
He was born in Wollbrom.
In Wollbrom, which is also nearby.
It's not far from Bedzin.
Approximately when was he born?
Around 1870, that time.
That time, late 1800s.
And your mother's name was Miriam, and she was born...
Her maiden name
Schweitzer.
And she was born in...
In Bedzin.
Also in the late 1800s.
In the late 1800s, yes.
Did you have siblings in your childhood home?
Yes, there were four of us siblings.
Three sisters.
One is named Elke Beile.
When was she born?
1900...
Early 1900s?
Early 1900s.
Elke Beile.
And then there was Cima.
She was born four years after the oldest sister.
Then the youngest sister is named Reisel.
And there was a seven-year difference between her and me.
Were they all married? Elke Beile...
Yes, all were married.
Elke Beile, what was her married name?
Abramczyk.
And Siman?
Cima was married, her name was Gleitzer.
And Reisel?
And Reisel was married, Rosenblom.
Rosenblom.
And they all had children.
Excuse me, all?
They all had children.
Let's see, about your childhood home in Bedzin.
Do you remember the address?
Kollontaj 9.
Colontaria 9.
And your father, what did he do?
We had a clothing business.
They had children's clothing, own production, wholesale and retail.
And your mother, what did she do?
She helped in the store.
What language did you speak at home?
Yiddish.
And my father spoke German and Russian.
Same with my mother.
When did you learn Polish?
I learned it in school.
In school.
Your mother kept a kosher kitchen at home.
Strictly kosher.
So, how would you describe your Jewish affiliation?
As Orthodox.
Orthodox in your childhood home.
There was a synagogue nearby, I know you've told me.
There was one.
On the same street?
Same building.
In the same building, even.
And the family went there, how often did you go?
My father went three times a day.
Three times a day?
Yes, three times a day.
He was truly 'frum'.
He was 'frum', yes.
Besides siblings, did you have relatives?
A large family.
A very large family.
From my father's side and from my mother's side.
The largest family was from my mother's side.
My mother had about seven uncles, I think.
So it was a big family, a large clan.
How did you socialize? Was it on major holidays, birthdays?
Honestly, we didn't celebrate birthdays much in Poland.
On holidays, weddings, and such, it was almost 90 percent just family. There were over a hundred!
You went to school in Bendzin?
In Bendzin, yes.
Can you describe that school?
Agudat Israel. It was a religious Orthodox school from Agudat Israel, a boys-only school.
What percentage of the population in Bendzin was Jewish?
80 percent of the population was Jewish.
It was a Friday evening, and Jewish life was very prominent.
All the shops were closed; not a single shop was open on Saturday.
So the school you attended was a yeshiva?
Approximately so, yes.
One studied 60-70 percent Talmud and Mishnah.
And 30 percent was mandatory Polish.
Polish history, arithmetic, all that.
So you had Jewish schoolmates, did you only have Jewish friends?
Only Jewish friends.
At the time you went to school, in the 30s, late 20s, early 30s, do you remember any anti-Jewish sentiments?
Yes, there were. I remember it was 1933.
There was a 'däckis', similar to what neo-Nazis are called here in Sweden.
They wrote 'Don't buy from Jews'.
1933?
1933, exactly at the same time as in Germany, that's when we felt it.
We had a wholesale business, and our customers were the 'Volksdeutscher', as they were called after the war.
They came to shop, especially on Sundays, and ordered their goods, but they wouldn't say they bought from us Jews.
They came in through the back door, so to speak.
Would you say there were many Volksdeutscher in Bendzin?
There weren't that many Volksdeutscher in Bendzin itself, but there were some from Silesia, Katowice, Chorzow, Rybnik at that time.
What were your hobbies besides school?
What did young Jewish boys do?
We were part of 'Shomer Hadati', a Mizrahi organization. Activities like football weren't allowed for religious Jews.
Religious Jews were not allowed to do that at that time.
That was it, and we went to camps together.
You mentioned that in 1933, when Nazism emerged in Germany, do you remember if your parents were worried?
They were very worried about what could happen.
Did they ever talk about leaving Poland?
We had nowhere to go; where would we go? It was closed everywhere.
Did you finish school before the war?
I finished school before the war, around 1936-1937, and helped in the shop.
You helped your father in the shop?
Yes.
So that's where you were when the war broke out in 1939?
Yes.
Can you describe how you remember the outbreak of the war?
When the war broke out in 1939, I saw that I had to retrieve some uncut goods and put them in the cellar.
The source should not be damp.
We used corrugated paper, a specialty back then, put into preserves.
Everything was cleared, we rearranged goods, said we'd measure three meters of items.
We could sell, but didn't know what would happen after the war.
In 1939, all shops, Jewish shops, had to be closed.
Small shops were confiscated directly; larger ones had 'trustee merchants' installed.
Then a trustee merchant, Jan Godowski, came, doing big business. My father offered him to be his trustee.
He promised to help as much as he could.
Can you describe what a 'trustee merchant' actually was?
He was a decent person, not a typical businessman, honest and paid cash.
But he wasn't Jewish, then?
He was Polish, lived in Wrocław. After the war, he worked with coal mines, where people bought on installment through him.
For example, 5-6 thousand people worked there. If they needed clothes, he'd deduct installments from their monthly coal mine salaries.
And in that way, our turnover increased.
But did your father get any of that money?
I'm sure he did.
So, not all income was confiscated?
No, no, no, he allowed it.
What do you remember when the German army marched into Będzin?
It was terrible. I remember a Saturday, they had just arrived, it was awful.
On a Friday, the war broke out, and by Saturday, they were already in Będzin.
Can you describe what you saw when they came?
They came with small motorized cars, not tanks, and positioned themselves on every corner.
And you weren't allowed to go out at all.
There was a curfew for everyone.
And on Saturday, the seventh day of the war, it was.
They had burned a synagogue.
Which was in the same house?
No, not in the same house, a large synagogue.
A large synagogue, and then they burned an old palace, its ruins, in Będzin.
They burned the entire Jewish area. It wasn't a ghetto, just where poor Jews lived.
And that week, they burned my uncle.
He burned inside?
He burned inside. They burned him that first week.
What happened to your family? Were you allowed to stay?
We stayed, until 1940, until I went to the camp.
Were you forced to move in 1940, or?
No, no, no, I moved to the camp.
And they stayed?
They stayed.
How long did the family stay, even though you weren't there?
They stayed until 1942, 43 I think.
Because a ghetto was formed in Będzin?
A ghetto in Będzin, yes.
So what happened to your work after the war broke out, and before you went to the camp in 1940?
Nothing. For two years, I worked on the Black Market, tied to a small piece of fabric.
I went to a tailor; he sewed trousers or other items.
I got some money, bought bread, and stood in line for it.
Was there rationing?
There was rationing immediately.
Did you have to wear the Star of David?
Not immediately.
Do you remember roughly when?
In 1940, before I came to the camp, we had to wear the stars.
How did you end up in the camp? Can you tell me about it?
They wanted young labor for the work camp, and they gave the request to the community,
the Jewish community, saying they wanted two thousand people.
And they had a list.
Who was 'they'?
The community.
The community had a list of young people, and we received it a week before.
It was that weekend, during the major Jewish arrests in Jönkipu, that we received a summons,
and it stated that we should report on Shemini Atzeret.
It was the seventh day of Sukkot, that we should report.
There was a summons for an orphanage in Sommerheim, for those without parents.
The children without parents lived there, where they were fed.
And then we were to meet there and transport ourselves to Klein-Mangestorf.
Where is Klein-Mangestorf?
Klein-Mangestorf is between Opole and Breslau. It was in Kreis Opole.
And that was then the German Reich...
It was the German Reich. It was the German Reich during the last war.
We were to build RAB, called Reich Autobahns.
You were to build that. And you were, what did you say, two thousand young people?
We were two thousand young people, from Bendzin and Sosnowiec, from Dąbrowa, from Olkusz,
all around, from Czeladź; only Jews came there.
You were to build highways.
Highways. And it wasn't SS, no, it was SA men.
Who were guards. It was SA who were guards.
They were SA guards.
And how was the work?
The work was enormous; it was 20 cubic meters of sand,
one had to shovel cubic meters into carts; are they called 'lårorna' in Swedish?
A wooden box.
One must say, a small wagon like that.
20 cubic meters of sand; if it was stone, it was eight to ten.
One had to use a pickaxe.
And break it apart?
Break it apart and lift it up.
And then it's excavated, and then the rollers come,
and then we pour concrete.
Was it heavy work?
Very heavy work.
That sounds heavy.
How was the treatment during the work itself?
During the treatment itself, there was a,
The foreman was a German who was the work supervisor.
A civilian?
A civilian, a civilian.
He was very quiet.
He then gathered them and divided them into groups.
One will dig, some will concrete.
And the worst work was from the beginning, '40.
We had to clear a forest, clean it and pull out all the stumps.
And there was no way to deal with those stumps back then.
You'd need a tractor to rip it up.
We had to dig around it and pull it by hand.
Pull by hand, manual labor, everything by hand.
Everything by hand.
No machines.
Some had to cut them one meter long from the trees.
And then a truck came and loaded them up.
Where they went with it, one doesn't know.
Where did you live during the work at night?
We lived in the barracks.
In the barracks?
In the barracks. We walked with the guards to work.
Through a small community, it was called a 'Dorf' (village) in German.
A small village.
One hundred percent of those Germans knew where we were.
No contact with civilians.
At first, there was mail from home.
And we could get packages too.
Until 1941.
So you were there from autumn 1940 until...
Until 1943.
In the labor chain.
In various labor camps and to the Eastern Front in 1941.
Exactly.
1941 when Germany attacked the Russians.
When Germany attacked the Russians after two, three weeks.
It was June.
Then a large delegation arrived in military and civilian clothes.
We had to strip completely naked.
And there was a medical examination.
Just as one says.
They examined lungs, hearts, everything.
And from the couple of hundred of us there, about 90-100 remained.
Then they had picked us out.
Isolated us immediately.
We received gray uniforms that the Todt Organization had used.
Theirs were black, and ours were gray.
It was a labor organization.
Labor organization, yes.
And at the same time, we received a whole loaf of bread with sausage.
We opened wagons covered with tarpaulins.
So you were transported?
We were transported from Mangelsdorf, Klein-Mangelsdorf.
Outside Breslau.
And from Breslau, other Jews came up.
Then we traveled for two weeks to and between Minsk and Kharkov.
You were traveling for two weeks?
Two weeks, yes.
To and between Minsk and Kharkov.
Do you know roughly where you...
Nothing, by then it was already SS.
The first time we slept under SS guard, we were in transport wagons.
On each wagon, there were four SS men.
And you were then 80-90-100 people specially selected?
From that location.
From that location?
Yes.
And then together with others from Breslau.
How many did you think there were, roughly?
We were about 500-600 people.
And we lived in the barracks.
You lived in barracks somewhere between Minsk and Kharkov?
Not in the barracks. It was in the SS barracks.
We lived in the wagons we were in.
You lived in the wagons you were transported in?
And what did the work consist of?
The work involved the Russian railway being wider than the European one.
We had to remove a rail...
And move it?
And move it. The worst was 1941-42, it was so cold.
If they had warned us a rail would break,
then ten people would have died together.
Did any break?
Unfortunately, none broke. We were so careful.
And the worst was that we had received Dutch...
What's it called?
Clogs.
Garden.
Yes, yes. Dutch clogs.
And the worst is that when you walk on a slope...
When it's slippery.
It forms like a big mountain.
A big lump underneath.
Under it.
Hard to walk.
And they came with whips, shouting 'laus, laus, laus'.
And you carried the rails?
Yes, we carried the rails. We removed the rails and took out the spikes.
And put in... The German engineers measured them.
As foremen?
As foremen. They were German, civilians.
They didn't speak to us at all.
And they drew with white chalk, or with red chalk.
It's the distance between one difference and another.
We put it in and hammered it.
Hammered it down to the same gauge as...
The same track as European ones.
In the rest of Europe.
And then a German official came from Germany to Russia.
To the German armies in Russia.
The worst was fetching water from a tanker in the evening.
So we could wash and drink.
By morning, it was ice.
The 1940s had cold winters.
40, 41, 42.
40, 41, 42 were cold winters.
Yes.
How cold could it get in Belarus?
Maybe 35-40 degrees.
35-40 degrees below zero.
What clothes did you have?
The same as always, nothing.
Pants, a shirt.
Pants, a shirt, a sweater, a jacket.
That was it. No gloves, nothing.
No gloves, nothing.
How many of you lifted a rail?
20 people.
Did you ever drop one?
That happened too.
How did the SS guards react?
They beat us. We got hit.
What about the food?
You lived in train cars, but how was the food?
The food was very bad.
And the sanitary conditions?
There was nothing at all.
I remember a rail falling on my leg.
There was a guy, I think he was...
Not far from Bendzin.
He was going to study medicine.
Nothing was done.
Nothing. Blood was flowing.
So he took your urine, peed on the wound.
And took a piece from his jacket.
And put it on.
He thought it was broken. Thankfully, it wasn't.
I still have marks from it today.
So instead of iodine, you used urine to disinfect?
Urine, it's supposed to disinfect it.
You don't have any lasting issues from it today?
Sometimes I do.
But you didn't break your leg?
No, thankfully.
You were moved between...
We moved around.
Because you lived in train cars?
It was very easy for them.
As the railway narrowed, they could move you closer to the front?
Closer to places.
How long did you do this work?
Until 1943.
Until 1943? When in 1943?
Around February, February, February, March.
What happened then?
Many people were sick with typhus.
And they were breaking down, and there was nothing.
They didn't want to take them to the hospital there.
It was the Jewish hospital in Sosnowiec.
They picked me up, calling me 'Healthy'.
I was to carry them in train cars.
As a stretcher-bearer?
As a stretcher-bearer, moving them to Sosnowiec.
And Sosnowiec is near...
6 kilometers from Będzin.
So there was a Jewish hospital there in 1943?
Yes, before the war too.
How long were you there as a stretcher-bearer?
They heard in the ghetto there was a transport illness.
And the community already knew I was coming.
They arranged a sweater for me when I arrived.
To be freed, or some leave, or something like that.
How much they paid, I don't know at all.
And so I worked in what's called 'Dulag'.
'Gulag'?
'Dulag'.
What does that mean?
A collection point.
And then they saw an SA man who...
'You were so good, you worked at RAB and then on the S-front.'
'You get two weeks' leave.'
'You don't need to wear the Jewish star,' he told me.
'You just need a paper from me to show you're returning to the labor camp.'
So you had a good reputation?
Yes, you did well building roads and railways.
That's why you got leave.
Did that mean you had contact with your hometown?
No. Contact was broken in '41.
I knew nothing more.
Did you know what was happening in the war?
Nothing.
So when you got leave to leave the hospital...
I had no money. I left Sosnowiec.
It was already blocked. Jews couldn't pass.
I walked from Sosnowiec to Będzin.
How far is that, approximately?
6-7 kilometers.
6-7 kilometers? You walked that?
Yes, I walked.
It was already blocked. Jews couldn't leave.
I knocked and started speaking Yiddish.
I returned just as the Messiah came.
You returned to your parents' home in Kollontaj.
That was in early February-March.
Yes, it was in March.
Was the ghetto established?
It was established.
Had your parents been forced to move?
Yes, they had been forced to move.
What did you call the ghetto?
Kleinschödula.
Do you remember the address?
Nothing.
We can stop there. That's the end of tape 1.