Jack Repp
Jack Repp was born in 1923 in Radom, Poland, and grew up on Mila Street in a large, close family with four brothers, one sister, and parents he remembered with deep affection. His father operated a department store and a lending business similar to a small bank, cashing workers' checks and extending loans. The family was Orthodox, and Jack recalled cherished Shabbos traditions: going to the mikvah on Fridays, attending shul, welcoming guests to the table, singing zmirot, and eating cholent brought from the bakery. He attended both a mixed public school and a private Hebrew school, and he described learning to live with the everyday antisemitism of prewar Poland.
When the Germans invaded on September 1, 1939, everything changed. Jack witnessed escalating persecution: curfews, humiliating forced labor, and a cascade of decrees carrying the death penalty. His father was beaten to death before his eyes when they went to collect payment for confiscated merchandise. Taken into a slave labor camp at an ammunition factory around age 15, Jack endured starvation, brutal selections, and unspeakable atrocities, including being forced to burn the bodies of the dying. His family was confined to the Radom ghetto, and he witnessed the murder of infants and children, an experience that shook his faith in God. His youngest brother was smuggled to Warsaw with help from a Polish woman connected to the family.
Over six years Jack survived several camps and multiple death marches, passing through places tied to the German missile program and ending at Dachau, where he arrived near death and weighing only 69 pounds. American soldiers liberated him, and a Jewish captain who spoke Yiddish reassured him he was free. Nursed back to health over four months by American doctors and nurses, Jack was given clothing and eventually outfitted in an American uniform. He recounted his dream of eating a whole loaf of white bread, which he finally fulfilled, and his longing to be free like a butterfly. Jack later settled in the United States, remembering an aunt and uncle in Greenville, Texas, and built a new life with children and grandchildren.
Full Transcript
in dallas texas the apartment of sarajeon and i'm here for the dallas jewish society historical society historical society that's right the dallas jewish historical society and mr rep i want to thank you very much for saying that you're going to do this interview it's very kind of you and i'll start with a series of questions the first question is where and when were you born age 16 1923 in radon poland r-a-d-o-m poland radam poland okay where did you live i lived on mila m-i-l-i and i come from a family of four brothers one sister and a wonderful father and a wonderful mother and i had
a very good life okay tell me about the neighborhood you lived in the neighborhood i lived in was a mixed neighborhood the school i went to was a mixed school but i went to hebrew school in that hebrew school even they had christian children we had a principal a jewish principal and a christian principal it was a private school and i attended that at school five days a week so in the public school you went to what percentage were jews what percentage were gentiles see the city of bratham was a million inhabitants the median inhabitant they had eighty percent of catholics and twenty percent of
jews that means they had in a city of a million they got two hundred thousand jewish people eighty thousand and yeah ninety thousand dead eight hundred thousand they had christian children catholic mostly so that's a larger percentage than most jews most cities of jews twenty percent of jews is a lot yes um what business was your father in my father had a business something similar to what i had but he had several businesses he had a department store and then he had what he called europe a cantura a cantura for something that plays in america would be equal to pawnshop you know people came in
cash checks and pound things like gold diamonds so that was the business my father was saying so sort of a pawn shop and well that was similar to america the pancho culture but it was not called the pine shepherds was called the cantura because the cantora is like a small bank let's say if you had a job you worked five days a week and friday the bank of poland the city of iowa was in closed up at two o'clock you got the check at five o'clock so you used to come to my father you had to find a line of people waiting and he catched
the checks he made profit out of cash in the check check for it but he didn't drop people but yeah just like they do here they charge for them so you told me you had the brothers and sisters can you tell me a little bit about them now my oldest brother sure and america would be sorrow sal was my sister was the oldest my older sister in 1937 i'm going for the war in 1937 at that time i was 13 years old so i remember very well and there was a a young man came from paris france came to random poland his parents were living
down there a very hasidic family and this was a match or mate and my sister married that man so like a matchmaker it wasn't jewelry business because that was my father's so they moved to paris before the war yes 1937 after the wedding they moved to paris and you were bar mitzvahed that year yeah you were bar mitzvahed that year in the 37th yes yeah okay yeah and then i had my older brother david david from school the same as i was okay they're i had a younger brother young alone or jacob in english and he was only in 1939 he was only five years
old he was the youngest and i had a wonderful father and a wonderful mother and i had a wonderful life yeah our house was a house of lots of life my father loved people in the elvis and shabbos you know friday afternoon went to friday we went to the bigfoot wow you know every friday the whole family wow we wanted to make and after the big thing you know we came home and we got dressed up we went to shoot soon and then we came home there was a nice table surf the shabbos meal beautiful in the shoppers if you got up in the morning
and we went to schule again you know and we came home from shul we had a shabby's going turn on the light light the candles you know and go bring the tune do you know what julent is i don't tell me you don't know what you understand just you see in friday we made a short is made out of potatoes and meat and we took it to the bakery and the bakery the pro they cooked it i would say yes you know and then next day the shop is going when when we came home from phew brought the tom and my father always used to
bring home guests you know another yiddish you know and the guest was always like this brought the hassan you know the husbands yes counter cancer right we always had at least three four people and they had a beautiful meal and then they were sitting there singing his mirrors you know what's venus is you gotta tell me religious songs oh okay after smears it's called mirrors okay and we had a beautiful shabbos and the sharpest evening my father we didn't but my shop my father went back to shoe so so he was orthodox your family was orthodox at the time so you went to show a
lot yeah and then some didn't have to work my father used to take us to hockey games or sucky games or in the winter time to ice skating drinks you know we had a wonderful wonderful life now that doesn't mean every there are lots of europe europe europe was like this either you were up or you were down there were no middle there were lots of snarks we had a wonderful good life so tell me okay go ahead and you see this was going on until 1939 right in 1939 when i was like 1938 my father was selling bounce for the four planets i knew
something is going to break out so so he was in charge of selling plans four months and we always could find our house from i'm talking about from the government some high ranking people down there and they used to tell them listen my father's name was lisa you know why don't you go to london i got america you know i'm gonna put myself in the same bracket i've been down here in america about 59 years i'm established i don't have to worry for anything thank god when you have everything how can you take everything just leave it and go so my father asked the generals
how long do you think that war will last i said it's been a month two between four weeks and eight weeks you eight weeks you can take it you know if you've got 20 guilt you can find a place but but when the war broke out who in the world knew we had at that time in our home we had a german jewish refugee living in our house my father took in but hitler's in the mud but who knew hitler was keeping that same young man's parents as like for a ransom you know like you kidnap somebody and you send out somebody give out a
good messages so he said felt that take away you know your business just take over your money and then make a ghetto but there was no bringing up where there'd be killings like that they couldn't imagine something like that would happen no so my father said at that time we got enough going down here we got enough money we can we don't need to go september 1 1939 everything changed okay before you tell me about that before the war you had a you saying you had a very good life and you you lived a great way great family all the brothers and sisters going to
shul how did you and your family interact with the gentile community before the war now i'm going to let you know the military secret we had never had jews even working for us you had gentiles working for you catholic all all christian people were so you got along well with uh and we got along very very good with them and but at the same time i'm going to let you know a little secret you see when you live in a country like poland and in that country down there you know there's anti-semitism but anti-semitism is such a thing where you get used to it you
see at that time in 1936 37 34 35 i'm gonna go back when i wasn't my young boy five six years old when you went to on the way to school and another polish kid saw you and how it after you jew grit go to palestine there was no israel you see you get used to it you know you got to live with it and sometimes they even throw the rack at you but you see it's the same thing wherever you are if you're a little stronger even with your competitors they start having respect for you you'll start better than you and we had a
good little fight and the pollock lost and he became friends with you played psyche with him he did that no more so did you go to the palestinian so you did play soccer with someone you had some friends you know right they didn't care if you were georgia very good athlete that would come let me tell you something you see our business consists of right now friday you find lots of yeats coming in because they got the checks they couldn't go to the bank so they come to my father laser grab laser you and he used to catch the checks or a loan of money
because the poor jew in poland the schumacher the painter whoever trait he had went that in hacked his wife jewelry and whatever they had even the country libras the silver country libras and they borrowed some money in the least a garden a fruit garden you know apples pears and plums in the state they're all summer longer than the pool that there that took it down sold it and then made a little profit so but anti-semitism is a funny thing you know anti-semitism you learn how to breathe it's there look if you went to the class that i thought you're polish you know i'm not going
to say english because i live in america now but at that time when i was a kid in the classes for intermixed jewish children and catholic children before the class started i'm talking about before the club started they wouldn't say to you all of the jewish faith will be excused have to get out you're going to make a pray one word jews out see so you see anti-semitism is there but you learn to live with it so even in the schools they had a little land it could have been intelligentsia they used the same the same thing you know so before you tell me about
what happened you know once the nazis invaded i want to ask you one question you were about 15 years old how much did how much did you weigh at that time at the age of 15. you're a pretty big strong kid i'd say 150 once again 150 160 yeah it's a good weight and nice size kid about how tall were you when you were 15. when i was 15 i think i must have been 5 10. okay that's a perfect weight for 5-10 that's like an athlete athlete's build you know they played the los angeles and then in 1939 tell me what happened well you see 1939 september 1 when the war broke out in the germans marching when you saw the first few times coming through you were 15 years old i was able to read and you saw on the tanks written you didn't sit in our angry say that in english the jews are like devils wow you know right away it goes through your mind why did they come out right away they just marched in to have this on the
tanks so when they came in the first i will say the first 30 days everything was i was saying normal with an exception that came out they had what they called the like dead like from 7 a.m to 7 00 p.m curfew and at that curfew you see they came out right away from 7am and after 7pm or before that if you are caught the penalty is dead penalty is death if you're caught between seven and seven and that was for everybody including christians and jews yeah curfew was for everybody everybody yeah from seven if you caught before seven a.m dead after seven a.m from
7 00 am till 7 pm was you could walk and after the evening after 7 if you caught this dead but we didn't know you see the capital of poland is versatile the whole world knows it's warsaw when the germans marched in the first turning days they had enough time to change the capital from moreso to krakow in krakow when he set and settled his principality i call it and made at the capitol after the first 30 days you start coming out with bulletins in the bulletins where the first thing with that curfew that you caught between that time and that time the penalty is
dead then they come out if you walk on the sidewalk you see a german soldier a german officer now look at that time with the inventor star of david they didn't know who was a jew who was not that jew i'm gonna bring this out and at that if you caught on the sidewalk and you didn't get off the sidewalk you didn't bow your head well you had to pull off your cat tip your cap yes yeah for the german soldier or german the penalty is dead okay then they came out if you own any kind of sharp objects like a knife a certain length
you don't deliver the penalty is dead if you own a radio you don't deliver the radio the penalty is dead if you own a gun a rifle ammunition or anything a bump you don't deliver penalties dead now you see when you listen to so many things coming out the penalty dead right away it goes through your mind even you are a kid you don't have to be a grown-up you know what that is sooner or later you're going to be dead so you were scared from the time they came in and they read and all those rules that you were scared i see let me
tell you something you see when they bring up if you bring up something one time you can eliminate it and let it pass but for every little thing it's dead so you know sooner or later they're going to be dead but school was normal but there's one thing you could if you i think every jew if he could understand a little bit german could understand right away when you saw german soldiers marching and they think white is their way to wreak the jaime's land so white so white thought with the comptonoy annoying site invited they put in this the you didn't see that you see
say in english in english it's like this you see the jews pool from one place to another place but soon they get to the red sea they're all going to be drowned and they'll be dead and the world is going to have peace i'm going to translate it that way you know you already heard so many deaths now you listen to the propaganda songs the propaganda songs the ones to sing is everything has to do with the jew but that was the first 30 days after the first 30 days and a nice morning they came in and we happened to be having classes mixed classes
this didn't have to do with hebrew but mixed classes with polish you know in america would be with and uh the camp and the first thing that took out is they took out the principal the assistant principal the teachers and all the students now you didn't take the jews that took everybody but the left the border you know you start thinking about it why did they take out all the teachers the assistant principal the principal and all the students and they live the reporter there that's like the janitor the gym yeah right okay and and that took a half and work assignment you know at
that work assignment when you go out you always think you're going to go out and do something of use you know if you're going to go after work you're going to do something useful when we get out and at work assignment different whips german shepherds by him and there was no such a thing as walking everything was wrong running around looks loose close loose that means run run run so wherever you want you had to run from place to place if you walked what was the penalty got beat now wow but the work that took you have to do they had to prepare two piles
one pile of stones mud on one and what you're doing is you're taking this mutton in there and the stomach from this side taking the other one bring it from this side back to this side if you have enough intelligent enough saving enough sense what would you consider work like this would have to do with something useful you see in the first place to take your dignity don't try to take your dignity away try to take your manhood away after you child away try to take your intelligence away and you do that you don't do it for an hour for two for three for four
but after you work four hours you want to go over get a sip of water you got beaten up no you know about how about what do they give you for lunch after working so hard what they give you for lunch yeah yeah you see that's that's what i'm trying to get to so six hours you work you don't get nothing so you figured you're gonna have to get used to your system if you have a little intelligence in you you're going to have to get used to with your system but you're going to have to shrink your system because you're not going to get
nothing to eat so before i've done it for 12 hours another sip of water nothing to eat but before that let us go home every one of us the principal the assistant principal the teachers and all the christian children on jerusalem were thrown in in that mud with them stones and they took up idaho and they took the german shepherds and you had to run and they made you wet so you you know and i recall it today but i got home you have children yes i'm sure if you would have something like this happen i hope it's never happened to you you chilled unto
you you would come home and you've had another what's happened see an intelligent person with a good common sense and it sees you coming home my father should be in heaven was a very smart man first thing my mother did we didn't have no showers we didn't have the bath in the house pushed us up cleaned us up give us tractors or get me dry clothes let's put it that way because my brother david supposed to take me from there and after cleaning up putting on dry clothes my father my mother good jewish parents they fed me then we said and the first thing my
father said my kin my child what did you all do down there so i told my father said the work we did was of no use like i brought up at the beginning it was no more than really to take your dignity away and to beat you to death they took so my father you know was sitting i remember like today put the sense on his cheek and his oy v you know we are today at the right time and at the right season to bring it up my out the hakada he got in in the haggadah and page after page of the page of
the page didn't say a single word then finally he kept there was a time in history for our people the jewish people were slaves under the pharaohs and they were panicked panicked and yiddish tortured the same as the did the jewel down there to take your dignity away and to bring it down to nothing that's i repeat from this time of the pharaohs when we were slaves on the pharaoh but that case was closed my father didn't talk about it no more he made a prayer he says god should watch over us there's very bad very bad things it's going to come ahead of us
it's going to happen but next david went back to school my friend opened up his business and everything was normal that was going on for quite a while one day that came in that took out nothing but all the jewish children how'd they know you were jewish principal had to tell them who was jewish and was not true so the principal identified he wanted to identify all of the jews so they took us out and it took us that place an ammunition factory that was 1940 in that ammunition factory they already had prepared barracks you know what america barracks right like the military yeah okay
that prepared barracks the shelves we wore out to reading claws just what they brought from at home no stars of david or anything but there was no more going home when we got home from that ammunition factory from working down in the first half a day we came to that camp and on that camp and the uh you know the door from what you called and the fence yeah you know what you called it barbed wire fence but yeah the fence now that you saw a sign down there how about my friend fork will make you free okay was this camp near your hometown in
your hometown it's an amazing broken foot an ammunition suit yeah ammunition factory okay and uh we camped at the evening we got a little bit i call it soup it was a coloring of soup because there were no potatoes you got a slice of bread but they didn't know what's going to happen so next day after i spent the first night down there there were no mattresses there was no pillars there were no blankets so you slept on a wooden slab and i put you know just a piece of wood shelf yeah and i guess your jacket is sport container but there you're done with
your cover and no towels no soap no toothpaste no crumbs and uh next morning they had what they call a roll call broke you up at five o'clock in the morning and counted up if nobody escaped or nobody died and then we got our horizons for the morning break in america i called breakfast whatever you got a slice of bread and some black coffee with some saccharine in it the coffee was as it was a coloring con it like coffee so if you get maybe for lunch you're gonna get something you're gonna go to work so we worked on it for lunch we did get
got like three four cups of a dark coloring no potatoes no nothing in it no bread no nothing the evening got the same thing then they came out you had to go through a selection and i'm not talking about we didn't have no crematoriums down there we didn't wear even that you know little striped suit that you saw down there in the holocaust that's it so on the selection the ones who were selected to work worked and the other ones so what i'm trying to bring out is this you see you live by eating but if you don't get nothing to eat your system will
shrink but you don't have to eat but if you don't get to eat your feet are not going to carry you so when you get wet you cannot walk you see the fence put people down there in that place in that camp if you got it in eight feet you got electrocuted but but they did that took the people in order to eliminate bullets that took the people the ones that couldn't walk and they stacked them up alive to stack them up let you stack up wood for a fireplace in the winter time whenever they accumulated 20 30 40 50. they grab somebody out from the line in the morning you know from the draw call and they tell you to go over down there and they put they had nafta you know nafta is kerosene kerosene if you know what kerosene is very flammable right if you want you know with nintendo no bathrooms like they have down here they had to go downstairs and outside they had a bathroom but in the campground what they did is they a wooden deal with the deal with the hole and the ground and that's it you went in there but that place don't even ever saved that accumulated all these
people they use that kerosene throw it at them and throw the match and burn them alive they burned them alive oh yeah you see we burned them they made you do it and if you didn't do it the penalty was depend and you yeah so you had no choice no so but but you see what what's happening when you burnt the people there were some people some kids you know you know the oldest must have been done at 25 26 years old at that time you knew you have to burn him because but some of them ask you if you give me a sip of
water i might still can be working i'll be able to get up and walk if you don't burn him they burn me so we had to do it and this was going on and going on and going wrong but you know how long can you wear this jacket how long can you wear the shirts how long can you go on for that three minutes in the morning to wash your face i need my piece of paper for human use to god use the bathroom so not even toilet paper nothing it wasn't towels not nothing they treated you like animals worse than them animals get treated
better but you see it at that time you see when you live on the conditions like this the guy i was sleeping with next to me we were talking a lot should one of us survive let's remember just like you do now to be able to tell but too taught when the conditions like this they're taking everything from you you know even now at the time take a person if he gets ill does his mind work no but thank god you know we've been down in that camp two months three months four months five months six months still the same thing but poland had lots
of collaborators the camp besides the german assassin garden had the polish police down there you were able to bribe a polish policeman to take you down to see your parents and that didn't even have any ghettos yet after six months so you got to see your parents sometimes listen but i thought could that bribe my bread so i told him you know call the policeman took me down my father gave him a little ring or give him a little diamond or some foreign he took me friday out then because i'd be able to let you stay done until tuesday until he'd be back on beauty
so he kept me down until tuesday sunday night he took me down friday sunday night the head but the call the house would be like a ride germany says you know if we were still living in difference in not mixed areas they can instead through the collaborators shown where the jews are living they took out some jews well the collaborators polish and jews or just the polish who were the collaborators the collaborators were polls of the german ancestry german fish debit card station our jews they're collaborating with pajamas too so there were jews who collaborated against other people yeah that's the reason we had them
even late in camps they were called couples c-a-p-o pacifiers capos were jews yeah yeah so monday morning i went back with my father to the soul and my oldest brother's rule was under my brother david foster yankovich told my father i'm gonna have to correct this it's called the requisition i don't know is that an english word yeah requisition's english english okay they basically took over take away then what was good the merchandise merchandise so they took out the merchandise they had to carry that loaded up and i was there that day and when they got through taking out the goods they give my receipt
to come to collect the money so the store is over a week later i came home so my father says let's go and see if they pay you something for it you know we went there there was no ghetto yet even where the star of david did went up the sd you know what the sd stands for no zeke is these if you don't know what secret right this is that's the gestapo you're stopping okay and we went down at the that place that ss stormtroopers the same building staying guard you came down and they told you to go down to the basement to the
cashier he came down to the cashier there was a line jewish marches waiting to get paid you saw already a lot so i'm hanging beating up the dead ever told my father to get out they wouldn't let him out i'm going to get paid you know how it is when you're young you're strong with a clear mind you see your father hanging and beating the dead that's what that's all that was the first thing let me understand you saw your father yeah being beaten to death yeah right there and that there were lots of them hanging down than beating that buildings came to my time
my father's time they wanted to get away but they had to stay and see watch oh my goodness you couldn't move you have to stay watching well when we came home told no matter what's happened our father is not going to be with us no more that didn't even let you touch the corpse the body out so what's going to happen without father now so i remember like today my brother's house rule the university where he went to fact they were living the same building that we were living in because well he is a a district attorney and polish was a proclarator his daughter went
the same university of my oldest brother and who knew she my brother didn't go with that there was no no connection between them but she fell in love with them she fell in love and then a little later they started making a ghetto and rather and they get to my mother and my brother's rule my brother david my brother yankala they all moved in they gave up our beautiful home for one room the room must have been eight but chain said a little hole i remember like today and across from us was a guy a good friend of my father's goodstead which that wasn't jewelry
business and when i made the ghetto down there i still was able to take you know that was not that concentration camp yet i was able to take that same polish policeman take me down to the ghetto when it took me down down that together in 1942 you're talking about the horror you know what the hardness no what is it you've never seen never heard and i hope you never witnessed anything like this but that's happened down there so that night they came and they took all the jews by what put you men women and children had to come out and that ghetto down there
like they're all called and they already at that time they had prepared i call everything a principality that was the principality like the magistrate ever heard of the word magistrate yeah sure city hall would call bmi yes the most important thing in the city hall was to have a police department in a labor department the labor department of all jews and this people had to prepare every day five six thousand people to go out of work assignments but then they had that roll call at that now if you take if you recall at the beginning i told you it was a city of a million
there were twenty percent of jewish people you got two hundred thousand jews and you build a ghetto this can hold sixty thousand seventy thousand what are you going to do with the surplus of another 120 140 000. see people were stacked in like sardines as i told you my parents followed and i ate by 10 foot little place down there they had a little stove down there i steal it from steel something like this big for the good stuff and through the house now were you still in the camp already there was the slave living camp you were still in the camp they they they were in a uh ghetto but you still for all those years were in the slave library but i still had the guy the polish guy take you back once yeah because you got good paid right even then
together even my father then my mother took care of my brother and my oldest brother and uh i recall like today at that draw a call i brought out so many people and you make a selection i told you they have to eliminate six seven thousand people a day and they start taking out the children number one the old number two the feeble that means the sick right once they cannot walk number three then you know mother to take the baby away from me then she will let me go with the baby so the mother went too you know that took out five six hundred
thousand people and at that time he already had connections we knew already they had already had the places prepared at auschwitz birkenau maidanac the blinker and all the places that had crematoriums sure they got through taking out the five six seven thousand people you know you steal you're dealing with sadists you're dealing with murderers they had to go out and get in in the homes that they choose for a living that's all they had to get on there to get there going in you know mother had a baby so she hit the baby under the mattress someone hit that on the ass any place so
they found a little baby you're talking about the little baby three four five six seven months old you see a chairman goon a chairman take that baby and tear it apart by the feet or they took an older baby a year two three year old and they made a game out of it an assessment will stay downstairs he'd be on third fourth floor fifth floor and throw the baby out and then if he misses that on the bayonet he lost the game that was a bet for money already you know you see atrocities like this you're at the 16 17 years old you know what
goes through your mind the first thing you ask yourself you got you know if you believe in god said do you got and i was 15 when that started i'm now 17. maybe i have some maybe i deserve it but when you take a kid three four five six seven months old and that kid is torn apart by the feet how can you be a bystander see that you know you might start working in a different direction you're losing faith in god you know why if you see a crime committed you don't report that crime you are an accessory to the crime so you see when something like this you already come up in your mind if you have a mind you come up and you ask yourself you don't even help a little infant child i put
myself you trust i have committed maybe since this baby has not committed no sin so because of that because they were killing babies you sort of at that moment lost your faith in god yes and you questioned it because he said you said how could he let this happen yeah that you said you see i didn't bring it up for my father was beaten to death and if you recall i had set myself at that time when i was 15 16 17 already now maybe maybe i have sinned and i deserve it but i don't think this child has committed any crimes or sinned to
being torn apart by the feet and thrown out from the window and you've seen that see you're talking to god then you know as time went on we're talking about 1942 already three years the war goes on seeing that get there every day you see people taking out everyday six seven thousand because 1942 is when 80 percent of the jews in europe were murdered by the nazis is not true and in 1942 the crematorium start working 24 hours a day right that's the big yeah then you see if you were a german soldier or a german officer or a german civilian they had special divisions
which they came up with and they put them in an assignment how to eliminate the eun the jews whoever's came out with a better idea got more paid got more stripes or you know higher rank and a bonus for figuring out how to kill more juice you see but but i'm trying to tell you uh mr rep i'm going to have to stop now because the tape's running out we'll take a break i'll put a new tape in and we start again keep the thought thank you lake and this is tape two on april 21st 2008 for the dallas jewish historical society interviewing mr jack
rep so now we we left off and it was 1942 you were in the ghetto and you were telling me about what happened there so if you're continuing slave labor camp but i went home you weren't visiting so you were still in the slave labor camp but your family was in the ghetto and they were doing a roll call and so continue from there please so you see at that roll call down there and they made the ghetto down there let's get back but i meant to get them they had to deliver everyday five six seven thousand people if you recall i brought it up
before but i'm repeating myself and at that time and i noticed i came down to the ghetto being smuggled up from my slave labor camp to take me down to visit my mother because my father was gone already and at that time when i saw what you recall i was telling you about turn that little infant's baby apart by the feet right and throwing it down the window and i had a question cat where are you yes that's february right but you see at that time in the ghetto down there and they had to deliver that many people day in and day and they took
out already 20 30 40 000 people so the ghetto was too big because they always wanted to make it smaller so they took the jews from this ghetto and they made a smaller ghetto in that small legendary they already at that time my my oldest brother sarah was afraid so they wouldn't get my little youngest brother yankela five-year-old one and at that time he was already seven-year-old and if you recall i brought up we had a neighbor a district attorney and the daughter went to the same university my oldest brother's school right and she came to the ghetto and asked my mother that time have
a look i like your song through from the time we've been in the university you see what's going on down here i would like to marry through take him out together by doing that i will take yankel my youngest brother he was already at that time seven years old and i already got prepared in papers for him and i will take him to warsaw my father arranged already for a place for at that time you didn't look you know save a life sure my mother agreed to it my oldest arranged for my mother a place in order for her not to be taken out because
you know in europe if 40s you were old at the factory where they were manufacturing for the military uniforms he placed it down there for a bribe you gotta end there in my brother's rule went to warsaw with my little brother they bandaged his feet they won the shepherd's face they went on the train they had came to russia and of course how he joined the polish police you know through her father his connections he joined them and at that time which i found out later some of the jewish the the the jews the ones that joined the polish police as ions were connected with
the underground and that was during the time i went back to the camp my mother was placed in a good place to work and at that camp down there back before the war started in 1938 you see you see you see how i go from 42 to 38. there was a treaty signed and the treaty the once was signed was between molotov and von ribentro it was unknown aggression pact between the two countries but at the same time it was a plan which they put in in that treated a division but for the division for the division four if they should run over poland the russians will come from one side the germans from the other side by the whistler they will divide paul in the two so the germans and russians decided they were going to divide bologna that they had if you're a cooler i told you 1938 right then from that 1938
the treaty lies that until 1940 but in 1940 the treaty was broken russia were on the germans have around russia germans invaded russia and all of a sudden they're treated the treaty was broken okay you see at that time that was going on for a month and after that month we were in random in that factory i wasn't rather than that factor they brought us home from the factory they made a roll call the roll covers always put the gas on one side the men the boys on the other side always undressed newt we're always taking you to taroko we got a summertime or winter
time at that time they came up now how are people's mind works how i say this minds works you know what i say this is yeah they say this it's been prefabricated for that purpose to being able to read your mind or you look at your face and read your face and at that time they came and i told you we were on the roll call in the kemat the russians are coming you see if the russians are coming they're going to be free so you see if they see a smile on your that take you out and they kill you but the roll call
was over and at that time that was the first time we learned we're gonna go out on a dead march a death march the dead matches were usually made either suppose the sun was burning or the frost was freezing so either the coldest time or the hottest time they took you out on what they call the death march so when they took us out on the dead that took us from radham that place that's called korenitse about 38 kilometers seven days now you know if the sun is burning you don't get nothing to eat you don't get nothing to drink but if you pass past
through you want to bend down to vetting your hands or your own urine wetting your tongue or wet in your lips they kill you you see from that 38 kilometers 5 000 boys and girls marching you're gonna lose 1500 until you get to the destination and realize that that destination that crashing issa down there and if you recall i brought up before we already knew by liquidating the ghettos how about to do with the people we knew already about crematoriums and we knew how the crematoriums worked not all of them but if you had a mind your mind was still good you knew what's going
on because you had connected to people so i recall like today we came to carjanitza if they had a place down there factory that factory mr claude has been closed on it for 30 years for 40 years maybe when we got done there's the same thing on dress you're going to take a shower and they say you're going to take a shower this was fearful so they matched us in before they marched us in i recall like today i was 17 and a half year old i said you my israel i don't know elena i don't know yet that's going to be the end of
my destination we got in that day you stay down at two three days you stay two three days in a place you don't get a sip of water you don't get nothing to eat and if you're cold i brought that before i've got to work some mysterious ways but you can actually shrink your system but you don't have to eat we lost half of the people down there but i guess god must have had a plan for me survived that all of a sudden that the doors if you find that we've been sold sold you were sold to whom development if i'm brown burner van
brown to build missiles the guy who builds the missiles yeah but that took us back to right onto the factory we got we came to the right onto the factory than that and before you know it they had another row called and they were going to take a shower it was 1943 already taking that shower took off our clothes i always had pictures from my parents from my brothers with me even today you know i don't care for my brothers but i always carry pictures in my packet i get pictures from my children from my grandchildren i have pictures always when you're going to hide
something if you stay nude so i hid it under the sole of my feet next to me was a boy which we were brought up to live in the same neighborhood we went to the same paid it went to the same school we played soccer together morris rappaport for my fine fine outstanding good jewish family very about the people that went textile business you go to school where i went you had that money to go down you know like you go down hit akiba academy down into them schools even my grandchildren don't hit the temple cosplaying on a year i just brought that saved my
pictures under my soul my feet the kid morris rapaport must have raised up his hand torch his mouth and swallowed something you know what they swallowed what a little loose diamond swallow the diamond then what you see our parents wherever they are they should be in heaven when they come home to the ghetto they'll always give you a piece of diamond or a piece of gold or some money some foreign currency maybe you'll be able to get a piece of bread for it at that time from the tower a german assessment came down and asked what did you swallow he said i swallowed a little
time in all this little diamond you know how it feels 17 17 and a half years old they took me out and took out another kid but tied up that morris wrapper that kid sent to the back took him close to the fence he give dad a kid to buy a net and open up his stomach you know how it is so they had them open the stomach of rapaport with a bayonet he was still alive all right you you're doing it's a life yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah slide this stuff over the stomach of them and then what did you have to tell us
me you know i was there with them yeah they go in and find that little diamond you know this to go into somebody's stomach and the inside and go through everything no you miss column until you find a piece of diamonds and i found it and i washed it off and i ended the duck jam you would have thought at that time i would have been immune to because they took me out from the line to handle this now i went back in my place and at that time see we had the angel of death coming down making a selection tell me his name dr
mangala okay you see and dr mengele during that time i thought i'm i'm going to be immune that was not immune he went in when i went through this election i didn't even know i had that in me he found a little gold feeling in my tooth you know how it is when you take someone out of the line like that took me out to get in the and they give another kid to tie up my hands and give a pad dirty rusty flowers another kid rusty pliers right rusty yeah and have all your teeth pulled and they found that piece of gold you and
now we would have been afraid you know for not to get any infections or free after penicillin antibiotics of that she got forks in such mysterious ways that's unbelievable so this kid had to pull all of your teeth out with rusty pliers and and you no no anaesthetic nothing just no that's what you see i didn't get infected and i survived that from 17 and a half years old i and at that time after this election took away our civilian clothes i told you and they gave us that striped suit and from the beginning when i went into the camp the slave labor camp that
didn't tattoo me i don't even have a tattoo today no tattoo why why did they not tattoo you just you see they went to auschwitz went through the selection down there we were the first transport of anyone ever to come in and get out and we went from there in 1943 we want the right indian ants and i told you before fistbuster went up and worked before in an ammunition factory right very professional people to go and work at the missiles but i guess you know among the times i brought up gut works mysterious ways several times thank god i don't have the alzheimer's disease
my mind is still all dead but when we got done there the allies were there before we did they bumped the the allies bombed the factory and it was 1943 okay 1943 when we got down then this poster went down there and built a spreading the attackers to build that that took us down in a storm mine little striped prison suit what you probably saw in the holocaust museum that will suit no underwear no sacks no my shoes i lost the soles for my shoes i had my piece up there with paper paper right paper from from a cement sack fit some fire after in
the winter time was it cold down on the mine in that mine down there we went down there and if you want to know the rations we got if you recall from the beginning i told that's what we got that was the plan you know we didn't supposed to survive we got in that place down there we worked on that two shifts 12-hour shifts and that 12-hour shift for to work down we lost from there were about three thousand of us left were lost and thank god end in 1943 got helped that last came in this dark bomb down there so when they bumped down
there that took out you know what demolitionist demolition yes that took us out an assignment to go ahead and earth bumps for dallas throat here the allies came with the planes sirens were blowing you know they're on to the shelter if you stayed and tapped down there and i beat them nobody ever got killed so so you even had to survive the allied bombs well i'm going to tell you that when this when the allies came when the allies came and they bumped that was the best music tower is if you could still hear because something is going to happen about survival and being left
alive nobody thought about it but we built and we built down there and and and you know how we survived from now that come out is still beyond me today and that work but they did the demolition work down there you want that demolition work you found a piece of peel from a potato even a sewer you've had something down there and believe me you didn't care from where it comes out from you put it in your mouth but at that time alice went away we went back into the storm they kept us down there and worked on them before and the allies came a
little closer so that took us out on about the dead another death march always at that moment and where were you going this time hessental from vinegar how many kilometers oh my god i don't know the kilometers but we walked by three four five weeks weeks weeks three or four five weeks yeah also with no water no food no nothing look and the think it skips a lot kept the lots of us alive you find a piece of peel somebody died you slept on top the one died so you had a little bit softer and then you might had a piece of breath you didn't
eat you found you ate it or a piece of peel you eat it but you see this is not the most forced thing in your life you know i don't think a person which didn't go through that can even his mind can imagine even things like this do you know what divorces think in a person's life is what dirt lice will eat your life you go down for days and days and days you don't wash yourself you are inhumane you know in and don't consider your mind to be in that strong because longest lies the bigger your mind gets and you start already hallucinating you
know this 1943 and the 1943 each one of us from the dirt and from the lies from the malnutrition had typhus so they die typhus the fever will eat your life better die you want to get a little bit snow to put in your mouth the wintertime you got and i brought up before i didn't have no shoes on i had paper wrapped around my feet yeah you see when the doctor looked at my knees he says you have more arthritis than anything else in your knees you know and i figured you don't need to tell me that i got these three fingers i can
tell you when it's going to rain when the weather is going to change so and i told you from buying in they got bucks cars and got help they got the hassle down up and arrived in the hestertown we found some people there which we have been with them in the camp you know the first thing you ask you come in a camp like this what would you ask after so many years so many things what would be the first thing you think you asked you tell me you see you don't ask have you seen my brother you've seen if you had a sister my
sister have you seen my cousin have you seen my uncle in my hands my mother you know my father was not there no more you know the answer was oh they are all here you know you will even get to be with them you're going to join them what do they do what do they mean by that so when you go through the chimney you will meet up with them so they all they tell you they all went to the crematorium that's what they say you know you're already 18 18 and a half years but at that camp i'll tell you now we have a
coming down down here this commandant doesn't use no bullets he has never killed a person but the means of the way you're gonna die down here you have never found or seen a sadist like kim he killed you by looking at you now you take in the morning you have a roll call you bring that you got a couple three thousand people you know i'm going to put a big mask on it 3 000 people they take the gas and ones okay so we're continuing you're telling me about the sadist before the battery went low so please continue so you see that was a place
down there but she'd be coming down for such a but he figured out that way he can kill without using any bullets now how do you kill people without using any bullets say this as a way you see in the monarchy will have a roll call and at that roll call he will come after that plate and at that plate he will have what they tart a torch like a delicious piece of cake like a fancy cake yes yeah is that okay i don't know what a torch i know a torch okay okay and that third he will grab a big bite and especially drop
down a chunk of it under on the ground you know when you got three thousand or four thousand hungry lines two three hundred of them were around to grab that piece of tart or that piece of cake and it comes by getting up you can find a 150 people laying they cannot get up to death because you're dealing with dead people now if i can kill 150 people with that piece of cake and i'm going to go behind the defense and behind the defense i will throw in radishes in europe they had radishes but the size of grapefruit frozen morning that doesn't care even if
they come out from the dirt and i will throw in one two three four thrown by 15 20 25 of them several hundred people will run down there to grab that i will have another couple 300 people laying dead because they died on the electric fence people died from the electricity in the fence no no the diet they cannot get up oh they're too weak to you see if you recall i brought up perform if you have the two people the boys from one side the girls on the other side you look at each one of them you are not able to tell who is
a boy and who's again because the eyes are you looking at skeletons you know that's the funny thing and i worshiped well i don't know how old you are but at that time edward r marrow was a correspondent for bbc i remember him for the british broadcasting corporation i remember him later okay now you know and i think edward r morrow when he broadcast from bookworld he brought up but he was among dead walking among the dead people he came up with exactly the same thing but i just got to tell you and you look at the boys you look at the girls or the
women you cannot tell who's a boy who's a ghetto because they were all so skinny so emaciated they were like all skeletons and the smell of dead people is still in his nose okay now i'm not saying that because i was among them but you see at that time in that camp this sadists has really killed more people but not using no bullets than a but even that came was already in 1944 the allies came close bombing the camp what happens we go on another dead march the third death march from we went to more than three dead marches but from where to where this
from we go from hessentime to go up to the black forest do you know how far that was destination probably 50 kilometers 50 kilometers right it's all that close to bavaria we're going from thank god every place i went i can remember the name i passed by and open arriving down there from that to the black forest from the black forest the dhaka was another 40 kilometers 30 kilometers and we stayed down in the black forest in the black forest got help estate done and they always came and needed some people to go out to do some work in my lifetime i was in so
many professions it's unbelievable i needed a tailor i was a tailor needed a schumacher i was a shoemaker that needed that uh anything to me a barber was a barbie anything how long one of us was that god forbid if we got out 10 12 people neither one of them knew anything about it we got beaten to death i did so and the black forest i needed somebody to go out china but that's all right you find a piece of people from a potato if i found they stayed under the state and empty state and finally they got back scars they got what pax cash
oh box box cards yeah okay the box card here in the loader that's up in the back scratch you know a box kind of can hold 30 people 35 40. you put in 125 on 30 people you know how to sex like sardines huh you couldn't sit don't wait to lay down no can't lay down cancer can't move cannot move you know you urinate one another whatever you are also inhumane you see what i'm trying to tell you is and they got the back scars if they had some news they're going to dynamite the past class with the people in it all of a sudden one day and two men came up in civilian claws and they had red cross bands on their arm and they introduced himself from the swiss red cross you know deals
like this look that's how you kill people they're into faces if you have a smile or something you're going to get killed this haters knows how they're in faces i learned from two that's how the reach is believe me and at that time they made a remark do you know what their mark was if there's anyone down here between you can remember of anyone anywhere anywhere in the world of a relative somebody knew anywhere in the world you can remember a name or a country or an address tell us if we can let them know because the war is going to be better scared today
but we're going to be dead already i must have brought up a half a dozen times or a dozen times got worked in mysterious ways and that can actually implant in your mind things that you have never thought why do i say that i recall when i was 18 12 years old we used to get mail from relatives in america and because my father said paid for him to go to america so i had an uncle my aunt my mother's sister in a place that's called greenville texas greenville texas huh so i told them i had an uncle and an ant in a place that's
called greenville texas sam schwartz price talks that's it did you know a street name or the city i took off the stampers akita and saved them so it was just the city i just remem got them planted in me to remember that and i give them that and if you're a cole at the beginning i was talking to you about 1937 my sister got married do you remember that went to paris france yes meant to pass france in that given max given the name thirty-four rulemarcia paris but paris if you're a coal was occupied by the germans too yes so i just give the name
give the address that was it the left they got from every one of them but they baby remember that helps finally and in 1944 it's already 1945 january we are still backscars and they take us up and down up and down if you pass by so many so many places which i can call you up by names which are not just on the science it's unbelievable and fine they brought 1945 was to be the end of february they brought us to daho so which camp how many camps have you been in this is the fifth case flying in hessental and from hezendorf event and the
lots of dead marches five six we went from the forest black forest i recall like today make it short that you know if you recall i told you the lies were eating us alive and we arrived in that house the first thing they did just understand lousing go take a bath and they said to go take a bath if you recall before in kojinichi i said the shema israel right i set the shamai soil again because i'm going to go in but i'm not going to come out but they must have had 15 hundred people fish feed camp plus other transport so i must have
been away three four five hundred feet six hundred feet from the crematorium in the line because walking i couldn't walk no more and to tell you the truth to say my mind was by a clear mind during that time i will lie to you too because it was already so i was by gone you know matter of fact would have thank god i would die so your mind was playing tricks on you you were having some hallucinations you could hardly walk what did you weigh at that time well i'm gonna get it okay i don't know i didn't know i'm gonna i might wait until
i was liberated right you know so we stayed down at two three days it was already end of april there were no roll calls no roll calls no roll call unusual yes isn't that unusual for no roll calls well that's what i'm trying to get to it there were no rock calls all of a sudden you saw some people coming in in the uniform for difference and they go around and say you're free you're free free i don't speak english what the hell is he talking about that i was my mind but you know i got worked in mysterious ways you know i used that
word a dozen times by going through i thought all of a sudden a man came and i looked up i opened my eyes he had two pieces of gold on his shoulder two bars so he started talking jewish to me what did he say and what does that mean don't be afraid you're a free person he's an american could you believe your ears when he told you this he took plain yiddish can you believe me i didn't believe but you know it was good to hear a jewish word yeah but nevertheless you don't see a gemma no more after they said that maybe 15 20
minutes later trucks started coming up with red cross and they picked us up and they took us away so you know after so many years living in the conditions like we lived in and people people but you never saw a decent person talking nice to you undressed you cleaned you up put you on something clean it took you to the hospital to throw it out the gym and put us in and at that time you asked me before how much did you weigh so i didn't know 69 pounds 69 pounds and you were only one years old 21 years old so you were even older
when you were 15 you weighed 160 so at 21 you ate 69 pounds which to me is like skeletal like you couldn't even see it yet so i told you about a piece of paper tell the difference between a bullet yeah so you were just a living skeleton so you know i've stayed down in that hospital for four months the people's the kindness and the generosity is i don't think it can be expressed or told you know after so many years you see decent people waiting on you and treating you kindly and at that time we got from philanthropical organizations it could be from the
joint could be from the owner we got clothes so they dressed us up you and after four months after six years i haven't seen a mirror after six years i haven't seen a piece of print i went in the bathroom because four months i was laying and everybody ever ever heard everybody was technically carrying me were the doctors american or yeah american doctors american nurses you know and and unbelievable the kindness and the generosity and the goodness that's reason i don't have a bet for it to say and you know i recall like today when i went in the bathroom and i looked in the
mirror and i saw i got a little bit of skin on me got a little bit hair and i guess must have been sent from america from and i was dressed up already nice pants the knife shares nice jackets and i guess my mind started working and i saw i can walk a little bit you know what i did what it's unbelievable but i went back exactly to the same place but that came down there but i was liberated up an arrival that came down to young men in the 20s i came up and i say i want to see i couldn't speak english in
english at all because they are two pieces of gold but they looked at you can tell you had holocaust survivor from italy and what's went through their and i can tell must be a little bit not all there you know that young man wherever he is that's reason even today for the veterans of the second world war regardless who they are my prayers are always with them you know i took out a piece of hershey's candy chocolate give it to me but i will get back to something to you before and before that before i was liberated we were given by the americans a curation
package you know what that curation package is okay russian yeah yeah yeah you know the gs are getting that right i never opened it and i took the piece of candy and put it in my pocket and i went away from him went down with the daddy guard i went over to the other guard and i said listen two pieces of gold twice chicken gold you know my spicy cocoa go home go home it tells me i lay down on the ground and start crying because i will never forget he went on the telephone he called up and i got forks folks mysterious ways the
same jewish captain cannot anchor look at you oh look at you you know the same jewish captain this is first vista i want a job i want to do something so you know to get back into mentioning god's name got folks mysterious ways and if you recall before i have told you i've given up and got before right and i mentioned the infants right if you recall that yeah so you wouldn't think that my schedule does work sounds good you know and uh he brought him in the kitchen and you know he only got two pieces of gold here he brought out the guy his
sleeve was full he was a mass sergeant right but you know that helps you know i gotta eat i'm speaking yiddish to him this guy is kazzy kowalski apollo from chicago space polish what do you own support we got work for you know the work they give me enough to lie to you add a barrel a few potatoes forget i peel the potatoes and i peel them real thick instead of putting the peels in the barrel i put them in the inside of my shirts and i'm gonna bring him home we're gonna have a big party and i used to get a piece of peel
for my sewer here i got peels that thick i feel them all of a sudden when i was peeling i didn't see nobody the whole company is around down there in the place done it and everybody looks at me he comes over what did you do you know like that i said tell you what published him so i told him listen i know i did something wrong i shouldn't have did that you all were so good to me and i stole some of the peels from the potatoes and i'm going to work as long as you want me for it to make it up to
you for it until i saw a crack on the lips smile i was scared to death i cried they took me up the jewish captain and hain bought them took me up the supply house took my clothes off and as they knew it and they dressed me up as an american and then i met a uniform as a soldier so now i'm an american you know i'm an american i'm fine already but you know at six years of my life spent under the darkest of the dark conditions a person can live in the people are so nice and so good to me but i had
in the whole six years i had a dream and i had that jealousy well i promise these people i'm not going to steal them in america i went down and believed me i went back to my job peeled potatoes and i peeled them like a piece of paper that thin didn't put them in me put them in there but i look around there's nobody down there there was a round table just like i'm looking down down the corner now and that round table had the widest breath i have ever seen in my life cake was nothing that's right like mrs bear i went got on
the table i took a whole bread and i gave you my word of honor i eat every slice of that bread from that loaf of bread the entire loaf that's super fun any butter or any jelly nothing no no no no no oh my gosh better than cakes whole loaf of bread had you ever had white bread before no so that's the something new to you yes but let me tell you something all of a sudden i got the whole damn thing again happened to me the whole company died and i said this i'm caught the second time steel and i started crying i cried
forcing a little i cried so hard but that mass sergeant the christian man came over and hugged me give me a kiss and the jewish captain give me a kiss he says you didn't do nothing wrong this is why did you do that you know when you lift through what i did i just got the plans for me as i tell you what i had a dream one day to have a whole loaf of bread and to be able to eat as many slices as i want and i did that and i fulfilled my dream i got a hand in the whole company everybody at
these dies but you know i don't have to bring this up down here because there's no under so much down here but if you recall i had a jealousy too and how did i come to fulfill my jealousy my dream is fulfilled and this has happened already very way later you know if you recall they came out in in tennessee when they came out to the paper clip with that picture picture about them and then they brought back the two box cars right and then they brought out two box cars they started painting and they painted butterflies you see you're talking about the christian kids
in tennessee who never knew a jew and then they read about the holocaust and they they started collecting paper clips yes you see what i'm trying to bring out is this when they painted the butterflies you see when i was incarcerated when i was in the camp and we were in a roll call a butterfly could sit down on the ground was able to fly away and i wasn't able to fly away and i was jealous of that but you see if you live you have years to live you can get your dreams fulfilled like you're jealous of fulfilled you see i saw paint in
the butterflies now i am a free man and i can do the same thing but that did they flew away now i'm free and thank god for that so that's great okay