On November 9, 1938 my father and I were arrested on Kristallnacht.  We were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.  My family had been friends with the police chief of our city.  My mother went to the police chief to have us return home.  My mother was able to get us out of Buchenwald after one month.  

 

I was beaten while there and my hair was shorn down the middle with a razor to humiliate me.  I came home beaten, bruised, and dirty.  A lot of people didn’t come back though, they were beaten and killed.  

 

After I was released from Buchenwald, the Gestapo summoned me to come to them; they asked me how soon I could get out of Germany.  We had relatives in Holland who we contacted and they were able to send me papers to come to Holland.  I spent eight months in a refugee camp in Amsterdam and one year in Westerbork.

 

I later left Holland for America.  One of my cousins in, Alfred Strauss, sent me an affidavit to come to him.  I had no money when I arrived.  I first came to Albany, New York where another cousin lived.  I slept in an unheated room with some other people.  I then went to Detroit to work at my cousin’s meat packing business on the Eastern Market.  He sold meat to institutions.   

 

After I came to America, I tried to get papers for my parents to come to America, but the war had already started.  The papers arrived too late for my parents to leave.  They were deported to Piaski, Poland near Lublin, Galicia, where they were killed.  My sister was killed in northern Poland.  

 

Let there be peace, health, and happiness on earth. What happened to the Jewish people, such tyranny should not exist in the world.