who had confidence in Goretzky and was the foreman.
And we pressed over 2,500 sheets.
I, along with others, with Tipek-Liechtenstein, put the leaflets in the shoes
and they rolled to the Eastern Front.
The leaflets said that their struggle was useless, damaging to life,
it goes through the Allies and much more.
So that was the main thing, wasn't it?
After some time, the operation was discovered.
We were apprehended by another resistance movement
that had nothing to do with our operation.
In Storchkampfwitz, ​​we met a Mr. Bescheid,
Johann Bescheid, an ethnic German from Romania.
He had a shoe polish factory called Erdal.
He intentionally founded that branch of the factory not so far from the ghetto.
He was a friend of the Jews and was ready to help,
to help Jews at the risk of his life.
When we had to flee the ghetto, we spent the first few nights with Bescheid.
And I can say that my comrades and I owe our lives to Bescheid.
Bescheid also supported us with money and documents.
I met him later in Vienna and his help accompanied us the entire time.
After the war, Bescheid was invited by the government to Jerusalem,
planted a tree in the emptiness of the Righteous Among the Nations,
received a pension and we all visited him in Salzburg frequently.
It's a pity that only a few people were like Bescheid.
There was an argument about whether we should fight to the bitter end or whether we should try to save ourselves.
The majority were for saving. And me too, in the end.
In my opinion, there was no possibility today or even then to fight in Upper Silesia.
These were not closed apartment blocks where each could defend one another.
These were small houses in the ghettos, one and a half or two rooms, each far away from the other.
And there was no way to defend. Moreover, above all, the hinterland was hostile.
There was no hinterland option. Everything was against us. And there was no point in dying there for nothing.
We also thought that it would be important for some to survive
to tell neighbors at some point what was going on and what happened.
In my group, in Sosnowiec, we prepared to save ourselves.
We looked for several places outside the ghetto where we could find shelter after we struggled to get out.
We then wanted to try to get to the Czech Republic and from Czechoslovakia to Hungary.
We had already learned that one can still live as a Jew in Hungary.
Through a Polish officer in the Polish underground movement,
I got in touch with Edith Warnkroos, who was the director of the German Employment Office in Tarnow.
He brought Edith to me in Krakow and introduced me
as a delegate of the Polish underground movement, which was supposed to save people
who were burned in various operations and had to be sent away somewhere.
And these people were to be sent to Germany.
Edith was very afraid before the end of the war. Her husband was a high-ranking officer, he was the East,
She was sure that the Germans were losing the war and if she helped us, we would help her too.
She also introduced me to the director of the employment office in Krakow and introduced me as a friend or, I think, a cousin.
And if I needed something, he was to help me, to give it to me.
So we sent
the groups to Germany.
There used to be two groups because we got papers from our friends in Krakow.
But then it became impossible to get there and that's how I came to this path.
We used to send only girls to the groups, but then we decided
it was already after the ghetto had been cleared.
And then we said, we have no options, we have to get the people out.
Then I realized that there were also young men.
We prepared the papers, went to the employment office,
they were stamped and everything was fine, and then back home.
So we sent a few transports of people, 27, 17, 12 to Germany.
I was deployed as a Pole and worked in various places.
Partly within Vienna, partly in the Vienna area, as an auxiliary sister and as other things.
In 1940, there was suddenly another way to survive.
Papers from South American and Central American countries came from Switzerland.
It worked like this, we sent our pictures and data and then passports arrived
from these countries that I spoke about before.
And there were problems, because there were very few
of these passports that would come. And the problem was who should get these passports. I do not know
how the other groups handled it. For us, we decided on
two couples in particular who we knew would be able to report abroad. We thought
namely, they would go abroad. They would be able to report abroad on how things were
with us. And then those of our Chaverims, especially the older ones, had such a look
that we did not dare to send them to Vienna to work.
I was to receive papers anyway because the Chaver claimed that I had done enough.
But I didn't accept them. The passport was already there, but I didn't want to travel.
Then I said, as long as the young people remain here are not on their way,
we must not let them down. I didn't travel, it saved my life.
Because the group I was supposed to travel with was taken to Ausschuss instead of to the station and they were all shot.
During the night of July 31 to August 1, 1943, the ghetto was surrounded.
There was an armed SS man every 100 or 150 meters.
It was quiet at night. In the morning, all those who were on the streets and in different houses
were brought to a collection point and were loaded into carriages that were parked nearby on warning tracks
and were sent from there to Auschwitz.
On August 1, 1943, the Ketter-Sosnowiec “cleansed of Jews” operation began.
We gathered in the bunker, but before that, I went to my father,
who was in another bunker, and I said goodbye to him
and knew that these were our last hours.
My father stood ...
speechless, with tears in his eyes, he hugged me and just said,
don't forget what the Germans did to us.
I looked at him and the image will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Saying goodbye to a father.
I went into the bunker. Around 50 resistance fighters
from the entire group were already gathered in the bunker.
We had weapons and we decided
to leave the ghetto armed that night,
to escape.
The Götterbaum-Gezingel of the Wehrmacht.
Our commander Koschuk went on a special mission.
I went to go with him. I was held back by a comrade,
because I was injured by a bullet graze the day before and perhaps could not go.
And instead of me, another fighter went, Nathan Rosenzweig.
We sat in the bunker.
And we knew, young as we were, that the fight, the death,
would only serve history sometimes.
We were aware of that.
And our example was the uprising in the ghetto in Warsaw.
Jews fought there against the Germans, fought to die, to die with honor.
That was the goal of the uprising.
And that was the atmosphere in our bunker.
We were ready like anything.
We knew that out of 60 people maybe two, three, maybe four,
would succeed in breaking out.
But we wanted to die with honor, like our brothers in the Warsaw ghetto.
At one o'clock in the morning, we heard two shots.
Everyone believed in their hearts that these were the two shots that had killed our comrades.
We found the bodies of Joseph and Nathan in the morning.
Mainly it had to be here.
That's it.
Screws.
Here are screws and here is the entrance.
The ghetto was hermetically sealed. Almost every 100 meters, there was a post with
a machine gun, a hand machine gun. On the night from the first to the second, we ventured an
escape. We formed a wedge. There were about 40 people at the tip
who had weapons. There were hand grenades and handguns. We wanted to shoot one of the guards or watchmen
to have a double-sized gap of about 150 to 200 meters. We all wanted to escape
through it and into the city together. When it got dark, perhaps
at around eight, half past eight, nine, we slowly moved forward step by step as we approached 100 meters,
as we approached the guard post, we laid down on the ground and crawled on all fours
or we crept closer and closer to them. We started shooting from a distance
of about 30, 40 meters. The guard in front of us answered and rather large
fireworks against us began from the right and the left. Unfortunately, we had no choice but to try to return
to the ghetto. Step by step, we crept back. This time,
Karol Tuschneider was injured in the neck. He was shot. We came back after a while
to the same starting point from where we set out. And there we discovered
that even if we had gotten through, we had made a mistake. We were almost
all without money and would have no place to stay outside. Then we decided, actually
Josef Koschuch told us, that he was going directly to the Jewish Cultural Council headquarters. That
there would still be money and he would try to figure it out. He left, and Nathan Rosenzweig accompanied
him. We never saw him again that evening. The next morning, Mrs. Koschuch searched the ghetto
and she found her husband and Mr. Rosenzweig shot in a carriage. Since our armed
escape failed, we decided not to try to use force anymore. We wanted to wait
until there was a place where we could escape to. This also happened the next day. On
August 3rd, the ghetto was to be "cleansed of Jews". Everyone was to be