Plaszow was a combination of work camp and extermination camp. A lot of the Gypsies were brought in for extermination in that camp. And one of the things that I was told is survival means the ability to
work. If you could work, there was hope for survival. If you
couldn't work, you were done. So mentally I had to psyche myself
out that I'm adult and I could do the work, and I wanted to
survive. And so, when we got there, I was still with my father.
And, one of the first thing they did, is they asked for...they
wanted to have people who had trades. First thing...they selected
first the work groups. And then they were...uh with all others, if
they couldn't fit into work, then it was back to the extermination
camp. So then my father was fall...fell out of the group as a
tailor. And then they said, "Bricklayers. Who's a bricklayer?" I
raised my hand. "I'm a bricklayer." I never laid a brick or a stone
in my life. I never even touched one. But as I was in the camp, I
saw how people laid the bricks and the stones, how they mixed the
cement, so I figured, "Well, I could do that." They said, "Okay.
Fall in line." And they put me in the work group. And I...in the
eye...their eyes, I was a professional bricklayer.