INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN LIST
March 28, 1999.
My name is Martin List. I was born in Pilzno in 1929. My
parents were Leib List, who was born in the nearby town of
Brzotek, and Lottie (Leah) Braun, who was born in Pilzno. My
father's parents were Zalman and Rose List of Brzotek. I never knew
my mother's parents. I had three siblings, sisters named Nina (Necha)
who was 18 when she was killed, and Rose, who was 9; and a brother
named Joseph who was 2 years older than me. He was shot and killed
outside Pilzno by the police when he was 16. My father's, sister's
and brother's names are on the monument in the Pilzno cemetery.
My father's business was the exporting of food stuffs to Germany
and Silesia.
I had a happy childhood, and went to Cheder for half a day and
then public school for half the day, starting when I was 7. We had
two synagogues inn town, and the Talmud Torah. I never had a Bar
Mitzvah. I am now an atheist, but a dedicated Zionist. When I was 7 I
fell in love with my teacher, a nice local shiksa. Every day I would
bring her flowers. I studied arithmetic, reading and writing, and
history. I went for the first 3 years of public school. Then when the
German's came into town in Sept. 1939 they kicked the Jews out of the
public schools.
The synagogue was a nice building, wood, accommodating a few
hundred people. It also had a shtable, a little room where smaller
groups could pray on weekdays. The Talmud Torah housed the Cheder,
across from the synagogue. It also housed the local Jewish council
and the rabbinical court.
As a boy for fun we had sleighs, and skiing in the winter, and
swimming and fishing in the rivers in the summer. The little town was
like a country estate.
My parents house was made of wood, simple, we got electricity
about 1937. My father was not very involved in the synagogue. But my
mother was a religious woman, and we celebrated the Jewish holidays
in our house.
Most of my friends were Jews, but some not. Many of our neighbors
were not Jews. The relationship was always a tense one. The Poles
would sing songs that we should go back to Palestine.
On Market Day, Monday, most of the merchants were Jews. They had
little stalls on pushcarts. It was like a holiday, everybody was out.
Things started to change in 1939, when the Germans came, with the
burning of the synagogue and the Talmud Torah, and shootings. Maurice
Chilowicz's brother was one of the first to be shot. They ordered the
Jews to surrender their gold, their furs, and they would beat us.
Toward 1941 they set up a labor camp nearby, Pustkow, and took the
young men making them building roads to nowhere and crush stone, to
break them down. They were allowed to go home every two weeks; if
they didn't go home, their families would be killed. The workers at
Pustkow were starved and beaten and shot. Starting in 1942 we began
hearing that people were being taken to concentration camps. In June
1942 the Germans formed the local ghetto, and four weeks later it was
liquidated. Some were sent to Belzec, and some to the ghetto in
Dembitz to work. By the end of that summer where was not one Jew
living in the town officially. Only those in hiding.
In 1942 my family went to live/hide in the forest. From 1942
to 1945 I was hiding in the forest. A German Christian family helped
me. They were clients of my father's before the war. We brought
them to live in our house . My parents died just outside of Pilzno,
shot by Poles. I came out of hiding when the Russians came in, Jan.
16, 1945. It was truly a joyous occasion. Many of the Russian
officers were Jewish. Without the help of the Russians during the
occupation it would have been difficult.
I decided to come to the U.S. when I made contact with my mother's
sisters who lived in NY. I had to wait 3 years because of the quota.
I have never gone back to Pilzno. I served in the Israeli Army in
1948, and then in 1987 I lived in Jerusalem for 3 years. After
liberation I spent some time in England, then in Palestine, and came
to the US in 1950. I finished high school in NYC and went to Columbia
University. Eventually I went to medical school and became an
oncologist. I never married.
Interview conducted by Sharlene Kranz
|
