{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/bg2h709v9n/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Sikorski, Mathew (Interview)"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/082/original/TheBreman_SecondaryMark_Horizontal_Blue_Black.png?1713640889","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2003-25-04 (captured)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Sikorski, Mathew (Interviewee)","Kent, John (Interviewer)","Einstein, Ruth (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["video"]}},{"label":{"en":["Source"]},"value":{"en":["William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum","Esther and Herbert Taylor Oral History Collection","Jewish Oral History Project of Atlanta"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eMathew Sikorski was interviewed by John Kent and Ruth Einstein on April 25, 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia.\u003c/p\u003e (general)","\u003cp\u003eMathew Sikorski was born Eustachjusz Maciej Sikorski on March 20, 1929. He was the only child in a Roman Catholic family that lived in Warsaw, Poland. His father, Boleslaw Sikorski (1896-1945), was a successful tailor. His mother, Jadwiga Maria Sikorski (1898-1991), helped manage the business. Mathew enjoyed a very happy childhood until the Germans invaded Poland and occupied Warsaw.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eUnder German occupation, Mathew’s family were subjected to many restrictions. When the Germans closed all schools above the 4th grade, Mathew attended a clandestine school. Mathew witnessed the brutal treatment of the Jewish community and saw the conditions in the ghetto. Meanwhile, his family lived in constant fear of the German roundups and executions of non-Jewish civilians. Mathew witnessed the burning of the ghetto after the uprising. Eventually, he would also witness the Warsaw Uprising. Escaping from their burning apartment, the Sikorski family was sent with hundreds of other civilians to a transit camp on the outskirts of the city. From there, they were sent on trains to Germany. In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, they were separated. Mathew and his mother were sent with other women and children to a labor camp in Hameln, Germany via Bergen-Belsen, while his father remained behind. Mathew and Jadwiga worked in a wool factory for the remainder of the war. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the war, Mathew and his mother learned Boleslaw had not survived. They decided not to return to Poland. Mathew completed high school while living at the Wentorf displaced persons’ camp near Hamburg, Germany. After studying at the University of Madrid in Spain, he immigrated to the United States in 1951. Mathew joined his mother in Chicago, Illinois, where she had immigrated two years earlier.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eMathew earned his B.S. and M.S. in Physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1957, he married another Polish immigrant, Barbara Debrowiecka (b 1928).  Mathew began his career at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He was awarded 11 patents for his work in acoustics. The family moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1965 when Mathew was offered a job at Georgia Technical University. He then completed his Ph.D. at the University of Manchester in England. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn Atlanta, Mathew and Barbara became active members of their church. After raising their three sons, Barbara went on to open a popular deli. In retirement, Mathew wrote a book about his experiences in World War II and became a regular speaker at the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum. Dr. Sikorski passed away on February 10, 2013.\u003c/p\u003e (bioghist)","\u003cp\u003eSikorski reminisces about his childhood. He recounts the German invasion of Poland. Sikorski describes the persecution of the Jewish population. He explains the fear he experienced.\u003cbr\u003eSikorski explains how he illegally attended school. He relates what he witnessed in the ghetto. Sikorski recounts how the Poles were persecuted and how they fought back. He describes the Warsaw Uprising. Sikorski remembers having to leave Warsaw. He relates his experience in a transit camp. Sikorski chronicles how he saved his father. He talks about the trip to Germany. Sikorski details the separation from his father. He describes Bergen-Belsen. Sikorski considers why a German officer helped him. He mentions different experiences during the war. Sikorski explains how he learned of his father’s death. He relays stories about surviving Allied bombing raids. Sikorski remembers his liberation. He traces his experiences as a displaced person. Sikorski comments on the relationships between Jews and non-Jews. He talks about deciding to leave Europe. Sikorski summarizes his life in the United States. He expresses his reasons for sharing his story. Sikorski reflects on what motivates him.\u003c/p\u003e (scope content)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://archivesspace.thebreman.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/29355"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recorded by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written consent of the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.\u003c/p\u003e"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eMathew Sikorski was interviewed by John Kent and Ruth Einstein on April 25, 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eMathew Sikorski was born Eustachjusz Maciej Sikorski on March 20, 1929. He was the only child in a Roman Catholic family that lived in Warsaw, Poland. His father, Boleslaw Sikorski (1896-1945), was a successful tailor. His mother, Jadwiga Maria Sikorski (1898-1991), helped manage the business. Mathew enjoyed a very happy childhood until the Germans invaded Poland and occupied Warsaw.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eUnder German occupation, Mathew\u0026rsquo;s family were subjected to many restrictions. When the Germans closed all schools above the 4th grade, Mathew attended a clandestine school. Mathew witnessed the brutal treatment of the Jewish community and saw the conditions in the ghetto. Meanwhile, his family lived in constant fear of the German roundups and executions of non-Jewish civilians. Mathew witnessed the burning of the ghetto after the uprising. Eventually, he would also witness the Warsaw Uprising. Escaping from their burning apartment, the Sikorski family was sent with hundreds of other civilians to a transit camp on the outskirts of the city. From there, they were sent on trains to Germany. In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, they were separated. Mathew and his mother were sent with other women and children to a labor camp in Hameln, Germany via Bergen-Belsen, while his father remained behind. Mathew and Jadwiga worked in a wool factory for the remainder of the war.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the war, Mathew and his mother learned Boleslaw had not survived. They decided not to return to Poland. Mathew completed high school while living at the Wentorf displaced persons\u0026rsquo; camp near Hamburg, Germany. After studying at the University of Madrid in Spain, he immigrated to the United States in 1951. Mathew joined his mother in Chicago, Illinois, where she had immigrated two years earlier.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eMathew earned his B.S. and M.S. in Physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1957, he married another Polish immigrant, Barbara Debrowiecka (b 1928). \u0026nbsp;Mathew began his career at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He was awarded 11 patents for his work in acoustics. The family moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1965 when Mathew was offered a job at Georgia Technical University. He then completed his Ph.D. at the University of Manchester in England.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn Atlanta, Mathew and Barbara became active members of their church. After raising their three sons, Barbara went on to open a popular deli. In retirement, Mathew wrote a book about his experiences in World War II and became a regular speaker at the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum. Dr. Sikorski passed away on February 10, 2013.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eSikorski reminisces about his childhood. He recounts the German invasion of Poland. Sikorski describes the persecution of the Jewish population. He explains the fear he experienced.\u003cbr /\u003eSikorski explains how he illegally attended school. He relates what he witnessed in the ghetto. Sikorski recounts how the Poles were persecuted and how they fought back. He describes the Warsaw Uprising. Sikorski remembers having to leave Warsaw. He relates his experience in a transit camp. Sikorski chronicles how he saved his father. He talks about the trip to Germany. Sikorski details the separation from his father. He describes Bergen-Belsen. Sikorski considers why a German officer helped him. He mentions different experiences during the war. Sikorski explains how he learned of his father\u0026rsquo;s death. He relays stories about surviving Allied bombing raids. Sikorski remembers his liberation. He traces his experiences as a displaced person. Sikorski comments on the relationships between Jews and non-Jews. He talks about deciding to leave Europe. Sikorski summarizes his life in the United States. He expresses his reasons for sharing his story. Sikorski reflects on what motivates him.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recorded by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written consent of the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/082/original/TheBreman_SecondaryMark_Horizontal_Blue_Black.png?1713640889","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/271/012/small/Sikorski_Mathew.mp4_1745961661.jpg?1745961662","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Sikorski_Mathew.mp4"]},"duration":10874.89738,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/271/012/small/Sikorski_Mathew.mp4_1745961661.jpg?1745961662","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-thebreman.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/271/012/original/Sikorski_Mathew.mp4?1745961603","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":10874.89738,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Sikorski, Mathew Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, could you start with your name now and what it was at birth also?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6.24,10.91"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Right. My name is now Mathew Sikorski. It used to be, when I was born and christened, Eustachjusz Maciej Sikorski. I never used Eustachjusz because it was very long. It was just not used, period. So, I was Maciej, which is not equivalent of Matthew. It's something else. But anyway, and then, when I became ... My name now is Mathew, middle initial 'E'. So, Eustachjusz became Eustace at the time when I became a citizen of the United States in 1957.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10.91,50.99"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Where were you born and when?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=50.99,53.34"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e I was born in Warsaw, Poland, 1929, 20th of March. It was right about in the middle of the period of Polish independence, between the end of the First World War and the winning of the war against the Bolsheviks in 1920, in the city of Warsaw, where I was born, and the invasion [by] Germany in 1939.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=53.34,75.47"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e So, your memories would start coming together at the mid-1930s?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=75.47,79.88"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Probably, yes. You know, the picture which I have of my mother and me at the photographer's office in the Navy suits and all that ... I still have to find it for you, but anyway ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=79.88,94.09"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What kind of a situation did you grow up in, what kind of a family situation, and your home, and so on?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=94.09,101.28"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e I was the only child. I wished I had any siblings. I was always looking out the window. I was a very sickly child because I was born with a rather serious heart defect, a hole between the ventricles. I didn't know any better because I felt fine as far as I was concerned. I remember one time I went to, my parents said, \"Let's go to the doctor and have a thorough examination.\" So, then, he confided in my parents, and I had overheard the conversation. They left the room altogether. The three of them left the room and I heard them say, the doctor said that \"This boy is not going to be living long enough, till age ten, so you better have another child.\" Of course, I thought, \"Well, why is he saying this?\" Because I felt fine, I didn't know any better. So, anyway, but then ... It came age of ten and nothing happened other than ... Well, I must admit, I had bronchitis, always some pulmonary problem. So, my parents were very careful what I was doing and always telling me, actually, \"Don't do this. Don't do that.\" But it didn't stop me from engaging in sports, of course, in a light way, riding a bicycle and so on. So, I would say I had a happy childhood, a very happy childhood. My father had a tailoring shop. Our apartment was rather large, ten rooms, half of it for business, and then half of for private quarters. So, my father didn't have to go to work anywhere. It was just a wonderful situation. The only problem was that the bathroom was at the end ... This was an L-shaped apartment and the bathroom was on the very end, so that sometimes, the men who were seeing my father for clothes or those who worked for him had to cross the apartment to the bathroom. So, that was essentially ... Everything had to be very tidy. Other than that, that's ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=101.28,228.8"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Could you describe your parents? Like, what kind of people were they, their personalities?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=228.8,234.6"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, my mother, I didn't know really until the war was over that she was by education a schoolteacher. I guess when I was a kid, I was just thinking about playing, this and that. So, I didn't really know what preparation professionally she had. All I remember is that she was helping my father in the running of the business. For example, the finances, bookkeeping, any legal matters, she was handling that and my father was only dealing with professional aspects of tailoring. In addition, he was devoted to spending his time to teach the younger generation of how to be good tailors. This was rather unusual. He was so devoted to that, and there was no compensation for it at all. The only compensation was a gift, which the group of people that he taught for weeks or months--I don't remember exactly how [long--would give him, so for example, a leather briefcase or a cigarette holder, a gold-plated cigarette holder, something of that kind. But they were both wonderful persons, wonderful people. He was interested in all sorts of things. One thing I remember [is that] I went to ... He wanted me to go to a boxing match with him, so I did. I really enjoyed that. I thought it was a little bit violent. Why would people hit each other over the head? When we got home, my mother didn't know about this excursion, and she was really hard at my father, \"Why did you take him there? Isn't this cruel,\" and all that. So, that was the only such excursion.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=234.6,333.91"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e In what way was your family Jewish or was does that mean to you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=333.91,338.02"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e It wasn't. It was not.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=338.02,338.26"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=338.26,338.38"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, we were Christian.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=338.38,339.35"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=339.35,339.43"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, we were not Jewish, no.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=339.43,345.63"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, then, what did religion and that kind of thing mean to your family? I was trying to get a sense of what you were raised with.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=345.63,356.12"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e I was raised in a Catholic church. In fact, the church was right across the street. I would go there every time there was an opportunity, special services, or on Sunday for sure, to mass. I had a religious education, so it was with me and still is. It was extremely important in my life to be religious, spiritual, oriented towards spirituality, and my parents, of course, with me all the way on that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=356.12,388.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What kind of value system were you raised with about the Jewish people in Poland? What was the climate like as you were growing up?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=388.0,398.93"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, the climate was of friendship, particularly, I can't say for everybody, of course, but for my family. My father had a number of associates, for example, in the tailoring business. He would design clothes. I really loved him to sit at the table, and make sketches, and then see the man dressed up properly. Anyway, but he had associates who were buying fabrics for him, bringing thread, buttons, and so on. He had associations with them in that way. Then, the association must have been very strong because ... Maybe I'll mention that right now. Maybe later on, remember me to say something. Tell me to say something about the movie projector, okay? Because this is one of the most painful moments. Should I say it now or later on?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=398.93,450.11"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Maybe bring it up now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=450.11,450.85"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes. When the Germans ... Well, this is really far off in the future, but when the Germans took over Warsaw and Poland, it was half because the Russians took the rest, the Soviet Union. Then, we heard that ... I was talking to Ruth [Einstein] about this, that all the instructions given to the ... First of all, when the Germans walked in and took over the city of Warsaw, then we were not ... We were supposed to turn in all the radios that we had. We had an old crystal radio. We returned that. But my parents had just bought a brand-new vacuum tube radio, which we actually never used. Then, we hid this in the attic. Of course, everything burned down, Holocaust. Holocaust [means] everything burned. Then, we heard that the Jewish population was to move from where they were living all over the city of Warsaw ... There was quite a few. Actually, about 30 percent of the population of Warsaw were Jewish. About eight to nine percent of all of Poland. There were three million Jews in Poland, which is, interestingly enough, one half of all the Jews who lived in Europe. Apparently, Poland was sufficiently tolerant toward the Jews as a minority, so that they tended to move to Poland. It was amazing, really. Three million out of six million for all of Europe. So, the greatest concentration, because of business, and dealings, and life capability to live relatively well, was in Warsaw. About 30 percent was Jewish. So, it was quite a movement, you know, that many families moving. Initially, we heard that the Jews would have to move. Where and what can we do about it? It's one of these things that goes little by little and then, no one knows what to do after this. The country was under occupation, so there was absolutely nothing we could possibly do. Then, I remember that somebody said there was a wall being built, sectioning the city of Warsaw. Then, the Jews were being brought there. [At it's] maximum, as I'm sure you should know, about half a million and about 150,000 from outside of Warsaw were put in [the ghetto]. Before this happened, before everybody was taken to the ghetto, my father called me in. It was in the afternoon. I still remember that day. He said, \"This man has a present for you.\" I recognized him as one of the men who was supplying materials for my father. He said, \"I have this for you.\" I said, \"What is it?\" I looked in. It was a movie projector, a wonderful hand-driven movie [projector for] 16-millimeter movies. I was incredibly interested in all electrical and mechanical things, so it was the best toy I could ever imagine that I could have. I said, you know, \"Why are you giving to me?\" This was [when] I was ten, eleven years old then. He said, \"Well, unfortunately, we have to move and the quarters that we will have in the ghetto are so small that I unfortunately will have to take this toy away from my son because there would be no room over there and just give it to your father for you.\" I'll never forget that. I mean, this was ... You know, this horror of people I saw often being taken away like that and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=450.85,679.36"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Was there any kind of explanation given as to why all this was happening?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=679.36,684.55"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, just, \"The Jews go.\" You know, this is what happens, just like with many other things. For example, the armband with the Shield of David or Star of David was imposed. Then, I remember walking down the street, and I couldn't believe that there was a German soldier coming up, down the street, and there was a Jewish man with this armband. He stepped off the walkway into the street and walked by as the German ... when they crossed each other. After this German soldier was past him, then he went back to the sidewalk. Of course, the movie ... You've seen \"The Pianist,\" haven't you? Over there, the scene is different because the German soldier actually slapped in the face the man who was an older man, probably didn't remember or maybe didn't know that he had to step off according to the regulations. That was really horrifying. Another thing was that I remember there was a lady walking down the street and a German soldier was walking by, and just hit her like this, so she didn't know what was ... So, instead of slapping like in the film about [Wladyslaw] Szpilman, it was something else. Ask me some more questions, because I'm getting excited.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=684.55,769.17"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Can you remember what the adults around you were saying about all of these happenings? Did you ever hear your parents talking about it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=769.17,777.41"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, we are very saddened, of course. I mean, these people who are being taken away from us were our friends and associates. Interesting enough, one of the students from a Jewish school, which I talked to, asked a fantastic question, \"Did you have any Jewish friends?\" I said, \"I don't. I just didn't.\" Maybe to an American kid, it is inconceivable, not realizing what conditions we lived under in Europe in those days. There were no automobiles, right? So, the only children that I played with were in my backyard and there happened to be no Jewish children or families there. And so, you know, that was it. But it was a very [good] point because I was introduced as a non-Jew, as a Gentile at the very beginning. So, I was really impressed by the sharp mind of the young man.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=777.41,836.64"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e When you went to church or Sunday school and all that, what did the preachers, the religious people ... Did they talk about what was happening around them?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=836.64,845.59"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, just reporting what was happening. I don't remember anything specific, just in sorrow, because we were under a situation of total terror. For example, one time, I remember vividly, I was going with my father and mother to visit my aunt in another part of town. We're walking down the street and my father was over toward the building on the left. We saw a man running in the opposite direction and he whispered into my father's ear, saying that [unintelligible Polish word which] means that people are being caught. So, my father immediately ... We didn't hear that, what the man said. My father said, \"We're going home,\" so we turned around and hid around the corner of the building. When I looked back, what I saw was German trucks coming from side streets. If we had gone a little farther, we would have been caught between two streets with the German trucks. So, they could have caught us and taken us to Germany, or prison, or a concentration camp. It was absolute horror. Then, later on, particularly this was still quite prevalent--although not as much as after the ghetto was burned out in May of 1943--in that men were caught in the street ten at a time and then executed the same afternoon in another part of town. I happened to have one of the ... I don't know if you remember. There's \"Not an Ordinary Day,\" my chapter [in my book] when I was describing this incident. I didn't know what was going on but that's exactly what must have happened. The Germans were shooting at the people who probably brought flowers, or pictures, or whatever. That was the atmosphere. It was total terror. Interestingly enough, when I went back to Poland in 1980 for the first time, my uncle was still living. What happened was that we spent about ten days. One of my sons went with me, Mark. We were walking down the street. All over the city, whatever street we crossed, and I asked my uncle about this, wherever the men were executed in the street, then there was a plaque commemorating that event. There were about 700 of them. This was still happening before there were no more Jews and the ghetto was no more. Then, it intensified somewhat. So, it looks like all the ire of the Germans just turned into the direction of total terror. The point why I'm making this about the visit to my uncle was that as I was watching this, that was 36 years later, after I'd left Warsaw, I had the same feeling of terror and doom that I experienced as a youngster, 13, 14, 15 years old. So, it's over there. It never can be erased. But then the Russians were in place. They were still under communism, so when you go to church then, instead of ... Particularly at Easter time, the church was decorated for Christ's resurrection. The themes were political. That, during Germans, was, of course, everything was rather subtle, that the day will come when there will be no more. With communists was the same thing, so one invader after another, it keeps on going.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=845.59,1086.93"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Since your family was not Jewish, the specific Jewish laws and restrictions would not have applied.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1086.93,1092.17"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1092.17,1092.99"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What types of restrictions or situation was your family and your peers forced to","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1092.99,1101.61"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, probably curfew at night was the most important one. I don't remember anything other than being caught in the street or executed in the streets. I just don't remember that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1101.61,1115.32"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e When you talked about the fear and the dread, what was the danger to your family?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1115.32,1120.96"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Of being caught, being taken to prison, being killed, or taken to the concentration camp.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1120.96,1126.23"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What would--maybe at the time you did not know, but maybe later they explained it--what would you have been caught for or killed for?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1126.23,1134.92"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No reason at all. Absolutely no reason.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1134.92,1137.91"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Being Polish was reason enough?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1137.91,1139.13"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Just being there at that time, in that place at that time. When the Germans walked into Warsaw, of course, they wiped out all those who have not escaped, for example, university professors, intellectuals. Those who were not able to escape, those were caught, put in jail, killed, or sent to the concentration camps. So, that generated this sort of a terror situation. You just lived from day to day the best you could.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1139.13,1172.09"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, can you describe what day-to-day life was like throughout 1940, 1941, and so on?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1172.09,1178.9"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, frankly, I don't remember, really. All I remember is what I told you that I wrote in the book. What I plan to do sometime is read some books, which I don't have right now. There must have been a lot of books written in Poland after the war, describing that. For example, one lady asked me, \"What was the system of food rationing?\" I really don't remember, other than there were lots of restrictions, obviously. When the war started in 1939, 1940, then the good Polish bread, black, disappeared from the shelves. The only bread that you could buy was on rationing cards, which tasted like rubber, just terrible. There was a limitation of what we could buy, but as I say, I don't remember any more details on that. I'll have to read up on it. These comments about rationing, I didn't even think of until a lady heard my talk at PALS ... Are you familiar with the PALS organization? Yes, this is for retired people, older citizens. So, I talked about the Second World War events. Then, she bought a copy of the book and wrote me a nice letter saying, \"Well, I'd like to see it expanded to cover some of these points.\" She was originally from England and then they lived in South Africa. She said she remembers the life in England during the war when the Germans were bombing, and all that, and \"We had a lot of curfews, and whatnot, and a shortage of food. And so, I would like to have you [discuss it] more.\" But I have to read up on it. I just don't remember.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1178.9,1285.39"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e For example, were you still going to school during the war?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1285.39,1288.81"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, that's a very good question. Very good question!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1288.81,1292.75"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Because as a kid, it would have been like, where can you go to work? You were ten, eleven, twelve?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1292.75,1297.48"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I was not working. When I finished school, then the time came for high school. My parents signed me up for Zamoyski High School, which was one of the better private schools in Warsaw. I was about to start classes, and then the edict came out by the Germans that Poles are not allowed to attend high schools. These high schools were closed officially. So, there was consternation what to do because my parents wanted me to go to school. And yet, this was not allowed by the German authorities. All we knew the reason for it was that we were considered racially inferior to the German race. Therefore, we intellectually were not capable of learning anything beyond grade school. So, that was the limitation. But the people who were in charge of that school had a bright idea to see whether they could at least see how it goes and have a few classes. There was a building which they could rent in Warsaw, which they called School of Fisheries.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1297.48,1376.84"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Fisheries?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1376.84,1378.92"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e The four fishermen. It was quite a big deal in the Baltic Sea at that time. Well, anyway, so the walls were covered with pictures of different kinds of fish. The classrooms had desks and underneath, there was a shelf, underneath the ... where you would write. What do you call it? Tabletop. There was a shelf underneath. So, we had the books on geography, history, whatever on top during the class. And then, the idea was--and we were told--that in case an inspector, a German inspector, would come, then we were notified and hide everything under the top of the desk. Well, this never happened. But we did have a few classes for about two weeks. Then, the people on top decided that this wasn't going to go for very long much longer. They didn't want to take the risk because the risk was taking to jail and concentration camp. It was simple as that because this was disobeying the orders of ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1378.92,1440.4"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What kind of information was presented to you about the rest of the war, and concentration camps, and what was going on?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1440.4,1449.69"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e In school, or just ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1449.69,1451.2"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Just anywhere. The people, the grapevine, the official information.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1451.2,1459.43"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e There was no official information. My father belonged to some underground organization. I remember vividly that he had lamps, which were used by tailors, attached to the ceiling and you could roll it down all the way to the bottom. This was for work benches. You could adjust very easily just by pulling, letting go. I remember pulling those lamps down, almost on the floor, lying on my stomach, and reading the underground newspapers. That's where we learned about Sachsenhausen- Oranienburg--that's where my father was killed--and others, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, or Oswiecim in Polish, Dachau, and so on. We knew that these things existed, but it was absolutely ... You were just completely helpless.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1459.43,1507.69"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e That is what I wondered because one of the common things with these Holocaust testimonies is people say like, \"We just didn't know what was going on until, you know, we showed up at the gate or something.\" So, I always wondered what was ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1507.69,1520.43"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e What do you mean? I'm sorry. Who showed up?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1520.43,1521.82"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Sometimes people say that they did not know anything about concentration camps or whatever ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1521.82,1526.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, we knew.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1526.0,1526.47"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e ... until it was too late.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1526.47,1526.71"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e We knew, but there was absolutely nothing we felt we could do because ... The point is this, that when Germany attacked Poland, Britain and France had a pact of non-aggression with Poland. So, they automatically were obligated to defend Poland. And Britain did and France capitulated to the Germans pretty quickly. So, there was nobody. We were only hoping for England to do something to help us and, of course, later on, America came into war. That was the only hope.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1526.71,1561.11"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What memory do you have of the uprising, you said in 1943? What did you know about that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1561.11,1570.43"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Nineteen forty-three. Well, even well before ... Pardon?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1570.43,1574.29"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e You would have been about 13, 14?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1574.29,1575.11"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Let's see, I was 15 in 1944, so I was 14. Before then--I think, I must have been 13 or so--I remember when the ghetto was still under construction and there was a streetcar that would run to the south side of the city. I wanted to visit somebody, so I was on the streetcar. And I didn't really remember that there were walls separating the ghetto right there and then. Maybe they were built later on. I don't remember that. I do remember, though, that after the entry gate, I rode on the streetcar, and then it stopped. There must have been walls there. I don't remember. And there was a gate on the right-hand side. The streetcar stopped. And I was absolutely horrified. There were three posts and three men were hanging from those posts. A 13-year-old, you've never seen anything like it. What for? Why? What did they do? [What] possibly could they have done? And you could see the tremendous congestion of people there inside. That was the only view of inside the ghetto that I had. Of course, back in, as you mentioned, 1943, my parents ... I am glad I remembered this. My parents had a vision for me that I should study foreign languages. And one time, I remember my father said ... I told him that I liked what he was doing. I'd like to be a tailor when I grow up. He said, \"Well, I'm glad you like what I'm doing. However, I am not going to teach you that because you ... I want you to be a diplomat and you have to learn foreign languages, German and English, because I have a suspicion you're going to use those languages.\" So, I was going to class twice a week, one for Tuesday, I think it was German and the other was English. I remember one time, this was in the middle of May in 1943, I was leaving the teacher's house. I was riding on my bicycle, and I smelled smoke. I was wondering where was the smoke coming from? I couldn't see any fires or smoke, or anything. When I came to the corner of the house of the building, I saw the ghetto wall and above it, buildings on fire. Everything you could see was on fire, so that was essentially the end of the ghetto, because about 300 valiant Jews decided that, \"No, we're not going to be taken to the concentration camps. We're going to fight.\" So, this must have been toward the end of this uprising. Everything was on fire. I was riding the bicycle. I had to go, ride my bicycle beside the wall. As I was riding, I saw the buildings on fire and a silhouette of a man. He was jumping from one window. Of course, there was so much heat that the glass was just shattering from heat. The man was moving, moved some distance. The building was not right next to the wall. I saw him through one window, and then another window, and then the floor must have fallen. So, he disappeared. My first thought was: Was it the man who had given me the movie camera? It's just ... in a child's mind. I was absolutely horrified. Another thought that came to mind, rather interestingly, was: Isn't the rest of the city of Warsaw going to go up in fire, exactly as the ghetto? And it happened a year and a half later. If I continue in this particular story, after I left, scared to death with the fire on the other side of the wall, and I was riding down the street. Then, I realized, suddenly, that everybody down that street was not walking, but they were running away from the corner that I was approaching. I said, 'What in the world could be happening?' Then, I sort of slowed down, and I stopped, and I realized that I saw German soldiers, five or six of them with guns. They were lifting the carbines [rifles] and they were ... I was coming this way, there was another street this way. They were standing like this, side by side, and they were lifting their carbines. So, I realized that when I see them, they may see me, too, particularly they were all concentrating about doing something with those carbines. I didn't know what this was about. No clue. But I realized ... I thought that if I tried to turn around and escape, making a turn, they would notice me and just shoot me in the back. I said, 'No, no, no.' It just ... The next thought was 'Just go for it.' So, I pumped my bike and stopped in the middle of the line of German soldiers. I had enough German under my belt. I said, \"What do you want me to do?\" This was the guy in the middle. He said, \"Raus [German: out]! Get out of here.\" I never pumped my back so hard in my life. I never will. And so, then, I hid into a side street. This was an awful ride because they were just cobblestones, so my bike was jumping up and down, but I wanted to get away, get home. It wasn't very far away. Then, I was told what the Germans were doing were trying to, not trying, but scaring the people away from that site where earlier on an execution was taken of these ten men who were caught earlier during the day. The worst thing was, walking down the streets of Warsaw, was that they mentioned the names of the men who are caught. I was listening for any member of my family, anybody I knew. Of course, they were executed the same day. We knew that they would be executed the same day, so this was an execution which I did not watch. But I just came at the time when the Germans were trying to scare off the people who were bringing flowers and candles to that site, which was normally the situation. They were then shooting as I was riding away. They were shooting down the street.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1575.11,1988.98"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you remember any particular names of people, like maybe the man who gave you the camera or any other? Any","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1988.98,1994.59"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I don't.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=1994.59,2002.04"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Other than your parents, did you have any interactions with other adults, any kind of regular relationship?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2002.04,2007.85"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, hardly not. I don't know why this was, but we didn't have any visitors hardly, in our house. I guess ... I don't know. There's this atmosphere of insecurity. We just didn't want to have anybody in. Also, my family was very small. I was the only child. I had my ... the parents of my father were living closer to the Vistula River, so I knew both of them. He had a sister there, too. And then, my uncle and aunt, who lived there, up some distance away, maybe a couple of miles, which we knew. That's where we were going when we were almost caught by the Germans' truck. We had very few people. Occasionally, quite seldom, we would go and visit with them. That was all.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2007.85,2057.27"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Did you ever get any explanation, maybe later, why you did not have any brothers or sisters, since in Poland ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2057.27,2062.87"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Why I didn't have?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2062.87,2063.96"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e It was more common in Poland to ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2063.96,2065.23"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I didn't dare ask. I didn't dare ask. Somehow, you know, I didn't feel free to ask. Just, no, that's it. But I always ... With my being sick so often, I would sit in my, my room and look out the window where children were playing and I couldn't go to play with them. I must have been asking my parents, \"Why don't I have a brother or sister?\" And then, during ... I don't remember I don't remember exactly when, but when about 1.7 million Poles, including Jews, were taken to the Soviet Union, to Siberia, by the Soviet troops which have come in. Germans [were] on the west and the Soviets on the east. So, they took 1.7 million to the Soviet Union. There were some Jews in there, too. I found out. I didn't know that. But of course, the Germans had no access to them, so they were not put in concentration camps, as in the German zone. But then, the reason why I found out was that about four or five years ago, I went to Rome [Italy] for three weeks. There was a university course from a Catholic university in Poland on Polish culture and so on. I thought, 'Well, I'd like to bone up on this.' So, I took a trip to Rome and then we took a trip to the outskirts, to where the Monte Cassino is, where the Allies finally broke down the defense of the Germans and were able to enter Rome. There were several troops from various nations: Australians, and Indians, and so on. Then, they couldn't do anything. So, they asked Polish contingent to see what they could do, and so they won that [battle]. The Germans escaped. But there was a large cemetery of those who had fallen in that area of Italy to get that mountain. To me, quite interesting was that, among those who were buried, there were Catholic crosses, there are Orthodox crosses, you know, like this and then like that, and also Shields of David on a number of tombs. I said, \"I thought the Jews were not involved.\" I was told, \"Well, when the Russians were trying to get help of the Allies from the West against the Germans, they released a number of ... thousands and thousands of Polish families from Siberia.\" So, they left to Africa and organized the Polish Corps, which was under the British direction, and they were the ones who were fighting. Among them were some of the Jews and I found out--well, somebody told me; I don't remember who it was--that most of them went to fight for Israel, out of those people who left the Soviet Union. But some did not want to, or thought otherwise, didn't want to leave the Corps of General [Wladyslaw Anders] and fell in Monte Cassino. All of these snippets are very dear to me, really.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2065.23,2261.91"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you remember what your family's situation was and yours after the ghetto uprising, after 1943? Did anything","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2261.91,2270.42"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e It didn't change any, no, because my father was such a good professional in what he was doing, he always was busy. Now, instead of getting money, he was getting food from people. For example, when the uprising was about to start, my father bartered for eggs, a piece of clothing that he made for somebody. So, when the uprising started, we had 500 eggs in the house. Nothing else, because it was rather sudden that we ... I don't know. Have you read my book or not?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2270.42,2307.91"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, about four months ago.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2307.91,2308.15"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Right, so, okay, I'll refresh my memory. So, with the beginning of the ... Am I off the theme now? Well, let's look at the beginning of the uprising. I was on vacation with my mother about 30 kilometers north of Warsaw. We were renting a house from a farmer. It was great for me. I could fish in the river, and climb trees, and whatnot. I had a great time. The last day of July 1944, a taxicab came. It was driving like mad across the fields and stopped in front of that house where my mother and I stayed. The driver jumped out of the taxicab and asked me. I was outside of the house. He asked me to get mother immediately. So, my mother came, and he told her that we have to pack very quickly, and he's going to take us to Warsaw because my father had sent him to get us. We had no clue what was going on. He said that \"You better hurry because if you don't, I'll go and see somebody else.\" Again, we didn't know what was happening. About an hour, an hour and a half later, we came to our house in Warsaw, climbed up the stairs. We lived on the third floor. My father was at the door. He must have seen us coming, looking down the street. [He] said, \"The reason why I brought you here is because tomorrow,\" that's 1st of August 1944, \"the uprising starts, so I wanted to have you here.\" So, that's how it started the next day. I had horrible visions at night. What could happen? Because this is changing the situation altogether. I was really worried what was going to happen. I found out. I said, \"What are we going to eat? How long is it going to last?\" I asked my mother, \"What do we have to eat?\" She said, \"500 eggs and 16 bottles of sautéing French wine.\" My father had bought that. So, that's all we had in supplies. I said, \"Well, if it lasts for a week or two, what are we going to do? There's no stores.\" You couldn't go anyplace. Apparently, this must have been a sudden announcement, which my father had gotten from somebody. I guess it must have been the Home Army that decided to do something about it. There were some other things before the uprising. If you're interested, I'll mention that. There was a general feeling before that the Germans were about to leave Warsaw. We didn't want the Russians. The feeling was [that] we didn't want the Russian to come in. I guess the feeling was that we wanted to free the city from the Germans and make it Polish before the Russians came in. Well, there was no realization and it was so obvious by watching Szpilman, \"The Pianist\"--you've seen it, haven't you? Yes--how well-equipped Germans were. But a lot of people were confused. Of course, those who started the war there obviously must have known a bit more than I did, looking out the window of my apartment and seeing German trucks loaded with whatever they could pack for about three weeks, day and night, going in the westward direction so we knew that something was up and then the uprising came. That's how it happened.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2308.15,2531.62"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e I am thinking, along with that episode when you were riding the bike and you decide to just go for it, can you think of any other experiences where you were in danger and you had to make a decision, or where you were at great risk?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2531.62,2544.41"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Not at that time, only later on when we were out of Warsaw. Is that what you want to hear about? Okay, right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2544.41,2549.12"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Continue with the narrative.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2549.12,2552.04"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, okay, so about the ... I think ... Well, the next day I looked out the window, during when the uprising started, and I was wondering what's going on. No movement, no men, no vehicles, nothing. I said, 'What's going to happen? There's no shooting, no war. What kind of uprising is this? Where is this war?' Then, the same afternoon, I looked out, and there was a dead body in the middle of the street of a man. I don't know how he was. He was not dressed in ordinary clothes. He was not a military man. But, anyway, it doesn't matter. He was in the middle of the road, so I was wondering, worrying about him. You know, if there should be some truck going by at night, it's gonna run him over. I went back to the other, to the private quarters. The next day, I wanted to see what happened to the man. I started looking and there was just a red mess in the middle of the street. I was horrified. I wanted somehow to see a bit more. My head came close to the window and then bang! The glass in front of my eyes had shattered. I automatically closed--the fight or flight response--closed my eyes, and then immediately opened it up, see what happened really. There was a bullet in the wall right next to my head. So, apparently somebody must have seen the shadow of my head and a sniper across the street was shooting at me. That was really the first danger that I felt, other than being shot by those men down the street, of course. I sort of surprised them by doing what I did, which was just an instant decision. Go for it. It was tremendous because I was in their way. They couldn't even shoot me. They would have to shoot me at a distance of a few inches. They didn't do that, so we got out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2552.04,2671.97"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e At what point did your family leave Warsaw","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2671.97,2674.23"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, two or three days later--it was, I think, on the 5th of August--I smelled smoke in the apartment and looked out the window. The smoke was coming from under the building, on the edge. The apartment was in an L-shape. This was a street like that, and we were in this area. I looked out of the window, there was smoke coming out from there. Also, I looked up, because it seemed to me like, sparks or smoke also was coming from the top, above the roof. There was another building one story higher than ours. The cinders were falling and the density of the smoke was increasing. It was obvious that we have to get out. My father and mother started to communicate. My mother yelled out to us, \"We have leave, so pick up whatever is dearest to you, and for you, and we'll go through the back staircase toward the backyard.\" I had my little chihuahua right next to me. I stuck him under my jacket. And then, the big accordion, which my father had given me. I had a beautiful piano, but still he wanted me to have an accordion, so I had this accordion. I picked that up--my chihuahuas and the accordion--and I went down the stairs. It wasn't easy because I was not that tall and then, this was a heavy thing. Well, anyway, so we went down to the backyard and there were quite a few people. Not only my father, my mother, and I, but there were maybe 100, 150 people beside the wall, because there were several other buildings connected to ours. There was a moment of fear and I started praying, \"Oh, G-d, I have such a good life.\" I just loved whatever I was doing, the toys I was making, and riding my bicycle, and playing ball, and all that. Is this the end of my life? Because I couldn't go back to my house because it was on fire. In just a matter of minutes, or perhaps half an hour, 15 minutes, before I would see the flames. We cannot go back, so what's going to happen? The only thing, [after] my experience of being almost shot at in the street and then in the house, [I imagined] the Germans will come, and put us against the wall, and just execute everybody. Then, bang, bang, bang! There was an iron gate separating the street from the backyard. The Germans ran in with carbines and bayonets on the ready. The one in front just ran for me, essentially, because I was the closest. He said, \"Follow us.\" Fortunately, again, I knew enough German to be able to understand him. [He said,] \"Follow us.\" It was fantastic to realize that they are not going to shoot us. That was great. So, the other ... Great! The other soldiers behind him surrounded everybody else and said, \"Follow us.\" So, we left, of course. Across the street was Hotel Bristol, which [was] very close. I can remember it vividly. Anyway, so they took us to the basement of that hotel. I still dragged that accordion or maybe my father helped me. I don't remember. We also had a cat at home, but it was ... She didn't want to be taken out and she was hard for me to catch. Every time I would catch her and touch her, she would lick herself for hours, trying to get rid of my smell. There was nothing I could do. But anyway, so we went and [were] taken to the basement of the hotel. I don't think we had any food or drink, nothing. Then, one or two days later at midnight--I think it must have been the 6th of July--the Germans said, \"Now, you're leaving.\" So, the doors were opened to the street, because there was no hotel rooms. We were all just huddled together on the floor of the probably was the ballroom or something. I wanted to see my house, but everything was completely dark. There was no moon and I couldn't see anything. Apparently, the house already burned down. There were no cinders, nothing. The [street] lamps were all, I guess, broken or destroyed. I couldn't see anything. Then, they said, \"Well, go down the street.\" Of course, we were all cordoned off with German soldiers and led across the street, no, not the street. There was a big square and then the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, one of the most monumental parts of Warsaw. There was a garden in the back. I was really scared personally because among the German soldiers were some men in German uniforms with flat faces, like Tatars or Mongols, which apparently, the Germans attacked the Soviet Union. They got some of these people who would rather join the Germans than to stay with the communists. I don't know what the intricacies were, but anyway, the rumors were that people were being raped, that all people were being shot. We had a reposed in that garden, but I didn't hear any shots or nothing. Then, we were told to walk down across another street and down a street on both sides of which were houses on fire. Everything was on fire, as if we were to enter a tunnel of fire. The heat was incredible, the radiant heat from that. Of course, the street was littered with bricks that were falling off those buildings on both sides. I thought we'd never be able to breathe, but we were able to and cross the city like that. Everything was burning as far as I could see. And [we were] trying to avoid the sparks coming from the wooden parts burning. We managed at dawn ... We walked all night, really, from 12 to dawn to a place which is about ten kilometers south of Warsaw. This was an area which was built before the war for the repair of train equipment, locomotives, and passenger cars, whatever, to repair the mechanical defects or to paint the structures. They were huge, hangar-like buildings. We were herded into one of those. My parents and I took a place in the back of the one that we were in. There were about two or three thousand people in that. That was, I guess, well, in the morning of July 6th. \u003cInterview pauses; then resumes\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=2674.23,3102.46"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e You went all night long and you got out of town.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3102.46,3109.23"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay. There were families gathered together in that building. It was quiet for a while. We were sitting on ... Actually, we picked a place in the building because there were some wooden planks in the back. So, my father says, \"Why don't we go there? At least we'll have something to sit on, not on the concrete floor.\" There were railroad tracks, too, because the machinery was taken out from the building. Normally, the train would park sideways, and they would be working on them. There were no trains, no nothing, no equipment, just empty space. We were there for a moment. Then, the loudspeakers opened up. There were loudspeakers all over. The command came that all adult males are to leave the building, which meant break up of families. I don't know how long it took to say goodbye to your dearest person. So, all males were gone, and there were just women with children.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3109.23,3176.05"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Were you considered an adult or a child at that","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3176.05,3178.28"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e I was 15. I was just 15. That's what I was. Well, I suppose ... Yes, it's a good question, but, you know, someone like a father would ... Not a kid, no, no children, adult males.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3178.28,3196.45"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e If you were considered fit to work, you would be more in that category as children ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3196.45,3202.07"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, there were no directions, specific directions. Adult males. Well, I was a child. I was teenager, right? Although we didn't call it teenagers at that time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3202.07,3213.71"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What was your health situation. In the beginning, you talked about ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3213.71,3216.64"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, yes, it was ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3216.64,3218.52"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e How did four years of that affect you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3218.52,3221.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, actually, this is a very amazing situation that I held up pretty well when the uprising started. I don't know whether it's the emotional aspect that everything was holding together. I didn't get bronchitis because that would have been fatal right away because, before then, I would get a doctor or my grandfather would come, and help me, and so on. This was still hanging over me, but I felt okay. I remember I was standing there and considering what's going to happen, that the family is broken up now. I had a sudden influx of energy in me and determination that I have to get my father out. I just absolutely have to my father out and as soon as possible. Because a minute, well, just a few minutes too late ... If it would be later, it would just be too late. I confronted my mother. Of course, this was associated with tremendous fear in my chest. I was really worried about this, because we were also told, \"Adult men are out. Nobody's allowed to leave the building.\" But somehow, this was, by my mind, pushed back. All I knew was that I wanted to get my father to join us. My mother was near me, so I looked at her and said, \"Mama, I want to go and get my father.\" She just was stunned. You could see her solemn face. She didn't say anything, but there were two or three women nearby who were telling her, \"You're not going to let that boy go, are you?\" She didn't respond to anything. Another one said, a third one, \"They're going to kill him as soon as he leaves the building.\" [My mother] didn't seem to pay much attention. Then, my mother looked at me again and said, \"If you think you can do it, go ahead and do it. Go ahead and do it.\" I said, \"Okay, I will.\" So, I turned around, pushed myself through the crowd of women and children, opened a large metal door. In fact, I walked through this door again just a few years ago. I am back in Poland, and that area has been converted again for fixing railroads. I was able to see the same building, to be in the same space, of course, now filled with equipment, and train cars, and so on. To open the door, it was a huge metal door, really. It was part of a huge gate. Anyway, so I walked out of there. It was rather dark inside and bright sunlight on the outside. I saw the train in the distance, full of men. It was just like Elie Wiesel's writing about, in the book, \"Night,\" that about 80 people were pushed into those boxcars. Well, that's what it looked like. It was just full of men. I realized that my father must be there. How do I get him? My first thought was to run for the train. Then, I saw these six or seven German soldiers between me and the train. I thought, 'Well, I better go talk to the first one.' So, I ran to the first one and sort of he looked down at me. I said, \"Well, my mother is here,\" in German. I was so fortunate that I ... I didn't even know. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have any background in German. I just could not have done any of it. I said, \"My mother's here. My father's on the train. Can you help me to bring my father back to where my mother?\" He said, \"No, I can't because I was told to not move from where I am. If you go to the next soldier closer to the train, maybe he can help you.\" So, I did that six or seven times. I got to the last one. Same story, same answer. They couldn't move. The last one said, \"Well, I can't do anything. But if you turn to your right, where the locomotive is ...\" I looked where the locomotive was. He said, \"There are three German soldiers, one officer in the middle, and two adjutants next to him. So, talk to the officer. See what he can do for you.\" So, I ran to them and they were stunned because there was nobody around, just me running. They stopped. I looked up at this officer and said, \"My mother is over there. My father is on the train. Can you help me to get our family together?\" He looked for a moment, and then he said, \"Okay. Well, where is your father?\" I said, \"I don't know. Somewhere on the train.\" So, he said, \"Well, let's walk down the train until we find him.\" I couldn't believe it. I didn't realize that none of these guys had killed me. I mean, they probably could have gotten a promotion. Anyway, this officer is so nice, so kind. He says, \"Where is your father?\" \"Well,\" he said, \"let's walk down,\" so we walked down the path beside the train. There was a tremendous tumult among these men over there because, \"What is this boy doing out here? I mean, we're all locked up in these boxcars.\" Then, my father, who was not far from this last soldier that I talked to before, saw me. He yelled out, \"Maciej, what are you doing here\" in Polish, of course. He didn't know German. I said, \"Well, I came to get you. My mother is where you left her.\" I assumed at that time, that we were allowed by the officer to go back to Mother. He did not believe me and said, \"Go back. Go back to Mother because they will kill you.\" Is something wrong? \u003cInterview pauses; then resumes\u003e A rather long conversation ensued between my father and me because he could not believe that it would be possible for him to leave the car. He said, \"Well, if I leave, then they will kill both of us and you'll never get back.\" I said, \"No, you're supposed to come down and join us.\" Well, he wasn't convinced. Somebody pushed him out from inside the car and he fell down on the ground. So, he got up, and the men were yelling something. I don't know. He got up, and by that time, we were close to him. I was right in front, and then the officer was behind me, and the two soldiers who didn't say a word. The officer said, \"Is this your father?\" I said, \"Yes, this is my father.\" He held out his hand and said, \"My name is Such and So.\" Then, he shook hands with my father.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=3221.0,4493.38"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you remember his name at all? No.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4493.38,4498.21"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4498.21,4498.69"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, you know, just ... No, I wish I did, but I don't. I'm not making it up. \u003claughs\u003e Then, he turned to me and said, \"Now I want to meet your mother. Where is she?\" I was overwhelmed by what was going on. First of all, I realized that my father would be with us, and secondly, by the courtesy with which he treated my father. After all, from what I knew about Germans and the people in the cars, they were slaves destined for concentration camp. I knew that they were going to a concentration camp somewhere. Of course, we didn't know where. That's what I was scared of. I didn't get my father, I wouldn't even know where he went. Because we were in the same place, we would go on another train somewhere else. That's why I did this. We walked by these other soldiers all the way to the building. Of course, he must have been a high ranking officer. The soldiers were saluting, \"Heil Hitler,\" and [tapping] their heels and so on. We got ... I felt important. Of course, that was not for me. \u003claughs\u003e We got to the building and somebody--I don't remember who opened the door. The German said, \"Point to where your mother is located,\" so I just showed the way. Then, the women [and] the children who were nearby realize that ... Well, you could see the scare in their faces because they didn't know what to make of it, the three Germans walking in. They moved sideways to both sides. We reached my mother and when I stopped, the officer said, \"Is this your mother?\" I said, \"Yes.\" Again, he stretched out his hand, and shook hands with her, and said, \"Pleased to meet you.\" Then, he turned around to me, and he said, \"Is there anything else I can do for you?\" I was absolutely floored from joy that I was able to get my father back. The only older man in this entire building of two, three thousand people, and he was with us. What else could I ask for? It was absolutely nothing I could think of. He said, \"Well, good luck to you. Goodbye,\" and they all left. The next day ... We spent the night there. Can you imagine the joy we had? Also, I almost felt guilty that all of the other men were not there. Next day, rather early, the doors opened up, and the loudspeaker said, \"Everybody leave buildings.\" The same thing must have happened with the other joining buildings. There was a huge mob of people milling around, and there was a train in the same place where the train was where my father was before. I realized that in just a matter of time, we're all going to be packed into it. As we were going through, milling through the crowd, my mother noticed a good friend of hers from school days and she had a band on her arm of Red Cross. They started talking and said, \"What are you doing here?\" She said, \"I'm a nurse and I speak German. So, I communicate between the outside world and the inside world that is helping people here. The Germans also the same time.\" She said, \"You could escape if you pretend to be sick,\" and then go to where the officers were there. Apparently, there was some field hospital. Apparently, if we felt sick, we would have been taken out of there. I couldn't believe it. But a moment or two later, I saw the same German officer in the crowd going towards me. So, I ran to him and said, \"Remember me from yesterday?\" He said, \"Yes.\" I said, \"Now I know what I want you to do. Why don't you get us out of here?\" He said, \"I'm very sorry, but today I cannot do absolutely anything for you.\" He was by himself, without this hat and super-duper uniform. He was not quite dressed then like a soldier, but apparently this was not his duty for that day. He said, \"Good luck to you,\" and he walked away. Then, we got on the train and pushed into the box car. I took a place under the window--of course, with barbed wire--so that we could at least breathe because we suspected there'd be a lot of people in that car. \u003cInterview pauses; then resumes\u003e If I go into too much detail, let me know, okay?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4498.69,4818.83"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e No, it is fine.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4818.83,4819.03"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4819.03,4822.09"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e You were under the window, you said, to get some air.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4822.09,4823.55"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, well, of course, I had my chihuahua with me, so I was passing the chihuahua to my mother, from me to my mother. My father was not very interested. Of course, when I went to get my father, my mother held the chihuahua. I didn't see any other dogs around. My mother said--well, she was worried with my heart being so bad--that I should sit down after the night's walk and just standing all day over there in the building. [She] said, \"Why don't you sit down?\" So, I sat down with this dog and then I realized that I had to get up, because there are more and more people pushed into the car. There was absolutely no possibility for me to continue sitting on the floor, so I got up. And that's all I remember from the trip to Germany. My memory just went. By reading Elie Wiesel's book, \"Night\" ... I avoided books on this subject for many years until I realized that I wanted to write my own book. Then, I became interested in this, because I felt I've gone through enough of this. I just simply was not interested. What am I saying? You'll have to do a lot of editing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4823.55,4913.26"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e You said you did not remember the ride. Do you remember how far the train went or how many days?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4913.26,4916.3"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I don't, but the next thing I remember is having to get up in that car because people were going in. That's the last thing I remember. Then, I do remember that when the train stopped--I do not remember it stopping--my father said, \"I'll lift you up,\" because the window was too high under the roof, \"I'll lift you and tell me where we are.\" He lifted me up and I saw the sign said Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. I knew from the underground press that this was one of the major concentration camps. Then, I found out that 200,000 were killed in that camp. So, it was bad news. When I mentioned Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg in the car, I remember that there was a rather loud noise, people talking. Then, total silence because most of them knew what that meant. The doors opened up, and they said, \"Raus! Get out!\" We're walking down the street of probably Sachsenhausen or Oranienburg, one of these two cities, a very nice country road with beautiful homes, one family residences on both sides, and children playing in the garden, lots of flowers. Some of the kids were looking at us and pointing fingers, \"These are bandits from Warsaw. Banditen aus Wachschau [German].\" I just couldn't make the two together. We walked down this road for a while, and then there was a column of men coming. I thought 'This is what in store for us.' There was a number of a column of men with striped clothing from the camp, obviously, and they are guarded by dogs--of course, it's German shepherd dogs--and soldiers holding rifles nearby. These men ... One thing I remember, incredible, none of them lifted their head to look at us. They were all looking down into the ground, just walking like living cadavers. It was a horrible experience to see. [I thought,] 'Well, this is in store for us,' [and] without a doubt, it was for my father. Anyway, the column went by. Then, we ended up in an area that had a large square surrounded by very nice concrete buildings, three stories high, which must have been barracks for the German soldiers, for the German army. Then, the loudspeakers said, \"You've got to now separate yourselves into different columns. The first one is adult males, second one boys 14 years of age and up.\" I was 15. I was just talking to my mother, \"What should you do? What should I do?\" Fifteen. Okay, they say 15. Of course, nobody had a passport, or birth certificate, or anything like that, but it was just a moment of consternation. [I] said, \"Well, if they say older than 14, I'll get in that group.\" Then, women alone and women with smaller children. So, we were separated out like that. My father went, of course, where he was told to. There was still quite a bit of exchange of people moving back and forth. Then, I saw a German soldier crossing the field right in front of where I was standing at the edge of this column of boys, 14 and up. The soldier was walking nonchalantly, no weapons--just, you know, private, I guess, I don't know--walking down and then stopped right in front of me. He wore glasses, but he didn't have a left eye. He just ... Skin had grown over where the eye should be. He said, in perfect Polish, he said, \"Look, boys. You see? I don't have an eye,\" so those who are nearby ... of course, he was talking almost to me. Of course, I was curious what he was going to say. He said, \"I was born on the border of Germany and Poland, and when the Germans took over that part of Poland--it was the western part--they immediately annexed that to the Third Reich. And so, I was at that time of age to be serving in the German Army, but I didn't want to, because I'm a Pole. But they tortured me, and that's why I don't have an eye. So, I'm here. I'm here in the German uniform.\" It was quite an astonishing confession to hear. Then, he said, \"Listen to me, boys. If you have your mother in the group of women alone, then go join her. Immediately go to the group of women with children. If you don't have your mom there, then still go to that group of woman alone and pick out somebody who from that point on will have to serve as your surrogate mother, and with her, go to the group of women and children.\" Then, he turned around and slowly walked away. He saved my life and the life of my mother because, otherwise, I could not have lasted in the concentration camp for very long, seeing what the conditions are in films, and reading books, or looking at pictures in books. Anyway, I immediately ran to my mother. I don't know how many other boys did the same thing because I was concerned to just somehow, you know, get out of there. I went to my mother and said what the man had told us and she said, \"Okay. Well, let's say goodbye to your father first.\" We went there where he was standing not too far away. We said our goodbyes and it was quite an emotional moment because I had a feeling that maybe this is the last time I'm going to see him because there was no question that everybody would go to the concentration camp. What would happen with women and children, nobody knew. One thing that my father said, which I'll never forget, and this really is a role model for my life, is that he asked, \"Is it possible,\" using the most loving word toward my mother. She had a name of Hedwig, or Jadwiga, or Jujuś, so he called her Jujuś, which is the most precious name for her that which he used. He said, \"Is it possible my life would be over and this is all I can accomplish in my life,\" because he was just a robot, in the sense that he wanted to help people, teaching this young generation. I was absolutely astounded. [He was] running the business during the day, and being at home, taking a 20-minute nap after lunch, and then going and teaching in the evening, practically every evening of the week. He still wanted--I remember him having plans--to build the first factory in Poland after the war. Of course, everybody assumed that the war would be over, that Britain will come, and liberate Poland, get the Germans out of there, and so on. So ... I'm lost for a moment.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=4916.3,5405.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e You thought that he was going to start a plant up after the war.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5405.0,5408.92"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Right. He thought that he was going to make a design for clothing so that it takes as little time to make them in the factory than it takes during a regular tailoring shop. So, he made it. As I found out later, going to Poland in 1980, and then later on talking to my aunt, he had actually made a design, which is being followed until recently still in Poland, of how to do that so that it takes little time. He wanted to build a factory to make clothes for men like that. When I had all of this in my mind, can you imagine? Then, we parted, and my mother and I went to the group of women with children. I was taller than the other children. Somebody told me to get in the middle of the crowd and then sit down, not to stand. So, I did do that. \u003cInterview pauses; then resumes\u003e I sat down, and then, not too long later, the order came for all the men to leave, then the boys, then the women alone. Everybody was gone under heavy guard of German soldiers. Where else? The concentration camp. We were left behind in this square, spent the night there. The next day, we were put on another train. We rode for a while and then the train stopped at a station called Bergen-Belsen. That was another concentration camp. They told us to leave. They must have somehow sorted out the women and children because then, when we were told to get on another train, the children, boys and girls, were about my age. The little ones were no longer there. This was ... We did not go into inside of the camp. Emotionally, this was extremely difficult for me to write about, I think, in one of the last sections which I had finished, in that when we arrived there and were given food ... I remember for the first time, we were given food, in a big kettle and boiled cabbage and some other vegetables and they were not very well cleaned because I could detect sand in it. They gave us helmet-like containers and a spoon to eat with. I've never seen ... I even forgot what it looks like, except when I went to the [United States Holocaust Memorial Museum] in Washington, D.C., they had a boxcar there on display and next to it were these containers in which we got our food, almost like a helmet upside down. That's the first time I saw that. Of course, my son was with me there, one of the sons, and I said, \"This is the car the Germans used to get me out of Poland.\" Anyway, so we were fed there. Of course, I fed my dog. The dog was still with me after all this. Then, a German soldier came to where my mother and I were standing, a young man, and he said, \"I want to talk to you.\" I said, \"Okay.\" Then again, I appreciated the knowledge of German, because I could talk to him. He said, \"Well, you have a nice little dog here. I have a wonderful family with two children. What I would like to do is get this dog from you, because I don't know where you're going from here, what you're going to be, where you're going to stay. So, I can assure you that if you give me the dog, we would take good care of it.\" I said, \"No, this is the only thing I have because my house burned down, my toys burned down, my family, my father is gone to the concentration camp. This is the only thing I have.\" He turned around and walked away. Now, he could have kicked me [or] he could have killed me, but he didn't. These two events ... It just ... When I watched \"The Pianist,\" I was crying almost all throughout the movie because this was a sort of ... I saw myself at that moment and the German officer, a general, listening to Szpilman play, and then he saved his life essentially, brought him food and all that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5408.92,5701.12"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Have you ever understood why that fellow helped you and your parents?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5701.12,5713.07"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I was ... Are you talking about the German soldier who told us or the officer?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5713.07,5718.6"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e The one who got him off the train and then took you to your mother.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5718.6,5721.3"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay. Well, that one, no, I just thought that was unbelievable, that all I knew about Germans was that they are murderers. They came to Poland to kill, murder, and I know what happened to the Jews. They were already no more in Warsaw. And so, what can I expect? And here, shaking hands with my father, with my mother, with all respect that anybody, a dignified person would have. We're not a human being, not a slave in a boxcar going to a concentration camp. I just couldn't get over it. I asked for the last 50 years or so, \"What do you think could be the reason for it?\" Somebody suggested that \"Maybe that officer had a boy like you, whom he had to leave at home. He just felt he could do it.\" But I couldn't understand. Wasn't he afraid of the supervision? How could he have done that? He may have been demoted. I don't think he was demoted. What I knew [was] that he didn't look the way he did the day before, that he couldn't help us, he said. I found out when I went to Poland in the 1990s and I visited that place, somebody gave me a booklet with a history of that place when the Germans were putting thousands of people from Warsaw. Later on, they had trains, so they would bring everybody by train from the burning city and then send them to Germany. So ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5721.3,5810.94"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eEinstein:\u003c/strong\u003e The booklet.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5810.94,5811.08"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, somebody gave you the booklet.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5811.08,5824.54"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, okay. \u003cInterview pauses; then resumes\u003e How lucky I was because there were towers that were built in the camp when I went to visit in the 1990s. Apparently, I don't remember seeing anything. Maybe I was so concerned about getting my father out and so on. But these towers were manned by Gestapo in brown uniforms. That's what that booklet said. I remember the German soldiers in green uniforms, so this was the army. They were not trained to kill on the spot. So, that's why I was so lucky, absolutely lucky, to have done this, be able to do that. Because had it been a day or two later, I would have been killed like a dog, right in the middle of the field. It was astounding. So, that was the explanation that was suggested to me, maybe that he had some ... I don't know. He just liked to. But that's not enough. He must have been sorry for ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5824.54,5888.56"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Did you have any kind of a \"Sophie's Choice\" kind of guilt that you were able to help your father and mother, but a whole bunch of other people you could not? Did that occur to you or bother you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5888.56,5905.04"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e What? Which case do you mean?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5905.04,5907.28"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, the one where everybody was on the train, and they were going to be going off to the camp, and you managed to get your father off of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5907.28,5913.44"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5913.44,5914.12"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/111","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Was there any other ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5914.12,5914.32"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/112","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, it was ... You see, I was a 15-year-old, okay? And my goal was to get my father out and go to Mother, so everything was step by step. My mind was totally focused on the job. I didn't have time to think decision, to make decision through thinking, through the intellect. I thought for all these years, 'How was I able to do this?' As an adult, I never would have. Because if I consider leaving that building, in spite of what the loudspeaker said, \"Don't leave because you'll be killed or severely punished,\" then I never would have done it, because the Germans almost killed me in the street, almost got me through the window. I heard about the ghetto, what was going on over there. I saw these men hanging behind the wall. But this was the heart was speaking through me. That was it. That was the only thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5914.32,5970.5"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/113","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What was the approximate date at this point?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5970.5,5973.23"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/114","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e This was the 6th. It was the ... My father was ... The day that we arrived in the afternoon, so we arrived on the 6th the best ... I think I must have looked up the date somewhere.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5973.23,5987.97"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/115","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e This is Bergen-Belsen you were saying?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5987.97,5988.99"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/116","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, this was Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. No, I'm sorry. No. Your question was, it was in Warsaw, on the outskirts of Warsaw. Is that what you're talking about?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5988.99,5999.13"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/117","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e I mean where you stopped a few minutes ago when you said you went to Bergen-Belsen. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=5999.13,6001.02"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/118","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, so this was Bergen-Belsen. The danger for my dog, let's put it this way ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6001.02,6008.42"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/119","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6008.42,6008.56"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/120","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e ... was when I didn't give him up to the Germans. One of the most difficult things--before I go on to the rest of the trip--we were not ... We were actually ... slept one night. I don't know how long we traveled to Germany. Should I abbreviate myself some?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6008.56,6028.79"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/121","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eEinstein:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I do not think so.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6028.79,6031.17733"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/122","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay. So, anyway, one of the most difficult things to write about was when I needed to go to the bathroom. This was in Bergen-Belsen. My mother, and I, and the dog, slept on the park bench, which was just there, in front of the hangar-like building again, except we had no walls. It was open this way. It was a structure like that. There were thousands of people lying down on straw, so I had to weave myself through that crowd. But before I did, I asked a German soldier where the restroom is. He said, \"Go that way,\" so I had to weave myself through the people. They were just, I don't know, they were sitting. I don't know why they were there. I have no clue. I was scared. It was just a horrible environment, just not knowing what the next moment would bring. So, here I go. There was an area maybe 200 acres by 200 acres, huge hole in the ground, and a bridge across from wooden planks, the wooden poles. I realized that the only way for me to go to the bathroom would be to walk on this bridge, pull my pants down in the middle of it [with] thousands of people looking at me. All these thoughts which I tried to put on paper was ... How could it be that Germany, who have contributed so much to humanity, music ... You played [Ludwig van] Beethoven, right, Ruth?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6031.17733,6128.66"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/123","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eEinstein:\u003c/strong\u003e [Yes].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6128.66,6128.91"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/124","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Whatever, [Friedrich] Schiller, music, poetry, literature, whatever, and technology ... My father went to Germany for a machinery show because he was already planning what equipment to buy for his factory after the war. He brought me beautiful journals from different companies and I just loved it. It was beautifully made. I guess I lost myself again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6128.91,6157.22"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/125","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e How could Germany have done that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6157.22,6158.41"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/126","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, yes, right. Thank you. So, I was there and the fear of pulling my pants down was just unbelievable pain, unbelievable pain, because I sort of demanded from the universe the privacy, which as a human being was due me, the dignity for a human of being able to be closed in when I do the most intimate thing. Maybe not the most intimate, but ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6158.41,6192.48"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/127","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Second most.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6192.48,6195.79"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/128","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e \u003claughs\u003e Second most. Anyway, so all these thoughts were coming through, but the nature's needs were such that I just had to do it. But it was horrible just to walk there and back, because this was a rickety structure and below was a sea of manure--no, not manure, but detritus, I guess. I don't want to go into details. So, the fear that this would break down and I would sink in this thing, that's why I had such a difficulty writing it up. But anyway, so when I got back, finally, they said, \"Now, go.\" They put us on a train and shipped [us] across Germany from Bergen-Belsen--at the entrance to the camp, which I've not been to, thankfully--across Germany to a little town called Hameln, south of Hanover. There was an industrial area where 80 women with children were let off that train. As I said, they must have been all categorized so that there were no kids and so on, small kids, or small children. We left that train and there was a ... We walked by some of the factories. It was a little town, Hameln. You probably know it from the story of Pied Piper. Anyway, there was factory for making aircraft parts and also woolen blankets for the German military. My mother and I were put to work making blankets. I would change the bobbins and my mother was taught how to operate equipment to make blankets. We were housed in a factory building which was [empty]. All of the equipment was taken out of there. This must have been used for something. All of the machinery [was gone]. You just had a three-story high brick building with railroad tracks in the middle. On both sides of the railroad tracks were bunk beds. All of these women and children were located on those bunk beds. My mother was sleeping down below and I was up above with my little dog. Nobody bothered the dog anymore. When I hear all these stories and read about the horrors of the Holocaust, to have been able to live through this with a little dog, I was so lucky really, personally.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6195.79,6342.26"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/129","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e At that point, how much did you know about the course of the war?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6342.26,6347.21"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/130","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Nothing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6347.21,6348.8"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/131","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6348.8,6348.89"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/132","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No time at all since the Germans said, \"You have to get rid of the radios.\" Nobody was listening. That is, our family was not listening. The only contact with the world was the underground press, which I read under the lamp on the floor. We knew absolutely nothing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6348.89,6366.24"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/133","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Towards the end of 1944, you did not know that the Russians were getting closer and so on?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6366.24,6371.38"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/134","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6371.38,6371.7"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/135","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6371.7,6372.32"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/136","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, yes, well, there was one thing. Well, I didn't know about the Russians coming closer, but there was a moment where I was elated because there was news that--well, elated for me because there was a possibility that I would have a brother or sister--because I heard there was a train coming from Soviet Union loaded with children without parents. They wanted, they were looking, somebody was looking for families in Warsaw to adopt these children without parents. My mother and father told me about this possibility. I said, \"Great, finally I'm going to have a sister or brother.\" Then, the sad news came that it was taking forever and the poor children froze to death on that train, so I never had a brother or sister like that. That's the only thing I knew about contacts with the east and Soviet Union.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6372.32,6429.74"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/137","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e At that point in the story, this is what, about the winter of 1944 to 1945?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6429.74,6433.7"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/138","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6433.7,6433.78"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/139","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Is about where you are right now?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6433.78,6433.84"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/140","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Forty-four is when I was already at that factory, toward the end of August. Within the month of August, I was shot at, and then I got my father out, and then went to the bathroom, whatever, and started working in the factory. It was all in August of 1944.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6433.84,6455.66"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/141","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e At that point, did you have the conviction that you were going to survive if you just hung in there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6455.66,6458.65"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/142","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e There was always this hope and that my father will survive too, that he will join us. There was always the hope there. There was always this hope, yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6458.65,6469.98"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/143","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay. Continue with ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6469.98,6470.15"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/144","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Even more hope when I saw hundreds and hundreds of airplanes flying in the direction of Berlin and other big German cities, Hanover, which was not that far away. I knew that they were going there to bomb. The end of the war, the consequences of bombing were horrible. I can't imagine what it was like to be in there. However, for us, it was a moment of hope, that the war will end sometime, and, of course, it did. But being so close to Hanover, every time in the evening you'd look at the city, it appeared as if flames were coming from the sky, down all over the city. Apparently, the incendiaries were let go of the bombers and were hitting each other and catching on fire. And then, it's all coming down and the phosphorus would cover huge areas. This was really something awfully scary. There were a lot of airplanes coming down and so forth. That was the hope, the biggest hope of the end, and we still weren't allowed to listen to the radio at all. Nobody talked to us, really.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6470.15,6547.59"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/145","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e How long did that phase of working in the factory with your mother, how long did that last?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6547.59,6552.6"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/146","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e It lasted from August 1944 until about the 7th of April 1945, when we were liberated by the 2nd Armored Division of the 6th U.S. Army. All the time we were there. A couple of times, we wanted to ... We knew where my father was, right? In Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. My mother and I wrote a letter--I guess with somebody's help, [who] knew German better than I; I don't know--to the Commandant of the camp to ask for permission if we could ... Somebody suggested that--maybe one of the Germans in the factory that we worked in ... Permission to exchange letters with my father, so we got the first letter from him. It was, \"I'm okay,\" nothing special, but all he did with his own handwriting was to sign his name. This was in German. This was all. I still have those records with me. So, he wrote. The second letter came in December of 1944. He didn't say that he was in good health. It wasn't much of anything, really. That was the second letter. Then, the war ended and he wasn't coming, so it was obvious that something bad has happened. My mother wrote to--this was already after liberation--wrote to my uncle, who actually was not in Warsaw during the uprising. He had a farm outside of Warsaw. But after the war ... No, I think she must have sent a letter to him at the farm. He was still there, because Warsaw was totally destroyed, just like I had this premonition, riding next to the ghetto, that 'Is it possible that the rest of the city will disappear?' That's exactly what happened. Anyway, so he wrote to her. I found out later on by going to Poland [in] 1980 and subsequently, that he had been advertising through newspaper and the radio to check if anyone had survived the Sachsenhausen camp and been close to my father. Two witnesses came and talked to my uncle. Too bad I could not [talk to] him before he passed away, but this was only through the words of my aunt. They said that he was killed in the middle of January of 1945. That's why. You know, that was it. Then, the body went to the crematorium. My aunt said that it must have been horrible really because from what she could tell me was that somebody came and put a needle with poison directly through the chest and he killed him instantly. This is carbolic acid or something like that. It is phenol, so instant death and then, I guess the body would be disposed of, so there was a ... You know, I saw this type of death as represented by a video made about a Polish priest who was killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The story ... This is Maximilian Kolbe. You know the story? He was killed the same way. He saved the life of the man who had family and then has undergone ... He died of hunger.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6552.6,6792.18"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/147","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e He traded places?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6792.18,6792.36"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/148","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, he didn't die of hunger, but after two weeks he was still breathing and surviving. Then, the Germans gave him an injection through the chest into the heart. It was just horrible. This ... I wish that more people somehow knew about what happened. As a Pole and as a friend of the Jews, it just ... Looking back, there were 36 million Polish citizens before the German invasion, and six million out of 36 were gone, either killed or displaced to Siberia--most of them died--or those few thousand who were allowed by [Joseph] Stalin to go and join the British forces later on. This was about 16 percent, 17 percent of the entire population of the United States. If you assume that you have 260 American citizens ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6792.36,6866.31"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/149","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Million.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6866.31,6867.25"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/150","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Million and 40 million would be killed. That's exactly what happened to Poland. The Jews, out of six million Jews who were killed, three million were Polish citizens. But this was total annihilation, because very few lived through. The uprising in the ghetto, from what I read, only ten survived--I don't know whether Szpilman was one of them or not--but 300 started to fight against the Germans. So, very few were able to get out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6867.25,6901.52"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/151","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What do you remember of the liberation day, when you were at that factory?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6901.52,6910.58"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/152","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, well, that was an incredible situation, because there were some stories which I don't probably want to go into. One was the unusual ... when I was shot at by an American airplane. And the second one [was] that there was bombing of the adjoining building in Hameln. I saw the ... looks like sticks falling down [from] the bomb bay of a plane, American plane, flying very low. I didn't know what these sticks were. I thought, 'How could somebody empty a garbage can?' Well, when these sticks hit the roof of the building, they were incendiaries, so the whole building was aflame instantly. Another thing that happened during the stay was that my mother had the premonition that we should go to the basement, get down to the shelter, and leave the building where we slept. So, we went there. When the alarm sounded, we went down to the basement. Somebody closed the huge steel doors behind us. All the women and children were there. There was total darkness. There was no light. I don't know why there was no bulb, no electricity. Suddenly, there was a tremendous swoosh that we heard, and the earth shook. Then, after a while, the alarm was called off. Somebody again on the outside opened the door. As I walked out the door, there was a huge bomb that has not exploded, about one or two feet away from the building. If that had exploded, we would have gone up in ... pulverized instantly. Then, when we went back to the building, if we had stayed in the building we would have been very severely injured or killed by the flying glass, because the earth shook so much that ... The ceiling of the factory building was made out of glass plates. This way, the Germans were saving on electricity, because the daylight was going through the ceiling. All of that came down, so if we had stayed there, there was no cover. You have to hide under a bed, but there was no time to do anything. So, we would have, you know ... When you would consider all of these things ... Also, I was two, three feet, no, three feet, as I called the chapter, \"Three Feet from Death.\" When I was at lunchtime, my mother gave me some bread or something, and I was playing in the stream right next to the factory building. I picked up some smooth stones and I was skipping stones on the water. It was a beautiful day, around noon. Then, all of a sudden, there was a huge roar of an airplane engine behind the mountain, which is about one or two miles away. On the very low, and you could see this, what I later found out was P-38. It's a two-fuselage fighter plane, American. Then, it started to climb, and then, another one, another, five of them, but I was concentrating on the first one, [wondering] 'What's going to happen? I was just curious what's gonna happen. They came quite high and then turned around. They started to come down. But as it was coming down, I noticed that the line of the path of his flight was aligned with where I was standing, right in the middle of the creek. Above the creek was a bridge and on that bridge was a stopped train, a locomotive right in middle of that bridge. So, when the plane was coming down, I realized that what's going to happen is that the plane will start shooting at the locomotive and I am in the line of fire. There was a ... I will never forget this, I guess, the feeling of total horror and fear. It was in this blankness of my mind, as if a word came, not a word, of course, not audible, 'Hide under a bush.' But the message came in such a way that I knew there was no time to waste. Hide under a bush. I decided, before I turned my head, to just continue looking in that direction, make sure that there's no bush where I was looking. Then, when I realized that, no, there's no bush, then I turned to my head around, and then three feet away was a bush. I was close to the edge of that creek, so I immediately jumped out. As soon as I sat down under the bush, bullets started to hit the water and stones where I was standing. Anyway, all of this and then the bombs ... All of these events and then bombing of the factory next door ... There were so many airplanes, American airplanes flying back and forth, bombs throwing here and there. One day, we go and--must have been, well, it was on the 5th, I believe, of April 1945--we went to work as always, I think probably seven o'clock in the morning, and doors are locked up, no Germans at all, nowhere. So, what do we do? The women made a pow-wow what to do with ourselves, and so the decision was that because of the tremendous amount of airplanes up in the air, they could just continue throwing bombs, there was no work here, let's go and hide on the outskirts. We didn't know what was about to happen. We didn't know that France was attacked by the Allies and that they were coming close. We had no clue. The newspaper that I could buy, all it said was that we're winning on all fronts. Well, that didn't give us any information. Anyway, once the decision was made that we were going to leave, then we started walking with others. We didn't have much, obviously, a blanket or some kind of a pillow. We walked out of the city and there was not a German in sight anywhere. It was a beautiful little town. We walked for quite a while, an hour, hour and a half. Then, we came to the outskirts of Hameln. There was a road nearby and then, beyond the road was a forest. We thought, \"Well, we're going to sleep the night in the forest,\" not knowing what's going to happen. I didn't know whether the Germans were going to defend the city or not, but they were nowhere in sight. No soldiers, no pedestrians, nobody in the windows. Maybe they looked behind the curtains. We couldn't see. We came closer to the forest. There was a hill separating the road from the forest and we realized there was a nice ravine between this hill and the forest. Somebody decided, \"Okay, we're going to spend the night there. Nobody can see us from the road.\" When we were getting ready to lie down, there were two German soldiers dropping their carbines, running into the forest, and changing clothes while running, from uniforms to civilian clothing. So, it looked like the war was up for them, which was also hope for us, obviously. Anyway, so we went to sleep. There were some trees above us. It was a beautiful night. It wasn't cold. The next morning, I woke up. I guess I was the first one to wake up. I heard this rumble, the kind of noise I never heard before. It looks like a slow vehicle was moving down the road close to us. I didn't know what it was. My thought was maybe--[because] there was some squealing--maybe this was a tank. Now, the question is: Is it American or is it German? If the Germans are receding, retreating, what are we going to do? I slowly climbed that hill, and as soon as I lifted my head high enough to see, there was a whole column of tanks with the American star on it, so it was obvious, you know. The turret of the first tank was moving slowly from left to right as if looking for something to shoot at. I mean, the war is still on. So, I realized that the liberators were there, but the war was still on. The moving turret was a bad sign of danger, so I wanted to get down as soon as possible. I somehow slid down on my pants. I woke up everybody, and I said, \"Listen, listen. Here's the situation. American tanks are there. What do we do?\" The oldest woman and the tallest one said, \"Well, I'll give you the solution, Matt\"--she called me Maciej--\"go to the forest and find me a stick, a long stick as straight as possible and bring it back.\" So, I did that, found a stick, came back, and when I came, she was fumbling through her baggage. Then, she pulled out a white rag. As she was pulling it out more and more, I realized that these were her panties, embroidered on the bottom. She was so tall, and these were probably panties that would go below the knee. She stuck those panties on the end of the stick and said, \"This is our surrender flag. Go behind us, behind me.\" She started climbing the hill. I stuck my dog under my jacket climbing the hill. The dog jumped out--it was close to the ground--and reached the hill first. I was scared that he was giving us away, essentially, for somebody in the tank saying, \"There might be people in there.\" I got to the hill and then by that time, I guess the soldiers in the tank probably could see that surrender flag and then women with children climbing over the hill. The first tank stopped and the turret stopped moving and then all the tanks behind stopped all of them stopped. I was still chasing the dog. The dog was going for the tank. I was the only one who knew any English, thanks to my parents. I came close to the tank. Then, the turret opened up and the soldier showed his face. His head stuck up, and I said to him in English that \"We are from Poland. We were working here. Thank you for liberating us.\" And he said, \"I am a Pole, too. I live in Chicago, and my name is Frank,\" in perfect Polish. I couldn't believe it. I just could not believe it. This is America. Then, he yelled out to a man below him, said, \"Hey, John, do you have some food? Because they are probably hungry.\" He said, \"Oh, yeah.\" Then, K-rations, Hershey bars started to fly out. That was the time of liberation. Then, after a while, of course, the automobiles came. Those tanks moved on because they were going for Berlin at that time. There was no order to stop. [General George S.] Patton was still going for Berlin. They were still going to the Elbe River with the idea of taking over Berlin before the Russians came. Well, the orders were different, so the Russians took over all of this. That's how it went. Then, of course, the conditions improved for us, because we were moved to an apartment complex, no longer in the factory building, and we had plenty of food. All the international organizations, UNNRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] and Swedish Red Cross, just showered us with it. We had plenty of food of various kinds. Then, the displaced persons camps were formed, so we were in that. Then, it turned out that my mother was a school teacher, so she started teaching small children in the camp, in this displaced persons camp. Then, I was interested in doing .... Well, I guess, I did not finish. When the fisheries school was over with, the high school decided to meet in private homes, so I was going to private homes, changing every week from home to home, with five or six children each. So, I had some high school education then. My idea was ... At that time, I don't remember exactly, but we knew pretty much that Father was not returning or very close after that. But anyway, so I wanted to go to high school, and then, so, I finished high school and so on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=6910.58,7694.76"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/153","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eEinstein:\u003c/strong\u003e Who was in the displaced persons camp? Were you with other survivors?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7694.76,7701.74"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/154","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes. Well, the survivors consisted of those, like ourselves, working in factories. Also, there are those who worked in German farms. These are called ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7701.74,7713.3"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/155","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eEinstein:\u003c/strong\u003e These are non-Jewish?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7713.3,7713.71"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/156","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Pardon?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7713.71,7714.52"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/157","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eEinstein:\u003c/strong\u003e Not Jewish?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7714.52,7714.99"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/158","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No. I guess Jewish survivors ... I really don't know enough about the subject, but from what I understand is the American troops, when they entered the concentration camps, there were survivors there. But there were other, I know, forced labor camps where the Jews were there. John Reed, I heard his ... a couple of three talks at a senior citizens gathering up in Roswell [Georgia], I think it was. He talked about that. There were places all over.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7714.99,7749.21"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/159","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What was the name of that factory again where you were working for eight months? Do you remember?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7749.21,7755.05"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/160","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Wollwarenfabrik [German: Woolen Goods Factory], which is Wollwaren [means] wool products, a factory of wool products, but actually, part of it was also used for making airplane parts. There were no airplanes there. No, there was one, but only on display because then, after the war, the airplane was there, and I would go, and pick out some little motors from there. I really loved to play with that from the airplane.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7755.05,7783.03"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/161","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e I also wonder, you said the last thing your father said before, you know ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7783.03,7788.02"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/162","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, Jujuś, yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7788.02,7790.1"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/163","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e ... that that line has been meaningful to you your whole life. I am wondering how has that line come back to you over the years. What does it mean to you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7790.1,7801.52"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/164","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e What it meant to me is that I felt since I lost my father ... I really loved him very dearly. My parents couldn't have been any better to me than they were. I guess there was one incident where I could have become an orphan. If you read the book, if you will remember. This was when the Germans were attacking the city of Warsaw. The projectile from the gun exploded in my parents' bedroom. If my father didn't have the premonition to go to the basement that one night during the siege of Warsaw, then they would have been killed instantly and I wouldn't have survived as a 10-year-old with a bad heart. I would not have been able to survive much longer under these conditions with somebody else taking care of me. My father was pretty secure with his business the way he was, under the very unfortunate circumstance. Of course, we didn't have any luxuries ... That bread that you could buy on cards, whatever. [We] were just getting by day after day, hoping that the British would liberate us and, of course, hearing the horror stories about the ghetto.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7801.52,7869.59"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/165","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Then, how long did that DP camp phase last for you and your","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7869.59,7874.61"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/166","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, my mother stayed there longer. I finally heard that high schools were beginning to open, because there were a lot of Polish intellectuals who were taken from Poland by the Germans to work in Germany. So, they got together and formed high schools. First one was in the western part of Germany. I went for an examination and I flunked it. Yes, for months and actually years, I ... They made it so hard--I don't know for whom--but then, I heard about another school that opened up near Hamburg, Wendorf. I went there and I graduated from there. We were graduating from high school after a year and a half or two years ago. In 1947, I returned to the camp where my mother was teaching. By then, we knew for sure that Father was not coming [back]. We had to make a decision, which was a very painful one: go back to Poland without my father or stay in the West. Well, it wasn't making much sense going back to Poland. For what? Everything was ruins. My father wasn't there. What I was going to do? I need, obviously, education. So, following my father being a role model, do whatever you can with your life. If you can get education, get education. \u003cInterview pauses; then resumes\u003e What is the question again?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7874.61,7965.23"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/167","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Let me ask again. Just generally, this idea ... What did you know growing up about how the Polish people and the Catholic Church, what their attitude was towards Jews, because in general, I always hear from Jews that the Poles were pretty mean and all that sort of thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=7965.23,9068.9"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/168","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e The only thing I can remember and share with you was perhaps the aspect that I knew all of my doctors were Jewish, because the Jews like to go to universities, like to study. There was some perhaps jealousy among the Poles who are not Jews that somebody makes more money. That's the only aspect that I can think of. That's my own feeling that I carry from it. But from my family background, and what I knew of my friends and what little family I had--you know, children--that's all I can say. I'm surprised by it. For example, my wife goes to a wellness center for warm water exercise. There are a number of Jewish ladies. One is from Czechoslovakia. She said, \"The Poles were terrible toward the Jews.\" What can I say?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9068.9,9125.79"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/169","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eEinstein:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, there is also the difference between a huge city like Warsaw and the little tiny villages.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9125.79,9132.59"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/170","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Absolutely.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9132.59,9134.77"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/171","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e The thing that brought this up while you were out was sometimes people have said to you, \"How come you didn't help the Jews,\" or, \"Why didn't you do something else?\" You were saying that it just was not possible.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9134.77,9144.88"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/172","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, well, quite definitely, yes. Quite definitely, no. Well, the one story I read about a family out in a small town somewhere, a Polish family, and they hid a Jewish person for a number of years. In the film, Szpilman, for example, was ... You know, he must have left the ghetto in early 1943 before the ghetto was burned down, because you could see in the film that the uprising started. No, sorry ... Was it? Yes, well, he left before the end of the ghetto, so he was already taken care of through connections. That was probably April or May 1943. He stayed in Warsaw to the end of the war, taken care of by the Christian community and ... Do whatever they could do, with some difficulties. You remember the one woman said, \"The Jew,\" and she was so terribly afraid that something was going to happen to her? But there were those who were able to help and they did help. This is something I, of course, did not witness being in Warsaw, in that, I was taken out quite early on, 1944 in August. In fact, I had to write or talk to somebody in Warsaw about this. What happened? When did the Russians come? Of course, Warsaw was overpowered by the German Army and the Home Army was decimated and 750,000 Polish people. Now, the Jews, the ghetto was already destroyed, so there were no more Jews, just a few here and there who were being hidden. I don't know how many exactly. I suppose the Jewish scholars would know. In fact, this was a pleasant surprise to me. I went to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington [D.C.]. The whole wall was covered with stories of families that did help the Jews. It was very gratifying to see this.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9144.88,9281.54"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/173","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Let us continue ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9281.54,9282.28"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/174","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9282.28,9282.36"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/175","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e ... with your own history.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9282.36,9283.6"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/176","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9283.6,9283.68"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/177","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e With your mom, you said that you had to decide whether to go back to Poland or stay in the West. How did you and your mom decide what you were going to do next?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9283.68,9290.56"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/178","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, well, we just considered going to Poland was ... My father was no longer with us and when we go to Poland, there's just nothing that ruins. The only thing my mother thought ... And I felt the same way. I was always interested in learning more and more, because I loved mechanical engineering. I loved electrical things. I was repairing sewing machines for my father during the war and building my own toys. It was unbelievable. I was electrifying paper-made cities. I had a plane flying over it on a string. [There was] plenty of string in my father's business. I had great time. I loved this sort of thing. I thought, 'Well, Father is no more. Why should we go back to Poland? No way.' That's why I finished high school. Then, it was so lucky, again, in that when I returned with my high school diploma to the displaced persons camp, to my mother, somebody came to the camp and said there is room for five or six young men with high school diplomas to go to Spain. All expenses paid; they can study whatever they want. This was an offer I could not turn down. I wrote applications to German universities, but they were still somewhat destroyed by the war activities. Then, I took that. That was October 1947. My mother stayed behind with the idea that she would emigrate, hopefully, to the United States. I had the same feeling that I wanted to emigrate, but this bad heart was always with me and it was pounding. It was twice as large as it should be for my chest, just because of the defect. The hole between the ventricles was growing and growing. Anyway, I was worried that if time comes for me to immigrate to the States, would they take me with that bad heart? Well, they took me to the States, but they didn't take me to American military forces. I'll come to that one. Anyway, I went to Spain. This was a funny thing, really, because the question was of after we decided, my mother and I, that I would go, there was actually my cousin in that same camp and his father, and mother, and sister. Actually, they were in a forced labor camp in Hanover. Just 30 kilometers away from us, they were working in a sugar factory and they survived. I don't know how they survived with the amount of bombing was going on in Hanover, but they survived. So, we saw each other in that camp. Until that time, we didn't know that they survived being in Warsaw. Apparently, they stayed in Warsaw till the very end of the uprising and then the Germans ... There was no more room in concentration camps, so they took them to a labor camp in Hanover, to help out because, I guess, a lot of young German men were in the military forces all over. They spread out as far as they can.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9290.56,9483.11"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/179","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Then, how long were you in Spain studying?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9483.11,9488.11"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/180","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I got to Spain in February of 1948. I was living in France, not knowing when the visa would come. I learned Spanish in the meantime. It was quite an adventure, but I had six years of Latin, and that helped an awful lot to learn Spanish. When I got into Spain in February of 1948, then I started applying to universities. I spent one year at an electromechanical special school for engineering. I didn't like it there, because many of the teachers would not teach. They would give homework, [but] I thought, \"No, no. I'm going to the university to be taught.\" I went to the university proper, not the special school for engineering. I studied physics there. But all together, about four years. Then, in the meantime, my mother emigrated to Chicago [Illinois]. Actually, to New York City and then moved to Chicago, found a place there. [She] was able to prepare paperwork for me so I could emigrate. The fears came again. What about my heart? Would they take me? Another element was that when I entered Spain, we were told, all of the boys who were there, we were told that if we graduated, when we graduated, we would have to leave Spain because we would not be allowed to work there. Also, I became aware of the fact that once I had gone from Germany to Spain, effectively, I had immigrated. Therefore, how would I go to the States? But the law was changed, so when my mother was ready, she sent me papers. Everything was okay. I came in 1951.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9488.11,9597.48"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/181","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e To Chicago?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9597.48,9598.62"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/182","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Chicago. Lived there for eight years. I got my bachelor's and master's degree at [Illinois Institute of Technology]. Then, I got a wonderful job at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. There, I stayed for seven years. It was wonderful. It's just a scientist's paradise. I could do anything. I could go to any conference I wanted, buy any piece of equipment I wanted, just fantastic. But I didn't have a PhD. I thought, 'I absolutely have to have a PhD,' to be even a better scientist. Yes, a little crazy, but anyway, that's what I wanted. My father was a role model. He was about to be killed and yet, [he wondered,] \"Is this possible that this would have been it?\" Because he wanted to do more, to help others, and help the country, and all the people in it. So, I had this drive to go. Anyway, so I was invited to come to Atlanta [Georgia]. One of my old professors invited me to come Atlanta. I got a job at [Georgia Institute of Technology] and I tried to do a PhD, but it was impossible, because I had to fly around, get contracts, and whatnot. I was invited to go to England in 1979, so I went there. It was, again, almost like Bell Labs. I mean, university salary for me, and for almost two years, full-time technician of the highest quality, grade five. All I could do is just draw a sketch, and he would make the device I needed for my PhD thesis. So, I finished and I came back to Chicago, doubled my salary. Then, I retired, because I thought it was enough. When I went to a conference, young people would think much faster than I did. I decided, 'Okay, what am I going to do with myself?' I felt that the aspect of working with human beings and being able to be helpful to others in the area of religion, or spirituality, psychology, learning more about psychology, physiology, all of that is of great interest to me. I'm interested in history and literature, which I never was before because the science was it. I'm still working on a couple of three patents now, but that's besides the point. Anyway, but I was ... So, I'm ... For example, the ability to speak to you like I am now was acquired during the last ten years or eleven years because I participated in all kinds of support groups to allow myself to be free from this shyness that I was born with under those unusual conditions during the war. When somebody asked me to play piano, I would be afraid to. I just didn't feel right about it. So, it was a real effort on my part. Well, it's a joy as well to have overcome that. Some problems have alcoholism, some people have alcohol problems, or overeating, or whatever. Mine was inability to open my mouth in public. What a joy it is now to really be able to like my father, because he was an extemporaneous, captivating speaker. The young generation that he was teaching in the school in the evenings, he was just captivating the audience. It is fascinating. These are the best days of my life really, being in this country.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9598.62,9812.67"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/183","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Talk about how you met your wife and raised a family also.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9812.67,9815.77"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/184","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, when I was in Chicago, I thought that it's about time to get married. I was 26 or 27. I went to a Polish student's party on the northside of Chicago at [Unintelligible]--was the name of our homeland--a dance ... [It was a] restaurant and there's a dance floor. I met my wife there. I guess, we knew each other for a year or two and got married in Chicago. Then, I got this job in New Jersey, so I moved to New Jersey. By then, we had three children. Came to Georgia Tech, and this was amazing what happened at Georgia Tech because in the evening, my wife wanted to ... She said, \"Well, I've been feeding you all, three boys and a man, for four years. I want to strike out. I wanted to have a restaurant of my own.\" She started working somewhere in a sandwich shop. I said, \"Okay, I'll help you.\" I had some stock from Bell Laboratories, so we have converted into money and bought all the equipment. And the man who was the boss of the company that she was working for essentially helped out with the building of a place in Norcross, Georgia, Peachtree Corners. With my own hands, I built the counters and whatnot. This business is still going for 28 years. So, she has a thing that she likes to do. That's how it went.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9815.77,9902.02"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/185","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Can you talk a little bit about what you talk about to the children here at the Bremen Museum and what message you try to teach them? Because you have a very different perspective from many of the other speakers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9902.02,9919.22"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/186","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Absolutely. One thing, I think that my talks are rather ... How would I say this? Not doom and gloom, which is understandable, the horror that people went through. If I had gone through what my father had gone though, all the Jews in concentration [camps], whatever, and anybody, then I could not possibly do what I did. What I am doing [is] essentially telling the stories, particularly with the Jewish children I'm talking to, in detail of what I shared with you. My initial contacts, well, my parents' contacts with the Jewish population, and then what was happening as time went on. Initially, part of the population would be moving and all this, and it was Jews, and the gift that I got from this man with the horror of seeing that this friend of my father was going to be locked up like that. I can't imagine the sorrow of that boy, who was my age, who had to give up this toy. So, that's what I'm trying to share with the children. Sometimes, I don't even say the instance of the three men being hung behind the wall and all this. I'm so thankful for having seen the movie, \"The Pianist,\" because it represents exactly the environment that I was in. I did not know what was happening in the ghetto in detail. However, I had an idea. I knew that the concentration camps were there, as I mentioned to you before. When we got to Sachsenhausen, I knew that this was a concentration camp. But I also knew that not only Jews were in concentration camps, [like] this priest that I mentioned and several others. Actually, two million Russians were put into concentration camps because the Germans did not observe the Geneva Convention. \u003cInterview pauses; then resumes\u003e They did not observed the Geneva Convention. Therefore, the POWs [prisoners of war], the Russian POWs which the Germans caught, were put in concentration camps. First, the Jews, then, about a million non-Jewish Poles were put in concentration camps and one of them was my father. Then, two million Russians, and plus others, like, Jehovah's Witnesses, and gays, and so forth. So, all in all, there were nine million people who died in concentration camp. The greatest disaster, of course, was the Jewish population, six million, with the idea of eliminating everyone.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=9919.22,10103.64"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/187","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e How would you say you have a different approach to telling these stories than the doom and gloom, as you refer to them?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10103.64,10112.52"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/188","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, the different approach, I think, is being ... That's a very good question. Let me think a little bit how I ... I cannot give any more horror than what I had gone through. But the message I want to convey is that we have to be watchful, we have to educate ourselves, know as much as we possibly can about everything there is out there, and make sure that we support the institutions that help us to live in peace, everyone in this world. This is the message, that the only solution for peace in the world, and all the hotspots, is the recognition that all people are children of G-d. Everyone is a very precious, not commodity, but a precious individual.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10112.52,10173.76"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/189","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What answer do you have to your own question earlier of how could Germans with all their intelligence, and sophistication, and everything, you know, create this kind of a hellhole? I mean, what is your answer to that, especially since you became more of a scientist yourself? What went wrong with all those brilliant German intellectual scientific types?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10173.76,10201.9"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/190","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e I think that one of the elements is the aspect of demagoguery by the Nazi party, and bringing everybody in line with the idea of nationalistic pride, and essentially have the entire world at their fingertips because there was no end to it. They dug in into the Aryan roots, blue eyes, blonde hair, and so on. I saw a movie recently on TV about the investigations of trying to enforce their own Aryan roots and going to Russia or the Baltic States. Apparently, there were some findings that they had to reinforce their ideas. They were very proud of themselves that they belong to this special German race. I think it's a combination of things why they did this and being so good, I think, just swept up ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10201.9,10269.94"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/191","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Maybe finally getting back to you personally, how do you suppose that entire war experience has affected you for the next 55 years? How has that been a part of your mind or affected your values and so on? Affected maybe your family?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10269.94,10288.33"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/192","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I guess, it really gave you more detail to base my outlook on the world. But the ideas I always had I still have of peace and harmony around the world. For example, the League of Nations, for example, didn't do the trick. Germany came up, then the United Nations, obviously. There's no decision-making capability. Or, well, there is decision-making, but still, we have a long way to go. I feel personally that the future is bright, as long as we love each other, and do what we can for each other, and be helpful. The Jewish community, for example, helps a lot of people around the world. The Catholic Church does the same thing and then the other organizations. If, I feel, we do a good job of bringing about peace in Afghanistan and Iraq, and bring in democracy so that there's respect, the Shiites not fighting the Sunnis, and the Kurds, and so forth ... It's a high order, but it has to be done, and I'm hopeful that it will be done. The same thing, for example, with the Jewish state, Israel, and Palestine. The whole world has to look at this and help whatever way they can, without violating anybody's rights. I feel very strongly that Israel has to be free.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10288.33,10388.81"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/193","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Is there anything else you want to add that we have not gone into yet?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10388.81,10392.01"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/194","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I guess, the journal. I don't know if I have it in the video. My question is: What do you feel in what I had said to you from my life story? What can I convey of what would be the greatest interest to the children that I am talking to in your view? \u003cInterview pauses; then resumes\u003e You know, my entire life I just wanted to get the most out of me, to just fulfill my G-d-given potential. So, even though I had a fantastic position at Bell Laboratories and I didn't really have to go anywhere with the master's degree, but then I somehow felt that if I had PhD I could accomplish more. I couldn't do it at Bell Labs. Going a year and a half for one hour lecture in New York City from where I was, and coming back one hour and a half after work was absolutely out of the question. I wasn't the strongest man on earth with my bad heart, which I fortunately had corrected in 1968. The hole was eliminated and this could only have been done in this country. If I had not come to the United States, if I had lived anywhere else, I would have been gone 25, 30 years ago because my heart was so bad already. I couldn't lift anything. After work ... I haven't lost a day of work because of my heart, but when I came home, I had to go to bed for two, three hours in order to bring myself up.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10392.01,10487.19"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/195","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e What was the necktie story?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10487.19,10487.43"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/196","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, the necktie. I went to the PhD. I went to Georgia Tech, and there I met people who made contact for me at the University of Manchester and I got my PhD at age 56. This is the coat of arms of the university. That's why I put it on today. I show this to the students to inspire them to make the most out of themselves.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10487.43,10515.2"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/197","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Maybe then, to follow up on your father's comment again about \"Is this all I'm going to accomplish,\" how satisfied are you with what you have accomplished?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10515.2,10524.65"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/198","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e I feel that the sky is the limit. All I have to do is do what I can at the moment, do the best I can do. The interesting thing is that one step at a time, if I accomplish something, nothing new can happen until I actually accomplish something. For example, this first book is not finished. I want to have it published the way it is, just to have it published, but then, I want to introduce pictures into it. So, it'll be a second edition. Also, I have an outline and a lot of information for the second book, which deals with the aspect of psychology, spirituality, physiology, all of these things that I'm working on now--I have for the last ten, twelve years--that were always of interest, not always of interest to me, but since I retired, they were. Until I finish one thing, I cannot jump to another. So, I know that until when I complete this, then something else will come without me forcing anything. I have to do this now, just let it go.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10524.65,10592.11"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/199","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e So, finishing the book is your priority right now?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10592.11,10594.57"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/200","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, because I think this is how I can share the glory of life, in spite of tremendous vicissitudes and horrors that I have experienced. Sharing with young people, that's my goal.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10594.57,10608.42"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/201","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Is that why it is important to you to speak to kids here? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10608.42,10609.82"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/202","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. I often thought, 'What am I doing here?' This is a Jewish environment, right? Jewish Holocaust Museum. But then I thought to myself, 'Look, maybe I can somehow contribute.' When I went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., there's a custom that when you walk into the museum, you pick out a history of someone who was in the concentration camp who survived. So, I picked out one of a gay person. I said, 'Well, he's not a Jew. How come he's in the Holocaust Museum records?' Then, when I came here, I was invited, started talking. I was invited to go to a meeting where the lady from Switzerland talked about Jehovah Witnesses. What is Jehovah Witnesses doing in a Jewish environment? I understand that there's a talk that will be given for the speakers by a lady who helped survive for the Jews to survive in Poland. So, can I help in any way? That's my goal. Now, whether this is what you want, I'd like to hear from you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10609.82,10684.28"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/203","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e It sounds like some of what you are putting out is what the [Simon] Wiesenthal Center does in Los Angeles [California].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10684.28,10689.31"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/204","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e I see. I am not familiar.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10689.31,10690.25"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/205","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e It is not only Jewish, but it is ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10690.25,10691.78"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/206","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Really? I didn't know that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10691.78,10693.09"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/207","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e It is the Museum of Tolerance.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10693.09,10693.53"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/208","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Really? I didn't know that. I'm very excited about that, because unless we have this, not only Jews and non-Jewish Poles, because I have trouble with this because for example, in the film, \"The Pianist,\" they use the language 'Jew' or 'Pole.' Well, the Jews were Poles, too! Okay, in my view, you have a Christian Jew, I mean, a Christian Pole or a Jewish Pole, but they are both Poles. Out of six million Poles who disappeared because of the war, three million were Jews.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10693.53,10731.44"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/209","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e I guess the Poles thought of them as being definitely somebody else. Well, thank you for the whole story.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10731.44,10741.95"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/210","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, can you help me with what else I can say to be not ... I cannot be like other speakers because I had a different history and I am ... I don't know why I wasn't hurt by any German, I wasn't kicked by any German, I wasn't beaten by any German during the war. I was able to go through it with my little dog. Now, that I can't explain. Why this officer got my father out, I just ... But it simply shows me that there's good in this world. It's hard to conceive of why do we have so much bad things happening.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10741.95,10789.37"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/211","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e I guess that is the question, is it not?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10789.37,10790.72"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/212","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e But I think it's not for me to answer. All I can do is what I can, the best I possibly can. And there's plenty of things to do. Once I finish one thing, another one is just right there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10790.72,10803.26"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/213","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e How did your religious values, and concepts about G-d, and so on change after the war, or did","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10803.26,10812.45"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/214","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e No, they are just richer in experience, but everything is the same. I still believe in G-d, and that I am a child of G-d, everybody else is a child of G-d, and that's all there is to it. How can I help others in building up my own potential? You know, the Judeo-Christian tradition. I'm reading now about the Holy Spirit and some of the Hebrew scriptures associated with it. I'm interested in finding out how to, for example, the Star of David, or the ... What is the origin of this? I asked some people here at the museum. I didn't get an answer. But anyway, these are sorts of things I am interested in.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10812.45,10858.74"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/215","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKent:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10858.74,10859.5"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012/transcript/92343/annotation/216","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eSikorski:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you. My pleasure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/146958/file/271012#t=10859.5,10861.5"}]}]}]}