Wisconsin Survivors of the Holocaust
Prejudice against Jews becomes violent in 1930s Poland
Walter Peltz quit school to go to work at age 10 in 1929, a time when the streets of Warsaw were a rough place for Jewish boys
Listen to audio
"And on a Sunday when those Polacks used to get drunk, you know, this was their only recreation. What did they do the first thing?
'Let's go out and beat Jews.'
And I mean there was blood on the streets.
And when they used to run to the police... We didn't have any telephones like we've got here in this country, [where] you run to the telephone and call the police.
You couldn't [do that in Poland]. You had to go to the police department. And in some instances, the police department could have been ten, fifteen blocks away.
So if you had a bicycle, you can ride over.
When you used to go, you see a policemen, [you] used to go to them and tell them that a bunch of drunks are beating Jews.
So he asked, 'How many Jews are dead? See, if there's none dead, we don't even go there.'
So the Jews had to take care of themselves."
Peltz Interview, Tape 2, Side 1
Transcript page 28 (PDF, 802 KB)