Halocaust Survivor

     Holocaust Survivor Samuel Steinberg, his name back home was Sychmho SchSteinberg. Sam was born September first 1928, in a city called  Tomaucho Machiexti, near Large Poland. He was the youngest of 3 children and his parents owned a utensils and windows store. He grew up in a loving home and was well taken care of, had everything he needed as a child.

When the war started the heard the Germans were coming, many people started packing up and leaving home. Before Sam's family gotten far they were chased back to home and saw many dead Poland's in ditches. "When the Germans first came in they took over factories, they replaced all broke dark windows with new ones." He became a worker with his father and brother and lived relatively peaceful life and made just enough to provide essentials until 1940 when the Ghetto was over ran with Jewish people, and German soldiers. They found out in December 1942 that Jewish people would be moved out of the Ghetto and "that’s when the shooting happened, and would start seeing bodies pile up in the streets." At that time they were told that the Jewish people would be moved and that the workers including him would be moved to be moved to a safe place. Sam was moved into a kitchen as a worker peeling potatoes and would sneak some to his family so they could eat better. There was this soldier that took a liking to Sam and would make sure he was taken care of and fed, but would try to take advantage of him sexually. The soldier would not force it upon Samuel but did make some sexual abuse. He did not go into much detail, but you can tell it affected him. Sam then was moved into a work area breaking rocks, he would for 10 hours a day break rocks and would see dead bodies occasionally. He was not directly involved in areas of many killings but would hear about it a lot. Sam would witness the "DeatMarch, were if a worker was to fall down or even trip, the Germans would make sure they never get up again." Sam would witness a lot of killings this way.

     Sam was then moved into a farm where he was harmed and put into barns, the following day they heard the U.S. troops were here and they walked out free. At this point Sam was 17 years old and was finally safe, cleaned and fed. Sam was then told he was liberated and had nothing to worry about anymore, but he had no place to go. A man named Maurice adopted Sam moved into an apartment in Germany. After a few months Maurice heard he had a sister and wanted to find her so he went with him to Bergenbelsin and could not find her, but found a woman he fell in love with and married her. Around May of 1946 Maurice found family in the U.S. and he moved to America and then brought Sam into America months later. Sam once he got established started going back to school for half a day and worked at a factory the other half. Sam then rented out a room of a woman by the Rubenstein, and met his wife Selma. He then quit school and got a good job at a factory. He ended his interview by, " be generous and be giving, this world needs more generous people and kindness." He was hard to follow and could not remember much details about his story, so I'm sorry if this summary seems unclear in some areas, he jumped around a bit.