Lola

You’ll Tell the World

An Interview with Toby

Meeting Toby

Leslie: Today I’m in New York and I’m going to visit Toby.

Leslie: Hi Toby.

Toby: Hi.

Leslie: How are you?

Toby: Great. Great.

Leslie: It’s very very nice to meet you.

Toby: Likewise. You’re very pretty in here.

Leslie: Thank you. Thank you so much. I brought you a little something. It’s a [cake name unclear in captions].

Toby: [Cake name unclear in captions].

Leslie: Well, I baked it myself yesterday.

Speaker unconfirmed: [Cake name unclear in captions]. I know about like my grandma taught me how to how to bake it.

Toby: That’s my family.

Leslie: I see. This is your dad.

Toby: That’s my dad. Yeah. Me

Leslie: and your sister.

Toby: [Brief fragment unclear in captions.]

The Day Everything Changed

Leslie: Toby was born in 1933 in Poland. She had an older sister 2 years her senior. In 1941, the Germans arrived in their village. Toby remembers clearly the day everything changed.

Toby: The minute they walked in, they asked all the Jews to come out. I was short. All I remember the boots. The boot, the elegant boots. I still remember those boots. The German tall, not telling us, but screaming at us, screaming, telling us we are no longer citizens. We have no longer any type of rights. We have to wear an armband five inches white in a blue star center. Everybody, children, everybody, if you don’t wear, you get shot. Either way, you get shot. And then what did they do?

Toby: Take one young man. They had a small little beard, put him in the center, cut his beard, pushed him on his hand and feet. A German puts a foot on his back and says, “From now on, this is who you are.” I never ever forgot that scene. Horrible scene.

Toby: So I’m pulling on my father’s side. I said, “Why is he doing that? What’s he screaming? What’s going on, daddy?” He turns to me. He says, “Be quiet.” My father never ever screamed at me. I saw his fear in his face and his eyes and I knew it’s trouble. Closed my mouth, then didn’t open it again.

Living with Fear

Toby: I remember a horrible thing. A little girl sitting on the stoops crying. She must the parents went to work. She might left her alone and she went out. German was annoyed with her crying cuz Germans always patrolled. And that’s what we saw. picks her up from the steps, holds in one hand, takes a pistol, and shoots and she falls on the floor like he like she’s not a child, like she’s not a human, like he just killed a bird. Not even a bird. I think he would take better care. My sister and I got so frightened.

Toby: I can’t begin to tell you how we were shivering till the parents came home. We tell the parents hoping they say something. My father turns to both of us. From now on, you don’t look out the window. Sit underneath the kitchen table. That’s an order.

A Hidden Room in the Cellar

Toby: So my father worked in the lumber yard. So one guy comes over, I don’t know, half a year later, no more than that, tells to my father, it’s going to be a big Aktion, a big killing. You better find a good hiding place. So there was his help. He did find he he was a genius, my father. I’m telling you. He made the cellar smaller.

Leslie: Oh, like a like a second hidden in within the cell. Oh, okay.

Toby: Made a new

Toby: wall. Where did he get the stuff? He was So, he was stealing in the lumber yard. So, we went in hiding the four of us. And he took his sister and three children, my aunt and uncle. His father was still alive, but he didn’t want to go in the hiding place. He says, “I want to die now, not later.” Yes. I don’t want to see you be dead before me. I rather die before you.

The Roundup

Toby: Very early Saturday morning, we heard the Germans’ voices, the dogs. “Raus!” get out fast hitting. In the afternoon, they come into my aunt’s apartment. And they tell my grandfather come and he said no no no problem they shoot him and we heard.

Leslie: You heard when they shot your grandfather?

Toby: I heard a shot. We didn’t go out. You told the child to keep quiet. That child kept quiet. You put the pillow on the on the little girl’s face and the boys you told to be quiet. They will be quiet. You know you have to obey. You don’t. There’s not a game. No game. I can’t explain that.

Leslie: So you came out that evening or the next day, what did you see?

Toby: Disaster, broken homes, broke the houses ransacked. Every you put together whatever you have. So my my father’s rest of the family was picked up. That’s it. He had no family left.

Searching for Another Refuge

Toby: the German they said they’re going to relocate the remaining Jews to the big ghetto to [place name unclear in captions] my father comes home and tells it to my mother and he says to her I don’t believe them and I’m not going she says where are you going to go what are you going to do I’m going to look someone to hide us

Toby: they found a woman her name was Stephanie [surname unclear in captions] she lived in center town. She was my father’s customer. She had a nice house, nice big house. After the house, she has a a garden. After the garden is a barn. My father says, “I’m I’ll make the barn a little smaller.” He gave us one sack full of material. This will be money for you should buy for us for food. He didn’t give money to for her. money for food

Toby: and buy livestock to put into the into the barn. So your neighbors would be not would not be suspicious why you bring carrying pots and pans to the barn.

Life in the Barn

Toby: We had a very small place for nine people. We were four. My mom’s sister and two younger children, a fouryear-old and a six year old and my mom’s mother, my grandmother. Mhm. And

Leslie: what would you do all day? Lay down and just not talk and

Toby: you can’t even lay down. But we had a place to hide. You didn’t know how long we had place to hide. 3 months into our hiding place, we would go outside from the from the little hole that we in the middle of the barn and stretch our legs. I’m shocked that my father allowed it.

A Narrow Escape

Toby: Three adults standing there stretching their legs. The big barn door opens up. Stephanie is standing in the center and the Ukraine police right here. Inside is pitch dark. Pitch dark. Outside is sunny, gorgeous. The [word unclear in captions] chickens start running towards the door. He didn’t know she has Jews. She knew she has Jews. She saw three people standing. She actually I’ll never I will never forget her. like this. But I say she was the angel between Ukraine and and us. He didn’t see us. He didn’t see us.

Leslie: He didn’t?

Toby: No.

Leslie: Wow.

Toby: He didn’t see her. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. Trust me. Finally, she closes the door. She wakes up and walks away. Closes away. Comes back a couple of hours later. We knew when we in trouble.

Leslie: Mhm.

The Courage to Help

Toby: She says, “You have to go.” Her 16-year-old son, [name unclear in captions], turns to mom and says, “You can’t chase them. They’re never going to make it. I will help you. Maybe we can save them.”

Leslie: Are you 19year-old?

Toby: 16. He watched [phrase unclear in captions] 24 hours.

Leslie: Wow.

Toby: Yeah.

Leslie: Did you have enough food in there?

Toby: No. Very hungry. How could you feed nine people? Every single day was a miracle, let me tell you. Every single day.

Learning to Live Again

Leslie: The family spent two full years in hiding. When they finally came out, they had to relearn everything. They spent 5 years in a displaced person’s camp. It was there that Toby went to school for the very first time.

Toby: I had freedom. I learned

Toby: to walk and learn to talk and learn to laugh, learn to dance, to to to flirt. The best years of my life.

Leslie: Wow.

A Promise to Her Father

Leslie: Your husband, was he also a survivor?

Toby: Of course. We mingled with survivors. Who you going to marry? So when after Harry passed away, I said, “Now it’s my time to go volunteer.” And I didn’t forget what my father told me when I used to ask him, “What did you do wrong? Why you do they hate you so much? What did you do, daddy? He says, “I don’t know what I did wrong, but I know one thing. If we make it, and I’m hope we make it, you will. You’re young. You’ll go to school. You’ll get educated. You’ll find out why they hate us, and you’ll tell the world.”

Remembering Courage and Confronting Hatred

Leslie: Later, Toby and her family helped ensure that the [rescuers’ surname unclear in captions] were named righteous among the nations, so that no one would forget the rare courage they had shown. But today, Toby is devastated by what she sees happening around her.

Toby: History tells you repeats itself in a different shape or form.

Leslie: You don’t think it changes anything.

Toby: Not enough people. Jews alone cannot solve this problem. You need the you need the world and the world hates the Jews. They need someone to hate. They need someone to hate.

Leslie: Thank you, Toby. Thank you so much.

Toby: Thank you. You know what we say, [Yiddish phrase transcribed as “Zazint”; spelling unconfirmed]?

Leslie: Yeah.

Speaker unconfirmed: Be well. Keep it up. Thank you. Have a Thank you so much. Safe flight. Thank you. Bye-bye, dear. Bye.