"Upon arrival in Majdank I found myself in the death queue, a queue that went straight to the gas chamber. That day was very sunny, blue sky, a swallow bird flying above my head and so I told myself: ´You can not end her!´ And at this very moment, I was in a group of people, 6 or 8, basically some (work) exchange, so I rushed to them, went with them to the platform where a train to Budzin already waited - of course I had no idea at that time."
"In Hustopeče there were three Czech families, and maybe as many Jewish families. One of the Jewish families was a skinner, made leather, but I was more interested in the hatter´s daughter. He was a German and she was very pretty and was called Inge." "How old were you at that time?" "I was between 8 and 9. I was allowed one kiss a day. I also had a friend who was a Czech and I pastured geese with him and one cow. The region was without woods, very bad water to drink, so we had to drink wine and I did not protest, as little kids. "Diluted with water or not?" "Diluted, but I drank it undiluted."
"There I built a house, and a bench. Two SS-women from Netherlands used to come and visit me, they knew I liked the American songs, so we sang them together." "You said that it helped you later on in the trial the testimonies of your fellow prisoners, did you help them somehow?" "One was pregnant, so I helped her, the kid is still alive, second had some kind of heart disease, so I let her rest in my office and gave her a cold icepack on her forehead. I do not want to pride myself on this, but I have done nothing wrong."
"Germans moved into our flat. We had to give away our piano, gold, silver, everything. We gave some things to Czechs for the time being until we come back, then we take it back from them. They did not, not even a spoon. When I came back, they were really upset. "You are here? But you don´t want the things, do you? I am here to take them back. The Russians stole them. So in Zdanice, where Masia came from (household maid at Feinberg´s) I said: ´Please give me at least my father´s alarm-clock to have something in memory of my father, who used it in the mornings while working as a salesman.´"
"What I am telling you now, we did not know at that time, not even the Jews in ghetto knew it. They "clean" the space for us, approx. 20 thousand Russian Jews (the number is not exact - note), so we can move to their houses. There we stayed on the platform, and that is what Lukas said (in the Forgotten Transport - note) something was jingling there - they were hanged on high street lamps, wind, they were frozen, I dared to draw aside the curtain (in the train) and saw three of them, hanging, the partisans - whom they caught, they hanged."
Jindřich Feinberg was born on August 28th,1923 in Brno. He comes from a Jewish family. His father was Josef Feinberg, originally from Poland, who worked as a salesman. Mother Elsa neé Karpelisová was a teacher. Feinberg also had an older sister Gertrude, who later on died in the ghetto in Minsk. Feinberg studied in a German elementary school, which he left at the age of 15 because of anti-Semitism and began to work. His father was held captive at Spilberg castle, and was joined by Jindřich shortly after. In September, 1941, the whole family was transported to the East to Minsk. Only Jindřich survived the ghetto and he was sent to work camp in the Polish city of Budin in November, 1943. He travelled then from Budzin through Majdanek to Plaszow, where he worked also as a guard for two months. In the same year, he was sent to Flossenbürg and in May, 1945 he was liberated by Americans in the nearby city of Pocking. After war in 1948, he was tried for collaboration with the Nazi regime (found guilty, but not sentenced). In 1962, he was sentenced to 10 months unconditionally firstly for “subversion” which was then changed to “defamation of the Republic”. Jindřich Feinberg died on February, the 10th, 2017.
