219: Auschwitz. You Had To Have Guts To Survive. With Rose Schindler. Two Who Survived

0:00:00 - Opening 0:06:12 - Intro to Rose Schindler. Two Who Survived. 2:39:22 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:44:21 - How to stay on THE PATH. 3:05:01 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 219 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  The train station is very busy.

• 0:15Jocko Willink?

  Tata says the train cars they are using are called cattle cars, which are usually used to transport animals or dry goods.

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  Every day, more cattle cars arrive and get filled completely.

• 0:33Jocko Willink?

  As each train leaves, I wonder where it is going and hope it is somewhere wonderful.

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  When our name is finally called, it is our turn to load up on the train.

• 0:50Jocko Willink?

  We are packed in like preserved pickles in a jar.

• 0:57Jocko Willink?

  Once the car is filled with 60 to 80 people, they lock the doors.

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  The car has no seats or toilets and no water.

• 1:12Jocko Willink?

  There are small openings at the top of the car to provide air, but only those tall enough can see out and the openings do not provide enough ventilation.

• 1:24Jocko Willink?

  I am not tall enough to see out, so I have no idea where we are or where we are headed.

• 1:32Jocko Willink?

  It is colder than usual this April and hard to stay warm, even packed together like sardines.

• 1:40Jocko Willink?

  The train does not stop for any reason, so we ride and ride for a few days, standing all the while.

• 1:50Jocko Willink?

  Mama, Aunt Lee and Tata try to comfort us children.

• 1:58Jocko Willink?

  Even though I feel overwhelmed, I try not to cry or complain.

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  I want to show mama and tata that I am big girl now.

• 2:11Jocko Willink?

  A group of men read their bibles and quietly recite prayers.

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  The cars get stinky because of the poor ventilation and no toilets. I don't understand why we are treated this way.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  The looks of panic on the faces of the adults and the cries of the younger children unsettle me.

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  At long last, the train finally slows down and comes to a stop.

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  The door is unlocked and a man in a blue and white uniform climbs into our cattle car and tells us we are in Auschwitz, Poland.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  Auschwitz.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  And I don't know if there is a

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  name in the world that conjures up more

• 3:17Jocko Willink?

  vile and a more evil part of human nature than Auschwitz.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  Auschwitz was a concentration camp in Poland established and operated by the Nazis who occupied Poland at the time. It had been a Polish army barracks, but the Nazis converted it into a prison. Initially, it was used for political prisoners.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  And the camp quickly became

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  a sadistic nightmare.

• 3:56Jocko Willink?

  And in the five years that it was functioning,

• 4:01Jocko Willink?

  1.3 million people were sent there.

• 4:08Jocko Willink?

  And 1.1 million of those

• 4:14Jocko Willink?

  died.

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  And that number includes 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war. It includes 21,000 Romani people. It includes 74,000 Polish people.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  And it includes 960,000 Jews.

• 4:43Jocko Willink?

  865,000 of whom were sent to the gas chambers and murdered immediately upon their arrival at Auschwitz.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  And many of those who were not gassed died of disease, of starvation, of exhaustion, of vicious beatings, of medical experiments, or of just individual executions.

• 5:14Jocko Willink?

  Unspeakable horror.

• 5:18Jocko Willink?

  Worse than you can even imagine.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  An actual hell on earth created by people.

• 5:35Jocko Willink?

  But in that nightmare, in that evil story of sadism and anguish and torment,

• 5:45Jocko Willink?

  there are also stories of

• 5:49Jocko Willink?

  hope, stories of sacrifice, stories of love and stories of survival.

• 5:59Jocko Willink?

  And it is an honor to be able to share one of those stories with you today. The opening that I read is from a book called Two Who Survived. Keeping Hope Alive While Surviving the Holocaust. The story of Rose and Max Schindler, which was documented by M. Lee Connolly. And it is an honor to have Rose Schindler with us here today to share her story. Rose, welcome and thank you so much for coming on.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  I want to say

• 6:45Speaker 01

  it's a tremendous thing that you're doing, okay? Because there are so many people that have no idea what happened to us during the war. So, thank you very much for doing this.

• 6:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, I hope we can share and educate people on what you went through, on what your family went through, and on what happened to millions, millions of people. And, you know, I got lucky because you were doing a speech here in San Diego, and my wife went to see you. And my wife came home and said, darling, you have to get this woman on your podcast. And immediately, you know, she told me, and we were able to connect through your son Ben. So, you know, she brought home the book. I read the book in a day and just tried to make this happen as quickly as possible. So, so, thank you for coming.

• 7:42Jocko Willink?

  And like I said, the name of the book is Two Who Survived. And as I always have to tell people on the podcast, I'm not going to read the whole book. You can order the book and we'll put out word at the end of how to do that. But you have to get this book to get the whole picture. We'll go through some of the points of it today. But it's a phenomenal book. It reads very easily. The language is great. It sounds like you read it like you're telling a story, which is exactly what it sounds like. That's how it's written. That's how it comes across. And so, the book is called Two Who Survived. And I'll jump into reading some of it right now.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:26Jocko Willink?

  My name is Rosie Schwartz. I'm eight years old and in third grade. I like to tell stories. I was born on December 28, 1929, the fourth child in a family of six girls and two boys.

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  Hayusara is 15. Yudki is 13. And their names, English names is Helen and Judy. Fischel, or Philip, is 11. Petchu is 5. Blimchu is 3. Fay is 2. And Meyerbear is just a baby. Mama's name is Regina, or Rifka. And Tata's name is Solomon.

• 9:07Jocko Willink?

  Not all families have eight kids, but many do. My family lives in Czechoslovakia. And we learn to speak Czech in school. Mama and Tata learned Hungarian in school when they were my age. After World War I in 1918, the government changed from Austro-Hungarian Empire to the democratic Czechoslovakia. Sometimes when the government changes, the official language changes too. That is when our language changed from Hungarian to Czech. Since now it's 1937, it's been almost 20 years and Tata says, "Everyone is used to speaking Czech." So what, so what language were you speaking at home at this time?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Yiddish.

• 9:48Jocko Willink?

  Yiddish. And that's why you got the Yiddish names?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:53Jocko Willink?

  Trying to get, trying to force me to try and say Yiddish names, which I'm not great at.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  I, well, you're not perfect, but you're great.

• 10:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'll take that. And eight, eight people in the family? Or is that eight kids?

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Right, eight kids. 10 people in the family.

• 10:12Jocko Willink?

  And you say this, "My parents say the Czech government is good to us. Everyone has equal rights and my family does all we can to be good citizens. Neighbors help each other and are always friendly. We speak Hungarian and Czech with our friends. Ukrainian is also a similar language and is spoken by many. Because we are Jewish, we speak Yiddish, the language of our faith at home." My father's sister, Aunt Lee, am I saying that right?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:38Jocko Willink?

  Aunt Lee lives with us. Her husband died in the First World War when her son was only 17 years old. And he decided to move to the Holy Land, leaving her by herself. Now, what's interesting about this is I'm assuming that he fought, her, her husband fought and died in the First World War.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:01Jocko Willink?

  I'm assuming he fought for Hungary, which was aligned with Germany.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Right, absolutely. It was Austro-Hungary before the First World War.

• 11:09Jocko Willink?

  There was a hundred thousand German Jews who served on the side of the Germans in World War I. There was 12,000 German Jews who were killed in World War I, fighting on the side of the Germans. And there was 18,000 German Jews that were awarded the Iron Cross in World War II.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 11:37Jocko Willink?

  It, it, it showed, you know, the reason that I, I thought, and I had heard that before. Like I told you before we started, I, I study war a lot and I read a lot about war. And to me, you know, sometimes you hear, oh, the, the antisemitism is this longstanding thing that everybody knew about for a really long time. And yet you, this is only 20 years prior, you had 100,000 Jews that were fighting on the side of the Germans.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Just like everybody else.

• 12:07Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And that's how quickly things can change if we're not careful.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, yes.

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  Um, you go on here. Since she was alone, my parents invited her to live with our family. Aunt Lee is a seamstress, so she sells all our clothes. When one girl grows out of a dress, it goes to the next sister to use. We call these hand-me-downs. We are glad Aunt Lee lives with us because she is a friend with Mama and helps take care of the kids.

• 12:35Jocko Willink?

  Mama and Tata are raising us as Orthodox Jews and we follow the rules faithfully. We always eat foods that are especially prepared to honor Jewish dietary laws called kosher. Each week we celebrate Shabbat on Friday night before the holy day on Saturday. We attend synagogue. We believe strongly that God will protect us from anything bad. Our code of conduct says that the way we act in life is how we show our faith.

• 12:59Jocko Willink?

  Now that sounds good, except for I got to this part that says, "I do not like homework." We have to do every evening.

• 13:06Jocko Willink?

  "I have three more years of school before I'm done." "I think I'll learn to be a seamstress when I grow up, so I can sew clothes for my family." "We have a comfortable three-room house on Main Street." "Our kitchen is the largest room of all." "The kitchen oven is so big that I could lie down inside of it if I wanted to." "One of my favorite things Mama bakes is rye bread." "When Mama allows us to have some of the warm bread with melting butter on it, "I am the happiest girl anywhere."

• 13:35Jocko Willink?

  "Mama is strict with us, so we learn how to live good Jewish life, but she's also loving." "Even when Mama scolds me, I know she is teaching me how to be good." "I want to be like Mama when I grow up."

• 13:45Jocko Willink?

  "Because our family has many children, every room in our house has beds." "The bed in the kitchen is at the far end, near the pantry." "This is where my two brothers, Fishel and Meyer Bear, sleep." "The living room has two beds where all six of us girls sleep." "I sleep with Yudki and Fay in one bed." "I don't mind, because I am small and there's enough room." "Fay needs a big girl to sleep next to her, because she gets scared easily." "Haysera sleeps with Pechu and Blimchu." So you guys are, uh, you guys are making good use of the real estate.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this, uh, and, and again, I'm skipping through a bunch of this book, so people can read it on their own, but really, it just is such a, it paints a very kind of idyllic picture of this beautiful family, all living this, you know, nice quaint life. "You stay here every night. We light the house with kerosene lanterns." "They give the house a golden glow and a special smell." "We are cozy and warm in the house on the cold winter nights." "Our water pump is a modern metal hand pump that pumps water "up to the spigot every time you push the handle down." "This is a modern invention you're talking about there."

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Right, uh huh.

• 14:55Jocko Willink?

  Because you mentioned some of the other families still had the bucket that you're dropping.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  We had a well, we had a well in the other house, yes. So anytime we needed water, we'd take, go to the well "and let it down, and then we bring it up, and that's how we had picked up, got the water."

• 15:14Jocko Willink?

  You continue on here. We have plenty to eat each day. Most of it grows on our farm. All of us kids help mama manage the animals and the vegetables. Mama says our farm is one acre, but it feels as big to me as a whole meadow. I help tend to the garden and collect eggs. Our garden needs attention nearly every day in the spring and summer to keep the weeds away and the vegetables picked as they ripen. We also have chicken, cows, and geese.

• 15:43Jocko Willink?

  So, is the farm located on your house in Main Street, or is it somewhere else?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 15:49Jocko Willink?

  It's right there?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  It's right there, but we also have a lot of land out of the village. Like, maybe a couple of miles away.

• 16:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Okay, but we grow the wheat and the corn, and I don't know what else, but

• 16:09Speaker 01

  all the bread that we ate came from the wheat. Okay, so

• 16:16Speaker 01

  we did not have enough room to the area where we lived, so we had additional land out of the village, and that's where they used to grow the corn and the wheat.

• 16:26Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 16:30Jocko Willink?

  You say this, Tata says, "The bar mitzvah is simple, but it changes everything for a boy. He becomes a man and may in turn learn a trade, or may, and may in turn to learn a trade. Once he completes his internship, he begins to work. Girls don't have a bar mitzvah, but they do sometimes learn a trade when they finish school after 6th grade. Many girls become seamstresses because knowing how to sew for a family is important. Most girls marry by the time they are 18 or 20 with the help of a matchmaker. Girls plan to get married and become a mother, so learning a trade is less important for them."

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  So is that where you saw your life going?

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:09Jocko Willink?

  Just, you'll, 18 or 19 or 20, you'll get, the matchmaker will come along.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:15Jocko Willink?

  Give you a match. This wouldn't have worked with my daughters, I'll tell you.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  That's how life was in those days. Simple, but it was great.

• 17:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Till the war broke out.

• 17:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the um, I I mean, again, this this really idyllic picture. Even though our village isn't very big, it has nearly everything we need. When I walk down the street, many people I see are Jewish. Mama says there are about two thousand people in Serdin. How do you say the name of that?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Seredne.

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  Seredne. I want to try that one again.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Well, it's S E R D N E.

• 17:55Jocko Willink?

  Seredne.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  It's right between Munkach and Ungvar.

• 17:59Jocko Willink?

  And this is a pretty rural place.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Yes, we, I don't think, I don't know how many people we had there, but I don't think we had more than between fifteen hundred and maybe, I don't think we had two thousand people there. But the next towns on either side of us, they had like twenty to twenty-five thousand people in each, like Czechoslovak, I mean, Hung, excuse me,

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Ungvar and Munkach, okay?

• 18:24Jocko Willink?

  And they were about half an hour away, is that right?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Um, well, it was, uh, it was, I would say, twenty miles on either side, but that was, and Seredne means middle. So if anybody wanted to go from Seredne to Munkach or Ungvar, you know, it was like about twenty miles, but if anybody wanted to go from Munkach to Ungvar, they had to go through Seredne. That was the only road.

• 18:48Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Over there.

• 18:50Jocko Willink?

  Um, you guys also had a pharmacy, a dressmaker, a fabric store, a cabinet maker, and a pots and pans maker. Where you can either buy new pots and pans or get your old ones repaired.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Repaired, right.

• 19:02Jocko Willink?

  Yep. There's an open market.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Farmer's market.

• 19:06Jocko Willink?

  Farmer's market.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Middle of the town.

• 19:11Jocko Willink?

  You said you had an uncle that lived in the States that sometimes sent you things.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:16Jocko Willink?

  And you were pretty proud to have, uh, have things from America.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Right, it was exciting. Things that we didn't have. Unfortunately, we never, I never met my uncle.

• 19:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  We came to this country and he, he didn't want to know us. I don't know why. He, uh, when we came to the United States. The Jewish organization was involved in that, okay? Even though my husband's family sent us affidavits to come to America, but still the Jewish organizations needed to know who's coming, what's coming, and everything else. So they asked me, do I have any relatives from my side of the family, not Max's side? I said, yes, I have an uncle who lives in McKeesport,

• 20:04Speaker 01

  and my mother's brother. Okay, and we used to actually correspond with him from when we lived in Europe. And so, and when we came to America, I even tried to, we tried to be in touch. And actually, we did. Spoke on the phone sometime or corresponded, but they never invited us to come to meet them. We lived in New York. We came to New York in 1951. And so, the first year wasn't too easy, but after one year, we found, my husband's uncle had an apartment house. So we got a two-bedroom apartment house, which was great in those days. And, and I used to write to them. I have room, you could come and stay with me.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  You know, we'd love to meet you. They never invited us. So we never met them.

• 20:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, let's, you mentioned your husband. Let's jump into Max a little bit.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:59Jocko Willink?

  Because you, you both wrote this book. You both, you both have both your stories, kind of how, how you started separately, and then eventually you get together. But Max gives his kind of childhood, which was, which was certainly different than yours.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:16Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty, it comes pretty clear that you were a country girl and he was a city boy.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 21:21Jocko Willink?

  So he says, my name is Max Schindler. I was born on June 18th, 1929, and I'm eight years old. My family lives in Kottbus. Am I saying that right?

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:30Jocko Willink?

  Kottbus, Germany.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Kottbus.

• 21:32Jocko Willink?

  Kottbus, Germany, which is south of Berlin. Dad says, this is a big city with 55,000 people. We live in a multi-story apartment building that is filled with families. That is why there are so many boys to play with after school every day. Dad knows so many good people and has friends everywhere. Sometimes he goes out to play cards with his friends, but otherwise, he is at home with us every night. My parents tell us they have come a long way in life. They're both originally from Poland and speak Polish fluently. They met, fell in love, and married in Poland. However, they wanted more than their farm life and developed a plan to move to Germany. They speak German well and enjoy the modern life and progressive teachings of Germany. Dad said it was important to them to move to the city before having kids, so they did just that.

• 22:17Jocko Willink?

  Dad says Germany is known for its advanced knowledge in science, innovative ways to get information to everyone quickly, and new ways to produce things. He says Germany is the place to get the best education, so we will have the most opportunities in life. My mom and dad really like Germany.

• 22:37Jocko Willink?

  And again, this is just, you know, this is, this is, uh, what, nineteen, nineteen thirty-seven, right? And totally having a great life in Germany.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:50Jocko Willink?

  He says, "My dad Benjamin is one of nine children." He says his family is very religious, following all the Jewish laws about how to live. Therefore, he is the one who teaches us about our religion. Dad says he's pleased to see how we are growing up. He is more relaxed than his other family members about our faith, and likes to say, "We are German first and Jewish second."

• 23:13Jocko Willink?

  Dad had fewer business opportunities in Poland, but he found a good business in Germany. He runs a wine and liquor store. He makes enough money for us to live in our large apartment and have a maid. Our apartment is filled with new furniture and fancy carvings. So he's doing pretty good.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:28Jocko Willink?

  The Schindlers.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 23:31Jocko Willink?

  Every Friday night, we attend Shabbat services at the synagogue. There aren't a lot of Jews in my neighborhood or apartment building, but there are plenty at the synagogue. Many of our friends go to churches in town. No one cares which faith other people practice. It seems like families only talk about their faith at home. So again, you know, I had to mention that because religion wasn't at the forefront of people's minds. They weren't sitting there thinking about it.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:59Jocko Willink?

  So that's, that's, that's kind of the opening of the book. And again, I, I skipped through a bunch of it and, but it kind of lays out, you know, the, the country girl and the, and the city boy.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:10Jocko Willink?

  But the, you know, I, I thought that it was important to point out both of you living very nice, comfortable, enjoyable lives in these, in these different areas.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 24:31Jocko Willink?

  The next chapter is called Winds of Change.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Unfortunately.

• 24:40Jocko Willink?

  So you say, "Life is changing. I don't like 4th grade as much as 3rd grade. It is harder than last year, and other kids won't help me. So far, 1938 is not my best year. I don't understand why, but some of my friends are not talking to me as much as they used to. Some have even started ignoring me. I find myself mostly talking to my Jewish friends."

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  So this is 1938.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:07Jocko Willink?

  And you're starting to, even as a kid, even as a 4th grader, you're realizing that some of the kids that would talk to you before, all of a sudden, they're not talking to you anymore.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, we don't have the rights anymore. So many things are changing daily. Unbelievable.

• 25:28Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. Within a few weeks, on the way home from school, I see soldiers in the village. I've never seen soldiers before, and I smile and wave at them as I walk toward our house. None of the soldiers wave back at me, and suddenly I feel scared. When I get home, I ask Mama and Tata why the soldiers have come to Seregné.

• 25:50Jocko Willink?

  Did I get it?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Seregné.

• 25:52Jocko Willink?

  Seregné.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Pretty good.

• 25:54Jocko Willink?

  They tell us the soldiers are Hungarians, and they are here to take over. Tata says, "There may be changes coming, but we are not to worry." After a few weeks, I realize Tata's right. Many things are changing now with the Hungarians' arrival, and none of the changes are good. No one knows what is happening, yet no one resists. When I ask Tata why no one does anything, he says that we have to follow the rules and be good citizens. This doesn't quite make sense to me, but he explains that I will understand more when I'm older.

• 26:28Jocko Willink?

  So even, even you're, you're, I guess you're nine years old. And when you see the Hungarians show up and you see this kind of intimidation starting, even you think, "Hey, why aren't we saying anything?"

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Well, you know, sometime the less you say is better. And if you complain too much, you might get into trouble. That's another thing. All of a sudden, we don't have the rights like we used to before. We were practically the leaders of the village, the Jewish people, because they were all in business. And mostly all the far, the non-Jewish people were mostly farmers. And we got along very well. We had no problems at all.

• 27:15Jocko Willink?

  You continue on. "Now the adults seem frightened when I go into the village. In town, all the adults huddle together in small groups. I watch as they cautiously look over their shoulders before whispering together for several minutes. No one smiles and waves to me as they usually did. This puzzles me, but I figured it has something to do with the fact that everyone becomes nervous when a Hungarian soldier walks by. I also notice that people who go to our synagogue no longer talk with people that are not Jewish. I don't understand why, because until things started to change, everyone had been nice to one another. When I visit Tata at his shop, I only see Jewish customers. Tata had made suits for everyone, so it seemed strange to me. Tata says not to worry about it.

• 27:59Jocko Willink?

  Tata also says that everyone is nervous about what the change to Hungarian rule will mean for our village. Over the next few weeks, the Hungarians make many changes. The biggest changes for us kids is that all Jews are not allowed to go to our public school, and we must be inside our homes by 6:00 PM in the evenings. They call this a curfew. It makes me sad because I like to play outside until the sun sets and mama calls us in for dinner. The neighborhood kids have become mean to us, throwing rocks and calling us names like "dirty Jew."

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Unfortunately.

• 28:34Jocko Willink?

  One day, when I'm walking and talking with Yutki, a boy calls us from across the street, "Stop laughing and behave yourself, you dirty Jews." He yells as he picks up a rock, "I will hurt you if you don't."

• 28:51Jocko Willink?

  So the kids, everyone?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was terrible.

• 29:01Jocko Willink?

  It is September 1939 and I'm nearly 10 years old. I don't like the new Hungarian rules, but we are doing fine and staying at home with mama. I don't miss going to school at all. Tonight Tata has a strange look on his face when he walks in the house. He looks pale and is pacing back and forth. He seems to be having trouble saying what he means. Then he tells mama that his shop and everything in it are gone.

• 29:25Jocko Willink?

  Gone? What do you mean? Mama asks, her eyes getting big. I can see your hands start to shake as she suddenly sits down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs. I was cutting fabric when three Hungarian soldiers walked into the shop. They approached me and told me that all of us have to leave. They said that all Jewish businesses now belong to them and that we too were to leave and never to return. Tata's voice shakes. He too sits down on the chair, running his hands through his hair.

• 29:59Jocko Willink?

  So now, now, this is sort of a a transition from, hey, they're putting some rules on you, but now all of a sudden they're taking property.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  New rules every day. Every day they, we had new rules, right? Thank God they didn't take our homes away. That's one thing. The businesses were all taken away.

• 30:22Jocko Willink?

  And did that happen like to everyone in the town at the same time?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  All the Jewish businesses were taken away, yes.

• 30:38Jocko Willink?

  You continue on, you say, "Life is not normal at all. News is spread that Germany is at war with Poland. No one knows what will come next." Now, we, we, we're going to witness now Max go through the same kind of similar transition.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:53Jocko Willink?

  This is Max. It's the fall of 1937 now and after just a few weeks back at home from a relaxing summer at Grandma Schwed's farm, I realized that something is very different. It's not just nerves about returning to school. The adults are whispering in the grocery store lines while washing laundry in the basement and at Dad's store. Even Mom and Dad wait for us to leave the room to talk. Something is not right. I know Fred senses it as well, so we ask Mom and Dad, "What is going on?" It seems there is growing concern about Adolf Hitler, who has a hatred for all Jews and that there is a possibility for war. One day Dad comes home from work to tell us that there are yellow Jewish stars and signs painted on the windows of his store that say "Judenraus,"

• 31:38Jocko Willink?

  meaning "Jews, get out of here."

• 31:44Speaker 01

  You don't stores.

• 31:46Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. The next day Dad informs us that the Germans came to his liquor store and took all its contents. He was ordered not to return. Fred and I are jumping up and yelling, "They can't do that." He orders us to sit down and listen. He continues saying that throughout the ordeal, people were throwing rocks and calling him a dirty Jew. He had no choice but to walk away. Dad wants us to understand that we are in no position to resist the Germans. Doing so could have serious consequences. He will now become a traveling liquor salesman.

• 32:21Jocko Willink?

  And you go on, or sorry, Max goes on, Dad continues to try and move the paperwork along for immigration to the US. So he had, he had realized, "We gotta get out of here."

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:30Jocko Willink?

  And he starts putting through the paperwork to get out of Germany and get to the US. And it's, it's taking, it's taking a lot of time. It's a bureaucracy.

• 32:42Jocko Willink?

  So you, Max says here, "Dad is even more eager now to get us out of Germany. He has completed the paperwork for the entire family to move to the United States with the help of his relatives in San Francisco. Even with their help, there are many hurdles to jump. The paper takes longer than Dad thinks they should, so he is anxious, although there's nothing more he can do to speed up the process."

• 33:02Jocko Willink?

  In September of 1938, after another fun summer in Poland, we prepare again to return to school. Fred's New School, and Fred is Max's brother, I failed to mention, it's all in the book.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:13Jocko Willink?

  Fred's New School is called Adolf Hitler Junior High School. And he talks about how because they were Polish,

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:23Jocko Willink?

  they were able to go to the school.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:25Jocko Willink?

  Even though they were Jewish.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:33Jocko Willink?

  This is, this is a little bit of a longer section, but, you know, I've written a bunch of kids books. And, you know, the kids books are written from the perspective of a 10 year old kid. And then he turns 11 and then he turns 12. But the mind, you know, when I wrote them, of course, I've kind of got myself into the mindset of a, of a 10 year old kid and what their thoughts are. And when I'm reading this section,

• 34:01Jocko Willink?

  from the perspective of a 10 year old kid or a nine year old kid, which Max was at the time, it really, it, it, it's, it's very hard to get through to understand what it was like for kids.

• 34:17Jocko Willink?

  So this is from Max.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:20Jocko Willink?

  "On October 28th, 1938, I am nine years old and settling into fourth grade math class where we are working on the eight times tables. Although it is not common, on this day, I make an error in multiplying. My teacher approaches me and slaps me across the face.

• 34:38Jocko Willink?

  I am shocked. It's not the pain from the slap that upsets me. I am upset because no one has ever treated me like this at school before and I don't know how to respond. For the moment, I choose to be quiet so as to not draw attention to myself again. I will have to think about what is happening here before I choose to act. My cheek burns from the slap and from shame. Later that day, two German SA officers known as storm troopers or brown shirts come into the class and call out my name."

• 35:09Jocko Willink?

  I stand at my desk to acknowledge that they called me, wondering why. Did they somehow know about the math error for which I'd been slapped? My heart is pumping even harder than it was after the slap. The officers approach me, take me under their arms and begin walking. I have no idea where we are going or why, but I have no choice but to go with them. I don't understand what is happening. The German SA officers don't explain anything, and I decide not to ask, despite being very frightened and wanting to know where they're taking me. They march me out of the school and through the town, never pausing or explaining to me what is happening. Along the way, we pass our synagogue, where people ask, "Where are you going?" I respond that I don't know.

• 35:49Jocko Willink?

  We march straight to the local jail, and they shove me behind bars without explanation. The jail is loud, confusing and frightening. There are many other Polish Jews with me in jail. I can tell by their clothes that all of them were taken from their task at hand and brought directly there. There are women still wearing aprons from their cooking in their kitchens. Men are wearing suits from their work. Children have their school bags from the classroom. No one understands what is happening. Many keep asking for explanations, and some are crying. Jews of all ages and professions have been rounded up and brought to this jail.

• 36:31Jocko Willink?

  So, and he goes into this, he thinks that the reason that all this is happening in his mind is because he got a math problem wrong. And he continues to think that for a little while.

• 36:43Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. The officers command everyone to listen up. All Polish Jews are being sent back to Poland. Dad says they call it the repatriation of Jews to Poland, but he says the truth is Polish Jews are now exiled from Germany. Shortly thereafter, everyone in jail is told to march in a group. And then here they go, getting on board of a train. As I climb onto the train, I realize it is packed with Polish Jews. There is no extra room at all. The doors are then locked. Dad says the train is moving toward Poland.

• 37:17Jocko Willink?

  Dad has to hand over almost all our money as well. No one resists this injustice, but our parents' faces show me how much of a problem this is for our family.

• 37:30Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward, it takes some time, but we can feel and hear the movement of the engine on the tracks as it leaves behind us, as it leaves us behind. The guards unlock our train car and allow everyone to leave. Mom and dad tell us that they saw a sign as we pulled into the station and we are now in Zebasjan, Poland. So they've been relocated. And at one point, and he tells a harrowing story in here where his mom and dad leave.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  And they say, hey, you just stay here on the train.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:04Jocko Willink?

  And they leave to try and figure out what they're gonna do. When they leave, another, the train starts to move.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:11Jocko Willink?

  And Max and his brothers don't know what to do, but they figure, you know, their mom and dad had said, stay here, you know, stay, wait for us, we'll be back. So they decide they're gonna jump out of the train.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:22Jocko Willink?

  So they throw their luggage and their bags and they jump out of the train. And it turns out that the train was just being kind of relocated on the tracks a little bit.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  It was going back and forth a little bit.

• 38:32Jocko Willink?

  But the, the, just horror that forces them to make this split, that second decision. And again, you're talking about kids, talking about little kids.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:43Jocko Willink?

  So now they're in Poland, in the middle of November 1938, our parents decide to continue on to Brezko.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Bzysko.

• 38:53Jocko Willink?

  Bzysko.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Bzysko.

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  Bzysko, Poland, to grandpa Schindler's house. After two weeks, our parents tell us we are leaving. And again, I'm, I'm just reading some of the highlights to capture the story. Yeah, you got it. The detail that he puts in here is, is really powerful. After two weeks, our tell, our parents tell us we are leaving. This time we are going to get grandma Schwied's.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Schwied's.

• 39:19Jocko Willink?

  Schwied's home.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:22Jocko Willink?

  Her big farmhouse has enough space for all of us. Also because the farm is in a small village out of the country, there seems to be less risk of Germans, soldiers finding us. Mom and dad let us know that this is where we planned to stay. Grandma's farm is self-sustaining with horses, cows, ducks, chickens, fields with crops, and a big garden. I'm not accustomed to this much farming, caring for animals, using an outhouse, and keeping... And lighting kerosene lamps instead of turning on a switch. Fed feels the same, but we both know not to complain. This is our new life and we need to adjust because there are no other options. We get lessons in all farm life topics because we must work the farm to help our family. Dad cannot sell liquor like he did before.

• 40:05Jocko Willink?

  He is now a farmer. While we are working in the fields, hoeing, picking and planting, Dad teaches about, teaches us about farming and our Jewish faith. The Polish kids are not kind to us or any of the Jewish children. The Jewish students stick together to avoid the Polish kids as much as possible. And fast forwarding here, as the war approaches, the hostility and aggression towards Jews gets noticeably worse. My Polish classmates harass me and want to fight with me. I get involved in some serious fights with these kids. Our fights often include throwing rocks into homes. The situation has become truly dangerous. I am fortunate to have my brother and cousins close by.

• 40:47Jocko Willink?

  When kids attempt to fight with me, I can always find support in family members. So, fast forward a little bit, now the war kicks off. Within a day or two of the beginning of the war, the Poles aligned with the Germans. They put on German uniforms and want to be part of the German war effort. They call themselves the Polish Fox Deutsch and circulate rumors that the whole city of, is going to be gassed. The local people are very frightened and go indoors sealing their windows and tape, with tape to keep the gas out. All the villagers, including us, stay inside for two or three days. As a result, the streets are barren of people. This is how the Germans march in and take over the city without firing a single shot.

• 41:31Jocko Willink?

  The Germans now occupy all of Poland and have taken over. There is a real possibility of being captured during the German SS roundups. The Jews that are caught are sent into a ghetto or a concentration camp. My parents are frantic about this possibility and will do nearly anything to avoid it. They have heard about the horrors of life in the ghettos and the concentration camps. Our parents are now frightened and trying to find a safe place for us. I know, I am terrified. There doesn't seem to be any good choices left.

• 42:01Jocko Willink?

  So many things keep changing while we were in occupied Poland. The German officers nail orders to trees and signposts to communicate their latest edicts. This is how we learn that Jewish kids can no longer attend school.

• 42:15Jocko Willink?

  Another edict is posted in 1941, ordering all Jews to wear a Jewish star on their clothes over their heart. Mom sews the stars on our clothes for us while explaining that we must follow the orders in order to avoid being punished. We know that we may have lost their lives by resisting. We know that many have lost their lives by resisting. The Germans are dangerous and unpredictable, so we do what we are told.

• 42:40Jocko Willink?

  Many times, the Germans marched down the main street near Grandma's house. When this happens, news of the German soldiers coming travels quickly to the families. This, this time, we hear about them from the neighbors and move hurriedly and quietly into the forest to hide. Mom grabs food and water because we may have to stay all day long or even overnight until the Germans leave the area. While we are hiding in the woods, Grandma stays in her store and acts relaxed and normal, serving the German soldiers to make us, to keep us safe. She tells them she is an old widow just trying to make a living. The soldiers must believe her because they do not search for us. Mom and Dad talk about how brave she is. Grandma's risking her life because if the soldiers found out she was hiding Jews on her farm, we would all certainly be shot.

• 43:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is a matter of years.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  You had to have so much hope in situations like this, hoping that it's gonna get better. Okay, things will change. That's how a lot of us survived.

• 43:44Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's shocking to me how quickly all this happens and how you go these, I mean, even in your small village.

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  You go, okay, well, there's 2,000 people in that village. It takes, and, and it gets through that village pretty quickly, you can understand that. But now we're talking about all of Germany, all of Poland. This is before the internet. This is before cell phones. This is word of mouth and people nailing edicts to trees. And this transition from this idyllic situation for, for both your families and for the Jews in these situations to...

• 44:24Jocko Willink?

  To this horror in a matter of a couple of years.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Right. Unbelievable. While this was going on, nobody, nobody said a word. The whole world was quiet. Where was the world when this was going on?

• 44:39Jocko Willink?

  On a personal level, what was it like with, you know, a little Christian girl, a little girl that you knew that you played with? And then one day she doesn't play with you anymore.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Right. She tried, they started calling us dirty Jews, throwing rocks at us. They didn't want to have anything to do with us. And before that, most of the people made a living from the Jews. They all worked for us because they're all in business, the Jewish people.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  So now we just have to

• 45:13Speaker 01

  hope that things will get better.

• 45:19Jocko Willink?

  The, the, the non-resisting in both your parents and Max's parents, both are, look, we gotta just do what we're told right now.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  We have no choice.

• 45:31Jocko Willink?

  And the reason is because the, the, otherwise it's almost like an immediate execution.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  This is, it's so hard to believe what we went through. It's really hard for anybody to believe what we went through, but it's so horrible, horrible what, what happened.

• 45:57Jocko Willink?

  Going back to, um, one of your parts in the book.

• 46:01Jocko Willink?

  In 1941, I'm nearly 11 years old and there's another new rule. We must wear a gold star of David on our sleeves so everyone will know we are Jewish. I don't understand why only Jewish people have to wear an identifying patch and follow special rules. A few months later, another change comes into our family. On Sunday, the men and boys are, that are old enough are rounded up by soldiers and loaded onto trucks. That includes Tata and Fischel. They are driven out of town and as I watch the truck pull out of sight, I wonder where they are taking them. A few days later, when the men haven't returned, I hear women in the village questioning aloud to one another if the men are ever coming back. Tata will find a way to come home to us, I know.

• 46:42Jocko Willink?

  When the men finally arrive home on a Friday night, Tata and Fischel look exhausted as they descend from the truck. Tata's face has deep grooves in it that are dark brown with dirt. Fischel's clothes, which used to be blue and gray, are now a muddy brown. Flakes of cake, caked on mud shed off his clothes as he makes his way over to us. When they approached, they say nothing, only nodded us tiredly. Tata smiles at me when I wave and takes my hand in his as we walk toward the house. Later that night, after Tata and Fischel wash up, we are all sitting around the Shabbat dinner table. Tata tells Mama that they are being forced to work for the Germans. It is hard labor, labor, and the men feel like slaves as they are never paid for their work. They are given very little food and very little water.

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  When Mama asks what they are doing for the Germans, Tata says they pave roads, cut wood for bridges, lay foundations, dig ditches, and sometimes they work in factories. No matter what they are doing, they work hard, long hours. The guards watch them closely throughout the day and threaten anyone who hasn't working hard enough. Tata says he and Fischel keep their heads down and work steadily so they can come home to us on Friday nights.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  You can't even explain how horrible this was. Unbelievable.

• 48:00Jocko Willink?

  One night when Tata and Fischel are sitting quietly by the stove, I asked Tata why no one does anything about this situation. Tata sighs and says, Rosie, we have to be patient and follow the rules since we are not in charge. Of course, we would like to be paid, but we can't force them to pay us. God will reward us for being kind to the Hungarians.

• 48:24Jocko Willink?

  People whisper all around me that Jews are to turn in their radios. We are no longer allowed access to public information or news program. I hear whispers among the adults about what could be happening in other places. Many people look grim and shake their heads as they head home to inform their families. I run nearly all the way home to tell Mama. I learned later that only one Jewish family keeps a radio in the cellar of their home, defying their rule. This is a huge risk because if the Hungarians find out, they will kill all the people in that house.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  You're right, absolutely.

• 49:03Jocko Willink?

  Now I'm gonna fast forward. You guys live under these conditions. I mean, just brutal conditions.

• 49:11Jocko Willink?

  And then we get, "In the spring of 1944, I'm nearly fourteen years old and living under the fascist rule of the Hungarians. My village is different, locked down and under their rule. Jews are prisoners in our village, forced to stay put and avoid being seen or noticed. Non-Jews run the town, having taken over all the shops. Mama looks tired and Tata is gone most of the time. I miss him so much, especially because he always helped me understand the world. Right now, the world doesn't make any sense to me. I miss my old life, even school. One morning, a month before Passover, as I am playing with my sisters in the lane, I hear loud noises coming from down the road. As we watch soldiers in dark green uniforms and black helmets march into town.

• 49:53Jocko Willink?

  They wear tall, black boots, thick leather belts with shiny buckles, and a large red armband with a spider on it. I'm unsure who these soldiers are. I've never seen uniforms like these before. I am worried. This, this time, I do not wave to the soldiers. They make me feel worried. "Germans," I hear several women whisper. I study the outfits of the German soldiers and wonder how these women know them to be German. How have they come to take over our country?

• 50:27Jocko Willink?

  "Those are SS," one announces. "What's the SS?" another asks. "The Secret Service. I heard they are the most brutal of the German Nazi forces."

• 50:45Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting that even you, as a young girl, when you saw the Hungarian soldiers, you know, you were a little concerned. But when you see the Nazis, your instinct is, you know that they're evil.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  That's completely different, absolutely. Because my mother and father actually were born in Hungary. So we didn't think it was so awful, because they were born in Hungary and nothing would happen. But of course, everything did. We never expect, never thought anything so horrible was ahead of us, what happened to us.

• 51:24Jocko Willink?

  You go on here. "One day as we are all chopping vegetables and the chicken, in the kitchen, Mama interrupts the conversation with a very serious look on her face. Girls, I know that things are confusing. You need to continue to act as if nothing is wrong. Acting strangely can get us into trouble. If you mind your own business and act natural, the soldiers will ignore you and leave you alone."

• 51:49Jocko Willink?

  That's the hope.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yep. Absolutely.

• 51:55Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit here. "When the seven days of Passover are over, Mama sends me to the bakery to buy bread. During Passover, we eat no bread. I cannot wait to taste bread again and I hurry into town to buy it. On my way out of the bakery, with my fresh loaves tucked under my arm, I hear the town crier beating his drum. I join the other people and gather around him to listen to the news. He tells everyone that all Jews are being shipped out by train. They need to pack a bag of belongings and go to the school within 48 hours. I rush home to tell Mama, but she has already heard the news. I'm relieved Tata and Fischel are home and not at work camp, so we can all be together.

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  Mama and Tata also know we need to bring valuables to the school for registration and safekeeping. Tata decides not to follow this rule and wants to hide our valuable jewelry instead." So he actually takes some of the jewelry and hides it.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  He puts it in a little shoe polish box.

• 52:57Jocko Willink?

  And then puts it up above a beam.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Between the ceiling and the wall, in the corner, the wall.

• 53:02Jocko Willink?

  And your sisters didn't even want to know where it was going to be. You're the only one that was brave enough to say, "Okay Dad, tell me."

• 53:07Speaker 01

  My father said, "Come with me, I want to show it to you. So when you come back after the war, you'll know where it is." So my two sisters, my Helen and Judy, they said they don't want any part of it. So I told my father, "I'll go with you." So we... Went to the corner, one of the, one of the rooms in the house. Took a ladder and my father opened a little area between the ceiling and the wall in the corner. And we put, there wasn't much jewelry because we didn't have much jewelry in those days. My father had a wedding band and a, and a, and his pocket watch. By the way, this is a chain from my, my father's pocket watch. I wear that every day.

• 53:52Jocko Willink?

  So that's the chain he put into that box.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  This is one of the chains and my mother, all she had was a pair of earrings, a necklace and a wedding band or maybe a little something else. So a little shoe polish box was plenty big for that. So we hid it and we hid and we covered it with dirt so nobody should notice it. So, and after we came back after the war, I knew exactly where it was and so we divided the jewelry between the three of us.

• 54:23Jocko Willink?

  So now the day comes, when the day, when the next day arrives, Mama instructs us to wear three layers of our best clothes because we don't know where we are going or how long we will be gone. No one knows when we will be able to do laundry. I choose my warmest clothes and Mama packs our down quilts in case it gets cold. We each pack a burlap bag with our belongings. I'm excited to travel on a train for the first time, as I have never gone beyond the neighboring towns on either side of my village. When the time comes to leave, we are all packed and ready. It's April nineteen forty-four and Hayusara, who is now twenty-one, and Yutki, who is nineteen, help Mama and Aunt Lee with the younger kids.

• 55:04Jocko Willink?

  Fischel is sixteen and I am fourteen years old. Peichu is thirteen. Blimchu is ten. Fay is eight.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Excuse me.

• 55:11Jocko Willink?

  Maybear, Meyerbear is six years old. Tata and Mama lead our whole family toward the school with each of the older kids carrying a burlap bag of belongings. There are a lot of people at the school when we arrive and all of them are Jewish.

• 55:32Jocko Willink?

  This train station is the biggest building I've ever been in.

• 55:38Jocko Willink?

  I hear some of the adults talking about how the station transports shipments of bricks all over Europe from the brick factory here. Mama points out that Jews from all the neighboring villages are here in Ungvar with us. We remain in the train station for three or four weeks, under the watchful eyes of Hungarian soldiers with guard dogs. We sleep in tents at night. The soldiers remind us regularly that Jews are not to try and run away, or they will be shot.

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  Our parents continue to reassure us that we should not worry, as God will protect us.

• 56:15Jocko Willink?

  And then, the story here is the story that I read in the opening of you actually getting on the train. You're packed in there, you're traveling for days. And finally, when the, when the, when you arrive, the door is unlocked and a man in a blue and white uniform climbs into our cattle car and tells us we're in Auschwitz, Poland. He begins telling people what to do next and helping them move their belongings. He asks me how old I am. And I tell him I'm 14 years old. He murmurs, "Tell them you're 18."

• 56:49Jocko Willink?

  Yudki is telling, is holding my little brother Meyer Bear. The man asks her if this is her child. "No, he's my brother," she replies. He tells her that young children must stay with their mothers. He gives information to many people as we climb down off the cattle car. Once we, once on the ground, all luggage and possessions are tossed into a big pile. We are put in rows of five people and directed to walk on for about five minutes. There's no talking allowed and everyone is confused because we don't know what's coming next. When we arrive in front of three German SS officers in uniform, they begin to separate us into groups. One of them asks me how old I am. And I follow the advice of the man on the train. I tell the soldier that I'm 18 years old. Hyasora responds, "No, she isn't. She's 14."

• 57:33Jocko Willink?

  "No, I'm 18," I insist. The officers wave my sisters and me to the left. Tata and Fishel are directed to the line in the right, while Mama, Aunt Lee, and my three little sisters and baby brother go forward, joining another line of people. I don't know why they are separating us, but Yuki keeps telling me to be quiet and not ask questions. "Just do what they say," she insists. The guards quickly move everyone along, so there is no time to talk to Mama or Tata. I try to keep my eyes on them as their lines move off in different directions, but I quickly lose sight of them. I wonder how long it will be until I see them again. Maybe they separate men from women here,

• 58:17Jocko Willink?

  but that doesn't explain why Mama, Aunt Lee, and the little kids went in another line. So many things are happening that don't make sense to me. My thoughts get interrupted when the soldiers yell at us to keep moving. Yuki, Hayyusara, and I follow our line into a big bathroom, marked Lager Camp C. Maybe here we will wash up after being stuck in the cattle car for days. Instead, we are ordered to take off all our clothes and toss them in a pile. I slowly remove the three dresses that Mama had me wear. I pause when I have stripped down to my underwear and look at the many women around me. Everyone is undressing. I have never been naked in front of strangers before, and I am feeling confused and humiliated. This is so wrong, but no one is saying anything. When Hayyusara and Yuki

• 59:02Jocko Willink?

  start removing their undergarments like the other women, I slowly do too. I am shivering and feel scared. The soldiers take photographs of us, humiliating us further. I think this must be hell because I have never experienced anything worse. I am appalled to realize that the next step is to have every hair shaved off our bodies. I cannot understand why they need to take hair off my head, arms, legs, and even my most private places. I can see other Jewish women don't understand what is going on either, and look ashamed. The faces of all the women shaving us are like stone, showing no emotion at all. I feel so exposed with no clothes and now no hair to cover me.

• 59:46Jocko Willink?

  I reach up to touch my hairless head and am shocked to feel my nubby and bruised scalp from the rough handling of the emotionless women with the razor.

• 1:00:01Jocko Willink?

  After we are shaved, we are ordered to grab a dress from a pile on the cement floor and given wooden clogs. The clogs seem to be all the same size, but don't really fit anymore. They are hard and difficult to walk in. I have to shuffle to get anywhere. My dress hangs down to the ground like a sack. Since my head is freezing, I tear off a piece of fabric from the bottom of my dress to wrap around my head. At least my head is covered, but I am still very cold. I don't understand why I can't retrieve my old socks and undergarments that are in a heap on the floor close by.

• 1:00:35Jocko Willink?

  As soon as we are dressed, we are forced to go outside and line up for Zellapell.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Zellapell.

• 1:00:41Jocko Willink?

  Zellapell, which is a roll call.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:44Jocko Willink?

  It is now late in the evening and there are so many people moving about that I get separated from my sisters. I am frightened and frantically call out their names. Two bald women in dingy dresses approach me. They reach for me and reassure me, Rosie, it's us. I hug them both fiercely in stammer. I did not recognize you. I'm so relieved to be with them that I can't stop shaking.

• 1:01:10Jocko Willink?

  So, I mean, any illusion that things were gonna work out in any way that could be remotely considered humane must are completely shattered at this point.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Completely shattered.

• 1:01:23Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you know, when you're being told, hey, pack a bag. Hey, get on the train. Like, those things don't sound good, but they at least sound... They at least sound somewhat reasonable. They sound like reasonable, okay, we got our bag, we're gonna be taken somewhere. All that is completely gone now.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:01:43Jocko Willink?

  And you're 14 years old.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:46Jocko Willink?

  How tall are you?

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Uh, 5'1".

• 1:01:50Jocko Willink?

  So, you're this little girl.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Just followed rules. Whatever they were saying, we had to just follow.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Things happened so fast, you cannot imagine. We didn't even have time to think about anything. Go here, go there, do this, do that, and that's it.

• 1:02:16Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's one of the things that they do in the military, right? Is they take you, they take everything that you have. They shave your head. And they're trying to get rid of your individuality, right? They want to remove some of that. And this is just the exact, you know, what they're doing. But they're doing it to an absolute extreme, you know? Stripping you naked and shaving your entire body and just removing anything that you had from the past.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think you can compare that to the military.

• 1:02:51Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm not trying to compare it to the military. I guess I'm just trying to say that the idea of...

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Certain rules, I guess.

• 1:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Well, the idea of when they shave your head in the military, part of what they're doing is trying to take away some of your individuality, right? So that you can become part of the group. Here, they're trying to take away your humanity.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  That's it. That's what they did.

• 1:03:18Jocko Willink?

  Going on here, it says, "All of us notice a huge fire spewing heavy smoke that looks like a burning mountain across the open area from us. I can see shadows of people moving through the smoke and can hear the cries of children. There is an overpowering foul smell coming from the fire. Somehow I taste the fire in my mouth. Yuki asks the guard, as she gestures toward the fire, "What is all that noise about?" The guard responds, "They are burning hair." Yuki replies, "Burning hair would not make such a noise." To which he snaps, "They are burning cripples."

• 1:03:53Jocko Willink?

  "A sick feeling comes over me as I realize the guards and soldiers are barbaric, cold-blooded animals."

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Jocko Willink?

  So that's your first recognition that we are going to receive zero...

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:08Jocko Willink?

  ...humanity from these guards?

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  You can't even explain how things were. They were so horrible, so unbelievable.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  And this all went on for so long, and nobody tried to help us.

• 1:04:29Jocko Willink?

  Because this is 1944.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:32Jocko Willink?

  So this had been going on.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  This was five months before our part of the world was liberated. You know that?

• 1:04:37Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  By September 1944, our part was liberated by the Russians.

• 1:04:52Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, Barrack 26 is our sleeping quarters. I have never seen anything like it before. Dirt floors and rows of wooden, three-tiered bunks. No straw-filled mattresses, no blankets or pillows, no heat, a fireplace that doesn't work. Hayyusera, Yutki, and I are assigned to the top bunk with five other women. We climb up and huddle body to body to stay warm during the freezing cold night. I am so thankful that my sisters are with me because everything is foreign, harsh, unexplained, and unbearably cold. The next morning, I decide to look around the camp to figure out where we are. I assure my sisters, there are a lot of people milling around, and I can blend in or hide. I will be careful.

• 1:05:36Jocko Willink?

  I walk outside and am shocked to see many barracks just like the one we slept in, arranged in rows of buildings. There are dozens of people walking around outdoors, all shaved, all shivering. Some are wandering around like zombies. When I try to talk to one of these zombie-like women, she just stares through me, doesn't answer, and keeps walking. She is truly frightening to me. It is as though she is here, but not really here at all.

• 1:06:02Jocko Willink?

  There is a 12-foot electric fence encircling the camp. Dead people hang from the fence, their bodies contorted.

• 1:06:11Jocko Willink?

  I wonder why so many would grab onto the electric fence to end their life. What kind of hell are we in? Why are we prisoners, feeling like a second-class citizen at home was nothing compared to this? I'm on a mission to learn all I can, so I ask those who have been here longer to help me understand. Most of the women are very patient with me, asking questions because they remember how frightening and foreign everything was for them when they arrived. They explain that some people cannot endure the severity of the camp and know that if they hold on to the electrified fence, their life ends in 20 seconds. One thing I learned for certain is no one can escape. There are guards with guns, the deadly electric fence, and people watching your every move. This must be hell.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Unbelievable, unexplainable.

• 1:07:11Jocko Willink?

  The half-dead zombie-like people in the bodies clinging to the electric fence are overpowering. I am in a daze seeing the true horrors of war here. As I walk around, I think I hear my Yiddish name called out softly. How could anyone in this godforsaken place know my Yiddish name? But then I hear it again: Rosie. I turn to see a man in a striped uniform, who I did not recognize, but who is beckoning to me. He approaches me and says, "Don't you know who I am? I'm your Tata." With a wave of pure shock, I realize it is Tata. I'm tremendously relieved. At home Tata always wore a suit, and a hat, and glasses, and had a beard. I look again at this man with no hair and I know it's him. I hug him as tight as I can, cry and kiss him, and kiss him some more.

• 1:07:56Jocko Willink?

  His arms around me are the first sense of warmth I've felt since arriving. Tata explains that he and Fischel were selected to go work in a factory. They will leave soon, but in the meantime, he has been looking everywhere for his family. He decided we must be in this all-women's camp where the Hungarian people are sent. "Where is your mother?" he asks. "I don't know, but I have you can have you solder with me." "Whatever you do, stay together, because you will have a much better chance of survival," Tata replies. I think, "What chance does a 14-year-old have of surviving in a place like this?" But I don't say anything. Tata holds both of my arms at my side, looks me in the eyes, and sternly says, "Make sure you stay alive so you can tell the world what they are doing to us."

• 1:08:42Jocko Willink?

  I assure him I will do my best.

• 1:08:46Jocko Willink?

  Then he and I make plans for us to meet again tomorrow at this spot.

• 1:08:53Jocko Willink?

  That's a heavy charge from your dad.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Oh my god, yeah.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  You know, every time I open the book and I go through it a little bit,

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  I just can't believe that this happened to us.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  That the world allowed this.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  And the world knew what was going on.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  But nobody tried to help us.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Just because we were Jewish.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna continue on. The next day, Yudki, Hayy Sada, and I wait at the designated spot to meet up with Tata and Feshel. When we see them, I cry in relief. We all hug and kiss each other and we are so happy to have time together. Tata repeats his solemn advice to each of us. Do your best to stay together. Stay alive so you can tell the world what they are doing to us.

• 1:10:07Jocko Willink?

  The next day, we go to our spot to meet Tata and Feshel. As planned, we wait and wait and wait for what seems to like an eternity, but they do not come.

• 1:10:21Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Hayy Sada, Yudki and I have no choice but to stay together in this evil place. We share a bunk bed, meals, and one bathroom with a thousand women.

• 1:10:32Jocko Willink?

  No one is allowed to use the bathroom at night. It has sinks with cold running water, but no soap for us to wash up. There's no toilet, just a hole in the ground. There is nowhere to shower or take baths. We only have one plain dress we are wearing, and no way to clean it, except with the cold water.

• 1:10:51Jocko Willink?

  Without a shower or soap, we are constantly filthy. We are always itchy with the bites of lice and bedbugs. We can rinse out our dress and walk around naked while it dries. It doesn't really matter because we are surrounded by 28,000 women in the same predicament. We have no way really to clean our dress or our clogs. We are left to rot for months in the same horrible dress. I realize quickly this concentration camp has some predictable events. Every day as they count us, every day they count us as we stand in rows of five people. At 5:00 a.m. the guard shouts, "Get up, get up, schnell, schnell, quick, quick." We all rise and run outdoors to be counted whether it is freezing, rainy, or sunny.

• 1:11:34Jocko Willink?

  We stand in lines for hours, three times a day, until the guards have a tally. Then we are released back to our barracks. I'm told this is how they know how much space is available for the new people they bring in by train every day. People leave to go to work in factories, get killed, or are gassed, so the counting is necessary. Sometimes we are forced to kneel and hold up rocks until our arms feel like they will break and the rocks fall. Other times they make us move rocks from one spot to another, then back to the original location. It doesn't make any sense, but we don't ask questions. We keep our heads down and do what we are told because any resistance may mean we will be shot.

• 1:12:11Jocko Willink?

  I've seen it happen.

• 1:12:32Jocko Willink?

  I cannot escape the horrible smell of the crematorium's chimney of the burning bodies 24 hours a day.

• 1:12:39Jocko Willink?

  The sickening stench of burning flesh makes me want to vomit and never becomes less upsetting emotionally. The smoke and smell burn a black hole in my heart. We have to find a way out of this place, and that will require me knowing as much as possible about how it is run.

• 1:12:59Jocko Willink?

  Women explain that prisoners are chosen for jobs and they must comply. Any Jewish worker who resists is shot dead on the spot.

• 1:13:08Jocko Willink?

  Strong Jewish women called "capos" are put in charge of running each barrack. The capos live amongst us in the barrack and watch everything. They are not paid, but they have certain rights that others lack. They may get more food, but they are doing the dirty work for the Germans. The cooks preparing the meals are Jewish as well. Jews clean out the bathroom in the barracks that is used by 28,000 women. Jews even work the gas chamber.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  Everything was done by the Jews.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  If you didn't do it, they would shoot you on the spot. You had no choice.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  They would see their own families go into the gas chamber, and there was not anything they could do or say.

• 1:13:59Jocko Willink?

  You say, "Here, this is too much for me to process", and I begin to see why some people touch the electric fence to end their misery.

• 1:14:08Jocko Willink?

  I ask repeatedly why we can hear people crying out near the crematorium. I learned that when a group is gassed in the showers, not all the people are dead when they burn the bodies. Maybe they don't give them enough gas, because we can hear the screaming coming from the crematorium. The men running the incinerators,

• 1:14:29Jocko Willink?

  called "sonder commandos", will be sent into them soon, so they cannot tell the world what is happening.

• 1:14:38Jocko Willink?

  So you even have the Jews are running the...

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  The factories, they're running the gas chambers, they're running everything.

• 1:14:45Jocko Willink?

  And eventually, they are going in them too?

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yes. Usually, the gas chambers, I've heard from many people say that after three months, they would change the guards at the gas chambers. They would... Every three months, they would change them. The ones that are there three months, they put them in the gas chamber, and then they get new ones in.

• 1:15:08Jocko Willink?

  So at the end of three months, you go into the gas chamber?

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  The people working there, yes. At the gas chambers.

• 1:15:19Jocko Willink?

  Would you talk to other people? Would you talk to other people besides your sisters? Was there any sense of community?

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:15:28Jocko Willink?

  Was it just broken spirit?

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  Broken spirit. And the thing is, we came to Auschwitz. And they were always people. You couldn't make. You couldn't become friends with any of the people there because we were all only there. We were in Camp See, okay? And Auschwitz were canal. And this was a transitional camp. You come, you get selected, then you leave. The only people that stayed behind is the ones like me because I was skin and bone. And they wouldn't select me to go to work. I would run out of the gas chamber line. And hope nobody sees me. If they would see me, they would shoot me on the spot. They did not want to take people to factories to work that were skin and bone. Okay?

• 1:16:12Jocko Willink?

  So. So it's just you and your sisters? Everyone else is kind of transient?

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:18Jocko Willink?

  And you're and there's no feeling of community?

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  No, none whatsoever.

• 1:16:24Jocko Willink?

  It's just broken spirits?

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  You never know who's gonna be there tomorrow. We had twenty eight. We had thirty barracks in this place, okay? One barrack was a kitchen, one barrack was a bathroom. And people were coming in all the time, coming and going, coming and going.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  And of course, there were so many dead bodies always in our camp. They would they would commit suicide by touching the electric fences. They just could not couldn't take it anymore. You touch the fence, twenty seconds later, you see blood coming out of the nose and you're dead.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  And they would pick up. They would come with those big wheelbarrows every day to collect the dead bodies.

• 1:17:27Jocko Willink?

  You say here, "One day I ask a woman why I haven't seen my mother, aunt, my little sisters and brother."

• 1:17:35Jocko Willink?

  "The lady is careful to gently tell me what I think I already know."

• 1:17:42Jocko Willink?

  "She sadly affirms that my worst fears are correct. When they got off the train, "they were put in a line that led directly to the gas chamber."

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  I would say eighty percent of the people that came in on the trains went into the gas chamber. All the mothers, children, the sick, the crippled, the old age. The only people they tried to save were the ones that could go for slave labor, to go to factories to work.

• 1:18:20Jocko Willink?

  You continue on here, "They remind me of how lucky I was to be accepted as being eighteen and eligible for the adult factory work line. "If the sorders had known I was fourteen, I would have gone with my mother and aunt and younger siblings "straight to the gas chamber." "I do not feel lucky in any way right now. I just can't get used to the idea that my mother, three sisters and little brother are gone and it's beyond comprehension." "When Yuki, Hayasara and I try to talk about it, we cannot speak, we just cry."

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:18:53Jocko Willink?

  "We have to keep going, like Tata told us. "It will eventually get better, we believe. We need to have hope."

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:03Jocko Willink?

  "I have difficulty processing all of this and have to keep asking myself, why, why, why?"

• 1:19:11Jocko Willink?

  And I think this, this section right here is one of the most powerful pieces. You say this, "One of the ladies hugs me close and says, "you will never understand what these Germans are doing because it is beyond comprehension." "It does not make sense and it never will. They are crazy, out of their minds. You are not. "Remember, you are the sane one here."

• 1:19:35Jocko Willink?

  Go where you need to go inside of yourself and remember who you are.

• 1:19:41Jocko Willink?

  They cannot steal your soul unless you give it to them. Never give them your soul. Follow their rules and survive so that the real you can blossom again when you are free.

• 1:19:54Jocko Willink?

  War is a horrible thing, but it will end. When it does, there is another life for you outside of Auschwitz. And you need to live for that.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  That's how we survived, really. By hoping and think things, know that things will be better someday.

• 1:20:19Jocko Willink?

  And I guess, I mean, the difference between

• 1:20:23Jocko Willink?

  having that attitude of things will get better someday and thinking that they won't, those are the people that are gonna go and grab the electric fence.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  That's it. They just gave up. They couldn't handle it anymore.

• 1:20:36Jocko Willink?

  Who was this woman? Do you remember who this woman was that told you this?

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  Probably some, somebody much older than me. Remember, I was a fourteen-year-old. I was a young kid.

• 1:20:50Jocko Willink?

  Did you

• 1:20:53Jocko Willink?

  did you believe? I mean, it had to be hard looking at these surroundings to believe that this could be, that there really could be hope beyond this.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  Well, if I did not have hope, I listened to my father. He said, "Whatever you do, stay alive so you can tell the world what they're doing to us."

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  Okay?

• 1:21:13Jocko Willink?

  That was your mission.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  That was my mission.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Actually, it was more my mission than my two older sisters. They would get very angry with me sometime because I would do things that was not the right thing to do in a place like this. Okay?

• 1:21:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, you would take risks.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Right, absolutely.

• 1:21:35Jocko Willink?

  You're a little bit of a hard person to subdue.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Actually, even as a child, many times the mother said, "You're acting like a boy. You're not acting like a young lady."

• 1:21:55Jocko Willink?

  Here's another little part about what you guys are eating. The only thing we got for breakfast is black coffee. You describe what the black coffee is. The black coffee is not coffee at all.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  It's horrible. It was horrible. I took one sip and that's the only time I ever tried it. I thought I was gonna throw up. It was so horrible.

• 1:22:12Jocko Willink?

  You say we are literally starving.

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  We are, absolutely.

• 1:22:16Jocko Willink?

  Lunch is nothing but a piece of bread.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Slice of, thin slice of bread with a piece of margarine, yes.

• 1:22:23Jocko Willink?

  Occasionally they will give us butter to put on it. The bread is dry and hard and there we are told, they put sawdust in it. We line up outdoors to get a bread, to get our bread at a table staffed by the kitchen women. We do not share our bread. It is coveted and sometimes hidden away for later. The food tastes horrible and is not enough to live on. It is not surprising that some prisoners here have a German nickname, Musselmann. Is that right?

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:50Jocko Willink?

  Which means skeletal or skin and bones. So many people are too thin and I am becoming one of them. At dinnertime, we get a pot of soup to share among a dozen women. We are hungry every day. There's never enough to eat. An officer comes in the barracks and shouts, "I need 300 women for selection for factory work." Many women hurry outside to be selected. Anything must be better than this place. Once they line up, everyone removes their clothes so the officers can examine their physique to decide if they are healthy and strong enough to do factory work. If a woman is too weak or thin, they label her as a Musselmann and send her to the gas chamber. "I don't know if it is because of food or illness, but I have a bad bout of diarrhea and I am very weak.

• 1:23:34Jocko Willink?

  I can't stand and walk for the first few weeks of my illness." "Yudki and Hayyasara will not go outside to be selected without me, so we hide when the officers call for volunteers. It's not hard to hide with a thousand people in the barracks and they only need 200 or 300 women. The officers do not notice me. This works for the first three or four weeks, but I am just skin and bones now. I know I need to be selected for a factory to get out of here. Yudki and Hayyasara help me stand up and pinch my cheeks so I look like I have some color. The problem comes when I undress. I'm so frightened because I know I am too thin and weak to be chosen. My worst fears come true when the officers call me Musselmann and send me to the gas chamber line."

• 1:24:14Jocko Willink?

  It is a torturous few minutes walking to that line. My sisters helped me get there, holding me under my arms as we cry and panic. There is so much going on around us that I begin to wonder if we can somehow sneak away. I tell Yuki and Hayusara what I am thinking and we agree to try it. We have no other choice. At the agreed upon moment, we calmly step out of the line and head straight back to our barrack. All of our hearts are pumping wildly. If an SS officer notices, we will be shot on the spot. Luckily, there are a lot of women moving about the camp and no one notices.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  You have any idea what you weighed at this point?

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 1:25:01Jocko Willink?

  But you're just skin and bones.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  I was very, I was, even at home, I was very thin. Okay, I was not a big eater. This wasn't good, that wasn't good, you know, when you're a child. So.

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  And, and the gas chamber line, that's, you know exactly what that is.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:25:25Jocko Willink?

  You know, when I get in this line, I'm going to be dead in three minutes or whatever the minutes is.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  And they, they're just walking down the line. They look at you, too skinny, muscle man, go over there.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  One over here, one over there, right. So they always put me in the gas chamber line. Okay. And I would make sure nobody sees me. I would get out of the gas chamber line. If they would catch me, they would probably shoot me on the spot. Remember, we had, we had close to over 28,000 people, women in that camp. Okay. And, and you know, they brought in over 500,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, April and May of 1944. And everybody that came into Auschwitz, we went into Camp See. Okay, or the gas chambers.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  You had to have a lot of guts to survive. And also hope. Hope for a better day, okay?

• 1:26:32Jocko Willink?

  And you are a risk taker.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:36Jocko Willink?

  I mean, clearly, you're taking a risk by going out there, getting in line. You're taking a risk by getting out of line. You got a lot of bravery in these situations.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  You had to. If you didn't, you're gone. The only people that survived are the ones that had bravery, really.

• 1:26:54Jocko Willink?

  You say food is such a problem for all of us, but particularly for me, since I am too thin. At lunch one day, we stand in line outside to get our bread as usual. The kapo gives me a slice of bread, which I notice is half its usual size. I am hungry, so I speak without thinking. My bread is cut in half, I accuse her. The kapo is furious with me because my accusation can get her in a lot of trouble with the Germans. She pulls me out of line and takes me to where the German SS officers will be sure to see her actions. She beats me so brutally that I cannot stand for three days afterwards. My sisters are both concerned and frustrated with me for getting into trouble. Yutki tells me, "Next time, just shut up. Don't ever complain about anything again. It will only get you in trouble. Do you want to get shot?" I know she's right, but I struggle at the injustice.

• 1:27:37Jocko Willink?

  We are already starving. How can they steal half my meager food? Still, I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:48Jocko Willink?

  What was the... How did you guys look at the kapos?

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  I don't know if we even looked at them. All we knew is they were there, okay? We didn't see them too often. The only time we saw them is when they came to select the people to go to factories to work.

• 1:28:06Jocko Willink?

  Did you look at them as fellow Jews?

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  They were... Oh, you mean the kapos?

• 1:28:11Jocko Willink?

  The kapos.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Oh, excuse me. I thought you were talking about the SS. Well, they had to do the work, otherwise they would get shot. If they don't do what they're asked to do, then they would not do the job. But when the kapos, when they did get these jobs, they could get extra food. They could get extra, all kinds of things. You know what I mean? They were in charge of a thousand women in every barrack. So they had to be very strong and do the right thing. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't choose them to do it.

• 1:28:48Jocko Willink?

  Was your view of the capos like, hey, they're just doing what they have to do to survive?

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  I don't know if we did when we were there. But now I know that they had to do what they were chosen to do. They had no choice.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  But they were our own people.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  That did this work.

• 1:29:15Jocko Willink?

  You go in here, "Today, good fortune is upon us." "One of the ladies in barrack 26 tells us that we have cousins in barrack 3." "We are shocked and all three of us begin asking questions in rapid succession." "What are their names? How did you find them? Are you sure? "How did you figure out we're related?" "In barrack 3, my cousins are in charge of the whole barrack, including food distribution." "They help get me extra food every day and I begin to gain weight and think more clearly." "It literally saves my life to have a little more food." "I'm so thankful to be with them in this horrible place."

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Jocko Willink?

  So there's another little thing that allows you to survive.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  Right, right. It was amazing that we found out. I mean, so many thousands of women over there and they were all the way in the beginning of the camp. Number two or three, I'm not really sure, okay? And they were in charge of giving out the food. So of course, when we got there,

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  we would get extra, whatever there was.

• 1:30:13Jocko Willink?

  As the months go slowly by, in September of 1944, we notice that Auschwitz begins to empty out. "Our cousins are taking to work in a factory and so we are sad to see them go." "As the barracks residents dwindle, it makes our exit more urgent." "Now there are less people hiding, less people to hide among." "We are at risk of being noticed." "I am getting stronger and less skeletal, so I urge my sisters to try selection with me again." "But I am labeled as a Mussulman and sent to the gas chamber line."

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  Mussulman.

• 1:30:42Jocko Willink?

  Mussulman.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  Not muscles, Mussul, which is skin and bones.

• 1:30:47Jocko Willink?

  Skin and bones. Mussulman.

• 1:30:52Jocko Willink?

  At least I can get out of line now on my own and head back to the barrack. I do this repeatedly enough that we decide I can no longer go through the selection process at all. Sooner or later, though, I will be caught sneaking away from the line and shot. There has to be another way. We have to get out of here, repeats over and over in my mind. I know we cannot give up because I have hope. I always remember what my father told me. Stay together because your chances of survival will be much better. It is not easy to keep hope alive when we are in camp. Giving up seems easier. And we see many who do give up and end up on the electric fencing. There are a few good rumors that help us have hope. Women gather in the bathroom to hear the latest rumor that the Americans or Russians may liberate us.

• 1:31:35Jocko Willink?

  The hope that we will reunite with Tata and Fischel keeps us alive. Even with this hope, it is hard to continue believing in something. We all question our faith in God. How could God allow this to happen? Following the Jewish laws got us nowhere.

• 1:31:52Jocko Willink?

  One day in 1944, the SS officers arrive at the barracks announcing they need 300 women to go to a German factory in Freudenthal. Freudenthal?

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  Freudenthal.

• 1:32:02Jocko Willink?

  Freudenthal. This is the day that Yuki, Hayusara, and I will be chosen. I know it. As we are getting up to the line, as we are preparing to line up, I look at my sisters and tell them, "Go get selected and save me a place in line. I will find a way to sneak into the group." Hayusara and Yuki both look worried, but go out and front the front door and get selected. I must find a way to get in line without being detected. Meanwhile, I am working feverishly to come up with a plan to join them. Our barracks are always guarded by Kappos no matter what. My heart races so loudly that I wonder if others can hear it as I try to figure out what to do. I don't have much time. I must think fast. I watch a woman who gives out food from our kitchen as she exits the back of the barrack.

• 1:32:43Jocko Willink?

  Suddenly, I find myself running as fast as I can down the long hallway of the barrack toward the back door. The female Kappo guarding the door raises her hand to stop me. My heart is beating hard in my chest as she looks at me. "You can't go out this door. You have to go out that way to be selected for work," she says, pointing in the opposite direction. "I don't want to go to work," I say, shaking my head. "My mother has just gone out that door, and I need to go with her," as I point to the door behind her. The seconds pass, the seconds that pass before she responds feel like hours. I continue to reach toward the door, employing her to let, help me. Somehow, the capo takes pity on me and lets me out the door. I scan the area for guards as I sneak around the building to join my sisters in line. There are enough people moving about that no one sees me enter the group.

• 1:33:27Jocko Willink?

  I can see my sisters and they have a spot for me to slide into. I feel a sense of freedom for the first time in a long time. Suddenly, I know I am strong and brave. It is as though an angel is looking after me, I think, as I look upward. Maybe it's my mother who helps me out of this terrible situation. Maybe things will get better for us now. I make eye contact with Hayusara. She has sheer joy on her face as I approach. She elbows Yuki to indicate that I am on my way over. As I enter the line, Yuki immediately grabs my arm and squeezes it so tight. All of us are frightened and excited at the same time. Hayusara and Yuki are relieved that I am with them and even have, and even a little surprised that I made it. I can see the questions on their faces but silently indicate we can't talk about it now.

• 1:34:10Jocko Willink?

  I will explain how I did this later when we are alone. The three of us try to act calm so no one will notice that I am not supposed to be in line. I feel their hands as tight as I can, so tight that I can't feel my own fingers. We have to celebrate internally and happiness springs up inside me. Hope and fear are at war within me. Before leaving the camp for the factory, we need to go through a cleaning process. We now, we know we all smell. I remember when I first came to camp, I smelled a sour, pungent odor everywhere, on everyone. I guess I've smelled it for so long now that I don't notice it anymore. But you can always see the revulsion on the faces of new prisoners when they arrive. It is the stench of death on living bodies.

• 1:34:50Jocko Willink?

  I can see the dirt in the lines on people's faces. Our hands don't come clean when we rinse them. The hair that grew back in the last four months is stuck to our heads and has a foul odor. It is clear to me that we are not supposed to have been here this long. But now that time will end if I can make it through the cleaning without being labeled a Musliman.

• 1:35:12Jocko Willink?

  So, once again, talking about your courage.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:15Jocko Willink?

  To do that.

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  It was unbelievable. How this all came to me, how I did it, I don't, I don't remember, but I did it.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  The main thing was to get out of there. And sometime you have to do, you have to do all kinds of things, okay? To get where you want to go. And also, you should never give up hope. Without hope, you're lost. So whenever you're in, anybody's in trouble, they have to remember that things will get better.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  And that's how we survived, the three of us.

• 1:36:00Jocko Willink?

  You guys get cleaned up, they shave you again.

• 1:36:07Jocko Willink?

  They de-louse you.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Right, well, we were full of lice. We didn't have cleaning in four months. Can you imagine?

• 1:36:14Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:36:14Speaker 01

  Not having a cleaning in four months. Actually, I took my dress off a couple of times in the summer. Because we, you know, we were also lucky that we were there in the summer, not in the winter. If we would have been there in the winter, we would have frozen to death.

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  So we were there in summer, and so I would take my dress off and wash it. There was no soap, no nothing. And let it dry and then put it back on.

• 1:36:42Jocko Willink?

  You say, hey, after, after you get de-loused and cleaned, you say this. Finally, we are given decent street, street clothes to wear. It's the first time in four months I've changed my clothes. One of the women pins a piece of paper with a number on it to my dress. She tells me that this will be my number that identifies me from now on. They've taken away my name. I am no longer Rosie, or even a Schwartz. Now, I am just a number. A, two, five, eight, nine, three.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  See it?

• 1:37:22Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  You know, a lot of the survivors after the war, they had it taken off.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  But in, you know, in the 50s, surgery wasn't like today. They would always have a mark on their arms. Never, you know, so. And it never, to me, it never even occurred to me to do that.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  And when my kids were little, they would ask me what it is. I would tell them, "It's my telephone number."

• 1:38:03Jocko Willink?

  They process you now and get you loaded onto a truck that drives you guys out of the camp. And you say, "As we pass through the gates, I feel an incredible weight lifted off my shoulders. This is truly a moment to remember. I know that my life may not be easier at the work factory, but at least we are alive. We are scared and weak, but we have left the hell of Auschwitz behind us."

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38:27Jocko Willink?

  "At the factory, they provide us with more decent street clothes similar to what I previously owned. The building is so cold, so we go to bed fully dressed. Even our blankets are not enough to keep us warm, but at least we have blankets. The building has a musty odor, but I have my own bed with a mattress, sheets, blanket, and pillow. We are allowed to access bathrooms at night. We can even get a shower with soap, and you're even given clean clothes once a week. The showers and bathroom are just down the hall. Compared to the hell of Auschwitz, this feels like heaven." So this is your new location.

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38:59Jocko Willink?

  And it really is.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:39:00Jocko Willink?

  This is what you've been striving for.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:39:02Jocko Willink?

  To get into one of these work camps.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:06Jocko Willink?

  Did you know that the work camp was better living? Or were you just knowing that anything is better than Auschwitz?

• 1:39:11Speaker 01

  We didn't know, but everything, anything was better than Auschwitz. Okay? I don't think there could be any worse than Auschwitz.

• 1:39:24Jocko Willink?

  On our first day of work, the numbers that were pinned to our clothes are tattooed onto our left forearms.

• 1:39:31Jocko Willink?

  I know that I should feel pain, but I don't, as I watch them scratch the needle across my skin. In my mind, I am thinking about the law that Jews may not take, make any cuttings or print any marks on their bodies. How will God take this new development? I'm not in any position to resist the permanent tattoo that reminds me every single day that I am not free. A25893 is emblazoned for the world to see every time I reach my hand out to touch my sister or grab a piece of machinery.

• 1:40:00Jocko Willink?

  Each day as we leave the factory, we show our tattoo, which confirms that we are Jews who belong in the camp and not one of the free citizens that goes home at night. So, when you're working this camp, there's actually regular civilians that are working there.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:16Jocko Willink?

  Germans? Are they Germans?

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  Germans, absolutely. And mostly women, because all the men were in the military.

• 1:40:23Jocko Willink?

  Fighting.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:40:28Jocko Willink?

  You say this, "Sometimes the German lady who works next to me brings me an apple."

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:40:34Jocko Willink?

  It's a big risk for her to offer me any special treatment because she could be labeled as a Jewish sympathizer and be taken to jail or shot. It is also a risk for me because I can be labeled a thief. There are no apples given to Jews here, so how would I get one? It would be up to a guard to decide my fate if I were caught with an apple. We are very careful that no one of authority is around when she hands me the apple. I think she realizes how hard our lives are and feels a bit sorry for me. It is so good to see the humanity in some people because we have lived for months and some of us, for years, surrounded by inhuman and savage guards every day. We have been treated as though we are not human. So this is like the first sympathetic person.

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  Right. She was very nice.

• 1:41:17Jocko Willink?

  Did you have conversations with her? You talked to her?

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  We would not have conversations, not too much, no. Because we were both working at different things.

• 1:41:28Jocko Willink?

  But she, but she...

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  But she would bring an extra piece of something sometime. An apple or a fruit or... Even though, compared to Auschwitz, this was like heaven. Okay.

• 1:41:41Jocko Willink?

  You, Yuki was in an area working on ammunition.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  It's Yutka.

• 1:41:49Jocko Willink?

  Yutka, I'm so sorry.

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:51Jocko Willink?

  Yutka.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  Yutka.

• 1:41:52Jocko Willink?

  Yutka, well, how about, how am I doing with Hayusara? Bad. How do you say Hayusara?

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  Hayasura.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  Hayasura.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a Yiddish name.

• 1:42:02Jocko Willink?

  Hayusara, Helen.

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  Helen, her English name was Helen. Or in Czech it was Helenka.

• 1:42:08Jocko Willink?

  Okay. I need to stick with one. She's sewing. Um, Yutka.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:42:15Jocko Willink?

  Is working on ammunition and you're working on gas masks.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:42:19Jocko Willink?

  Inspecting gas masks. Which is obviously a, a, a hard thing because you're thinking that these gas masks are for German soldiers. It's gonna save the lives of German soldiers.

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. But we had no choice. I would sit on a high chair and then have to pick up the gas, the gas mask, look inside it and put it down, up and down, 12 hours every day or so. And, and Judy and Helen, Judy, my sister Judy and my sister Helen, one of them worked on uniforms and one of them worked on guns. We were all in different areas. It was a big factory over there.

• 1:42:57Jocko Willink?

  You know, this, this idea that you had of sticking together, of being a family and how that increases your chances for survival.

• 1:43:08Jocko Willink?

  I, as I read that, it seemed a little bit counterintuitive to me because I always think, well, if I just have to take care of myself, it seems like you'd be able to make more things happen as opposed to you're looking out for other people.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  Other people.

• 1:43:24Jocko Willink?

  But what I failed to realize and what I think is that because you're sticking together, you're looking out for each other, you're keeping, you know, maybe you give a little bit of extra bread, you share some bread.

• 1:43:34Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:43:34Jocko Willink?

  So you're able to take care of each other and people that went by themselves had less of a chance of survival.

• 1:43:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. A lot of women that came there to our camp that were alone, I would say, most of them didn't make it.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Being alone is so hard. But when you have, you're with sisters, you know, at least you have more hope to survive.

• 1:44:00Jocko Willink?

  You say here, "I'm always afraid that if I attract the attention of the guards, they will realize I'm too skinny to work and will kill me."

• 1:44:09Jocko Willink?

  "Then who will help my sisters stay together? I have to stay alive and do as Tata said. After a month at the factory, I gathered the courage to speak to the person in charge. I take a deep breath before approaching the intimidating officer. My hands shake as he looks down at me. I am still very short for my 14 years and with no heels or hair to help me seem taller, I'm sure I look like a younger child. This is hard work," I say, shocked at how confident my voice sounds. "Because my hands are shaking, I press them into my sides, hoping you won't notice. I should get an extra meal to conserve my strength. To my utter surprise, the officer allows me an extra meal each day."

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  Yes, she did.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  I would take it to the living quarters and I would share it with my sisters.

• 1:44:54Jocko Willink?

  "Over time, my sisters and I realized that the German doctors in white coats conduct experiments on the prisoners. I don't remember the incident, but my sisters tell me I was taken by one of the doctors for several hours. Upon my return, my mouth remained painful for several days. I asked my sisters to look in my mouth to find out why it was so sore. They noticed that all my teeth are drilled out and filled with something gray that looks like street cement. I cannot see inside my mouth because we have no mirrors, but I had no fillings in my teeth before coming to the factory. The procedure is so awful, I blocked it out. It takes weeks for the pain to subside."

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:30Jocko Willink?

  So that's just a random?

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:32Jocko Willink?

  You get taken away?

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Right. I may have complained that I had some pain in my teeth. I'm not really sure about that. And all I know is when we were liberated, I had my teeth filled with cement."

• 1:45:48Jocko Willink?

  Our daily lives continue, and this is fast forwarding a bit. And again, people have to get the book to read it, to get all the, all the details, which are incredible, to read, harrowing to read.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:00Jocko Willink?

  But I'm gonna fast forward a bit. You say, "Our daily lives continue as each and every day we wake, eat, work, walk back to our quarters, wash, eat and sleep. It seems like a never-ending monotony, but we are grateful for it. This routine feels safe. Auschwitz had no predictability since any situation could turn into a nightmare in a second. Safety is rare these days, so we embrace it as much as possible. The guards mostly leave us alone unless someone steps out of line. Hardly any of us do that anymore because we all recognize there is safety in submission."

• 1:46:36Jocko Willink?

  Going forward a little bit more, and again, you tell some really, really kind of fascinating stories about what goes on inside and people need to get the book to see those, to read about those. I'm gonna fast forward a bit. "After eight months of working and living at the factory, something starts to change. I start to feel eyes watching me steadily. I've known that the guards watch us, but never felt this kind of observation. I can feel their eyes on me, watching like a hawk, waiting for me to make a mistake. I think they are planning to take me back to the camp and to my death. One day, I'm looking through the glass of a gas mask when Rivka appears in front of me, in front of my distorted glass. I'm so startled that I jump off my stool. What are you doing? They will see you,

• 1:47:18Jocko Willink?

  I hiss her. She should not leave her place in the line. Surely a guard will discover her and we will both get in trouble. Have you heard?" She asks in a whisper. "Heard what?" I ask, confused. "No one has spoken to me at all today, apart from my supervisor, who barks orders at us once every hour. We are to be marched," she says gravely. I have no idea what she means by that, but from her face I know it is not good. "Marched? Where? By whom?" "I don't know. I heard some guards talking about how the Russians are coming," she replies. "The word Russians makes my heart feel, makes my heart beat faster. I know that they are fighting against the Germans for liberation, but what does liberation look like? No one knows. All we know is that right now, the Russians are the only people

• 1:48:03Jocko Willink?

  who want to get us out of this prison."

• 1:48:07Jocko Willink?

  On May 6, 1945, we wake up to a gray, gloomy morning and prepare for work. There is an odd energy running through the room as we make our way to the door to line up. I wonder why everyone is so jittery. Are there extra guards outside? Are they moving us? Are we going on the march? We line up in front of the door like always, but instead of the silence that usually permeates the air, whispers fly along the line. "What is happening?" Someone asks. "Are they sending us back to the camps?" "I don't know." "Where are the guards? They should be here by now." Another person answers. One brave soul ventures to the door after about 15 minutes. All of us are nervous. She opens the door and we see no one. The usually locked door swings open without resistance.

• 1:48:50Jocko Willink?

  We cautiously move out to the yard to find the gates to our quarters wide open. This has never happened before and all of us are very worried. We look around for the guards as we walk toward the gate. There, on the fence, is a plain white bed sheet. Someone wrote on it in German. It reads, "There will be no work for a few days. There will be a march that all of you will be in. Wait here until we come for you."

• 1:49:17Jocko Willink?

  That's bizarre.

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  I didn't even remember that. You see that?

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  All I know is that the guards didn't come to walk us to the factory, okay? And after being hours and hours, after we were waiting all these hours, I said to my sisters, "I'm going out. I want to see what's going on." I was probably the youngest kid in the group. There were 300 women, I believe. I go outside and the fence, the gate to the fence, because we had electric fences surrounding us, was wide open. The Germans ran away. Everybody ran away. And of course, here I am and all the women are in the building. They're all afraid to come out. And I'm screaming at them, actually. "Come on out. I think the SS all ran away." And I hear the planes going over us.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  And I hear the shooting of guns.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  Behind, where we were living, they had all kinds of cornfields. They were growing a lot of corn. The Russians were coming through the cornfields. And they came and, so when I saw that, of course, I said, I better go in front of the Russians. But how am I gonna go? You know, they might think I'm German because I had hair already, the same size hair, like, and regular clothes. And, so, being, I guess my hair was not that big, that long, okay? But we did not have any, any marks on our dresses saying who we are, okay? But I thought, maybe they think I'm German. Okay?

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  So I tore a piece of my dress off, and I found a stick, and I put that down, and I went in front of the Russians like this.

• 1:51:03Jocko Willink?

  And what was their reaction?

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  Oh, they hugged me and kissed me, I mean, and I told them, we have three hundred women here. They came, they liberated us, and it was an amazing day.

• 1:51:18Jocko Willink?

  Did you, I mean, at that point, were you, how long did it take you to realize that, that this was, this was the end of everything you'd been through?

• 1:51:30Speaker 01

  Well, we've been, we've been looking forward to this for so long. And it finally happened, okay?

• 1:51:36Jocko Willink?

  You made, you stayed with your sisters the whole time?

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  Right, absolutely, oh yeah. I don't know if I would have survived without my sisters. I don't know if my sisters would have survived without me. Because I did things that nobody did. You know? In a condition, in a situation like this, you have to do certain things to survive. Okay?

• 1:51:59Jocko Willink?

  You say in the book, "This is the moment we had dreamed of, hoped for, and waited long months to see. It was as wonderful as any of the dreams I had. All of us were overjoyed at the news we had waited so long to hear."

• 1:52:12Jocko Willink?

  Helen.

• 1:52:15Jocko Willink?

  Judy and I are survivors.

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  Right, we are finally free.

• 1:52:21Jocko Willink?

  We stayed together like Tata said because it would improve our chances of surviving. He was right.

• 1:52:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:27Jocko Willink?

  The Russians tell you, hey, go out into town, take what you want.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  Right, they did.

• 1:52:34Speaker 01

  But I didn't go alone, I went with the Russians. The Russian soldiers came to our living quarters and they would offer their help. They were very good for us.

• 1:52:44Jocko Willink?

  And were the, were there Germans still in the houses or were they gone?

• 1:52:48Speaker 01

  Oh, no, they left. Are you kidding? They ran away as soon as the Russians, they saw the Russians, they all fled.

• 1:52:56Jocko Willink?

  So you're just going from no food, no clothes and all of a sudden you're got normal food and everything? Right away?

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  No food after that, no, no. But the Russians were very good to us. They took us into town and they also brought food for us. If we needed anything, they would get it for us.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:53:19Jocko Willink?

  You, you eventually decide that you're gonna head back to your home village.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:53:26Jocko Willink?

  You say, "After four weeks on the trains, we finally arrive and walk to our little farm. Our once beautiful and cozy home is hardly recognizable. The roof is almost gone, likely from a bomb. All our belongings are gone. They must have housed German horses in it since there was horse manure everywhere. I remember where Tata hid the jewelry and I rushed to find it. I am relieved to find the spot is untouched even though the roof is largely gone. I clawed the mud to uncover the shoebox. When my fingertips tap a corner of the box, I rapidly remove the mud to extract it, relieved that it remained undiscovered. I climb down to show Yuki and Hayusara." Hayusara.

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  Hayasura.

• 1:54:08Jocko Willink?

  Hayusara.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  Hayasura.

• 1:54:10Jocko Willink?

  "We sit down on our kitchen floor and carefully open the lid. Inside is Tata's pocket watch chain, which is the one you're wearing right now. My parents' wedding rings, earrings and a couple of gold chains. All of us cry at the discovery. These are the only things that remain from our past."

• 1:54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:32Jocko Willink?

  You start to get, you start to get news, you start to get rumors and information. One man reported that he knew nothing of Tata, but was in a camp with Fischel, where they were, where they sewed SS uniforms. He described how well my brother did in camp. Just days before the end of the war, all 300 men in his camp were marched into the forest and forced to dig a large hole. The Germans then stood them all at the edge of the hole and shot them.

• 1:54:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55:01Jocko Willink?

  As they fell into the hole, it became a mass grave. The man told me that the Germans' goal was to destroy any proof of what they did during the war, so they made sure that there would be no survivors to talk about what happened in the camps.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55:14Jocko Willink?

  I asked the man how he survived. If everyone else died, he tells me that he was too ill to get up, so he hid in the back of the barracks and no one noticed him.

• 1:55:23Jocko Willink?

  Poor Fischel came within days of liberation only to be slaughtered by the Nazis.

• 1:55:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55:31Jocko Willink?

  Later, another local man returns with news of our father. This man was with Tata in a factory, where Tata had become very sick. He had sores on his legs that would not heal. Because Tata did not recover and could not work, they shipped him back to Auschwitz, where he was murdered.

• 1:55:49Jocko Willink?

  I repeatedly think about him and the injustice, wondering if he was scared. My brave intelligence, intelligent father's face swims in my mind. I wonder if he thought of us before he died.

• 1:56:00Speaker 01

  I'm sure he did.

• 1:56:01Jocko Willink?

  Sure he did.

• 1:56:04Jocko Willink?

  The fate of our immediate family is now clear. Of the 11 Schwartz family members taken, there are only three who survived. Over time, we get word of our extended family. Our wonderful family of nearly 150 is reduced to only 11 survivors.

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, I maybe, may have been more than 150 people. Because in those days, you know, Jewish families, they, they, they did not believe in contraceptives. They didn't use those, and so everybody had a lot of kids. And my mother and my father, they each had three or four, or maybe five sisters and brothers. So, and the only ones that came back, maybe a dozen of us, that we know of. There may have been other survivors that we may, may not know about, okay? That lived in different places, because in those days, there was not much, uh, when you

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  lived in different cities, we did not keep in touch too much, so.

• 1:57:26Jocko Willink?

  So you hear about, um, the Central British Fund?

• 1:57:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:57:32Jocko Willink?

  And they have a program where they're taking orphaned survivor children from the Holocaust and bringing them to England.

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:57:43Jocko Willink?

  And you apply for this program, this is, they, it says, uh, so they're called the CF, CBF. Despite the CBF's attempt to gather a thousand survivor orphans, they can only locate 732.

• 1:57:58Speaker 01

  Thirty-two kids, right.

• 1:58:01Jocko Willink?

  On February 19th, 1946, I joined the last transport of survivors to load into Royal Air Force planes.

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  They were all bomber planes. It used to, used, for transporting us. The first transport started in August of 1945, and the last transport was, uh, 1946, February 12th, and I was in the last transport.

• 1:58:27Jocko Willink?

  And so, uh, there was only 732?

• 1:58:29Speaker 01

  Yes, that's, that's all they could find, yes. Or only that registered for the program.

• 1:58:35Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  So maybe there were more, but we, I, I don't know why they didn't register, or...

• 1:58:44Jocko Willink?

  So you fly across and you end up in uh

• 1:58:48Speaker 01

  Scotland.

• 1:58:48Jocko Willink?

  Scotland.

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58:49Jocko Willink?

  At the Polton House.

• 1:58:51Speaker 01

  Right, in Las Vade. Town is called Las Vade.

• 1:58:57Jocko Willink?

  You say here, "In this unexpected start to a new life, we have no parents and most of us have no siblings, but we have each other."

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:59:03Jocko Willink?

  "We all stick together, we become like family. This simple life falls into a pattern of predictable, safe days which comforts all of us. We are encouraged to have fun and relax together. All of us are eager to feel normal again with our new family.

• 1:59:19Jocko Willink?

  Our days are routine and comforting. The counselors talk to us about our new life and what to expect now. We need a long-term plan."

• 1:59:31Speaker 01

  Well, the only plans we had is hopefully maybe going, getting, coming to America or going to Israel. Okay? Because all our cities that we came from, they were the past.

• 1:59:56Jocko Willink?

  When um

• 1:59:59Jocko Willink?

  like I said, there's both, both you and Max have sections in this book and the Max's section describes what he went through.

• 2:00:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:00:12Jocko Willink?

  And you know, it's a similar start. An edict is nailed to the trees around the village that all Jews report to the nearby ghetto.

• 2:00:22Jocko Willink?

  His dad does a pretty good maneuver where he basically bribes one of the Germans and says, "Hey, my family can work. All of us can work." And gets the whole family sent to Commando Flossenberg, which is a forced labor company.

• 2:00:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  And he says, um, they, they go into this kind of self-contained, all Jewish work camp. And even though they don't get paid, like, they're not being tortured. They, they, they view this as a good thing that they're in this forced labor camp.

• 2:01:00Speaker 01

  Right, well, they need their labor also.

• 2:01:05Jocko Willink?

  He works there for about a year.

• 2:01:13Jocko Willink?

  And then they get told that they're gonna get moved. So they have to break down all the equipment that they're using in his factory. They load it onto trucks. They move it from the trucks to a, to a salt mine. Which was a bad decision by the Germans because inside the salt mine, all the equipment starts to rust almost immediately. So they have to break it down and pack it up again, which they do. And

• 2:01:43Jocko Willink?

  then they get shipped off again. I'll read this little section here. Soon after donning our blue and white uniform, we enter a long line that moves very slowly. Each person exits the front of the line. I can see them examining their forearm. One man shows us his forearm and blurts in Yiddish. They are tattooing these letters on our arms. How will God view this? He must be an Orthodox Jew. Our faith forbids us to have tattoos. In this moment, I am thankful that we are not Orthodox and were raised to be more relaxed about our faith. I can see the pain on the man's face. Dad assures him, God would never punish you for something you cannot control. The tattoo on his forearm says KL. I intend to find out what that means. So we are waiting in line for a tattoo.

• 2:02:25Jocko Willink?

  I wonder why we need a tattoo here if we didn't need one at the last camp. This new camp is worse in so many ways already. Dad and the other men quickly find out from the inmates that KL is shortened from the word concentration logger.

• 2:02:41Speaker 01

  Concentrazio's Lager, yeah. Which means concentration.

• 2:02:44Jocko Willink?

  Concentration camp.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:02:46Jocko Willink?

  The tattoo identifies us as prisoners of a concentration camp. Dad feared we would end up here.

• 2:02:55Jocko Willink?

  So

• 2:02:57Jocko Willink?

  Max ends up in a work, as a worker. Ends up, since he's small, he's only 14 years old, ends up working inside of airplane wings.

• 2:03:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:09Jocko Willink?

  He says the Poles hate us and will not help us in any way. Cause he, once again, he's working alongside of Polish people, who are normal, normal Polish civilians.

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:23Jocko Willink?

  Every night we lay on the straw, teeming with lice and bedbugs. There are 300 boys and men per barrack, all of whom are suffering the same challenges. Bug bites make it difficult to sleep at night, and in daytime they cause itchy irritation. In addition, we must wear the same uniform for a month before we get a new one. Getting rid of the bugs is impossible. Sanitation in the labor camp is awful. There is a cold water trough where we rinse our hands and face. There is no soap. There are no showers. Latrines are pits with a wooden board over them. The board has a round opening for us to squat over, but there is no toilet paper. So many people use the latrine, it always stinks. Jewish inmates are assigned to clean it. In fact, I realize now that Jews are doing all the work in the camp. The guards are just directing them.

• 2:04:10Jocko Willink?

  Lunch is a bowl of soup. Dinner is three or four ounces of bread. Everyone in the camp is weak and malnourished. We go to work no matter what. Everyone knows prisoners who cannot work are shot or sent to the gas chamber.

• 2:04:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, they didn't keep us here to have a good time.

• 2:04:35Jocko Willink?

  Ends up in another concentration camp called Plaza?

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  Plashev.

• 2:04:41Jocko Willink?

  Plashev.

• 2:04:45Jocko Willink?

  The rumor in the camp is that the Russians are now close to Warsaw and are threatening to override the Germans. The Allies are coming. Poland and Germany are bracing for attack. The soldiers here are more tense than at the other camps. We need to be very careful not to test their patience because they become more explosive with every little provocation now. At this camp, we are to do work, not in a factory. Instead, we move around the city to dig ditches and build fortifications for the German troops.

• 2:05:18Jocko Willink?

  Once again, you're doing something that's gonna help the people that are that are torturing you and killing you.

• 2:05:24Speaker 01

  We have no choice.

• 2:05:32Jocko Willink?

  Ends up getting moved again. And again, you gotta read this book to get this story. I'm going through the high points of it right now, or the low points, I guess, but in the end, he gets transport again, and Auschwitz is the destination.

• 2:05:49Jocko Willink?

  But the train comes to rest in, near Dresden.

• 2:05:54Jocko Willink?

  We remain at this location for nearly a year. We work in the factory. Our work in the factory is consistent and comfortably predictable. We hear with increasing frequency that, from the grapevine, that the Allies are closer. Even some of the local Germans talk about what will happen if Allies enter Dresden.

• 2:06:12Jocko Willink?

  The night of February 13, 1945, the Allied saturation bombing of Dresden begins. The sky lights up with flares from the first wave of planes. Subsequent waves of bombers drop phosphorus bombs that cause fires after exploding. The entire city has become a giant torch. When our factory housing gets hit, fire spreads quickly. Pandemonium breaks out as we prisoners run down the stairs to the bomb shelters. The words "Survive, survive, survive" repeat in my head like a comforting chant.

• 2:06:46Jocko Willink?

  Two days later, the bombing is finally over. When we crawl out of the bomb shelter, we see that the factory is half gone, and the accommodations upstairs for the inmates is lost. We must now sleep with no roof. It's literally freezing temperatures, and we have no blankets. So yeah, that's, um, that's the bombing of Dresden.

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:07:03Jocko Willink?

  Which was a historical, uh, you know, that's, they bombed with these incendiary bombs which caught fire. And I wanna say 250,000 people were killed in those, in that bombing.

• 2:07:18Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 2:07:19Jocko Willink?

  And a lot of civilians, mostly civilians. And, you know, people look at that in various different ways, but at this point in the war, it was a decision that was made. I think Churchill really drove that decision. Cause the Germans, the Nazis had been bombing and killing civilians in England.

• 2:07:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:07:36Jocko Willink?

  And he said, "Okay." Well.

• 2:07:38Speaker 01

  Our turn.

• 2:07:39Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and that's what they did and of course Kurt Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five book is about coming out of the um coming out of the POW camps prisons prison camps after that as well. Because everything was just destroyed.

• 2:07:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, they they were bombing that city for two days.

• 2:08:06Jocko Willink?

  He gets moved around again and yeah.

• 2:08:16Jocko Willink?

  They go on a um they get marched.

• 2:08:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:08:20Jocko Willink?

  They go on and and I got I gotta read this section. After a few days, the German SS soldiers with their guns on their shoulders round up the commando group. And this is them, the Commando Frozenberg group again, and we set off on a forced march. We are three hundred to three hundred and fifty men. Marching through the forest into Czechoslovakia. The march takes a few weeks, but feels more like a year, and it is ghastly for our group. We march on one side of the river, watching bombs explode on the other side. With snow on the ground, all of us are freezing as we climb up the mountains. I can't feel my toes and try to walk with my hands tucked into my armpits. We get very little to eat, and we are all starving. We march through several towns as people stand on the side of the road and silently watch.

• 2:09:02Jocko Willink?

  We are told not to speak to the townspeople or accept anything from them, or else we will be shot. Not one person offers us anything, no food, or jackets, or boots, or blankets. It is a disastrous death march from bombed out Dresden to Litomiris. I see men fall, give up and die, or sit down and refuse to go on. These people are all shot. Dad's health declines and he is in bad shape. He is very weak and cannot walk alone. Fred and I support him on either side with his arms over over our shoulders. We get tired after hours of assisting him with other men.

• 2:09:43Jocko Willink?

  When we get tired after hours of assisting him, other men from our group help hold him up. The Germans stuff us in a barn in a barn in a sub camp. Our first two nights after the death march. At long last, we are given a small amount of food, which is our first food in eight to 10 days. We sleep on the dirt floors, squashed together to try and stay warm. Our first night's sleep in almost 10 days. No one cares about the abhorrent living conditions, and we are completely exhausted and barely alive. Two days later, when we arrive at the ghetto in late March of 1945, there are only about 80 of our group who are still alive after the forced death march.

• 2:10:26Jocko Willink?

  The rest are dead.

• 2:10:28Speaker 01

  Out of 300.

• 2:10:40Jocko Willink?

  So...

• 2:10:43Jocko Willink?

  I mean, at this point, they're, they're put into another camp, you know. Max says here, "Everyone is near death, completely exhausted and starving. The camp is overcrowded, filthy, and disorganized." They get marched to a place called the fa- the Small Fortress, which was just another nightmarish hell.

• 2:11:13Jocko Willink?

  On May 8th, and again, I'm skipping forward, but you gotta get this book to, to, to read through what actually happened. On May 8th, 1945, Soviet troops enter the Small Fortress to liberate the camps.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  Tereschenstadt.

• 2:11:27Jocko Willink?

  In Tereschenstadt.

• 2:11:28Speaker 01

  Tereschenstadt.

• 2:11:29Jocko Willink?

  What is that, the name of the town?

• 2:11:30Speaker 01

  Uh huh. Tereschen.

• 2:11:34Jocko Willink?

  "Could this be the day we had waited so long for? The troops are indeed here to liberate us. Our imprisonment at the hands of the Germans is over at last. Even the weakest of us is celebrating to know we are finally, finally free. We did survive. We are no longer captives, prisoners and slaves to the German Nazis." The three of us, so it's Max, Fred, and, and the dad, their dad, despite all the odds, have survived to today's liberation, although dad is very likely at death's door.

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:03Jocko Willink?

  "I can now proudly wear dad's gold watch chain rather than hide it." And again, there's a incredible story, and it's a, it's a similar story to yours in that your dad, uh, Max's dad had a chain, except for Max kept it with him the whole time.

• 2:12:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:12:17Jocko Willink?

  And him and his brother Fred traded it back and forth and kept it and hid it. Over all that time and now he's able to take that watch chain out and actually wear it. Um, he says this, "We slowly came to the realization that Dad did not survive the typhus epidemic. Fred and I share a long knowing look. We both know. I can see it in his eyes. Benjamin Schindler is dead. After a quiet period, we begin talking about what likely happened. I hope that Dad lived long enough to know liberation." Fred believes this is true. He says after liberation, people wander around looking confused, relieved and angry, and all have questions about their loved ones.

• 2:13:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Max and Fred, they were, uh, they were, came down with typhoid. So they kept them six weeks in one place. And by the time they came out of this disease, they could get up and go outside. They looked for the father and there was nowhere. Couldn't find him anywhere. So a lot of people died, a lot of people died after liberation. Okay? And they buried a lot of people in Terrasine, but they had no names because none of us had names in the camps. I mean, when we were in Terrasine and, and, and Freudenthal, we

• 2:13:38Speaker 01

  had the names, but we didn't have it on our clothes or anything. So most camps, no, you didn't have the names on your clothes or anything.

• 2:13:50Jocko Willink?

  There's no way to identify.

• 2:13:51Speaker 01

  No way to identify.

• 2:13:52Jocko Willink?

  No family to identify.

• 2:13:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:13:54Jocko Willink?

  So when someone died, it was just a

• 2:13:55Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 2:13:56Jocko Willink?

  Nameless body.

• 2:13:57Speaker 01

  Right. So that's what happened to Max's father.

• 2:14:04Jocko Willink?

  He says here, "With the help of the Red Cross, we find out that Mom and Cecilia went to Stutthof."

• 2:14:10Speaker 01

  Stutthof.

• 2:14:11Jocko Willink?

  Stutthof, a camp in East Prussia. That concentration camp reportedly expanded several times, adding more barracks and extermination chambers during the war. They tell us that Rochella?

• 2:14:21Speaker 01

  Rochella.

• 2:14:22Jocko Willink?

  Rochella and Cecilia Schindler, Schindler were killed there. Just before liberation, all surviving inmates were loaded onto barges, pushed out into the Baltic Sea and were deliberately sunk.

• 2:14:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:14:36Jocko Willink?

  Our worst fear is realized. We worried about mom and Cecilia's safety every day. We were suffering in the camps, keeping hope alive that they would survive. Learning with certainty that they are dead is a tremendous blow. The Red Cross also investigated, the Red Cross also investigated our family in Poland that went into the ghetto. They tell us that our cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandma Schwied. Saying that right, Schwied?

• 2:15:02Speaker 01

  Schwied.

• 2:15:02Jocko Willink?

  Schwied, were all killed. None of them survived. We also find out that our dear grandpa Schindler refused to go into a ghetto when the Jews were rounded up in 1942. He was shot in the street near his home.

• 2:15:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:15:17Jocko Willink?

  At ninety years old, he refused to leave his home. We now know that our whole family is gone. Murdered by the German Nazis. Dad is dead, mom and Cecilia are gone. Our extended family no longer exists. It is just Fred and me in the world. All that remains from our former life is the gold chain that dad wore to hold his watch.

• 2:15:58Speaker 01

  It's not an easy book to read.

• 2:16:00Jocko Willink?

  No, it's not.

• 2:16:05Speaker 01

  I've read it so many times. And yet, every time I, I break out in tears. I can't help it.

• 2:16:15Jocko Willink?

  I mean, both, both for

• 2:16:19Jocko Willink?

  to, to, to hear and read about both of your family and Max's family. The entire family's gone.

• 2:16:30Speaker 01

  Wiped out, for no reason, just because they were Jewish.

• 2:16:36Speaker 01

  The world doesn't realize what they've lost. Who knows? Maybe one of those people could have been a doctor who would have found the cure for cancer. Because we believe a lot in education. Okay?

• 2:17:00Jocko Willink?

  Max finds out about the same program that you were enrolled into.

• 2:17:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:17:06Jocko Willink?

  Of looking for orphan survivors. And

• 2:17:14Jocko Willink?

  the maximum age for that group is sixteen, Fred is seventeen, so Fred and Max decide they're gonna lie about their ages to get in there.

• 2:17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had no IDs, we had nothing, all we had was

• 2:17:27Speaker 01

  the clothes on our bodies, nothing else, no identification of any kind.

• 2:17:33Jocko Willink?

  So Max, you know, Max gets to England and again, you just gotta read the book to go through that transition of what it's like to go from a from a concentration camp to England.

• 2:17:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:17:47Jocko Willink?

  With white sheets and white bread and he's got a part of there where he explains he thinks white bread is basically like cake.

• 2:17:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:17:54Jocko Willink?

  He thinks they're making sandwiches on cake because it tastes so delicious to him.

• 2:18:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just, just, it's a really, it's just powerful.

• 2:18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:04Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, one of the things that I, I called out in here is that, he says, we attend school, we attended organization for rehabilitation rehabilitation and training school for half a day, five days a week, the school is designed to prepare us for life and work and, and, you know, I just read that as his focus, and it seems like everyone's focus was like, okay, we're gonna move forward, we gotta find a new job, we gotta find out how we're gonna put our lives together.

• 2:18:29Speaker 01

  You have to do that, if you don't, you're lost.

• 2:18:36Jocko Willink?

  And there's also, what's the name of Mr. Montefiore, am I saying that right?

• 2:18:44Speaker 01

  Montefiore.

• 2:18:45Jocko Willink?

  And what was his position?

• 2:18:46Speaker 01

  He was a, he was a wealthy Jewish philanthropist in London. And he offered to take us to England.

• 2:18:57Jocko Willink?

  He was kinda supplying a lot of the financial backing behind.

• 2:19:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yes.

• 2:19:04Speaker 01

  Actually, Sir Leonard Montefiore walked me down the aisle when we got married in London. Because I had no parents, and so he offered to do that.

• 2:19:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that's why I definitely wanted to call out his name, because I knew he was an important figure.

• 2:19:22Speaker 01

  Very important figure. Oh, yes. He was a very important person in England, and a very important person in Israel. Have you ever been to Israel?

• 2:19:32Jocko Willink?

  I have not.

• 2:19:33Speaker 01

  In Israel, many of the cities have a lot of... Sir Leonard Montefiore is all over the place, but he built this and he built that, and all kinds of things.

• 2:19:46Jocko Willink?

  You guys, there's a great line in here again, you know, it's, "The counselors tell us that we did not deserve the suffering that we endured, that it cannot stop us now, and that we can be anything we want to if we are willing to work hard."

• 2:19:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:20:00Jocko Willink?

  Which is just, you know, again, the mentality of, "Look, we gotta move forward."

• 2:20:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:20:08Jocko Willink?

  And also, it's interesting, you can be anything you want, but you still have to be willing to work hard, even after everything you've been through. You're still gonna have to get out there and work.

• 2:20:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And we did, and we did, all of us. Let me tell you something.

• 2:20:24Speaker 01

  If you're gonna count all the survivors that remained from all the people that were killed, and that came to this United States, okay, I bet you not one would have gone on welfare. Because the first thing they did, get a job, okay?

• 2:20:44Speaker 01

  Our education was very low. I mean, I had three and a half years of edu... close to four years of education.

• 2:20:53Speaker 01

  I never even thought of going back to school, and it wasn't even on my mind. First of all, in Europe, we only had education till the age of 14. Even though I didn't have it in Europe, because we couldn't go after I was like nine years old. But we all worked very hard to get where we are, okay?

• 2:21:15Jocko Willink?

  You do a, you do a great job of going through like kinda how all this stuff unfolds and it's, it's really just a beautiful part of the book when you, there's five of you girls that show up in, where is it Bedford Hostel? And it's a bunch of, a bunch of the young men survivors. That's when you, uh, well, that's when you, that's when you meet one handsome young gentleman who says hello, I'm Max and this is my brother Fred.

• 2:21:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:44Jocko Willink?

  Welcome to Bedford.

• 2:21:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:47Jocko Willink?

  And, uh.

• 2:21:48Speaker 01

  When I saw him, I said, I'm gonna marry him.

• 2:21:52Jocko Willink?

  You made the call, huh?

• 2:21:53Speaker 01

  I made the call. Of course, he already had a girlfriend because all the girls from Bedford, the town, the non-Jewish girls, they would come to the, to the hostel. They liked the Jewish boys.

• 2:22:05Jocko Willink?

  So you had to, uh.

• 2:22:07Speaker 01

  I had to wait. It took me, it took me time. It took me some time, but I got him.

• 2:22:10Jocko Willink?

  Test your patience.

• 2:22:11Speaker 01

  Right. That's what you need to do in life.

• 2:22:16Jocko Willink?

  But you gotta go after what you want.

• 2:22:17Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 2:22:18Jocko Willink?

  Gotta take a little risk sometimes.

• 2:22:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:22:19Jocko Willink?

  Coming from Rose.

• 2:22:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:22:22Jocko Willink?

  You, uh, you, uh, you get jobs, you learn English. Now you moved to London. Who is it that moves to London? Is it, is it you, Max and Fred that all moved to London together?

• 2:22:31Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes, we did.

• 2:22:34Jocko Willink?

  And.

• 2:22:35Speaker 01

  Because the hostel was closing. The kids were leaving. They were, they were finding relatives in the United States. They're going to Israel. They're going to Australia. You know, because we were all orphans and a lot of us remembered we had relatives here, there and everywhere. Okay? So, uh, a lot of them, so a lot of us from England, you know, came to England and then we went over to the United States and.

• 2:23:03Jocko Willink?

  You, uh, you guys get married, you say it, that, that, when you guys get married, your receptions, 95% of the guests are survivors of the hostel.

• 2:23:11Speaker 01

  They're all survivors.

• 2:23:14Speaker 01

  We kind of stuck together. You know what I mean?

• 2:23:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:19Speaker 01

  We were in hostels together and then even when we came to London, we did not live in a hostel. They, you know, they put us in private homes and the organization would pay for our upkeep.

• 2:23:32Jocko Willink?

  You uh, you go on a honeymoon, is it a honeymoon when you guys go to Paris?

• 2:23:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:23:37Jocko Willink?

  You say, "I never thought I could be this happy again after all we lived through in the camps. As we head back to England, I think of my parents and wonder if they were ever this happy. Thinking of my parents makes me miss them for a moment and I am sad. But then we arrive at our destination and the thought, sad thoughts are pushed aside in favor of hope for the future." This is such a common theme that you talk about all the time. That you're not gonna get caught up in the past. It's not that you're gonna forget about the past, but you're not gonna dwell there.

• 2:24:10Speaker 01

  Right, well you cannot get go, you cannot, life is to look forward for better things. I mean, if you're gonna look to the past all the time, it's not gonna get you anywhere, okay? So we just have to hope for the best and do the best we can.

• 2:24:30Jocko Willink?

  You say here, "London is a fun city for us. We have lots of friends and enjoy our jobs. Five years have flown by since leaving the hostel and we are so happy for our new life here together." And again, I'm fast forwarding through a bunch of really, really good stuff. And then you say, "One night, over a wonderful dinner of fish and chips, Max proclaims, 'Rose, I think it's time for us to move to America.'" His statement takes me by surprise. Max periodically talked about moving to America since we met. "We talk about America as a destination for someday, but I never considered that someday might be today." He told me that his father had been trying to get the family immigration visas before the Germans rounded up all the Jews. "I don't know, Max, what we do in America."

• 2:25:15Jocko Willink?

  "Whatever we want," he tells me with a smile. So that was your vision of America?

• 2:25:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:25:22Jocko Willink?

  Was we're gonna go there and...

• 2:25:25Speaker 01

  Yes, that was our hope.

• 2:25:30Speaker 01

  The uncle I had, he didn't offer to bring us. But Max's family offered to bring us, sent us affidavits.

• 2:25:38Jocko Willink?

  What were the affidavits for?

• 2:25:40Speaker 01

  To come to America.

• 2:25:42Jocko Willink?

  So they just got a sign that, hey, we're gonna...

• 2:25:44Speaker 01

  Responsible for you.

• 2:25:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:25:46Speaker 01

  They were responsible for us for five years. Okay?

• 2:25:51Speaker 01

  So, of course, when we came to America, we spoke perfect English already. Within three, four days, we had jobs. You know, we've already grown up.

• 2:26:00Jocko Willink?

  Land of opportunity.

• 2:26:01Speaker 01

  Land of oppo... lots of opportunities here, right?

• 2:26:07Jocko Willink?

  Although, I thought, well, maybe you can expand on this a little bit because, well, first of all, October 3rd, 1951, Rose and I, this is Max talking, Rose and I wear, both wear our father's watch chains as we leave the apartment. When we reach New York City on October 12th, my uncle and second cousins meet us at the dock and put us up in a Manhattan hotel for two nights. Our hotel window looks out into a junkyard, which makes us want to check out as soon as possible. After a quick breakfast on our second full day in America, my uncle gives us $20 and says, "Good luck, you're on your own."

• 2:26:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:26:38Jocko Willink?

  From then on, we will never stay a family again. I do not feel we need them. We can make it here in America on our own as long as Rose and I have each other.

• 2:26:48Speaker 01

  I tell you, we were very lucky to have these relatives. Okay, Max's family, they were really amazing people, okay? And we loved each other deeply, okay? They welcomed us like their own kids. Thank God, we never needed their help.

• 2:27:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome. So, so he gets a job at a scale company, working on making, making scales.

• 2:27:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:27:16Jocko Willink?

  And then he, he notices some, some little upgrowing company called International Business Machines, or IBM.

• 2:27:24Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 2:27:25Jocko Willink?

  He realizes, maybe that could be a good job. He gets involved in that.

• 2:27:33Jocko Willink?

  You end up passing out one time on the train, get to go to the doctor. And then, and then Max says, when Rose calls me the next day, she tells me there's nothing at all to worry about. Excitedly, she says, the doctor says that there's only one thing going on with me, and that is that I am pregnant.

• 2:27:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:27:55Jocko Willink?

  1955. Max decides he's gonna come and check out a little place called San Diego, California.

• 2:28:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:28:03Jocko Willink?

  We all know what happens when you come to San Diego for

• 2:28:05Speaker 01

  Nobody wants to leave.

• 2:28:06Jocko Willink?

  Nobody wants to leave, Max included. And then you arrived in April of 1956 with baby Roxanne. And then you end up with a place in North Park.

• 2:28:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:28:18Jocko Willink?

  You get a job at Golden State Fabrics.

• 2:28:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:28:23Jocko Willink?

  And then you start, you start raising your family.

• 2:28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:26Jocko Willink?

  Ben arrives in 1957, who I met today.

• 2:28:31Speaker 01

  It was the second, I have a daughter who's 65 years old. And Ben is 62.

• 2:28:39Speaker 01

  So we came to San Diego in 1956. I came to San, Max came Christmas time. He came for a three day visit and he never went back to New York. He calls me two days later, he says, Rose, we're moving to San Diego. He got a job at Solar.

• 2:28:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:28:56Speaker 01

  Okay. And worked for Solar for five years and then

• 2:29:03Speaker 01

  he went to General Dynamics. He retired after working at General Dynamics for 28 years.

• 2:29:11Jocko Willink?

  Good, good, uh, good career and a great place to settle down.

• 2:29:17Speaker 01

  So we lived in North Park for six months and then we bought a house in Allied Gardens.

• 2:29:23Jocko Willink?

  You know, I'm gonna take a little aside here. You say this.

• 2:29:30Jocko Willink?

  You say, occasionally I still wonder if there is a God. How could there be with all the terror that happened to us and to others? Surely God would not have allowed it. When I think about this, it makes me angry. I ask myself why God would have allowed the Holocaust to happen and I never come up with an answer. I cannot sort out with what I feel. So this question has to be put aside to allow me to continue with all the good in my life.

• 2:29:58Speaker 01

  That's a very big question.

• 2:30:03Speaker 01

  Losing so many people.

• 2:30:07Speaker 01

  Complete families wiped out. There were so many complete families wiped out.

• 2:30:15Jocko Willink?

  You know, the one woman that talked to you inside Auschwitz that said, "You will never make any sense of this because it doesn't make any sense."

• 2:30:28Jocko Willink?

  Like, "This is too insane to understand."

• 2:30:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:30:32Jocko Willink?

  Too, you can't comprehend it because it's incomprehensible.

• 2:30:35Speaker 01

  It is, it is.

• 2:30:37Jocko Willink?

  I mean, we're sitting here talking about, you know, you and your direct family. And then you multiply it times two to get you and your direct family and Max and his direct family. But then you have to do that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.

• 2:30:52Speaker 01

  Times, right.

• 2:30:52Jocko Willink?

  Over and over again. And every one of those unidentified bodies that got buried in a mass grave with no identification and no family. Every one of those, and you know, this is something I talk about a lot. Because it happens in war all the time. "Oh, there was, there was, uh, 22 soldiers killed." "Oh, there was, you know, 428 soldiers killed on this attack in World War I."

• 2:31:19Jocko Willink?

  Those aren't just soldiers. You know, those are people.

• 2:31:22Speaker 01

  Of course not, absolutely.

• 2:31:24Jocko Willink?

  And these people, these bodies, unidentified bodies. Every one of them had a family, had hopes and had dreams.

• 2:31:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 2:31:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:43Jocko Willink?

  Max convinces, it sounds like he kind of convinces Fred to come out. And move to, move to California. It sounds like Fred had a harder time after...

• 2:31:56Speaker 01

  He did.

• 2:31:59Speaker 01

  He did, he had a harder time. He lost his hair in the camp. So after liberation, his hair never came back. And he was more... A lot of people are more obsessed from the past.

• 2:32:17Speaker 01

  The best thing is sometimes to forget some, you know? Not to think always about the past because you want to go ahead.

• 2:32:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a thing that I talk to people when I talk about loss, right? Because I've lost a lot of friends. And when people ask me about how they handle that,

• 2:32:39Jocko Willink?

  I tell them to remember, but don't dwell. So we never want to forget what happened.

• 2:32:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:32:47Jocko Willink?

  But we don't want to, as you're saying, we don't want to sit there in the past because we need to think about the future.

• 2:32:53Speaker 01

  Right, absolutely, absolutely.

• 2:32:56Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Max says, "We don't really talk about the camps much at all. Our friends don't want to hear about the atrocities and we don't want to relive them. Even in our survivors group, it's not a big subject. It is difficult to talk about losing absolutely everything. Your home, your family, everything you own, even your family photos. For most Jewish families, the only people to survive are those who left Europe or hid. Our circumstances are rare. Even Rose and I have an unspoken agreement not to speak of it between us. We both understand and do not need to talk about it. We are focused on going forward.

• 2:33:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:33:29Jocko Willink?

  Looking ahead and working on everything together.

• 2:33:34Speaker 01

  That's, that's what life is all about.

• 2:33:39Jocko Willink?

  Uh, when you talked about, again, just, just Max's career, then he said, and he's, one of the things that he said about his career, he said, "I want my children to see that anything is possible with determination, hard work, and an eagerness to learn."

• 2:33:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:33:58Speaker 01

  If Max, if the war wouldn't have been affecting Max so badly and his whole family, he would have been really something very special.

• 2:34:10Speaker 01

  He was a very smart man.

• 2:34:13Speaker 01

  So, I mean, also, we, we have no education. There were a lot of big plans for the Schindler boys and, and before the war, okay? Of course, it all went to hell.

• 2:34:28Jocko Willink?

  When you...

• 2:34:32Jocko Willink?

  Your son Steve's thirteen years old. And tell us about what happened there that kinda changed the direction of your life a little bit.

• 2:34:39Speaker 01

  Well, he was in the Anne Frank story. And he played the part of Peter, okay? And the teacher found out that his parents are Holocaust survivors at Lewis Junior High in Allied Gardens. And that's when I started speaking about the Holocaust. Before, we didn't want to talk about it, okay? Because life goes on. And so we didn't want to even tell our kids a lot about what happened. So when Steve was in this play, they started calling me to go out and talk about the Holocaust. So that's... And I've been speaking there, that's close to fifty years now. Steve is sixty-two.

• 2:35:25Speaker 01

  No, he's six... No, excuse me, he's sixty. Ben is sixty-two. Steve is gonna be sixty-one next month. So you can imagine how many years I've been speaking about the Holocaust.

• 2:35:36Jocko Willink?

  Well, one thing that you said in here that I think

• 2:35:40Jocko Willink?

  really is a bold statement. You say, "The Germans did not succeed in their endeavor to silence the Jews or prevent anyone from telling of their atrocities. I am one of the few who remain, and I can tell the world."

• 2:35:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:35:53Jocko Willink?

  A-T-two-five-eight-nine-three on my forearm has a new value.

• 2:35:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:35:59Jocko Willink?

  And I am not one to pass up an opportunity. This may be my first time speaking, but I will find more places to share my story. That's what you said after you got done speaking to those kids

• 2:36:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:36:10Jocko Willink?

  for the first time.

• 2:36:18Jocko Willink?

  You were talking to Max after you did the... After you talked to the kids.

• 2:36:23Speaker 01

  The first time.

• 2:36:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you guys were having this conversation. And this is Max talking, he says, um... He's asking you, you know, what were they asking you about? He says, "What else did they ask?" And it says, "Rose thought for a moment before responding." "One child asked, 'Why do I think I survived Auschwitz?'" She says softly. "The fact that a child asks this is interesting to me. Sometimes children say things that adults won't." "I know that Rose has thought about this before, so I'm interested to hear her answer." I push a little further. "And what was your answer?" I ask quietly.

• 2:36:58Jocko Willink?

  "It's a miracle that I survived Auschwitz." "Also, I really do think part of it is because I kept looking out and trying new things." "I would not give up." "I just continued and never gave up hope."

• 2:37:15Jocko Willink?

  As I process her words, she squeezes my hands across the table and says, "You did the exact same thing." This takes me aback for a moment. "It is true." "But I've never thought about my time in the camps in this way before." "It really is true that you don't know when the next attempt at survival might be the one that succeeds," I say. I smile and squeeze her hand back. "You really are amazing, Rose."

• 2:37:44Jocko Willink?

  "We got to this place together, Max," Rose replies, before placing a kiss on my cheek. We sit silently for a moment, as we both ponder how our lives could have been different. Before this moment is broken, I squeeze her hand to get her attention. "We have climbed mountains I did not know we could climb." "We made it, Rose."

• 2:38:08Jocko Willink?

  "We made it."

• 2:38:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:38:17Jocko Willink?

  And, um, actually, as we, as we

• 2:38:20Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 2:38:22Jocko Willink?

  Came in, I'm sorry, Rose.

• 2:38:25Speaker 01

  He's gone over three years now. We married sixty-seven years.

• 2:38:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, I think that the incredible life that you shared together is something that is a beautiful story. And Ben, when he came in, he said he'd been, he'd said he'd been listening to the podcast a little bit to kind of get a, get a feel for it and talk to you a little bit about what it was gonna be like. And he was listening to one of the podcasts. And one of the podcasts, what I was saying in the podcast was, keep moving forward. Like, hey, things are gonna be hard, you keep moving forward. And he actually brought in a photograph of, of Max's tombstone. And it has the single quote that Max, you know, that, that the family decided to put

• 2:39:17Jocko Willink?

  on the gravestone was, "Live day to day and keep moving forward." And, and I gotta say, like I said, this whole thing got started when my wife went and saw you speak. And, and just, just looking at this book, you, you know, you didn't know her at the time, but you made a little inscription to my wife. And it just says, "Helen, never give up hope." Signed, Rose Schindler. And I think that...

• 2:39:57Speaker 01

  Did I write that down?

• 2:39:59Jocko Willink?

  You wrote that right there.

• 2:40:00Speaker 01

  No kidding? Never give up hope, yeah?

• 2:40:03Jocko Willink?

  Never give up hope. So, I mean, I think that, really, between never give up hope and keep moving forward, those are...

• 2:40:16Speaker 01

  Very strong sayings.

• 2:40:18Jocko Willink?

  Strong sayings. And, and you and Max are shining examples of how to actually do that.

• 2:40:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:40:26Jocko Willink?

  How to actually do that in life. I know I've had you trapped in here for a while.

• 2:40:35Jocko Willink?

  You have a website. The name of the book is To Who Survived.

• 2:40:39Speaker 01

  ToWhoSurvived.com.

• 2:40:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so there's a website called ToWhoSurvived.com. The book is available there. The book is available on Amazon. We'll have a link to it so people can get it through our, uh, through our website to make it easy for them because they know our podcast website is Jocko Podcast.

• 2:40:57Jocko Willink?

  You also have social media. So despite the fact that you're not quite a teenager anymore, you still have Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and all those are, are at To Who Survived. It's the, it's the written out T W O Who Survived.

• 2:41:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:41:19Jocko Willink?

  And the book, I'm telling you, I read a little, I read a fraction of the book today. There's so many details in there. The stories, the two intertwining stories are so moving. They're so powerful, you know, and it's, and like I said, it reads like a story. It reads like.

• 2:41:37Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a real story.

• 2:41:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:39Speaker 01

  Exactly what happened.

• 2:41:40Jocko Willink?

  And the language is just, it feels like you're sitting across the table hearing it firsthand.

• 2:41:45Speaker 01

  The language is actually, we did this for middle school.

• 2:41:49Jocko Willink?

  Well, it was perfect for me then.

• 2:41:50Speaker 01

  Yes, it's perfect for everybody, I guess, but we thought it's so important for us to tell it to the kids at school. What happened to us. Okay?

• 2:42:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's, um, it's, it's a beautiful book. I mean, despite the fact that it's filled with horror, it still is a beautiful book about, about the strength of, of, that human beings can display.

• 2:42:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:42:15Jocko Willink?

  Even in the face of the evil of other human beings.

• 2:42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:21Jocko Willink?

  Do you have any, uh, any closing thoughts, Rose? Because I, I don't want to keep you in here forever.

• 2:42:25Speaker 01

  I want to thank you for doing that. I hope people will enjoy your, your story. Okay?

• 2:42:36Speaker 01

  I don't even know where it, if I turn on my, uh, it's not a radio. I don't even know what you call it.

• 2:42:44Jocko Willink?

  I'll explain, I'll explain to Ben how to get it done.

• 2:42:47Speaker 01

  Well, we have, we have, since Max passed away, I don't even use my.

• 2:42:53Speaker 01

  Not a radio, it's a whole set.

• 2:42:59Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll make sure to talk to Ben so that you can, you can listen to it and watch it. Actually be, you can watch it too, because it'll be on, uh, it'll be on something called YouTube. Which is like a, a television that you can watch anytime you want.

• 2:43:12Speaker 01

  I'm on YouTube already.

• 2:43:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I've watched some of your stuff on YouTube already. You'll be on there more.

• 2:43:19Speaker 01

  But it's really funny because I've never even put on my, it's not a radio that I have, it's a whole set, you know?

• 2:43:24Jocko Willink?

  Like a stereo system?

• 2:43:26Speaker 01

  Right, a stereo system. I couldn't think of the right word. Stereo system, I should put it on sometime. Max used, Max used it all the time. But ever since he passed away, things are so different for me.

• 2:43:41Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, you know what? I do recommend you go and put the stereo system on, put some records on there.

• 2:43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you should see all the records we have.

• 2:43:49Jocko Willink?

  I bet that Max would like to sit down with you there and listen to some, listen to some of those, listen to some of those albums.

• 2:43:56Speaker 01

  I hope he can.

• 2:43:58Jocko Willink?

  I, I recommend you do it.

• 2:43:59Speaker 01

  Okay, thank you very much.

• 2:44:01Jocko Willink?

  Have a beautiful day.

• 2:44:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you, and you too, and have a beautiful life. And just remember, if you have a problem, if something is going, not going so well, remember tomorrow is gonna be better. Okay?

• 2:44:15Jocko Willink?

  I will do that. Thank you so much for coming on, thanks for sharing your story, and thank you for, for giving us an example.

• 2:44:23Speaker 01

  Thank you for doing this, okay?

• 2:44:25Jocko Willink?

  It's an honor to have you. Thank you. And with that, Rose Schindler has left the building. Uh, what an, what an honor to have her on. What a story.

• 2:44:42Jocko Willink?

  Pretty unbelievable. Echo, you made it through?

• 2:44:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:44:48Jocko Willink?

  It's kinda, it's kinda harrowing when you think about it from the perspective of a nine, 10, 11, 12-year-old kid.

• 2:44:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:44:54Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:44:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, so there's two things that I, well, there's a bunch of things that I pulled from it, but two things that really stand out. Small, seemingly small, but kinda big, where, like, so they stuck together, you know? And...

• 2:45:15Speaker 02

  So what that was essentially was covering move.

• 2:45:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:18Speaker 02

  The whole time.

• 2:45:19Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 2:45:20Speaker 02

  Cause it was, yeah, so that was kinda like, and you know how, how you said it was counter, counterintuitive.

• 2:45:25Jocko Willink?

  Counterintuitive.

• 2:45:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, where it's like, oh yeah, like, hey, if I don't have to depend on this person or whatever.

• 2:45:29Jocko Willink?

  I identified the root of that thought in my brain.

• 2:45:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:45:32Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I, when I was in Sri Lanka. And I worked closely with their special operations forces over there. There was an army guy. Who was saying. When he was, he was a normal infantry commander and there was a brutal civil war going on in Sri Lanka. And he was telling me. How hard it was to be in charge. And he said, listen. If I was alone on the battlefield, he goes, I will 100%. Live and do the right thing. 100%. He says, when I got all these other guys relying on me and making, you know, I'm responsible for them. He says, it's so much. So much harder. And that's what I was thinking. So I was thinking.

• 2:46:13Jocko Willink?

  That, hey, if you're just, if you just gotta take care of yourself, it's gonna be easier. But then I thought the same thing you thought, which was, wait a second. And that's exactly what I said to her. You know, you're taking care of each other. You're covering moving for each other.

• 2:46:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:46:25Jocko Willink?

  Because. That day where you're hurting, that day where you could use an extra quarter slice of bread. You know, maybe your, one of your sisters can give it to you and no one else in the world would. So yeah, the, the idea of sticking together and having that, and you know, obviously like that's what is, that's what a SEAL tune is, you know, that's what any. Any team is, right? Your, your. Your sum is greater, the sum is greater than the parts. And that's what this is another proof of.

• 2:46:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:46:56Jocko Willink?

  So that was one thing. What was the other thing?

• 2:46:58Speaker 02

  Uh, just like. There's no real formula to survive. There's like a lot of luck, you know, but man, her bravery basically was the function. Or was the result of just milking that luck. Cause she was basically sent to die plenty of times.

• 2:47:12Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:47:13Speaker 02

  But she would like sneak out of line and do all this stuff or whatever. And. That's like the kind, like you just get one person to see like, hey, or even realize, you know, the kind where you go, you know, she, she goes for selection. They're like, no, you're too skinny. You're a muscle man.

• 2:47:27Jocko Willink?

  Sorry, Muslim man? Is that what it is?

• 2:47:29Speaker 02

  Muslim man?

• 2:47:29Jocko Willink?

  Muslim man.

• 2:47:30Speaker 02

  It's funny cause it sounds like muscle man, which is the, the, the exact opposite. Nonetheless. Takes one guard to be like, hey, wait, didn't I just send you to go die yesterday? Kind of thing and then.

• 2:47:40Jocko Willink?

  What are you still doing here?

• 2:47:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:47:42Jocko Willink?

  Hey, walk with me.

• 2:47:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm gonna make sure this time kind of thing, you know?

• 2:47:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the amount of, and I was thinking about that too. You know how we have, well, it's literally called survivor bias, right? Where when you only hear from the people that made it, then it seems like that's what you should do. Cause how many thousands of people said, oh, I'm gonna sneak out of this line and they got seen and they got, they got killed. You know, that happened over and over and over and over again.

• 2:48:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's, I mean, you know, according to her, like you just do one single, you know, sign of resistance. You're like, oh, well, they'll just kill you. Cause like, and it makes sense because it's like not even, we need people to work and obey. That's it. Like otherwise, like we want you all to be not be here. Yeah.

• 2:48:24Jocko Willink?

  If you don't want to do those two things, then we're just gonna kill you and with no second thoughts whatsoever.

• 2:48:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:48:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, I know it's, um.

• 2:48:36Jocko Willink?

  It is and.

• 2:48:39Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it crazy what a human being can get through? Can survive?

• 2:48:47Jocko Willink?

  And it makes you realize that we have, like, just, we are overwhelmed with opportunity. Even if you consider that opportunity is just like gonna go home and drink some water, some clean water, gonna go home and clean yourself.

• 2:49:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:05Jocko Willink?

  Gonna go home and not have bedbugs and lice.

• 2:49:11Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's the plan. That's what I'm gonna do today. When I go home, I'm not gonna have bedbugs and lice. That's, that's, we got that.

• 2:49:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, right? We have food.

• 2:49:24Speaker 02

  Leftovers, probably.

• 2:49:25Jocko Willink?

  Hey, let's, let's do it. You know, there's parts in the book, I didn't like, there's parts in there where she's, she figures out where they've basically cleaned the dirty.

• 2:49:37Jocko Willink?

  Kitchenware from where they make the soup.

• 2:49:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:40Jocko Willink?

  And every once in a while, she can find potato peels.

• 2:49:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:45Jocko Willink?

  Right? And she's, she has to keep it a secret. Because, you know, she just shares the potato peels with her sisters only.

• 2:49:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:55Jocko Willink?

  And if anyone else figures out that there's potato peels out there, there won't be any. Like, everyone will be there.

• 2:50:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:00Jocko Willink?

  So, so, yeah, that's the kind of thing where you think, well, you're, just because you have sisters, it's helpful. Cause what did the sisters do that helped her? She did that to help the sisters?

• 2:50:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:14Speaker 02

  Even, there was a time, and I know you were probably feeling this too, where, where

• 2:50:20Speaker 02

  she, or it might have been Max, I forget which story it was, but they went from the, oh yeah, when she went to work. Right before, when they were just in harsh conditions. And then they went to work and then they could like, take a shower once a week or something like this.

• 2:50:36Jocko Willink?

  Once a week, yep. With soap?

• 2:50:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, when, when, you know, when you're going down the list of all the new things that they had or whatever, when you think about it comparatively, you know, to what we have or whatever, still like, bro, those are like slave conditions really still.

• 2:50:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 2:50:49Speaker 02

  But, since you were kind of engrossed in the story, when they, when you started revealing it, I was like, oh, that's, that feels like a relief, even to me, you know, hearing it. But man, that's, that's how, that's like, that demonstrates, you know, like how thankful we should be.

• 2:51:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Opportunities everywhere. Opportunities. And one opportunity you have is to live.

• 2:51:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51:16Jocko Willink?

  Live. You're not sitting here worried about dying.

• 2:51:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:51:20Jocko Willink?

  You're not worried about getting, hey, go in that line over there. By the way, you'll be dead in three minutes. That's what's about to happen.

• 2:51:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51:27Jocko Willink?

  Do that nine times.

• 2:51:30Jocko Willink?

  So, well, let's take advantage of the fact that we're alive.

• 2:51:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:51:37Jocko Willink?

  That seems like a good plan.

• 2:51:39Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:51:40Jocko Willink?

  And

• 2:51:43Jocko Willink?

  let's do right. What can we do? What can we do to take advantage of the fact that we're alive right now?

• 2:51:50Speaker 02

  I'll tell you. We be and remain capable. That's a big deal too.

• 2:51:55Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:51:58Speaker 02

  Capability and health. Gratitude's a big one, obviously. Part of that health part of it is jujitsu, obviously, and capability. Jujitsu allows for greater capability, exponentially greater, in my opinion.

• 2:52:14Jocko Willink?

  I would agree. In all aspects.

• 2:52:17Speaker 02

  Yes, so anyway, a lot of us are doing jujitsu, a lot of us are about to do jujitsu. We're gonna need a gi, what gi do we get? Origin gi. Okay. Also, if you do no gi, get an origin rash guard. The other part of the uniform in the totalitarian gi and no gi scenario.

• 2:52:39Jocko Willink?

  That's not really totalitarian, but it's.

• 2:52:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just learned that word.

• 2:52:42Jocko Willink?

  Totality is what you meant. Totalitarian would mean there's a regime of.

• 2:52:48Speaker 02

  That's not what, that's not what I mean at all, you know. Like I said, I just learned that word, so you know, I'm practicing and, you know, we'll get it right next time for sure. Anyway, originmaine.com, that's where you can get the stuff that we also have jeans.

• 2:53:00Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:53:01Speaker 02

  In the event of you not doing jujitsu at any point of the day,

• 2:53:06Speaker 02

  wear some origin jeans.

• 2:53:07Jocko Willink?

  Which is unfortunate.

• 2:53:08Speaker 02

  You know, yeah, you know, but we gotta, we gotta be thankful, you know?

• 2:53:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you, you get the, um, by the way, I did a bad thing, which was talk about the Delta 68 jeans before they were really, you know, ready to be released. Maybe I got over excited, right? Maybe I just lost my mind a little bit. But I will say this, I have seen the Delta 68 jeans, which are the most comfortable leg garments ever created by man of any kind, are in production right now. I think I've said that before and I was inaccurate. The last time I said they're in production, it sounded cool, but it was a little bit of a, like a, I was assuming, I made an assumption, which we know is not good. The assumption was, oh yeah, they must be in production by now. They weren't.

• 2:53:58Jocko Willink?

  We were moving the fact, we were moving the boot line into the new factory, blah, blah, blah. A bunch of things were going on. We weren't in production yet. Guess what we are now? We are in production.

• 2:54:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:54:08Jocko Willink?

  We are in production with Delta 68 jeans.

• 2:54:12Speaker 02

  I understand. And you claim that they're the most comfortable leg garment?

• 2:54:18Jocko Willink?

  They not claim. I'm saying, I have worn every different type of leg garment in my life.

• 2:54:25Speaker 02

  So the joggers were more-

• 2:54:26Jocko Willink?

  These are the most comfortable and the best.

• 2:54:28Speaker 02

  More than the joggers?

• 2:54:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I didn't really, the joggers aren't for me.

• 2:54:33Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:54:34Jocko Willink?

  And they don't look normal. And they don't feel normal.

• 2:54:36Speaker 02

  This is my little, uh, theory, hypothesis, whatever. You put on the joggers, you felt the physical comfort, but the psychological and emotional discomfort trumped it. So it can't be the front runner of comfort. See what I'm saying?

• 2:54:48Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna tell you, no, you're actually wrong.

• 2:54:50Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 2:54:50Jocko Willink?

  I will tell you, the Delta 68 jeans are as comfortable, if not more comfortable, than the joggers.

• 2:54:57Speaker 02

  Physically.

• 2:54:58Jocko Willink?

  Physically more comfortable. If I had to sleep in one or the other, I'd pick the jeans.

• 2:55:02Speaker 02

  Alright. I'm not gonna, um, what, what do you call?

• 2:55:05Jocko Willink?

  You're not gonna call me a liar?

• 2:55:07Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna call you a liar. I'm not gonna refute your own opinion. So, hey, man, all good, but on a factual level.

• 2:55:15Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm just gonna say, I don't know 100% if I agree with you.

• 2:55:19Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So there's two theoretical presumptions that are being made by each of us.

• 2:55:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:55:25Jocko Willink?

  One of them is that the joggers are the most comfortable leg garments ever. Not as functional, by the way.

• 2:55:30Speaker 02

  Or just as functional.

• 2:55:32Jocko Willink?

  No. But the Delta 68s, in my opinion, are the most, not only functional, but also most comfortable.

• 2:55:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:55:41Jocko Willink?

  So there you go.

• 2:55:41Speaker 02

  There you go. Hey, hey, uh, you know, when we get them, we can see for ourselves, you know?

• 2:55:45Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm. And if you want to get them, you can get them from OriginMaine.

• 2:55:48Speaker 02

  OriginMaine.

• 2:55:48Jocko Willink?

  Dot com, which is also where you can get supplements.

• 2:55:51Speaker 02

  Yes, supplements. Joint supplements, very important. Very important. Joint supplements, joint warfare, krill, super krill oil. Also, additional protein in the form of dessert called Molk. Also a version for the Warrior Kids, Warrior Kid Molk. Many different, different flavors. That's the one you're gonna have to choose for yourself.

• 2:56:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:14Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna say, "Hey, mint chocolate is factually the best one."

• 2:56:19Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's a matter of opinion. It's not like the Delta 68, which is a matter of fact.

• 2:56:23Speaker 02

  Well, questionable fact, we'll see.

• 2:56:26Jocko Willink?

  Uh, they've got that, got chocolate white tea as well. Um, don't forget about the, the Jaco discipline in a go. Jaco discipline can.

• 2:56:35Jocko Willink?

  It's so good. It's so good and it makes you feel

• 2:56:41Jocko Willink?

  really good.

• 2:56:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:56:44Jocko Willink?

  It gets you up on step, we'll say, right? If you were gonna train, if you trained against a clone of yourself and one of you had Jaco discipline go and the other one didn't, the one with Jaco discipline go would win 100% of the time.

• 2:56:59Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 2:57:00Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent of the time.

• 2:57:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, no question.

• 2:57:02Jocko Willink?

  Am I wrong?

• 2:57:02Speaker 02

  Double blind.

• 2:57:04Jocko Willink?

  No, that's been tested, by the way.

• 2:57:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:57:06Jocko Willink?

  We can test that with you and Jade, because you're twins.

• 2:57:08Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, theoretically, no, but, um.

• 2:57:11Jocko Willink?

  No, you're twins, though.

• 2:57:12Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, theoretically, yes, but actuality, no.

• 2:57:15Jocko Willink?

  The Jaco discipline go, you'll go against Jade.

• 2:57:18Speaker 02

  Proven.

• 2:57:19Jocko Willink?

  It'll be proven forever. Hey, you can pick all this stuff up at origemade.com, or you, the supplement stuff you can get at the Vitamin Shop, which is a retail outlet all over the place. And, uh, they're stocking up. If they were low on stock, we're taking care of that. They got stock now.

• 2:57:37Speaker 02

  Yes, big time. Also, when you are getting your copy of two, who survived, two, the le, I didn't know this till the end, two, like the letter two, T W O, who survived. As opposed to what I thought, I thought it was like a letter to who survived. You see what I'm saying? Kinda like, it was like a thing.

• 2:57:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I got it.

• 2:57:57Speaker 02

  It was dedicated kinda, kinda situation. Anyway, alright, two, to who survived, go to JacoPodcast.com, click on the top where it says books from the episodes, boom, we got you. So you can get it through there. Easy way to just navigate and find it. Also, we have our own store. It's called Jaco Store. So you go to JacoStore.com and this is where you can get more rash guards, Represent the Path, while you're doing your jujitsu, or surfing, or whatever you use, uh, rash guards for. Some guys, when they do powerlifting, it gives you all the range, little bit of compression, you know, it's, it's very functional, uh, garment, as it were. Anyway, some t-shirts on there, Represent the Path, Discipline Equals Freedom, The Attitude of Good.

• 2:58:41Speaker 02

  You know shirts, t-shirts, uh hoodies, light and heavyweight. Lot of stuff on there if you like it. If you want something, get something. Good way to support as well. Also, subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't already. Uh, yes, it's important to subscribe to the podcast.

• 2:59:04Speaker 02

  I guess. I don't know, varying levels of importance. How about that?

• 2:59:07Jocko Willink?

  Here's the deal. If you want to, go ahead. If you don't want to, continue to be lame. That choice is yours. Don't forget, we also have the Grounded Podcast, which is a new episode out of the Grounded Podcast. So you can get, you can get just right up to date on the Grounded Podcast. We also have the Warrior Kid Podcast. Cause let's face it.

• 2:59:29Jocko Willink?

  Warrior kids need warrior podcasts. So we got that for them. And also don't forget about the Warrior Kid Soap from IrishOaksRanch.com. Have you gotten a, have you got any killer soap yet?

• 2:59:39Speaker 02

  No, not yet.

• 2:59:40Jocko Willink?

  That is so lame.

• 2:59:41Speaker 02

  Well, here's the thing. I, I just heard, I was informed.

• 2:59:46Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:59:46Speaker 02

  That.

• 2:59:47Jocko Willink?

  We.

• 2:59:48Speaker 02

  They, the, the nice, the great people up at Irish Oaks Ranch sent me some and you some.

• 2:59:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:59:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, alright, well there you go.

• 2:59:59Jocko Willink?

  Well, let's just make that a little clearer. They sent two bars to my house. Neither one of those was labeled Echo.

• 3:00:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:00:07Jocko Willink?

  I'll just put it to you like that. But I will say this. Killer Soap is the best soap ever. And I'm not even kidding. It is so good. It's, it's everything I ever could have imagined. It is soap. It's a square, most industrial looking bar. It's got a skull on it and it says Killer Scope, it's Killer Soap and it's black. Black soap. So, yeah. And, and we're gonna sell it on our.

• 3:00:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:00:38Jocko Willink?

  Site. So, so soon you'll be able to get Jaco's Soap. You'll be able to get Killer Soap. Made by a kid, a warrior kid, by the way. So there you go.

• 3:00:49Speaker 02

  Yep. It's true. Also, we have a YouTube channel, Official.

• 3:00:54Speaker 02

  Got a little check mark on our YouTube channel, by the way.

• 3:00:58Speaker 02

  Bro, that's something. It's not nothing.

• 3:00:59Jocko Willink?

  I did not. I was not aware of that.

• 3:01:00Speaker 02

  It's official. Anyway, not to say, you know, okay, that means what it means, but here's the,

• 3:01:06Speaker 02

  here's what it actually means.

• 3:01:07Jocko Willink?

  I have no idea what this means.

• 3:01:09Speaker 02

  Well, sometimes people will, they'll take your content.

• 3:01:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:01:13Speaker 02

  And they'll put it on their YouTube channel, which is, you know, it spreads the word. So that's cool. But, you know, sometimes if people want it, because there was a time where someone's trying to kind of impersonate a little bit.

• 3:01:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:01:24Speaker 02

  Or it could have been misconstrued, you know, so people might not be able to tell the difference. Nonetheless, you get the check mark, boom, they know that's the official one. That's what the check mark is for.

• 3:01:31Jocko Willink?

  So we're kind of in the game now.

• 3:01:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, we're official. Hundred percent. Anyway, our YouTube channel for the video version of this podcast.

• 3:01:37Jocko Willink?

  If you want to see what Rose Schindler looks like.

• 3:01:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:01:42Jocko Willink?

  Then you can check it out here. You can also see Echo make some, what he calls enhanced videos. They're visually enhanced. We don't know if it's necessarily an improvement all the time. On reality, I kind of think it is an improvement on reality though. I think sometimes Echo's vision of the world is a little bit better than everyone, than the normal vision of the world.

• 3:02:02Speaker 02

  Just a little enhanced.

• 3:02:03Jocko Willink?

  Why not? If I speak, why not have things exploding around me? I think it works. So there's that. And don't forget about psychological warfare. If you need a little, if you need a little psychological

• 3:02:19Jocko Willink?

  hitter.

• 3:02:22Jocko Willink?

  Then check out, uh, psychological warfare. It's on iTunes, Google Play, MP3. Check out flipsidecanvas.com if you need a little visual hitter. To get you in the game. Dakota Meyer owns that. Listen to him on Podcast 115. Get in the game with Dakota.

• 3:02:42Jocko Willink?

  Got some books, Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. We got The Way of the Warrior Kid series. We got Mikey and the Dragons. We got Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. We got Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership. These are all books that will help you and the people around you be better and win in life. Straight up, all of them. We also have Two Who Survived. By Rose and Max Schindler, and also it's a capture, the story is captured by M. Lee Connolly, but you can get that book as well. It's, it's an outstanding read.

• 3:03:19Jocko Willink?

  Echelon Front Leadership Consultancy, what we do is solve problems through leadership. If you listen to us talk about leadership and you'd like to have help employing these leadership strategies, tactics, and principles inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com. That's what we do. We also have EF Online, which is online interactive leadership training for you, for your organization. Go to EFOnline.com to check that out. Check that out. We have a seminar, a convention, a leadership course.

• 3:03:55Jocko Willink?

  May 7th and 8th in Orlando, September 16th and 17th in Phoenix, December 3rd and 4th in Dallas. Go to ExtremeOwnership.com for details on that. Every event that we've ever done has sold out. So if you want to come, register early. And of course, we have EF Overwatch and EF Legion. EF Overwatch, executive leadership from military for civilians. EF Legion, frontline leadership, frontline troops with military experience. To come to your organization, check out either one of those, EFOverwatch.com or EFLegion.com.

• 3:04:33Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to connect with Rose Schindler, you can find her at her website, ToWhoSurvived.com, and on all the social media outlets, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. All of those, she's at ToWhoSurvived. And Echo and I are also on the interwebs on all the various social media channels, including YouTube, where we are now official. Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. And the YouTube channel is called Jocko Podcast.

• 3:05:10Jocko Willink?

  And to Mrs. Rose Schindler, once again, thank you for, for coming on and sharing your incredible story, which is just, it's even to sit here and hear you say over and over again, that's unbelievable, it's unbelievable. And it reminds us of what it means to suffer, what it means to face unimaginable horrors and still maintain hope. And while we will

• 3:05:50Jocko Willink?

  not dwell, we certainly will not forget. And to the military service members out there that have fought and continued to fight to protect the weak, to liberate the enslaved, to bring the light of freedom into the world. Like those forces that liberated the concentration camps. Thank you all for your service. And the same goes to our police and law enforcement, to our firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol and Secret Service. You

• 3:06:34Jocko Willink?

  all also make sacrifices to protect us and we thank you for that. And to everyone else out there. You know, clearly, we have seen today through Rose's story, once again, that human beings are capable of absolutely horrific and hideous evil.

• 3:07:08Jocko Willink?

  But we've also seen that human beings are capable of overcoming those satanic forces in the world and of maintaining hope against the darkness.

• 3:07:28Jocko Willink?

  And in the end,

• 3:07:31Jocko Willink?

  we can win.

• 3:07:35Jocko Willink?

  We can win. So fight on, do the right thing, and no matter what, do not give up hope.

• 3:07:47Jocko Willink?

  And that's all we've got for tonight. So until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.