Discussion on Schindler's List and War Experiences

In Schindler's List, he's waiting for the gas to come in,

and lo and behold, all it was was water.

Salt and water came raining down on us

in this great big, we called it banya,

which is a Russian word for a washroom.

Bathroom. Bathroom, yeah, but it was a big one,

a communal bathroom. It was huge, I would say.

It was the way I remember it.

Of course, I was little, but the way I remember it,

I would say it was at least 30 by 30.

It must have been built for that purpose,

to wash us down like dogs.

What most people, of course, don't know is that the Germans

had drawn a line from the Baltic, or actually

from the North Cape virtually all the way down to the Bosporus,

and anybody that came across that line, whether he was German or Mennonite,

Jews for that matter, anybody in Europe could not go across that line without being deloused,

because they wanted to keep lice out of Europe,

because the lice were so dangerous.

That's right.

Don't feel badly.

You were not kicked out because we were Mennonites, all Lutherans.

The same for the cutting of hair.

I mean, we were all shorn bald in order to stop the lice,

the louse problem that we had.

Everybody had lice in the war.

I mean, this was just common knowledge that everybody had lice, and then,

of course, we had to be deloused and put into Germany.

So Jews cannot claim unique victim status.

No, they cannot.

And when I hear the stories about them losing their hair, big deal.

None of us had hair.