- My whole life is a very funny story.
(gentle music)
You want me to introduce myself?
My name is David S. Wisnia.
I am 90 years old, a Holocaust survivor
of close to three years in Auschwitz.
When I arrived in Auschwitz, itself,
right after being tattooed with my number,
I looked up at the SS man before that,
who was standing in front of me.
My eyes were fixed into his belt buckle.
"Gott mit uns," which means "God is with us."
But I said to myself, "God is not
with you and I'm going to outlive you."
The first couple of weeks in Auschwitz were murder,
literally murder, because my job was collecting bodies.
One night, about two weeks of dragging bodies,
the cell block leader says, "Who can sing?"
Of course, everybody knew Wisnia sang.
I got down and performed,
and that made me a privileged prisoner.
I completely, totally removed my past from me
when I came to Hoboken, New Jersey,
and I became a full-fledged canter.
I composed a couple of songs that are in the museum
in Washington, while in Auschwitz.
One of them is in Polish, about Auschwitz.
(sings in Polish)
December, 1944, Nazis began evacuating Auschwitz.
I was on one of the transports.
Arriving in Dachau, I realized I could not survive Dachau,
because in Auschwitz, I was privileged prisoner.
I was looking for a way to get out of Dachau.
I decided I was going to escape.
As we were emptying the railroad cars into the ditches,
I found the shovel there.
Anyway, I made my way.
I walked towards the fire, towards the front,
not knowing exactly where I was going.
I heard a roar off a huge column of tanks.
The whole column stopped for me.
Out of the hatch comes out James L. Walker
from South Carolina.
I asked him to get me somebody who speaks Polish.
He was worse than the one who spoke English.
Anyway, I became a part of that outfit,
never left them until I came to the United States.
Because I speak German, I talked down, towards the end
of April and the beginning of May,
in Austria, some of the SS to throw away their arms,
and I made sure that they understood
that we would treat them as war prisoners.
"Kriegsgefangene,"
and that's exactly what happened.
I came home and found my family dead, massacred,
and to the best of my knowledge,
I eventually found out that my father resisted,
and they found the gun,
and they killed my whole family.
I really now understand, maybe not for the same reason,
when the Pope comes to the United States
or any place, he kisses the ground.
Well, let me tell you, I kissed the ground of
the United States, because I
really understand what America's all about.
What I have, thank God, is a beautiful family here.
A wife, now, for 69 years, and I love
to say I still have hope.
That's her name, Hope,
and my grandson, thank God, happens to be quite a pianist.
He finally, after many tries of all kinds of composers,
you know, to translate my song from Polish to English,
he did it about a couple of months ago,
and now we have it in English
and I'm going to perform it tonight.
Go ahead.
♫ I remember it so clearly
♫ My days in Oświęcim
♫ Got out alive just nearly
♫ And still the name it stings
♫ Still I see that place
♫ Enduring like the scars I can't erase
♫ Appel, Abstand, Mutzen ab
That's German.
♫ Hear the sergeant's call
♫ You'll wish you were
♫ Just never born at all
♫ Oświęcim
♫ Through pain and sickness
♫ Always working
♫ Oświęcim
♫ With death behind you always lurking
♫ Oświęcim
♫ Evil like some twisted dream
♫ Nevermind the hope of fleeing
♫ Hunger is the only feeling
♫ Oświęcim
♫ Like numbers on my arm it lingers
♫ Oświęcim
♫ I curse you with my broken fingers
♫ Oświęcim
♫ Heart be hard as stone
♫ Hatred is the greenest
♫ Weed you've grown
(applause)
Have a little respect for the next person,
don't care who they are,
because, actually, prejudice, hate, winds up being death.
Give up yourself, you'll get it back.
(sings in Polish)