Tag #108919 - Interview #88491 (Emanuel Elbinger)

And after that, well, in Poland it all started like it had in Russia, see. They started removing Jews, from the army first, and then from all sorts of institutions [31]. At the time I was Chief Engineer in Deberol, Central Agricultural Construction. The director was a member of the Cracow Province Committee [of the Polish United Workers’ Party, the communist party in Poland]. Kowalowka, his name was, and he wanted to show that he could fire Jews too. There were two of us Jews in that firm, so he fired two. He came into the room – and he was a stocky guy. I’m sitting at my desk, I had my legs crossed, and so he asks me why I’m sitting with my legs crossed? And I knew he was looking for a pretext, so I say: ‘What rules regulate how to hold my legs?’ I knew it was pure provocation, so I said, ‘Have the guts to say what this is all about.’ And I got three months’ notice. I mean, they paid me three wages but they wanted me to go at once. My immediate boss, Pankowski, soon found out. He came out in my defense fantastically, I hadn’t expected that. The others too. He went to him: ‘What’s all this about?’ – to that director – ‘This is a good worker! We need him!’ And the other comes straight out: ‘Perhaps you’re a Jew too?’ And Pankowski got mad: ‘What, I have to get my dick out on the desk for you, have I?’ Literally – and sharper than that too. My colleagues behaved wonderfully. They wrote a letter, the whole workforce, in my defense.