Jack Baum

Dall E, Prompt: "An illustration of how the Warsaw ghetto area would look like if it wasn’t destroyed in WW2"

“[...] I was with my brother, he was working in the shop with me together. And then, when they closed up the shop, we start the bunker. We went into the bunkers, into the underground. We start to organize, we should have food. our group, in my bunker we had food for one year. We were thinking that the war will take maybe one year, no more. So we had enough food. But still, we had to go out into shop for hand grenades, for shrapnels (?) we call it, for food. We used to pull numbers, and every night somebody else had to go out, whatever the number was, to take a chance. It was in the dark and we had connections with the Polaks, we had connection with soldiers, which they deliver hand grenades to us, we had to pay them a high price for it, but the money wasn’t worth a thing so we spent the money wherever we had anyway, you know. [...]

Interviewer: How long were you in the bunkers? How long did you stay in the bunkers?

Jack: In the bunkers? Oh, until the end, since we build it. Till the end. But what happened, when they found us, when they came to my bunker, the Germans, and they find us, we… I was sure that those builders, those Polish builders what they build this bunker, that they told the Germans where we are. This was a bunker, I tell you, like you see on the sidewalk, you walk and you don’t see a thing. And there was the entrance to our bunker, was never - impossible - to know what entrance was to the bunker. But they find it, so I was sure that the same builders told the Germans where we are. And that’s what happened with the other ones. The same thing.”