“That was in Sachsenhausen on the day of the evacuation. You know who a ‘kapo’ was. There was a Ukrainian kapo, he was a beast, a murderer. It was the law that if one steals bread from another, he dies. Two woke up at midnight and started to shout: ‘They stole my bread, they stole my bread!’ I had my bread tied up with string, if someone pulled at it, I would wake up. I woke up and my bread was there. That was in January 1945 after the evacuation of Ravensbrück-Sachsenhausen. I fell asleep again, and when I woke up, all that remained was the string, the bag with the bread was gone. I was hysterical. Bread was everything I had. Without bread you have nothing.”
“ ‘Come on, take the boots from that German!’ He opened him up (killed him) completely. I told him: ‘Thank you, my clogs are better, I don’t want the boots.’ He saw that I was frightened, that I didn’t want to look. He then revealed something to me: ‘Do you know who I am?’ He was a Russian major. ‘I’m the son of the head rabbi from Kiev. What I just did now, that’s what they did to my family. They murdered my whole family. I don’t use a weapon in Germany. [...] What they did to my family, I am doing here.’ ”
“There were some sixteen seventeen of us Jewish children from Slovakia there. And some seventy Gipsy children, about my age, some a bit older or younger. They were castrated.”
“ ‘Now take the revolver and shoot me.’ He had a very nice Walther Revolver. ‘Why do you want me to shoot you?’ - ‘Because I lied to you.’ - ‘In what way did you lie to me?’ - ‘Up until now you didn’t know, so I’ll tell you the truth. I’m a Jew!’ And what he replied was: ‘Jude ist kein Mensch?’ - ‘Isn’t a Jew human?’ ”
“Always, when I think back to those things, I have to cry. It is my luck that I can cry. I am not ashamed of it. It is my luck because it gives me relief.”
Walter Morgenbesser se narodil v roce 1930 ve Spišské Nové Vsi jako nejmladší ze sedmi synů židovského krejčího. Během války se na rodinu vztahovala prezidentská hospodářská výjimka, jeho otec šil šaty pro důstojníky, jeho nejstarší bratr byl lékařem v Humenném. Walter Morgenbesser za války běhal po Spišské Nové Vsi bez Davidovy hvězdy, prý dokonce krátce sloužil za trochu jídla u důstojníka wehrmachtu. S rodiči byl v roce 1944 deportován z Prešova do Osvětimi, prošel lágry Ravensbrück a Sachsenhausen. Na konci války byl jeho spoluvězněm filmový režisér Juraj Herz. Spolu s ním a otcem se zachránil v posledních dnech války. Po válce odešel do Izraele, pracoval jako řidič a mechanik. V letech 1990-1992 sloužil jako řidič na velvyslanectví Československa v Izraeli.
