Murray was born in Kraków, Poland into a large Jewish family. He was one of six siblings. After the German invasion of Poland, Murray, his family, and other Jews were subjected to anti-Jewish measures. In 1942, Murray and one of his brothers were imprisoned in the Plaszow camp, where they were subjected to inhumane conditions and grueling forced labor. In May 1944, his brother was transferred to Auschwitz. In October, Murray was sent to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. He was then transferred to Brünnlitz, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen. The Brünnlitz subcamp was run by businessman Oskar Schindler, who helped the Jewish forced laborers who worked for him survive the war. Murray was liberated in May 1945. None of his immediate family survived the Holocaust.
They start liquidating all small camps. They started bringing in people from our camp, and they liquidate the camp Emalia [Deutsche Emailwaren Fabrik], and for the first time I heard about...people talking about Emalia, that there's an Oskar Schindler. And Oskar Schindler, in his camp nobody gets beaten, nobody's hungry, and nobody's overworked, so I just couldn't understand it, but when they took people from Emalia into Plaszow and they put them on a railroad track--it was like August and was...the sun was unbearable, burning on...on the cattle cars, and he bribed [Plaszow commandant] Amon Goeth. Well, I came from the kitchen with some, first to give them soup, and opened up the doors to get a little air. He helped people and I was...uh...asked to do the same thing. Water hoses, and we hosed down with cold water the roofs of the cattle cars, and he was screaming to the Germans, Oskar Schindler, that the Jews are all mechanics, engineers, that the Germans need them, and he guarantees that nobody will escape, to open the doors for them again. So I looked at myself, I said like, "Is this a...a German, or is this an angel?" He wore civilian clothes. I had no idea who he was. I knew only that he will receive the factory from Emalia and he was the only one who did not throw out the Jews--his name...the factory owner was Benks--that he not only took that factory, he took a...a lumberyard and he built barracks and he saved a few hundred Jews.
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