MICHAEL FRIEDLAND

Date of birth - 7 March, 1926

Place of birth - Kalinovka, Vinnytsia oblast, Ukraine

Place of interview - Toronto, Canada

Date of interview - 17 February, 2006

Audio interview

Language - Ukrainian

(Excerpt):

MF - It was May 31, 1942, when there was the massacre where they shot everybody.

Interviewer - It was more than a massacre. It was methodological cleansing.

MF - I found some friends - the Morozovsky family. The boys were in the same class as me. She [the mother] gave me a document with the name of her son, Michael Morozovsky. He was the same age as me. When I met my brother on Ural, I told him about this.

Interviewer - You know what, I purposefully did not want more. I just wanted this one moment. It has a lot of moral significance.

MF - Please record that this man, Michael Friedland, when he was getting his passport, in honor of [Morozovsky], he kept his name [until now].

Interviewer - I will write that one sentence. All the facts are in the archives.

MF - I understand. Just one sentence that nicely summarizes that in memory of him, as a sign of gratitude, I honoured Morozovsky.

I will tell you one more interesting story about what it means to be a person. I was walking, walking, until I reached the river Dnipro. There was a train standing there. And the polish conductor asks me "What are you doing here, boy?" I'm standing there, ragged; this poor boy. He asks me "why are you standing there?" This conductor, not knowing who I was, took me into the cart where the coal was and hid me. Then I hear a German comes in yelling "niemand", so "nobody here". The conductor agreed.

Interviewer - So he really risked a lot for you.

MF - I'm sitting here thinking what was stopping him from exposing me. There are good people out there.