| Saul Sorrin was interviewed as part of the Wisconsin Survivors of the Holocaust Interviews project. Sorrin, born in New York in 1919, applied in 1940 for a position with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). He worked with Holocaust survivors as a supply officer for UNRAA team 560 at the Displaced Persons camp Neu Freimann Siedlung in Germany and later, at General Dwight D. Eisenhower's recommendation, Sorrin became the Area Director of the International Refugee Organization based at the Wolfratshausen DP camp in Bad Kissingen.
In the following excerpt, Sorrin responds to questions about this image:
SS: This is a beer bar in a camp. What I recall, either about this or other places, is that the so-called, the invalidn--the sale of beer was a profitable franchise. I mean, comparatively. There was a group called the invalidn. Invalidn are invalids but it means fun krig [farvatst], wounded during the war--lost a leg or lost an arm or whatever. And they claimed a special right, and I think correctly, to have that concession for themselves, the beer bar. They took all the profit. The United Nations was not creating beer bars. But we are the sanctioned that there should be this beerhall. It's an outdoor place and had tables. You can't see them but there were tables out in the front and people came to have a glass of beer. In those days, they weren't allowed to make [it] fully strong. Beer was near-beer, like 2 percent, 3 percent beer because in order to make alcohol you have to get grain and they had other priorities for grain. So the beer was not as strong, but people enjoyed it. We had a great big angry quarrel over who would get this concession, and finally I said it goes to the invalidn.
DM: Why did they claim the beerhall as their concession?
SS: They had lost limbs. They were disabled during the war.
DM: Why did they want the beerhall and not some other business?
SS: That was one of the few concessions we had. Everybody else were in business for themself, but that was black market. This was a sanctioned area where people would buy beer. In each camp there was such a place. And they sold a lot of beer. The profits were split among the invalidn, from the Invalidn Farband, the Association of Disabled Veterans. Look at those faces in there. You see, they're kind of rough guys, I tell you. These are not people who have been through easy times. Yes, indeed. Look at him here. I guarantee, what his eyes saw you will never see in your life, and hopefully never. I can just tell by looking at them. I think I remember this man. So many thousands of people went through. Some people stick out and others do not.
Interview by Jean Loeb Lettofsky and David Mandel, March 3, 1980. |
