Month: July 2019

“I was working as a tool and die maker in a machine shop in Thereseinstadt. While I was there all of a sudden we heard rumors that a Red Cross commission was to come and inspect the camp because Hitler had made a public statement that he was going to make a film and call it, ‘Hitler Gives the Jews a Town.’ In the square they built a gazebo- a music pavillion. Outside some of the houses along the square they built outdoor cafes. Oh and by the way, there was a very famous actor by the name of Kurt Gerron who was one of the original actors in the Berlin production of ‘The Threepenny Opera,’ the Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weil musical. He had become a movie director. And the Germans approached him and told him that if he would make that movie for them he would never have to worry; he would never be deported; he could always stay in Thereseinstadt. And he agreed to do it.

We were marched to these newly built outdoor cafes where we were set down and were given some brown liquid- certainly not coffee- just brown-colored water and we had to sit there and sip it while the movie was being taken from us. They put an orchestra in the gazebo playing music- Viennese waltzes and all these things. And of course once the commission was gone that was all- never to be used again. And when the first transports to Auschwitz started again in 1944, Kurt Gerron was on the list…

There was a guard at Birkenau who came by while we were standing at attention. He was a giant of a guy. He looked us over and he pointed to one, ‘You!,’ and another one, ‘You!’ They were told to stand across from us 15 yards away where the next barracks was. One in front of the other. We had no idea what he had in mind. The moment they stood there he pulled his revolver and says, ‘Let’s see if I can kill the two of you with one shot.’ Pmp. Pulled the trigger. And the first one died immediately. He probably hit the heart. And the next one was only wounded because the bullet had lost a lot of velocity, probably didn’t penetrate further than the ribs. Standing but holding himself. The SS guard said, ‘Oh. I didn’t kill you, huh? Let’s try it again.’ And he pulled someone else out. By this time we knew what he wanted…

When you think back it’s like a dream almost. Sometimes you wonder, ‘Is it reality?’ That’s one of the reasons I went back to Germany. At Oehringen, we had a beautiful house. It looked almost like a chalet- that’s the way I remembered it. So we went back- I took my wife- and sure enough it was still there. I was glad that I did go back and I did realize that I didn’t just dream these things.”

“I saw it’s not good, my brother wants to get married but my mother wants him to wait until I am married. So I left. I was a Zionist since 14 years old. I was that time 19 or 18 and I went to a Kibbutz near Lodz. I worked there; I was a housekeeper and I was there one year when a boy came in. I liked him very much. It was a Friday he came in and I saw him through the window. And I said, ‘This boy will be mine. Girls, remember.’ So he came in. It was like something hit me. His name was Alexander Kirsch.

I went once to fetch water from the well. He ran out and he helped me. And then he said to me that I am such a type as to be a model for a painter. And then I fell in love with him and he fell in love with me. And it was a very, very big love. He went away then he came back and he brought me a lot of presents. That’s it and then the war broke out. We got married in the ghetto.

While at Auschwitz I had a dream that I open a door, there is nothing. I open another door, there is nothing. I open the third door, there is nothing. A door after a door. Then I saw a window and I jumped out of the window and it was so soft, I didn’t hurt myself. This dream made me think I’m going to survive.

I never heard about my family back in Rovno, absolutely, until after the war. I got a letter from a friend. She wrote that the Germans took the Jews of Rovno, every one of them and they took them to the Sosinkes ?, a little pine forest- sosna means pine. They took them there and they tell them to dig a long grave. And they put them by the grave one by one and they shoot them and they fell in, some dead and some alive, they fell in the grave. And then the Germans put lye and water on the bodies and it start to boil and everybody was dead, everybody. Nobody was alive- not one person, not one Jew from Rovno. Among them were my father, mother, brother, his wife and three children.

Alexander and I were reunited when the Russians liberated Auschwitz. A few years later my daughter was born in Kelce. She grew up like a flower in the sun in a family with a father and mother that loved her. The whole house was love. And I never told her. I didn’t want to tell her what we went through because I didn’t want to spoil her love of life.

It is important, absolutely, not to look backwards, because everybody has a tragedy in his life, somewhere, something. Better to look forward and to enjoy every day. You appreciate life when you think of losing it. I wasn’t afraid in the camp. I was sure that tomorrow I could be dead but then I am alive—I survived. And life is so beautiful.”