Survivors' Chronicle, April 2001

Survivors' PUBLISHED BY THE HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS GROUP OF SOUTHERN NEVADA VOLUME 3, ISSUE 1 APRIL , 2001 My Village By Blanka Schuh Lately, I have been remembering Dubrinic, the village where I was born. I lived there until all the Jews were taken away to concentration camps. Our village was small, with eighteen Jewish families among the population of two hundred and eighty. The rest of the people were Russian Greek Orthodox. We had two schools, one Russian and one Czech. All the Jewish children attended the Czech school. The Jewish families owned grocery stores and tailor shops. Some made their living as shoemakers, carpenters and farmers. My father owned a kosher butcher shop. Dubrinic had a post office, a church and a small temple. The Jewish population of the town was very different. Everyone was Orthodox. The Jewish families supported the Rabbi's family. He was also a "shochet." My birthplace was lovely. There were mountains all around and during the summer we swam in the river that ran behind our garden. The whole village smelled of wild berries as they ripened in the mountains. I remember my mother baking challah every Friday before Shabbat. The holidays were special. Before Passover, the Jewish families in the town baked Matzoh together. The week before Purim the women started to bake so that their children could deliver shalach manotio everyone. It was a nice place to live. When the non-Jewish children used to yell out to us "Jew, go to Palestine", we felt very uncomfortable. It seemed that hatred always existed. Most of the time we lived a fairly nice life. The Jewish boys in the town learned a trade after their Bar Mitzvah's or they continued their education. We had to take a train to the next city in order to go to middle school or gymnasium. The war broke out in 1938, just after my sixteenth birthday. That event ended the education of all the Jewish children in the town. The Hungarian's took over our part of Czechoslovakia, and that is when the trouble began. The newly formed government took away the right of Jewish men to do business by not allowing them to keep their licenses. That meant that my father was no longer able to sell kosher meat. Disregarding the law, during the night the shochetused to come to our house and slaughter the cattle so we could have kosher meat. This was done at the risk of death to all those involved. By this time all the young Jewish men were taken away to forced labor camps. My parents, a younger sister, and one married sister with two children were the only ones remaining in our home. It was forbidden to kill animals in the kosher way or deliver kosher meat. Regardless of this, it became my job to distribute the kosher meat to the neighboring villages as far as 12 kilometers away early on Friday mornings. I took a big chance so that other Jewish families would have Shabbos dinner. In 1940 more tragedies occurred. Our town had five Jewish families whose grandparents were born in Poland. It became law that the whole family had to return to their native country. We never saw any of them again. We heard later that when they crossed the border into Poland and walked across a bridge, a Hungarian soldier hit my friend Etyu's mother because she didn't walk fast enough. Etyu defended her, and as a result, she was thrown into the river. This is how she died. Our childhood friends were the first people we lost. I still dream about them and miss them. It is impossible for me to forget. And later, the camps. My parents and five brothers and sisters perished at the hands of the Nazis. How we survived? I don't know. Maybe we survived so we could tell the story and prevent it from happening again. ? l My Story: The Journey to Hell and Back By Rudy Horst Fifteen of my sixteen years were spent in Kolojvar, a nice city in Hungary, with a large Jewish population. The country allied itself with Germany and in February of 1944 German soldiers arrived in my town. In 1943 the Hungarian army picked me up and took me to a forced labor camp. I was there until 1944 when the SS elite unit of the German army hauled me back to Kolojvar and threw me into the ghetto that was established in the brick yard factory. Hungarian civilians took over our family home as we moved into the ghetto. Some of them were friends of our family but still they were more than happy to help the Germans take our house and our possessions. From the ghetto we were all transported in crowded boxcars and taken to Auschwitz. The fate of our lives, as to who would live or die, was decided. I was assigned to work with the Canada Commandos. We separated people's belongings that remained in the boxcars. We put gold in one bin, clothing in another bin, shoes in another and all currencies in the last bin. Some of those who worked in the commando were looked at as heroes because they found ways to sabotage the German cause. Gold was placed on the railroad tracks so the weight of the moving train would bury it into the gravel. Dollars and other currencies were used as fuel to boil water for tea. After working for a week in this commando group, I was transported to the Warsaw Ghetto. I was part of the death march that began in July of 1944, as the threat of the Russians nearing Warsaw became a reality. There were Jews from Hungary, Greece, Germany and Poland on the march. Those too sick to be moved were left behind and killed by the Germans. We started marching without any food or water in the direction of Kutno, approximately eighty-five miles away. Anyone whose strength gave way was shot on the spot. We stopped for the night in a farm field. When I was younger I had worked on a farm. It came to me that if I used my spoon to dig a hole in the ground, I might find water. After a half-hour and a twenty-inch hole, I hit it. It was dirty; however, it tasted as sweet as honey because I was so thirsty. The 3 news spread and by morning the whole field was filled with water holes. Over a thousand people died by the time we arrived in Kutno. Those who survived were loaded into boxcars and transported to Dachau in Germany, during August of 1944. On August 15th I was transported to Muldorf, a camp outside Munich. We had to carry cement bags weighing over one hundred pounds up wooden steps. At the top, the cement was mixed with water and poured through wire mesh down the hill to camouflage the airplane hangers built into the side of the slope. As we were being herded into trains so the Germans could transport us to the Bavarian Alps for liquidation, the Americans liberated the group from Muldorf, before the trains left the station. I arrived in the United States in 1948, sponsored by an uncle who lived in Ohio. I married an American woman and I have two children and two grandchildren. I am proud and thankful to be an American citizen because I have the protection of the constitution. It allows me liberty, justice and the opportunity to pursue happiness. I am presently living in Las Vegas and searching for survivors of the death march from Warsaw to Dachau (two have been located in Los Angeles). Many survivors in Las Vegas are affiliated with The Holocaust Survivors Group of Southern Nevada. It's Speakers Bureau sends members to middle schools, high schools and universities to enlighten students about the Holocaust of the last century. Survivors will never forget the horror of this great tragedy. We live with pain and emotional scars. After all these years, understanding how and why the Holocaust happened is an unanswered question. It began in a country whose population was admired by the entire world for their intelligence, their music and their technology. The Hunted and Persecuted European Jews By Alfred bube In the southern part of Czechoslovakia lies Pilsen, my hometown. The Jewish community was one of the earliest in Bohemia, which at that time was ruled by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. In the 1338, King Charles IV signed a 4 decree ordering the city's administration, under penalty of law, to protect the Jewish population from molestation. One hundred and four years later, in 1442, the Jewish community bought a plot of land to establish the first Jewish cemetery. My grandfather Adolf Dube, was the Shames in the Pilsen's synagogue until the late 1930's. In the fifteenth century, many transactions between Christians and Jews appear on the city's records. The togetherness did not last long. In fact, in 1504 all Jews were expelled from the city as a result of a false desecration charge and the king granted the city, the so-called privilege of nontolerandis judaeis (Jews not tolerated). Jews were forced to live in surrounding villages until 1848. However, they were permitted to attend the market in Pilsen and conduct their business. Between 1821 and 1823 some Jews lived within Pilsen, without authorization, including my great grandfather, Moric Roth. In 1854, the Jewish population numbered two hundred and forty-nine. Their cemetery was consecrated in 1856 and the synagogue in 1859. Eleven years later, Jewish riots broke out in the city and by 1870 the Jewish population increased to one thousand two hundred and seven. The Jews were instrumental in developing Pilsen into a major industrial city with worldwide acclaim. After World War I, Czechoslovakia became a free country with a democratic government headed by President Thomas Garigue Masaryk. At that time Pilsen had two rabbis and a Jewish population of over three-thousand. Seventy years later history repeated itself. In 1941 the Jews of Czechoslovakia numbering three hundred and fifteen thousand, were forced from their homes, not by the Austrian-Hungarian government, but by the Nazi's of Germany. The rabbi was murdered and the Jewish population of Pilsen was sent to the ghetto in Terzienstadt. Nothing had changed over the past one hundred and ten years in Bohemia. The depth of violence and inhumanity escalated for the Jews. From the total Jewish population of Czechoslovakia, only forty-five thousand five hundred returned after the war. To lead the few survivors, my step-uncle, Dr. Richard Feder was appointed as Ober Rabbi of Czechoslovakia. So that history does not repeat itself, we must not let others forget. It must be our duty as 5 survivors, not to allow ethnic cleansing, hate and discrimination to go unnoticed. We must demand that future generations be allowed to live in peace--a peace that was denied to us. A Letter Written With Love By Trudy and Leo Reiss April 1995 Since three of you are now young adults, I would like to share with you the story of my childhood. It has some sad, some happy and some good times. I am hoping that by looking into my past you may be able to sort out your own lives. My father, David Weiss was born January 19,1897 and my mother Anna Weiss (Maurer) was born on August 18,1897. They met in Vienna during World War I. My Dad had two sisters and a brother. My mother had eight siblings and her two brothers lived and married in Austria. My mother had to leave her small town in Poland at the age of eighteen because Russian soldiers not only invaded the town but also raped the young girls. Her father sent her to live with her brothers in Vienna where she would be safe. My grandfather was a religious man, a Hebrew school teacher, and advisor to the honored Rabbi. My parents married in Vienna after World War I. My brother Fred is the eldest, I was born on April 20th, 1927, the second child and my sister Greta was the youngest. My father was a gold and silversmith. We were considered a middle class family. My Dad could no longer find work in his trade, so he had to drive a taxicab to earn a living. We lived in a small apartment in Vienna. We brought our water supply into the house from pails filled in the hallway. In order to take a bath, we had to heat the water and pour it into a barrel in the kitchen. I was in the middle of fifth grade (considered junior high school) when Hitler invaded Austria. Things changed for our family. My sister and I had to travel a half-hour on the trolley to attend a Jewish school in another district, because we were no longer welcome in public school. We had to wear a Jewish Star of David on the front and back of our coats. Non-Jewish children saw the stars and threw stones at us. Our education stopped because it was too dangerous to attend school. The Gestapo arres-ted my Father on November 10th,1938-- Kristallnacht. He was sent to Dachau. My Mom had to scrub 6 sidewalks using a pail of water and a brush while the Sturm AbetHung (storm troopers) kicked her. Because of the successful efforts of my Mother, Father was re\eased from prison after a year and left the country. After being threatened by the Gestapo my sixteen-year-old brother Fred followed my Dad to Italy and later to Yugoslavia. Several months later my mother, sister and I illegally crossed the Yugoslavian border. We did this because the Germans had not yet crossed her borders. We walked all night with a guide and a small group of people, through a pass, in the Austrian Alps. Days later we arrived in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Twenty-four hours later the war broke out, but we were safe. The Austrian Jews who had not escaped were sent to concentration camps like Auschwitz. My Dad's brother and my Mom's family, including seven brothers and sisters and their children were killed in concentration camps in Poland. One brother, once a prominent attorney in Vienna, spent two years in Buchenwald. Through some influential friends, he was released and after the war he returned to Vienna to practice law. My family spent the next five years wandering through Yugoslavia. Sometimes we slept in the woods. At times, farmers would let us sleep in their barns and give us food. We always tried to be at least thirty kilometers from the Germans. As they came closer we moved on. My mom was a seamstress and she sometimes sewed for the townspeople. In return they gave us food and wool socks with leather sewn on the soles because we had no shoes. We outgrew them. (Ha ha, that's why I buy a lot of shoes now). We shared a piece of bread at night so that we would not go to bed hungry. In five years we never slept in beds. Our parents gave us their share of food so by the time the war ended they were very thin. During those years my Dad and a couple of other men taught us math, languages and history. That was our schooling until we arrived in Italy. I met my husband, your grandpa Leo when I was seventeen years old. We fell in love and married in Rome on June 17th, 1946. I was eighteen and he was twenty-five. He escaped Hitler and left for Israel when he was nineteen years old. He joined the army in 1941 at the age of twenty-one. He was at the invasion in Italy where he looked for his family. His two brothers survived but his father was shot in the back on his way to the concentration camp. We met because he knew my brother from Vienna before the war. We fell in love. During our life together we 7 have had good times, a good life, happiness and our share of struggles. We tried to send our three children to college to gain a better education than we had been able to receive. In my life, I have experienced three miracles. At the age of fifteen, in Yugoslavia, war planes bombed the little village where we were staying. We ran into the ditches to protect ourselves. I remember a little baby that we had left sleeping in a cradle. I jumped out of the ditch and ran back to the house to get the baby. The baby's mother had been out looking for work and food. Seconds later a bomb blew up the room. I saved the baby's life and held onto it until the mother came. She blessed me. The second miracle saved my granddaughter and she recovered from her illness. The third miracle happened when Grandpa Leo and I saw our daughter Ruth give birth to her baby Rachel. It was a wonderful experience to see the miracle of birth. This is dedicated to my children, their spouses and all my grandchildren. I wish them all the happiness possible in life. If I am not here anymore please light a yahrzeit candle for my parents. I love you all, Trudy. 8 A Survivor's Experience with the Gestapo By Or. Jozef Krauze It was the middle of the night in the Kielce Ghetto at the end of April 1942. My brother Alexander and myself were asleep in one room and my parents Henry and Lunia in another. The doorbell rang loudly. My father ran to the door and heard the shouts of the police "aufmachen polizei" (open police). As he opened the door he saw two German men, one a Gendarme with a rifle and the other, a uniformed Gestapo agent wearing a cap and holding a rubber baton. They had come for my father! As he was getting dressed the Gestapo agent came back to our room and ordered us to put on our clothes. As we did this he changed his mind so we undressed and jumped back into bed. This continued two or three times before he decided to leave us alone. When my father finally finished dressing the Gestapo agent ordered him to take everything out of his pockets and the items on our table. He left with my father, and that was the last time my brother and I ever saw him. A Little Known Story from the Warsaw Ghetto By Or. Maria Krauze In 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was dying. There was still a normal working day in the Tobbens and Stehman Factory located in the small ghetto. The factory made uniforms for the German army. The Jews working in the factory lived in an apartment house across the street but still within the walls of the small ghetto. This ghetto was separated from the town of Warsaw and the larger ghetto by a tall brick wall. I understood that the living quarters of the Jewish workers were crowded but satisfactory. Some of the residents lived with members of their families, in fact I once saw a small young girl standing on the street with her mother. They were well dressed, clean and fed adequately by the factory kitchen. During working hours they were treated well but worked longer than we, the non-Jewish workers. When I say we, I mean Polish graduates of the Warsaw Sewing School whom for meager wages were requested to work in that factory. Of course Jews earned no wages. It was a normal working day as the doors suddenly were flung open and someone came in yelling "Juden raus, Juden raus." They left their places and ran toward the doors. We continued to sit at our sewing machines. At first everything appeared orderly. Suddenly as a Jewish man was leaving he was overcome with nervousness and punched a German man in the face. As the man swayed and seemed to not believe what happened, and before he could react, the Jewish man vanished into the crowded hallway and was never identified. We continued to stay in our places, after being checked and re-checked to make sure no Jews were hiding among us. We were locked on the highest floor of the factory where we were able to look out and see the street between the factory and the apartment house that was occupied by Jews. Sometime passed and we noticed people leaving the building with their suitcases, parcels and even some large trunks. The street became tightly packed and the population continued to stand and stand. There seemed no end. In all that stillness we heard a shot. Later we learned that a Jewish woman was hiding in a kitchen. The Germans found her and killed her. The standing and waiting continued until all of the apartments were checked, and finally the evacuation began. People were moving slowly toward the end of one of the streets, they 9 disappeared around the corner and finally everyone was gone. The street was far from empty. Suitcases, bags and large trunks were left behind. It seems that people weren't permitted to take most of their belongings with them. That was that. The whole situation lasted only a few hours. Shortly after that the factory in the small ghetto was closed. I don't know what happened to those people. We were told they were transported to another factory in Poniatowo, but I don't know. The only persons who could answer the question of survival would have been Mr. Tobbens, Mr. Stehman and maybe some survivors. Trying to Hide: My Experiences during the War By Leon Kay In mid-1941 the German army entered Baranoviche, Poland, the city where I lived with my mother because my father had died some years earlier. I had just turned seventeen. We had been a middle-class family. As the Gzrmans settled in our town, the Jews were ordered to move to its outskirts, which at the time was inhabited by poor peasants. We could only take personal possessions that we could carry by hand or on our backs. After two months we were ordered back to a ghetto in the town. It was surrounded by barbwire and guarded by White Ruthenien and SS guards. In the ghetto we had to register with the Judenrate (Jewish committee). We had to wear yellow stars on the front and back of our clothing. There was a main gate at the entrance to the ghetto. This is where we went every morning so the SS could assign us to work duties. We had work cards stamped with numbers. I worked at a mechanical shop that was once owned by my parents. My mother was a maid for a German officer. One morning when I reported to work several SS officers in uniform appeared at the front office of the shop. All Jewish employees were ordered to assemble in the yard. An 55 officer called Joseph Lalka called off ten names from a list he was holding. Mine was among them. We separated from the rest of the employees and were transported by truck to Camp Koldiczewo. The guards were ordered by the SS to beat us as we arrived at the camp. We were then 10 led to a large barrack and assigned a place on the floor, which was covered by straw. Early each morning we were given some hot soup (water with grass in it) and marched off to work. We dug in the swamps for the roots of trees that were turned to turf after they died. During our working hours we were beaten with whips and rifle butts. Some of us never made it. After work we lined up for our evening meal which was watered down soup and a small slice of bread. The Assistant Commandant of the camp assembled all of the prisoners and asked for two carpenters and two mechanics. I volunteered as a mechanic. The officer who told us would be working in the city. Three weeks after my return to the ghetto, several guards under the command of the 55 surrounded it. The entire ghetto population was ordered to assemble at the main gate. It was there that we had to witness the brutality of the guards. Little children that were crying were clobbered over the head and killed. If people didn't move quickly they were shot on the spot. I decided not to follow but to take my chances by hiding. I ran to the blacksmith's shack, which was piled high with coal. On top of the heap was an old platform from a carriage. I jumped on top of the heap, lifted the carriage and dug a hole beneath it. I covered the opening and heard shots and angry voices all around me. Some time passed and I heard two policemen enter the building. One of them said "looks as if they chased them out of here already but we'll make sure again," and with that a great explosion occurred. A hand grenade was thrown; I was shook up but not hurt. I decided to move on during the night. I took the two stars off my clothes, crawled out of the hole and proceeded to the edge of the ghetto. I wanted to get to the Aryan side and reach the mechanical shop where I worked. Crawling along the barb wire fence I found an open hole, escaped through it and reached the shop after midnight. I hid in the attic along with three other Jews. We waited until the next day and when we came out we heard about the tragedies and whereabouts of the people in the ghetto. I returned to the ghetto and learned about the Action (raid). The people were marched to the main gate where there was a Selection by the SS. People were commanded to the right or the left. Those who moved to the right were taken away by foot to work, those pointed to the left, including children, were loaded onto trucks. They were taken to the outskirts of the town, ordered to undress, stand at the top of an open pit, and there they were shot. My dear and loving mother was killed in this Selection. The people who remained in the ghetto lived under deplorable conditions and where Actions and Selectionscontinued. I began to work for the organization "Todt". Early on a December morning in 1942, guards and a detachment of 55 soldiers surrounded the ghetto. We knew there was another action in progress. People were running, crying and praying. Some hid in secret bunkers, some in other hiding places. People were ordered to the main gate by the guards. There were 55 men at the gate; everyone had to leave their work cards. Hiding was not for me. I decided to let fate guide me. With my work card in hand, I went to the gate. As I looked outside there was a high-ranking officer. His name was Amelung, and he was in charge of the operation. As I walked through the gate my hand was outstretched with my work card from Todt with a red number stamped on it. Most of the people before me were directed to the left and loaded onto large trucks. On the right side of the gate were about two hundred people and we were taken over by the Todt guards and marched off in a formation. We marched about six kilometers to the outskirts of the town where we were put into large barracks. There were no bunks; the floor was covered in straw. At mid-day we were given a stale piece of bread and coffee, then marched off to work. The place of work was about three kilometers from the barracks. We marched eight prisoners abreast. Guarding us were the soldiers from Todt. As we arrived we split up into small groups and marched off to a very large lime pit. We were given shovels and ordered to dig. The guards were ruthless Oriental Uzbekis, who themselves were prisoners of war. They had whips and used them frequently. I was severely beaten several times. As we returned to our barracks I began my plan of escape. Under these conditions it wasn't worth living. The next morning as we assembled for the march to work I stood at the end of a row in our column. I removed my yellow stars and as we marched on the public road I stepped out of the column and marched the opposite way. God must have watched over me because I did not hear any shots from behind and nobody chased me. I silently prayed as I proceeded to walk forward. I did not go back to the ghetto, and I knew it was dangerous 12 for me to walk on the streets. I feared being recognized by Polish citizens and other non-Jewish people. I decided to go back to the non-Jewish people with whom I had worked. When I arrived, my friend's wife did not welcome me. She agreed to give me some food on the condition that I would not stay and put her in jeopardy. She gave me a pitcher of milk, a loaf of bread, and some tobacco. She put these things in a sack and suggested that my only chance was to hide in the forest. Reaching the forest took me through fifteen kilometers of hostile territory. I hid in the fields during the day and walked during the night. After several weeks walking around the forest without food, I became very weak. I stole what food I could without being caught. I finally came upon a Jewish family, a father and his two sons. They were also escapees from the ghetto. They too were looking to find a group of people who were hiding in the forest. We joined together in searching for others. After some weeks we came upon a little island surrounded by swamps and trees. Thirty people were in hiding. They were mostly families, older men, some women and children. They had the advantage of vintage guns to protect themselves. We were accepted into the group and given a place to stay in an underground cave, which was camouflaged, by leaves and trees. Food was brought in, taken by force from farmers, or stolen where they could. Life was hard and filled with fears; there were no sanitary conditions. We ate the bark of trees mixed with grass and slimy water full of insects. I suffered from typhus and a high fever and was near death. Despite all that it must have been God's will that I lived and survived. In May of 1944 the Red Army liberated us. I returned to my hometown of Baranoviche after liberation to find most of it burned down. I wandered through the rubble and found a couple of survivors like myself. They invited me to stay at their home, which miraculously survived. We registered with the Russian authorities and were given food cards. I met a fellow survivor and we were married at the end of 1944. We left our town and moved onto central Poland. Our final aim was to immigrate to Israel or the United States. The journey took us to Lodz, Poland. We lived in Poland for a year and a half and went to Germany. We moved from Berlin to Munich, which put us in the US zone. We registered with the Jewish committee, got displaced person cards and ration cards. We lived there until 1947. From there we 13 moved to Heidenheim on the Brenze River. There we joined my wife's parents and together lived in a Displaced Persons Camp. Our first child Riva was born on June 28, 1948. In June 1949 we were notified by the US Consulate to go to Bremen, Germany and wait for our turn to immigrate to the United States. Shelter among Strangers By Alfred Schreier The war of all wars was raging across Europe, and the Italian government had confined my parents, three brothers and I to the tiny town of Muro-Lucano, high in the Italian Apennines. We had fled to Italy from Vienna not long after Kristallnacht, and were being detained along with many other families as a precaution. It was here, miles from the nearest synagogue, that I turned 13. My mother, undaunted by circumstance, wanted me to have a chance to celebrate my bar mitzvah. She went to the local authorities, explained what a bar mitzvah was, and was told that while I could not possibly be granted permission to leave the village, no one would notice if I happened to ""disappear"" for a few days. And so, on a sunny day in May 1942,1 dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, I set out alone for Naples?a faraway place of total strangers where I had never been? to celebrate my bar mitzvah. My family's ordeal began four years earlier in Vienna. My father was arrested November 10, 1938? Kristalnacht?and deported to Dachau. My mother and we four children, ages six to thirteen, were locked in a basement for a day by our neighbors and individually interrogated by self-proclaimed enforcers of the law. We were allowed to return to our apartment after nightfall, only to find that all our furniture and personal belongings had been plundered along with my father's modest dental office. His tools and equipment were scattered on the sidewalk. Left without a home, my mother placed my youngest brother and me in an orphanage while she and my two older brothers found shelter with strangers. Luckily, my father was released from Dachau after six months?on my birthday?and given 48 hours to leave the country. With no documents or money, he managed to reach nearby Italy, and a couple 14 of months later we were able to follow, reuniting in Milan. We then went to Genoa, where we stayed until World War II broke out. The Italian government sent most adult male refugees to various concentration camps as a precaution. Women and children were confined to small villages up and down the country. My mother and we children went to the tiny village Pescopagano and my father ended up in Campagna-Eboli, near Salerno. He and the other inmates were treated well, and we corresponded with him. My father was allowed to join us after several months and a year later the auth