Biographical essay by Lucy Gliuck Jacobs, 2014

Lucy Gliuck Jacobs Lucy Jacobs shows her Auschwitz tattoo number: A 16598 I am a survivor. I was 14 years old when I was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau . I have to tell you a secret. I lied about my age so I would be older in the camps. Auschwitz-Birkenau entrance gate I was born in Czechoslovakia, in Munkacs. My real birthday is July 15, 1928 but I changed it to July 15, 1926. Why did I change it? One of the prisoners in Auschwitz, in a striped uniform, came to me after I got separated from my mother who had been ordered to go in a different direction. He asked me how old I was and when I said 14 he said no ? tell them two years older. I did not understand why I should do such a thing and the man scared me. When he left, I called out to my mother and said I was coming to her. The same man came back and told me not to go. He said she would come to me tomorrow. Jews being separated (women & children apart from the men) as part of the selection process which decided who would live and who would be killed. If he had not told me what to say I would have given away my age. I never lied so I would not have thought to make this up. Children under 16 were sent to the gas chambers but I was sent to work. This man saved my life like an angel. Almost immediately I learned my parents were gassed. Later I found out my brothers starved to death in Birkenau. Before the war we were a comfortable family. My father?s business was dealing with cows and we were seven children. My family. Left to right: first row: twins William and Sam, Adam (in the white shirt); middle row: Michael, my mother Frieda holding baby Ethel (Eti), me (Lucy), my father Martin Gliuck, and Rachel. Behind us in the back row are my uncles Max and Joe. I was the only child to survive in my family. 1939. The Hungarians came in and acted like the Nazis. Work licenses were taken away. Jewish stores were closed. We had to wear yellow stars on our clothes. People were afraid to go to synagogue. Jewish children were thrown out of schools. By 1943 we were sent to the ghetto. Chased out of our home, we moved from place to place as the ghetto area kept changing. Finally we were sent to the brick factory for deportation to Auschwitz. My father cried a lot. We were loaded like cattle on the train. There was no bathroom. A blanket was held up to give us some privacy to use the bucket. We were not given any food or water. We were on that train for days and some people died in the cattle car. There was no room to lie down. Jews being off-loaded from the cattle cars in Birkenau. Early 1944: Birkenau ? lager (camp) C. I worked in the kitchen and also did road construction. While working in the kitchen I was able to smuggle out some food which I shared with my friend from home. Irma Grese almost killed me. She was a brutal guard. Delivery trucks had come and were dropping off tons of beets. She put me there to watch so there would not be any thefts. I turned my back so others could steal and she caught me. She beat me with a stick and even ran her bicycle over me. I passed out. Then the girls from the kitchen poured water on me to revive me. I was in pain for many days but I still had to work. I was there until January 1945. Days before the Russians liberated the camp we were taken away. We went on a Death March from Birkenau to Breslau (a.k.a. Wroc?aw). It was called a Death March because if you could not walk you were shot. We stopped along the way at different camps but there was no place at some of these camps for women because there were already many male prisoners there. I ended up in Bergen-Belsen. There was typhus and I got sick. I almost died. When the British liberated us I weighed only 50 pounds, was deaf and could not walk or eat. The British nursed me back to health. Bergen-Belsen I was all alone. Though I had relatives from my grandfather?s side in America, nobody from my immediate family survived. At the age of 16, I got married to a man 20 years older than I. My first husband?s name was Bernard Mermelstein. Mermelstein was also my mother?s maiden name but there was no relation. My grandparents Rivka and Hersch Mermelstein 1948. We fled to Israel to avoid the spread of Communism. That was the only place we could go at the time because the US had a quota. My husband, children and I came to the US in 1958. I was 17 when my son Martin was born. Coming to America was hard. We did not speak the language. I went to work in a factory. I divorced my first husband and married a man with 4 children. His name was Arthur Jacobs. I raised 6 children altogether. Myself as a young woman in America at age 22 My son?s Bar Mitzvah: Martin, Lucy, Flora, and my first husband Bernard Mermelstein. With my second husband Arthur Jacobs. I came to Las Vegas in September 2014. After my daughter died, I moved here from Florida to be closer to my son. My daughter Flora and her husband David I had a very hard life. G-d helped those of us who survived so we could tell the story of what happened to us. I used to speak in schools but now, since my daughter passed away, it?s too hard for me. My grandson Eric Shane Lewin My granddaughter Chelsea Blair Stone