Dan Brown

Our family was not religiously observant, and I remember that my grandfather Izaak didn’t have a beard, as most religious Jewish men had at that time. This could have been because he did not want to bring attention to himself as a Jew. I now understand that antisemitism was always present.

I recall an incident just after the war started when the Germans came to our apartment and forced my father to open his floor safe. They emptied the safe, throwing papers on the floor and all over the room as they searched for jewellery and other valuables. This was very upsetting for me to watch.

I attended a private school with Jewish and Polish students before the war. I had always wanted to be an electrical engineer, and my favourite subject was math. One day, I had a terrible incident at school. I was in the washroom and a non-Jewish boy pushed my head against the wall. This was a painful and humiliating experience for me. From a young age, I had been taught by my parents not to bring attention to myself when away from home, so I never reported the incident to my teachers.

I remember that everyone was hungry in the ghetto. The outside of the ghetto fence was surrounded by guards with rifles. There were some apple trees with branches that hung over the fence. One day, I embarked on a dangerous mission. In broad daylight, I climbed the fence and shook the trees to make the apples fall inside the ghetto. The guards started shooting to scare me off, but more importantly we had apples to eat. Thinking back, I didn’t give much thought to the potential consequences of the risk I was taking. I have always been determined and shamefully stubborn — no doubt these characteristics helped me to survive.

We remained in the Lodz ghetto until the Germans evacuated it in August 1944. They deported almost all of the remaining residents, including my entire family, to Auschwitz-Birkenau by cattle car. The conditions were horrific; the elderly, the young and the sick were crammed into filthy cattle cars. The stench was unbearable, and breathing was difficult. We were treated like cattle! Hearing the cries of the helpless, frightened people was heartbreaking. Fear was ever present.

Between February 13 and 15, 1945, Dresden was firebombed by the United States and Great Britain. The city centre was destroyed and approximately twenty-five thousand people were killed. I will never forget walking on the outskirts of Dresden at night and seeing the city in flames from the firebombing. The noise, the fire and the loss of lives were staggering. It was a nightmare, and I was very frightened.

My sister, Ella, was killed when the factory we had been working in was bombed. I later learned that she was buried in Johannisfriedhof, a cemetery in Dresden. The loss of both my mother and my sister was a tragedy for me. I was heartbroken.

Following the bombing, our group was relocated to a nearby camp. Later, from April 11 to 23, 1945, those who were left from our group were sent on a death march. For twelve days, we were forcibly marched on foot from Dresden to the Theresienstadt (Terezín) ghetto and concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. I was still with my father, my uncle and his family, but men and women were separated on this death march. We walked about ten hours a day, covering roughly ninety kilometres. It was very cold, and we slept in forests, barns and once in a stadium without a roof. I remember deliberately choosing to walk in the eighth row from the front so as not to be conspicuous to the guards. Those who no longer had the strength to keep up with the group would fall behind, near the back. They were shot by the monstrous German soldiers who guarded us. Being no longer useful, the weak and the sick were cruelly disposed of. I can still hear the shots. I can still hear the screams.