Résultats

J’ai emporté dans le bunker mon livre, Autant en emporte le vent, que je lisais depuis un moment, et que j’ai lu et relu plusieurs fois. Notre abri était éclairé et muni d’une petite trappe par laquelle nous pouvions aller prendre l’air durant la nuit, quand les nazis n’étaient habituellement pas en faction. Même ainsi, il fallait nous montrer prudents lorsque nous sortions, car des informateurs se faufilaient parmi nous et suppliaient qu’on les laisse entrer dans les bunkers. C’est ainsi qu’ils découvraient nos cachettes et en révélaient l’emplacement aux Allemands dès le lendemain. Ces derniers venaient alors avec des lance-flammes et de l’artillerie, et avertissaient les occupants que, s’ils ne sortaient pas dans la demi-heure, leur abri serait réduit en cendres. Les Allemands ont fini par détruire entièrement le ghetto en opérant de la sorte.

Nous vivions dans le bunker depuis trois semaines et nous n’avions pas mis le nez dehors depuis plusieurs jours. Nous ne parlions qu’à voix basse avec une pointe d’hystérie dans le ton. Puis la première semaine de mai, les inévitables coups ont retenti sur la trappe, et des voix nous sont parvenues des bouches d’aération. Nous avions été découverts. Les voix – je ne me souviens plus si c’était en allemand ou en polonais – disaient que, si nous ne sortions pas d’ici trente minutes, ils allaient lancer des bombes à gaz à l’intérieur et que nous allions tous mourir. Lorsque nous avons émergé, nous avons vu des Allemands accroupis, munis de mitraillettes. Ils ont incendié l’édifice malgré tout.

J’en ai gardé une image très nette : alors que nous sortions du bunker, nous avons vu des parachutistes allemands entièrement vêtus de noir, comme le diable en personne, affublés de casques noirs et munis de mitraillettes qu’ils portaient en bandoulière. Ils ne cessaient de hurler : « Hände hoch ! Hände hoch ! Nicht schießen ! »
(Les mains en l’air ! Les mains en l’air ! Ne tirez pas !) Ils pensaient que nous avions des armes et ils avaient peur de nous. J’en ai éprouvé une grande fierté.

Ils nous ont fouillés et forcés à nous allonger le long de l’immeuble, nous plaçant sous la surveillance de soldats ukrainiens. Désormais, les collaborateurs étaient ukrainiens, lettons ou lituaniens. Nous sommes restés ainsi durant un long moment alors qu’ils rassemblaient les habitants, les regroupant en files. Il faisait sombre quand nous nous sommes mis en marche, au milieu des bâtiments incendiés. Certains prisonniers tentaient de s’échapper en quittant leur file en courant ; un fugitif a détalé tout droit vers un immeuble en feu lorsqu’un des gardes l’a visé et a déchargé son arme sur lui. Hilare, le tireur ne semblait même pas se préoccuper d’avoir atteint sa cible ou non, car peu lui importait que l’homme meure par balle ou brûlé vif.

Ce souvenir a été le premier à me hanter régulièrement dans mes cauchemars. Pendant des années, j’ai rêvé qu’on me tirait dans le dos et que je mourais après m’être jeté dans les flammes.

Memories in Focus (Traduction française à venir)

Memories of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

I took my book, Gone with the Wind, which I had been reading for a while, with me to the bunker and I read it front to back many times. There must have been light in the bunker, as well as a trap door that could be opened so we could go out for some fresh air, but only at night, when the Nazis usually didn’t operate. Even so, we had to be careful when we went out because there were informers who would come at night, mix with people and beg them to be let into their bunkers. That’s how they found out where the bunkers were and the next day they would go and tell the Germans, who would come with flame throwers and artillery and announce that if the people didn’t come out in half an hour, they would burn the bunker down. Eventually, the Germans levelled the whole ghetto that way.

We were in the bunker for about three weeks, and for the last few days we stayed inside and didn’t venture out. People spoke only in hushed tones, which had a hint of hysteria in them. Then, the first week in May, the inevitable knock came on the trap door and we heard voices through the air vents. We had been found out. The voices — I can’t recall if in German or Polish — said that if we didn’t come out within half an hour, they were going to throw gas bombs into the bunker and we would all die. When we emerged, we saw Germans squatting with machine guns and they set the building on fire anyway.

One image has stayed clearly in my mind: As we left the bunker, we saw German paratroopers dressed all in black, like the devil himself, with black helmets and machine guns strapped across their chests. They kept shouting, “Hände hoch! Hände hoch! Nicht schiessen!” (Hands up! Hands up! Don’t shoot!) They thought that we had guns and they were afraid of us. I felt very proud.

We were all searched and then forced to lie down next to the building, where Ukrainians guarded us. Now the collaborators were either Ukrainians, Latvians or Lithuanians. We stayed that way for a long time while they gathered up a large column of people. By the time we started walking, it was dark and we were surrounded by burning buildings. People were trying to escape, running away from the column, and one man ran toward the flames of a burning building as one of the guards aimed his rifle and shot after him. The guard was laughing himself silly as he shot, not even seeming to care whether he hit the man or not since it really didn’t matter whether the man died of a bullet or in the flames.

That image became my first recurring nightmare; for years I would dream that I was being shot in the back and was dying as I ran into the flames.

As the Lilacs Bloomed

A Glimpse at Life and Missing Auschwitz

All of a sudden, we arrived at a city. It was well-lit and we could see the streets from the station. My God, how this made me feel! Never before had I experienced such bitter heartache. Was it true that there were still people with a life? Elegantly dressed women, babies with smiling faces. We hadn’t seen children for five months. During those five months, our minds had dulled – perhaps we didn’t even have a soul anymore. All that interested us was not to starve and not to be so cold.

From the train, I could see through a window into a house. The gentle light of a lamp fell on a table covered with a white cloth, a family seated around it. A father, mother and four children were having dinner. No, this was impossible to bear, too much of an ordeal for us who had not sat on a chair for five months, who instead had to crouch, backs bent, to avoid hitting our heads on the bunk above. We thought of our old homes only as if they were part of a beautiful dream, from which we would awaken to the harsh reality. I sensed that we would never see our loved ones again; I didn’t know where to locate them in my thoughts. My weak, tall, lanky son, János, who lived only for his books. My dear husband, who shared my very thoughts. Where could they be living, if they were living at all?

The tears were streaking down my face as I closed the train curtains, and the optimism that had filled us at our departure evaporated as the train pulled away. We were like falling leaves in the current of the autumn wind…. A miserable night passed and toward dawn, while it was still dark, we arrived at our unknown destination in the pouring rain. As we got out of the carriages, I saw an undulating, menacing body of dark water in front of us. There was water wherever I looked and water streaming down our necks. At last we could decipher the name of the station: Schlesiersee. This was the name of the lake and also of the small town situated on its shore.

Rows of five and marching. The outlines of a pretty little town became visible in the grey, pre-dawn light. Mansions, each one more beautiful than the last, and tidy streets. Not a soul to be seen at this early hour, but behind a few windows a woman’s hand would pull aside a snow-white curtain, so suggestive of a peaceful home, and a pair of curious eyes peered out. I wonder what they felt, what they were thinking, as they caught sight of two thousand women marching in a downpour.

We marched for hours. We left the town behind us and all we saw around us were barren fields. Not a factory chimney in sight, even though it had been our hope to work in a factory. After all, it was almost the end of October – what could we possibly do in the fields? We saw all sorts of windmills, which, previously, I had only seen on Dutch postcards. My first time seeing a windmill, soon to become the thousand times cursed backdrop to the tragedy that played out on these fields, whose ill-fated protagonists we would become.

“We talked about Auschwitz as we had before about our dear old bourgeois homes.”

We passed through two villages. People who had just gotten up were shaking their heads, watching our sad, drenched company. The rain that had plagued us since the beginning of our exile was still cascading down on us incessantly, trickling down our skin. Our new attire, which we were so proud of, turned into wringing-wet, foul-smelling rags. My stockings, which I had stopped readjusting, slipped down, and I trampled on them; they were in tatters by the time we arrived in front of a small farm that stood all by its lonely self in the fields.

Fear pierced my heart. Could this be the place where we were going to live? In the autumn? In the winter? No! This was unbelievable, surpassing even our most pessimistic imaginings and yet, at the same time, nothing was impossible or unbelievable. We marched into the courtyard of the farm and were made to stand in a quadrangle-shaped formation. Never, not even on my arrival at Auschwitz, did I feel this level of hopelessness. The lack of civilized amenities had been my fear all along. In Auschwitz, I had been reassured by the presence of electricity and Waschraums. Now, even the gas chamber seemed better than perishing in this place. From the outset, I was convinced that we would never survive a winter here.

Pendant la saison des lilas

Fenêtre sur la vie et la nostalgie d’Auschwitz

Soudain, nous nous sommes arrêtées dans une ville. L’endroit était bien éclairé, et de la gare, nous pouvions apercevoir les rues. Mon Dieu, quelle émotion j’ai pu ressentir à ce moment-là ! Jamais je n’avais connu une peine aussi amère. Était-ce bien vrai qu’en ce monde, des gens continuaient de vivre normalement ? Existait-il encore des femmes élégamment vêtues, des bébés aux visages souriants ? Nous n’avions croisé aucun enfant en cinq mois – cinq mois qui nous avaient anesthésié les sens. Peut-être avions-nous même perdu notre âme. Désormais, nos deux seules préoccupations étaient d’éviter les morsures de la faim et celles du froid.

Du train, je pouvais observer un intérieur de maison. Une lampe diffusait sa douce lumière sur la table recouverte d’une nappe blanche autour de laquelle la famille avait pris place. Un père, une mère et quatre enfants dînaient tranquillement. Non ! Que cesse cette vision insupportable ! C’en était trop pour nous ! Depuis cinq mois, nous n’avions pas pu nous asseoir sur une chaise ; nous devions nous accroupir, l’échine courbée, pour ne pas nous cogner la tête à la couchette du dessus. Nos maisons à nous n’appartenaient plus qu’au monde des rêves dont nous émergions pour replonger dans l’impitoyable réalité. J’avais le sentiment que nous ne reverrions jamais nos proches ; je ne savais pas où les situer dans mes pensées. János, mon grand échalas de fils, un être fragile qui ne vivait que pour ses livres ! Mon cher mari, qui partageait jusqu’à mes pensées mêmes ! Où se trouvaient-ils à présent ? Étaient-ils seulement en vie ?

Le visage ruisselant de larmes, j’ai fermé le rideau de la fenêtre. Quand le train est reparti de nouveau, il ne restait plus rien de l’optimisme qui nous habitait en quittant le Lager. Nous étions comme ces feuilles mortes emportées par le vent d’automne. Une nuit affreuse s’est écoulée puis, peu avant l’aube, alors qu’il faisait toujours noir et que tombait une pluie battante, nous sommes arrivées à notre destination. Elle nous était restée inconnue jusqu’alors. À la descente du train, j’ai pu distinguer devant nous une masse d’eau ondoyante et menaçante. L’eau nous entourait de toutes parts : celle du lac s’étendant à perte de vue et la pluie qui nous dégoulinait dans le cou. Enfin, nous avons aperçu le nom de la gare : Schlesiersee. Il désignait à la fois le lac et la petite ville sur sa rive.

En rangs par cinq, nous avons entamé notre périple. Les contours de la petite ville se révélaient dans la lumière grise qui précède l’aube. Des maisons cossues, toutes plus belles les unes que les autres, des rues bien entretenues. Personne en vue à cette heure matinale, mais derrière certaines fenêtres, nous voyions apparaître ici et là une main de femme soulevant un de ces rideaux blancs comme neige si typiques des demeures paisibles, puis une paire d’yeux curieux. Je me demande à quoi pouvaient bien penser ces gens en voyant une colonne de deux mille femmes avancer sous la pluie diluvienne.

Nous avons marché pendant des heures. La ville a disparu derrière nous et nous ne voyions plus que des champs dénudés. Pas une seule cheminée d’usine à la ronde, ce qui nous a déçues car nous avions espéré que notre prochain travail ait lieu à l’abri. Nous étions à la fin octobre, après tout : qu’y avait-il à faire dans les champs ? Nous apercevions toutes sortes de moulins à vent ; je n’en avais jamais vu que sur des cartes postales envoyées de Hollande. Ils deviendraient la toile de fond de la tragédie qui se jouerait bientôt sur ces terres et dont nous serions les malheureuses protagonistes. Nous sommes passées par deux villages. Les gens, qui venaient tout juste de se lever, secouaient la tête en observant la triste colonne détrempée que nous formions. La pluie qui nous avait tourmentées depuis le début de notre exil continuait de nous ruisseler dessus. Nos nouveaux vêtements, dont nous étions si fières, n’étaient plus que des chiffons dégoulinants d’eau. Je marchais sur mes bas, que j’avais cessé de tirer. Ils étaient en loques quand nous sommes arrivées devant une petite ferme qui se tenait toute seule, au milieu des champs.

La peur m’a transpercé le coeur. Était-ce là que nous allions vivre ? En automne ? En hiver ? Non ! L’endroit dépassait nos scénarios les plus pessimistes. C’était inimaginable. Pourtant, il n’y avait rien d’impossible, rien d’incroyable. Nous nous sommes avancées dans la cour et on nous a fait placer en formation carrée. Jamais, pas même en arrivant à Auschwitz, je n’avais ressenti un tel désespoir. Depuis le début, je redoutais l’absence d’installations adéquates. À Auschwitz, l’électricité et les Waschräume m’avaient rassurée. À présent, même les chambres à gaz semblaient préférables à la mort dans cet endroit. Dès que j’ai vu cette ferme, j’ai été convaincue que nous ne passerions pas l’hiver.

From Dream to Nightmare

The Vale of Tears

I worked with all my strength. I pictured our house, the synagogue and my street on the eve of Yom Kippur. Jews would be rushing to and from the bathhouse, wishing each other “a good year” and “may you have a good inscription in the Book of Life.” Some would hurry to synagogue early, bringing large wax candles. I pictured my mother standing in front of the candles, piously praying with tears in her eyes. Around her, we, her children, always stood crying, as was traditional for us on Yom Kippur eve. Looking at the position of the sun, I ascertained that it was probably time to light the candles. My poor mother was at this moment most certainly crying her eyes out for me, her only son, who was not with her. My mother’s suffering broke my heart. I put away my work and went over to a nearby tree. I rested my tired head there and my tears began to flow. I made every effort to stop my tears, to control my emotions, but my efforts were in vain. Leaning my head against the tree, I stood crying like a little boy. My tears fell on the dusty ground and on my dusty clothes. I felt strangely better. I felt lighter, revitalized. I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to be working and that all around me were Nazi murderers. I began to float in higher realms. My grandfather stood before me. I saw my grandfather in his kittel and his tallis, standing on the bimah and exhorting the congregation to repent from the bottom of their hearts.

Suddenly, from out of the blue, a hail of blows landed on my bent back. I lost my bearings, not so much from the beating but from the unexpectedness and suddenness with which the blows had so murderously and mercilessly targeted my back. Nevertheless, I collected myself immediately, realizing where I was in the world. It was not my grandfather but a Nazi overseer that stood before me. His eyes glowered with violent rage. He was ready to kill me. I went straight back to work.

A Part of Me

Escape

In October 1942, rumours came from Dubno that the last roundup of Jews there had been completed. Even those with special skills, now no longer needed, were murdered. I cried for my sister and her child. But my sorrow was even greater when those who were taken to work on the highways returned home with news that Nazi soldiers were surrounding our ghetto. We understood what this meant. My husband’s mother begged me to leave my child with her and said I should try to escape on my own. As a devoted mother, I refused and declared, “Whatever will happen to me, will also happen to my child.”

I picked up my darling daughter in my arms, parted from my friends, with whom I had lived for the last three years and learned to love, and left. I knew this was the end. When I left my mother-in-law and her home, I broke all ties with my past, all that had been my support, my entire defence. I was now almost totally alone, dependent on my own strength and the caprice of fate. With me was my daughter — a helpless little being who depended on me for solace, comfort and protection — and a piece of bread, which was not nearly enough. I ran out of the house with my beloved Lucy in my arms and the hope that God would not desert me.

We Sang in Hushed Voices

Survival

The small acts of courage were what made it possible to survive. One evening, for example, we were made to stand for hours and hours in the Appellplatz for roll call. When we were finally released, some of the women who needed to go to the bathroom went straight to the barracks to relieve themselves in the latrines. When they got there, however, the doors were locked. A few of the poor women were truly in agony after holding it in for so long. Not being allowed to empty their bladders was torturous. This was the last straw for some of us, and we began to shout in resistance, “Let us pee!” over and over again. “Don’t let them suffer!” I called out. “Don’t torture people so much!” One of the female SS guards heard us yelling and came to the barracks.

The guard must have recognized my voice because she came directly over to me, as if I were to blame for the rebellion. The other women were sure that I would be killed. Then, something unexpected happened. A friend of mine from Mukačevo, a woman named Hilda, came to my aid. I had known her before the war, and she was normally very quiet and reserved. Yet, she rallied everyone together and encouraged them all to shout. All seven or eight hundred women in the area began shouting so loudly and with such intensity that the female SS guard grew afraid and left.

There was another way that we could resist – with hope. As we sat on the hard wooden bunks in our barracks, with only our thin, torn dresses to cover us, we still hoped that we would survive. Some of us even tried to learn new languages. By that time, I had already learned some English and spoke it quite well. I also still remembered Hebrew from high school and taught Hebrew words to my friends. It was a time of emptiness, pain and desperation, a time when it was impossible to imagine a way out. There was no way out. But I often thought about miracles.

An extremely important part of our resistance was singing. Although it seems paradoxical to talk about music and Birkenau in the same breath, singing was a key part of our existence. When our work was done and the guards weren’t present, we could find safe moments to sing Hebrew songs. We had to be careful never to sing in front of the SS because they would have beaten us to death. I couldn’t sing well, but it didn’t matter. None of us were really singers. I would teach my friends the words to songs I had learned in school and the women with good voices would figure out the tune. Together we combined words and voices, our voices hushed so that no one would hear us. It gave us encouragement and lifted our spirits; in those moments, we didn’t speak about death and killing.

These were not the only music events in the camp. There were also concerts organized by the SS – although these were hardly happy occasions for the Jewish prisoners. I recall one concert that was spontaneously arranged under orders from the camp administration. We were called out to the Appellplatz and commanded to sit on the ground. What we saw in front of us was a group of men in their filthy, striped prison uniforms, emaciated from hunger, each one holding a violin, a cello or a wind instrument. They were told to take their places on a platform and began to play – and, oh, how beautifully they played. Starving and ill, the musicians played waltzes by Johann Strauss II while the SS guards danced to the music.

I began to cry. I cried inconsolably because those musicians were playing music that had been created to make the world a more harmonious and beautiful place. Yet, these men, imprisoned and starving, were forced to play through suffering and humiliation. Strauss’s waltzes and operettas, which brought joy to listeners for a hundred years, had nothing in common with Hitler and his ideology.

Nous chantions en sourdine

Survivre

De petits gestes de courage nous permettaient de survivre. Un soir, par exemple, nous attendions depuis des heures et des heures sur la place de l’appel. Quand on nous a enfin laissées partir, certaines des femmes, qui avaient besoin d’aller aux toilettes, se sont rendues directement aux baraquements pour se soulager aux latrines. Mais les portes étaient verrouillées. Quelques-unes des femmes n’en pouvaient plus après avoir attendu aussi longtemps. Ne pas pouvoir se soulager était très pénible. Pour certaines, c’en était trop. Nous avons donc commencé à crier, en répétant : « Laissez-nous faire pipi ! » Je clamais : « Ne les faites pas souffrir ! Arrêtez cette torture ! » Une des gardes SS nous a entendues et est venue au baraquement.

Elle avait dû reconnaître ma voix, car elle s’est dirigée directement vers moi, comme si j’étais responsable de la rébellion. Les autres femmes étaient sûres que j’allais être tuée. Mais il est arrivé quelque chose d’inattendu. Une de mes amies de Moukatcheve, qui s’appelait Hilda, m’est venue en aide. Je la connaissais avant la guerre : c’était une femme habituellement très calme et réservée. Cependant, elle a rallié tout le monde et a encouragé les femmes à hurler. Les 700 ou 800 détenues du secteur ont commencé à crier si fort et avec tant d’intensité que la garde SS a pris peur et est partie.

Il existait une autre manière de résister : en gardant espoir. Assises sur nos châlits dans le baraquement, vêtues de robes légères et toutes déchirées dans lesquelles nous gelions, notre force de vie subsistait malgré tout. Certaines ont même essayé d’apprendre de nouvelles langues. J’avais déjà appris un peu d’anglais à cette époque et je le parlais assez bien. Je me souvenais aussi de l’hébreu qu’on m’avait enseigné au secondaire et dont je partageais la connaissance avec quelques amies. C’était une période de vide, de souffrance et de désespoir. Il était difficile d’envisager un moyen de s’en sortir et il ne semblait pas y avoir d’issue possible. À moins d’un miracle… et je me raccrochais parfois à cette pensée.

Notre résistance se manifestait plus que tout par le chant. Bien qu’il paraisse paradoxal de parler en même temps de musique et de Birkenau, chanter représentait un élément essentiel de notre existence. Quand notre travail était fini et que les gardes n’étaient pas là, nous en profitions pour entonner des chants hébreux. Nous devions faire attention à ne jamais chanter devant les SS, car nous aurions été battues à mort. Je chantais faux, mais cela n’avait pas d’importance. Aucune d’entre nous n’avait de talent véritable pour le chant. J’apprenais à mes amies les paroles des chansons qu’on m’avait enseignées à l’école, et les femmes dotées d’une belle voix se chargeaient de trouver l’air. Ensemble, nous combinions paroles et mélodies, et nous chantions en sourdine pour que personne ne puisse nous entendre. Cela nous donnait du courage et nous remontait le moral. Au cours de ces séances, nous ne parlions ni de la mort omniprésente ni des assassinats qui nous menaçaient toutes.

Ce n’étaient pas les seuls moments musicaux du camp. Nous avons eu droit aussi à des concerts organisés par les SS – des occasions pénibles pour les détenus juifs. Je me souviens d’un concert qui avait été monté à l’improviste par ordre de l’administration du camp. On nous a réunies sur l’Appellplatz et ordonné de nous asseoir par terre. En face de nous se trouvait un groupe d’hommes décharnés et revêtus de leurs guenilles de prisonniers. Chacun d’eux tenait qui un violon, qui un violoncelle, qui un instrument à vent. On leur a dit de prendre place sur l’estrade et de commencer à jouer. Quel talent ! Affamés et malades, les musiciens interprétaient des valses de Johann Strauss fils, tandis que les SS dansaient.

Je me suis mise à pleurer. J’étais inconsolable : ces musiciens étaient en train de jouer des airs créés pour rendre le monde plus beau et plus harmonieux. Et ces hommes, emprisonnés et faméliques, étaient forcés de jouer au-delà de la souffrance et de l’humiliation. Les valses et les opérettes de Strauss, qui avaient fait la joie de tant de mélomanes depuis si longtemps, n’avaient rien en commun avec Hitler et son idéologie.

Lament

Arrival in Auschwitz

Soon, we found ourselves in front of one of the countless barracks. Its doors were like a gate and just as wide, open in both directions, as if eager to take us in. The barracks was about ten metres wide and forty metres long. There was no floor, so the ground served as one. In the middle, along the barracks’ length, was a brick partition that looked like a horizontal chimney. I later found out that indeed it was meant to act as both a stove and a chimney, though it never worked. This chimney duct served as a partition in the barracks. Along one side of the partition were two rows of desks. Behind each desk sat a man dressed in the striped concentration camp attire. Some SS men were walking back and forth behind those men, keeping an eye on them and on us.

We were ordered to stand on the other side of the partition. There, for the first time, we came face to face with kapos. These kapos were Polish inmates, and their task was to supervise the other inmates, using SS methods. They hit us using clubs, shovels, pickaxes or anything that was handy, and if nothing was available, they used their hands and feet to hit and kick. The SS men were there to make sure that the kapos were doing their jobs satisfactorily.

Someone announced that everyone whose family name began with the letter A should step over the partition and present themselves in front of a desk. The people behind the desks were asking questions and writing things down on forms. So it continued, letter after letter, until they got to the letter K. I stepped over the partition and positioned myself in front of a desk. Behind the desk sat a young Jewish man a couple of years older than me. He did not look emaciated, but his face was pale, actually white. He picked up a form from a pile, and looking up at me with visible compassion, he told me to empty my pockets. I had on me the dollars my uncle Hershel had given me on the last Saturday, before I went to hide, an hour or two before he and my entire family were taken away, plus the few marks from my father. As I reached into my pocket, I felt the few rubles I had taken from an empty Jewish home on Sunday morning, shortly before I got into the sled. I put it all on the table. An SS man saw the money and moved closer.

The man behind the desks asked, “Is this all?”

“This is all,” I answered.

While the SS man picked up the money and threw it in a nearby basket, the young man picked up a pen and asked me my name, age, vocation and a couple more questions. Then he asked one question that stunned me, “What is the reason for your arrest?” It sounded to me so preposterous that I suspected some trap behind the question. It seemed to me that my interrogator deliberately let me think for a few seconds. Maybe he did that to emphasize the absurdity of the whole process — the form, the questions and everything else. In a place like this, what purpose did all these questions serve?

The young man looked around, and seeing the SS man walk away, he said to me quietly, “I know the answer, but I am ordered to ask regardless.” He filled in the line on the form, asked me one or two more questions, put the form in another pile, then gave me a small piece of paper and said, “Step to the desk behind me and give him this scrap of paper.”

Behind that desk was another young Jewish man, about the same age as the first, with the same white face of a dead man. He took the piece of paper from my hand and told me to roll my left sleeve up to the elbow. He dipped a needle in an inkwell, and, glancing at the piece of paper, made a tattoo on my forearm, with the numbers 99347. In normal times, getting a tattoo with such a crude tool would be painful, but at that moment I was not paying attention. It was only the next day that my forearm swelled, but then I was confronted with so many other problems that I could not even pay attention to it. As soon as I received my number, I joined the other prisoners. From that time on, I was only a number and was always referred to as such by the Nazis and camp administration.

Between the Lines: The Diary of Margit Kassai

The Age of Uninterrupted Slaps in the Face

Pest!!!!!!!!! Tuesday, March 6, 1945

My dear, sweet Pippancs,

It has been more than six months since I was last able to write you a diary letter as I used to do when I added a few lines to the page every day, keeping you informed of every insignificant and trivial thing that had happened to me. It seemed almost as if keeping a continuous process going was no problem at all. By now you may have heard that some things have happened to me, to Budapest, to the Jews, to Hungary, etc., that can’t be called either trivial or insignificant, and I have gradually developed what I have concisely named a caesura complex. I’ll explain in a moment what that means, but it’s certain that this year has caused a caesura, a break, in your life just as it has in mine. This year cut me off sharply and pitched me against a completely different situation, in which I too became something completely different. Surely the same applies to you too, doesn’t it? The essential part of the caesura complex is the fear that the new Kiskas and the new Gregi may no longer suit each other. I’ve often imagined that having been God knows where during this time you have found another woman to get used to. That would be quite natural, and something of the kind could also have happened to me, although not so easily, because you know how many men were exterminated around here. Then I also imagined that one day you would come home, there would have been no other woman and the new Kiskas would suit you, but you would suddenly ask what had happened, what it had been like. You would expect me to tell you about the whole year, and I would stand there not knowing what to tell. How could I tell it, what could I tell, if the biography of every single person who has come through it alive is a six-volume adventure story? One day we would walk down the street in Budapest together, and I would point out some passersby who seemed so insignificant that at other times we wouldn’t even see them but, believe me, each of them is the hero of a novel — and what’s more, the hero of a very thrilling novel.

Note: Don’t expect a historical account from me. Other people could explain the historical, political, and strategic side of the affair much better than I could even trying my hardest. I only want to report what happened to ME, what the whole thing was like for ME. And — I repeat — I’m doing it to resist the caesura complex.

My dear Pipus, it was April 8 when we said goodbye last year. You patted my cheek with a typical Pippancs gesture and said lightly: “Try to stay alive. Okay?” I said (less lightly): “Okay.” Well, I did try, and I suspended all spielbergerisms. I’m not saying that I don’t owe a lot to trying. But that wasn’t all. If I’m here today it’s thanks to

1. Béla,
2. Béla,
3. Béla,
4. the traditional bad luck of the Spielbergers, which always turns into good when faced with a question of life and death,
5. an astonishing series of lucky coincidences and
6. my indestructible nervous system.

The Smallest Hope

Never Safe

After getting a little rest in the morning, we started the afternoon of our first waiting day by getting organized to leave. Then, late that afternoon, we heard screaming in the distance — and the voices were getting closer. Soon, there was a funny smell in the air.

Just a few blocks away, a Jewish hideout linked to the sewers had been discovered. After saturating the location with gas, and seeing none in the group of maybe two hundred people there flee, the Germans must have become suspicious, entered the building and dis­covered a connection to the underground system. They reacted by pumping massive amounts of poison gas into the sewer.

As quickly as we could, we attempted to get away through the sewers where we were hiding from the other fleeing Jews and the Nazis. Unfortunately, our labelled route out of the ghetto would have taken us toward the fugitives before looping around to the “Aryan” side. All our stickers were now useless. We were just scrambling to stay ahead of the oncoming men, women and children.

Within ten or fifteen minutes, we spotted a ladder going up to a street. Arriving there a couple of minutes in advance of the first fleeing Jews, I ran up the metal steps, squeezing beside my friends so each of us could get as close as possible to the access lid. We took turns breathing fresh air through its tiny holes. When all the others made it to our spot, they wanted to climb up and breathe too, but there was barely enough air and space for my friends and me. As the terrified Jews struggled to climb the ladder, we instinctively kicked them down to the ground. It was selfish but when you’re fighting for survival you just react and do whatever is required.

With the concentration of gas increasing, it didn’t take long for the people under us to start losing consciousness. Moments later we were beginning to feel overcome ourselves. We could not wait any longer, so we pushed and pushed and managed to flip open the cover. We jumped out and ran across the street as fast as we could. We expected to be shot in the process, but to our amazement there were no Germans around.

After we crossed the road, my friends said to follow them to one or two hideouts nearby. They weren’t sure whether these were still intact, but we had no choice but to find out.

Inside the Walls

Loss in the Ghetto

During this first winter, as the walls grew wet and frozen, we had to move to Brzezinska Street, where we were warmer and away from the barbed wire fence and the German guard who occasionally fired his gun. I made friends in our new place. One of them was a composer a few years older than me. He had a girlfriend who was a musician as well. Even though we lived in the same building, we exchanged letters; we promised to be friends forever.

The small apartment where we lived was available for a short time only, and we were next sent to occupy a small room on Zgierska Street, near the bridge. The apartment consisted of a tiny entrance hall and kitchen combination, and another room that was already occupied by a family. This building was close to the barbed wire fence, behind which the tramways for the gentile population moved along freely. However, we were not directly exposed to the fence, as our room faced the courtyard. There was an outhouse in the yard, where people would empty their chamber pots. In the winter the opening to the outhouse would freeze over, and people would continue to empty their pots, creating a hill that grew and froze until spring came. There was no escaping the stench and it was hard to avoid stepping into it. While I dulled my senses to everything else, this sight and the smell repelled and revolted me. I washed every part of my body whenever I could.

Almost immediately upon our arrival to Zgierska Street, we were, to our horror, infested with lice, and there was no escaping the scourge. I succumbed to a feeling of self-loathing, and once, as my father and I stood by the window, I exhaled loudly and told him that I wished that someone would push me into a hole in the ground and bury me. Surprised at my own vehemence, I glimpsed my father’s profile and saw a look of sadness and despair.

During the first few months in the ghetto, we received mail from my brothers in Soviet-occupied Poland. They were preparing to come back and lead us to the Soviet Union along a certain route. My brothers specifically stressed that there would be schooling for me there, which was an ongoing family concern. But in the spring of 1940, the ghetto was hermetically closed and there was no longer any mail, news or communication whatsoever with the outside world. The penalty for listening to a radio was death.

[...]

In the fall, on Yom Kippur, we went to a prayer gathering; it was the first time I saw my father dissolve into tears. Whenever we thought things could not get worse, they did.We were hungrier than ever and we were getting weaker. My father was unable to carry on digging ditches for potato storage, the work to which he had been assigned. I started to work at a saddle factory, sewing leather and making harnesses, and the meagre pay was enough to receive our basic weekly food ration. It was up to us to consume the ration – bread and other staples – when we wished, and we rationed our food scrupulously, but it was a terrible temptation to dig into the weekly supply. The amount of the ration changed every week, depending on what the administration could get as payment for the production of goods for the Germans.

I felt mindless. Starvation was soon rampant, and mortality in the ghetto reached epidemic proportions. Death started with apathy, weakness and the swelling of ankles. The swelling would move upward, and ultimately the heart and lungs would shrink, resulting in a lingering death. On July 2, 1941, that is how my father died.

When my mother realized that my father’s situation was critical, she sent a neighbour to come and get me at work, and I came home. My father looked at me for a while, and then he closed his eyes for the last time. He was buried in the cemetery at the edge of the ghetto.

My mother and I were now alone.

If, By Miracle

I will always remember my mother’s last words to me. “If, by miracle, you survive, you must bear witness and tell the free world what happened to us.” I am the only survivor of the Holocaust from my mother’s large family, which originally comprised more than 150 people. Among the few survivors on my father’s side were his younger brother, Shimon, the only survivor of seven brothers, and a few of his cousins. That was all that remained of our family. I often asked myself whether there could be a God who allowed the murder of my family and my people, young and old. When I was ten years old, I heard the last cries of Jews reciting the prayer Shema Yisrael on their way to mass graves in my hometown of Nieśwież. As a child, I was angry and disappointed that God had permitted this to happen, but to adopt a negative opinion of God would have meant giving up the struggle to survive and especially giving up on my mother’s last words to me. I came to the conclusion that there was a God and that He would give me the determination to live and be free again, and to avenge the Jewish people. I remembered what I had learned in Hebrew school about the two-thousand-year history of our people – how we had survived pogroms, slaughters and inquisitions.

When I was older, I always held on to my mother’s words and I promised myself that I would fulfill her wishes by telling Jewish and non-Jewish youth, as well as adults, about everything that our people had been forced to endure during the war, to implore them to pass on our history to future generations so that these events would never happen again.

Si, par miracle

Je me souviendrai toujours des dernières paroles de ma mère : « Si, par miracle, tu survis, il faut que tu témoignes et que tu dises au monde libre ce qui nous est arrivé. » Je suis le seul survivant de l’Holocauste de la grande famille de ma mère, laquelle comptait à l’origine plus de 150 personnes. Du côté de mon père figurent parmi les survivants son frère cadet, Shimon, le seul de ses sept frères, et quelques cousins. Voilà tout ce qu’il reste de ma famille.

Je me suis souvent demandé s’il était possible qu’un Dieu permette le meurtre de ma famille et de mon peuple, jeunes et vieux. Lorsque j’avais 10 ans, j’ai entendu les derniers cris des Juifs qui récitaient la prière Shema Yisraël en route vers les charniers. C’était à Nieśwież, la ville où je suis né. Enfant, j’étais en colère et déçu que Dieu ait permis cela, mais si j’avais adopté une vision négative de Dieu, j’aurais cessé de lutter pour survivre et, surtout, j’aurais trahi les dernières volontés de ma mère. J’en suis venu à la conclusion qu’il y avait un Dieu et qu’Il me donnerait la force de vivre et d’être libre à nouveau et, surtout, de venger le peuple juif. Je me suis souvenu de ce que j’avais appris à l’école hébraïque à propos de l’histoire de notre peuple, vieille de 2 000 ans – comment il avait survécu aux pogroms, aux massacres et aux inquisitions.

Un peu plus âgé, je m’en suis toujours tenu aux paroles de ma mère et je me suis promis que j’accomplirais ses souhaits en racontant aux Juifs comme aux non-Juifs, jeunes et adultes, tout ce que notre peuple a été forcé d’endurer pendant la guerre, en les implorant de transmettre à leur tour notre histoire aux générations futures pour que de pareils événements ne se reproduisent jamais plus.

Confronting Devastation: Memoirs of Holocaust Survivors from Hungary (Traduction française à venir)

The Light in a Dark Cellar par Susan Simon

When it all started, I was more afraid of the sirens than the bombs. The drawn-out, high-pitched blast seemed to land right inside my head, seeping down to invade my heart till it froze in terror. As the war progressed, sirens were followed by explosions, and I learned to reserve my fears for the latter. Eventually there were no sirens at all; life turned into a perpetual night in underground cellars, where the sound of bombs and buildings crumbling were all we could hear.

In the early stages of the war, with sirens alerting the public, Rozi and I had to grab a bag filled with food, drink, a first-aid kit and toys and run as fast as we could. If I was in the washroom, Mother waited for me. When the sirens were not enough to penetrate my childish sleep at night, she woke me up and urged me to hurry. In the cellar we gave silent thanks for arriving in one piece.

Windows were covered with black paper, and cracks were filled with caulk to shroud our house in darkness at night. Rumours circulated about cellars collapsing, as well as the buildings above them, but Mother didn’t pass on such gossip to us so the threats would not ruin our hopes.

We had to wear a yellow star above our hearts to identify us as Jews, and we were allowed to leave our homes for an hour or two at certain times to buy food. Scared to walk with our stars, our heads buzzing with horror stories about how Jews were killed on the streets, we rarely stepped outside. It didn’t help that Nazi propaganda was spread on huge posters, glaring from rooftops. One of them showed a little girl covered with vivid splashes of blood, holding a toy that had exploded in her hands. This shocking scene blamed the Allied forces for throwing down explosives in the shape of toys from their air­planes. In truth, only the Nazi imagination could invent such crimes. Confused, Rozi and I thought of this disturbing picture before we fell asleep, particularly because the little girl on the poster had a sweet baby face with big blue eyes, just like Rozi. This likeness terrified her.

The Arrow Cross, the Hungarian party closely allied with the Nazis, took over the government on October 15, 1944. Shortly after this event, they passed a law ordering the Jews in the capital to move into a ghetto.

My family had already escaped a ghetto in the small town of Gyöngyös; Mother didn’t want to enter another one. She decided that we should hide.

At Great Risk

Eva Lang

Three Stars in the Sky

The children’s homes were becoming targets of the Vichy authorities, so OSE (OEuvre de secours aux enfants) decided to try a more radical way to hide French Jewish children. They would change their identities. They would make the children accept that — although it was totally incomprehensible — they would have to become someone else until the end of the war. We were little girls, but we were expected to become grown-ups. We had to play a double game, to completely adopt this new personality and to act normal in spite of everything. The leaders of OSE made us promise never to reveal our true identities, and I never heard of anyone inadvertently revealing their real identity, even though there were little girls in our group who were barely five years old.

I wish I could meet the administrative geniuses who came up with the brilliant idea of hiding the Jewish children in the government’s own children’s homes run by the Entr’aide d’hiver du maréchal, the “Marshal’s Winter Mutual Aid Society!” Life in these homes was not necessarily simple, and after the war some of my friends told me that they had been very unhappy there. A certain number of children were not taken to these hiding places. Some girls were smuggled into Switzerland, some became domestics in private homes and others were sent to convents or farms. Thanks to a few good people, innocent children were saved from the Germans’ clutches.

One evening, Chief Cabri told me, “Starting tomorrow morning at dawn, your name will be Yvonne Drapier, and your sister’s, Raymonde Drapier. You’ll be part of a group of big sisters with little sisters under your protection. Here’s a short history of your family: Your father was born in Ménilmontant. He drank a lot and didn’t remember anything. He was inducted into the army and taken prisoner in Germany. No one knows where your mother is at the moment. She left you and your sister, and you were found in the streets and taken into the government children’s homes. Say nothing, absolutely nothing, unless somebody asks, and try not to attract notice.”

David Korn

Saved by Luck and Devotion

xWe left Spišská Stará Ves in the middle of the night. We went to live on a farm in a nearby village. We would spend the whole day inside the farmer’s house, only allowed to go out during the dark evenings when we were sure we could not be seen by anyone who might betray us. After about a month, the farmer told my parents that it was too dangerous for him to hide us any longer; sheltering a Jew was punishable by death, and we had to leave.

But we had been extremely lucky to have left our town when we did. On May 26, 1942, all the remaining Jews from our town and the nearby villages were ordered by the local police to come to the synagogue. Men, woman, children and the elderly were rounded up and loaded on trains with the enthusiastic support of the Hlinka Guard. Their final destination was one of the Nazi death camps.

When we left the farm, my parents took us to the nearby town of Stará Ľubovňa, where my aunt Malka lived. She had married Joseph Taub, who was from there, in 1941, in a wedding ceremony I still remember so well, even though I was only four years old then.

Through the Taubs, who we stayed with for some time, we had a connection with the local Lutheran Evangelical priest, who was sym­pathetic to Jews. This priest issued my brother and me false identity documents that stated we had been born as gentiles in a village near Stará Ľubovňa: Jacob was given the name Kubo, and mine stated that my name was Šano Alexander. After receiving these documents, I remember walking past a sign in the entrance to a garden that read “Jews and dogs not allowed,” and saying, “Now we are allowed to en­ter the garden.” I was five years old.

Eventually, the priest from Stará Ľubovňa communicated with an orphanage that the Lutheran Evangelicals operated in Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš, a town about a hundred kilometres away. We arrived at the orphanage on October 2, 1942, and my parents asked the pas­tor, Vladimir Kuna, who managed the orphanage, to take in their two Jewish kids and keep them until the end of the war. They must have been thinking that if something happened to them and they did not make it, at least we, their children, would survive. Otherwise, all of us would perish. In hindsight, it must have been an agonizing decision for our parents to let their children be in a different place, separate from them. But the decision proved to be the smart one, the right one. My parents were very resourceful, and we were very lucky.

Fishel Philip Goldig

The Survival Story of a Six-Year-Old Boy

At first, we stayed in the attic of the farmer’s house. But this was very dangerous because the children, who at first did not know we were there, would occasionally go up to the attic to bring down some toys or play. Some of the neighbours’ kids often came to play, especially in winter, and if even one person had said anything about us being there, we’d all be dead. We had to find another place to hide.

The farmer’s yard extended back to a small hill, and, years before we arrived there, he had dug into that hill and constructed a cellar, which was like a cave, with walls and a ceiling made of stones. He stored his supply of potatoes there over the winter.

We thought that we could hide in this cave, but people were coming and going, buying the farmer’s potatoes, and the kids played near there as well, and we were afraid that the children would hear us. And so, in the middle of the night, my father, uncle and the farmer removed a few large stones at the base of the wall of the potato cave and dug further into the side of the hill to make another bunker for us to hide in. The opening of the cave was small and narrow, just wide enough for us to crawl through. We then made it wider, longer and higher to accommodate my parents, me, my aunt and uncle, and my three-year-old cousin Eva. When we were inside the cave, we would replace the stones, so that it could not be detected by anyone who might come inside the potato cellar.

The cave was not very high. When I stood up, I had to bend my head. It was warm and dark, and we had kerosene lanterns and some candles for light. There was a wire mesh over the window that was in the door to the cave, and so we also had some air. Kravchuk gave us a small table, blankets to put on the ground and to cover ourselves with, as well as some old clothing that had belonged to his children.

Once a day, early in the morning, Kravchuk would bring us some food and remove the waste. He would also bring us a big pitcher of water to wash with and for drinking. Once in a while he would spend some time talking to us. He was a nice, gentle man, though he and his wife were afraid of hiding us — they were often afraid to even come into our hole because they were worried neighbours would see them. There was always the fear of betrayal.

Un si grand péril

Eva Lang

Trois étoiles dans le ciel

Les maisons d’enfants étant devenues la cible des autorités de Vichy, l’OSE avait décidé d’avoir recours à un moyen plus radical de cacher les enfants juifs français : il fallait changer leur identité, leur faire accepter – même si c’était incompréhensible pour eux – qu’il leur faudrait prétendre être quelqu’un d’autre jusqu’à la fin de la guerre. Nous étions des petites filles, mais on nous demandait de nous comporter comme des adultes. Nous devions jouer double jeu, adopter complètement cette nouvelle personnalité et nous conduire normalement malgré tout. Les responsables de l’OSE nous ont fait promettre de ne jamais révéler nos vraies identités, et je n’ai jamais eu vent de qui que ce soit qui l’ait fait par inadvertance, même si notre petit groupe comptait des enfants de 5 ans à peine.

J’aimerais pouvoir rencontrer les quelques merveilleux administrateurs qui ont eu cette idée géniale de cacher des enfants juifs dans les maisons d’enfants du gouvernement, administrées par le programme Entr’aide d’hiver du Maréchal. La vie dans ces maisons n’a toutefois pas été simple. Quelques-unes de mes amies m’ont raconté, après la guerre, y avoir été très malheureuses. Par ailleurs, un certain nombre d’enfants n’ont pas bénéficié de ces cachettes. Des filles ont été exfiltrées en Suisse, certaines sont devenues bonnes à tout faire dans des maisons privées, d’autres ont été envoyées dans des couvents ou des fermes. Grâce à quelques braves gens, des enfants innocents ont ainsi pu être sauvés des griffes allemandes.

Un soir, chef Cabri m’a dit : « À partir de demain matin, à l’aube, tu t’appelleras Yvonne Drapier et ta sœur, Raymonde Drapier. Vous ferez partie d’un petit groupe de grandes, avec des petites sœurs que vous protègerez tout le temps. Et maintenant ceci est la courte histoire de ta famille : ton père est né à Ménilmontant, il buvait beaucoup et ne se souvenait de rien. Il a été appelé sous les drapeaux et fait prisonnier en Allemagne. Ta mère, tout le monde ignore où elle se trouve. Après qu’elle vous a quittées, ta sœur et toi, vous avez été trouvées dans la rue et placées dans les maisons d’enfants du gouvernement. Si on ne vous demande rien, ne dites rien, absolument rien, et essayez de ne pas vous faire remarquer. »

David Korn

Sauvés par la chance et le dévouement

Nous avons quitté Spišská Stará Ves à la faveur de la nuit pour nous réfugier dans une ferme située dans un village voisin. Nous passions nos journées dans la maison de notre hôte et n’étions autorisés à sortir qu’au crépuscule, quand nous étions certains que ne nous courions aucun risque d’être vus et trahis. Au bout d’un mois environ, le fermier a expliqué à mes parents qu’il était devenu trop dangereux pour lui de nous cacher, car héberger des Juifs était passible d’une condamnation à mort. Nous avons donc dû partir.

Nous avions tout de même eu de la chance de quitter le village de mon père au moment où nous l’avions fait. Le 26 mai 1942, tous les Juifs se trouvant encore dans le secteur avaient reçu l’ordre de la police locale de se rendre à la synagogue. Avec le concours zélé de la garde Hlinka, hommes, femmes, enfants et personnes âgées avaient été arrêtés et déportés dans un camp nazi de mise à mort.

Lorsque nous avons quitté la ferme, mes parents nous ont emmenés dans la ville voisine de Stará Ľubovňa, où vivait ma tante Malka et où était né son mari, Joseph Taub. Ils s’étaient mariés en 1941, lors d’une cérémonie dont je me souviens encore très bien, même si je n’avais que 4 ans à l’époque.

Par l’intermédiaire des Taub, chez qui nous sommes restés un certain temps, nous avons pris contact avec un pasteur local, prêt à aider les Juifs. Ce pasteur évangélique luthérien nous a fourni, à mon frère et moi, de faux papiers d’identité selon lesquels nous étions des chrétiens nés dans un village non loin de Stará Ľubovňa : Jacob s’appellerait Kubo, et moi, Šano Alexander. Après avoir reçu ces documents, je me rappelle avoir lu « Juifs et chiens interdits » sur un panneau à l’entrée d’un jardin et m’être alors dit : « Maintenant, nous pourrons y entrer. » J’avais 5 ans.

Par la suite, le pasteur a contacté un orphelinat dirigé par les évangéliques luthériens à Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš, une ville située à une centaine de kilomètres d’où nous nous trouvions. Quand nous y sommes arrivés le 2 octobre 1942, mes parents ont demandé à Vladimir Kuna, le pasteur qui dirigeait l’orphelinat, de recueillir leurs deux enfants juifs et de veiller sur ces derniers jusqu’à la fin de la guerre. Si quelque chose arrivait aux deux parents et qu’ils ne s’en sortaient pas, leurs enfants, quant à eux, survivraient. Rester ensemble voulait dire courir le risque de tous mourir. Rétrospectivement, même si cela a dû être un véritable déchirement pour mes parents, leur décision de se séparer de nous s’est avérée la plus sensée, la meilleure. Ils ont été clairvoyants, et le hasard a joué en notre faveur.

Fishel Philip Goldig

Le récit de survie d’un jeune garçon

Les premiers temps, nous nous cachions dans le grenier de la maison du fermier. Cela s’est toutefois avéré dangereux, car les enfants, qui ignoraient alors que nous étions là, y montaient parfois pour chercher des jouets ou pour s’amuser. Certains enfants du voisinage venaient souvent aussi, surtout en hiver. Et si ne serait-ce qu’une personne avait révélé notre présence, nous serions tous morts. Nous devions donc trouver un autre endroit où nous cacher.

La cour de Nikolai et Yulia Kravchuk s’étendait jusqu’à une petite colline, dans laquelle, des années avant notre arrivée, le fermier avait creusé un abri qui ressemblait à une grotte, avec des murs et un plafond de pierre. Il y stockait ses réserves de pommes de terre pendant l’hiver.

Nous pensions pouvoir nous cacher dans cette grotte, mais, hélas, les habitants des environs allaient et venaient pour acheter les pommes de terre du fermier, et nous craignions que les enfants, qui jouaient à proximité, nous entendent. Un jour, à la faveur de la nuit, mon père, mon oncle et le fermier ont déplacé quelques grosses pierres situées au pied du mur de la grotte et ont creusé davantage dans le flanc du coteau pour créer un abri où nous pourrions nous dissimuler. L’ouverture de la grotte, petite et étroite, était juste assez large pour nous permettre d’y entrer en rampant. Par la suite, nous l’avons élargie, rallongée et rehaussée pour pouvoir tous nous y cacher : mes parents et moi, ma tante et mon oncle, et Eva, ma cousine de 3 ans. Une fois à l’intérieur, nous remettions les pierres à leur place de telle façon que personne ne pouvait rien détecter en entrant dans l’espace où étaient stockées les pommes de terre.

La grotte n’étant pas très haute, je devais baisser la tête dès que je me levais. Il y faisait chaud et sombre, aussi disposions-nous de lampes à pétrole et de quelques bougies pour nous éclairer. Un grillage recouvrait la fenêtre insérée dans la porte d’accès à la grotte, ce qui nous permettait de respirer. Kravchuk nous a donné une petite table, des couvertures à disposer sur le sol et pour nous couvrir, ainsi que de vieux vêtements qui avaient appartenu à ses enfants.

Une fois par jour, tôt le matin, il nous apportait de quoi manger et récupérait les déchets. Il nous amenait également un grand pichet d’eau pour faire notre toilette et boire. Parfois, il prenait le temps de discuter. C’était un homme sympathique et agréable, même si sa femme et lui avaient peur de nous cacher. Ils hésitaient souvent à venir dans notre trou, car ils craignaient que des voisins les voient. Ils vivaient dans la peur constante d’être trahis.

The Weight of Freedom

The Slow Roar

Later, in 1941, we would be ordered to wear a yellow Star of David with the word “Jude,” which had to be sewn onto each piece of our outer clothing. Wearing the yellow star, my mother explained, was an ancient method used to keep the Jews separate from the Christians. We were not allowed to leave the house without the yellow patch on our outer clothing. This made it much harder to mix with the Polish population.

Selling anything on the street was considered “black marketeering” and prohibited by the Nazis. To make a point, the Nazis convicted six men caught doing business on the black market and sentenced them to death by hanging. The hanging was to be public to let us know what the consequences of black marketeering were. A huge stage with a scaffold was erected – built high so that everyone could see – in one of the city’s squares and everyone was compelled to attend. To me it appeared as though people wanted to attend this public display of barbarism. The square was ringed with four- or five-storey buildings, and all the windows were packed with onlookers. My family’s friends had an apartment overlooking the square and we were invited to see the spectacle from a good vantage point, right across from the gallows. From the window, we could see the entire square and as far as I could see, the square and streets were packed with people. The mood appeared high, anticipatory, if not festive. No one had ever seen a public execution.

Soldiers and police surrounded the square as the six men were lined up on the scaffold. The executioners put ropes on their necks. A Gestapo official read a short verdict and the trap was sprung. It felt like the crowd uttered a shudder as the men fell through the trap. Their knees jerked, then dropped, and their bodies swayed. They were left hanging for twenty-four hours. The crowd’s mood changed to sombre, and people left either crying or in silence. I heard that the families were allowed to retrieve the bodies for burial the next day. This exhibition understandably caused everyone to take notice, and my mother stopped me from going on the street to sell or trade.

Le Poids de la liberté

Plus tard, en 1941, nous avons dû porter une étoile de David jaune avec l’inscription « Jude », que nous devions coudre de manière bien visible sur nos vêtements. Ma mère m’a expliqué que le port de l’étoile jaune était une ancienne méthode visant à mettre la population juive à l’écart de la population chrétienne. Comme il nous était interdit de sortir sans étoile jaune sur nos vêtements, il est devenu beaucoup plus difficile de nous mêler à la population polonaise.

Vendre de la marchandise dans la rue était assimilé à faire du « marché noir », activité interdite par les Allemands. Pour bien se faire comprendre, les nazis ont arrêté six hommes qui se livraient à cette pratique illicite et les ont condamnés à mort par pendaison. Tout le monde a été obligé d’assister à leur exécution de façon à ce que nous voyions ce qui nous attendait si nous n’obéissions pas à leurs lois. Sur une des places de la ville, ils ont érigé un immense échafaud — très haut pour que la foule puisse bien voir. J’avais l’impression que les gens tenaient à assister à cette démonstration publique de barbarie ; toutes les fenêtres des immeubles de quatre ou cinq étages qui bor-daient la place étaient remplies de curieux. Des amis de ma famille qui habitaient dans l’un de ces bâtiments nous ont invités à assister au spectacle. Nous avions un bon point d’observation : juste devant la potence. Installés à la fenêtre, nous apercevions aussi l’ensemble de la place et les rues avoisinantes, bondées de gens. Il y avait de la fébrilité dans l’air, et une atmosphère presque électrique régnait. Personne n’avait jamais vu d’exécution.

Des soldats et des policiers ont encerclé le square au moment où les six hommes ont été placés l’un à côté de l’autre sur la plateforme. Puis les bourreaux leur ont passé une corde autour du cou. Un fonctionnaire de la Gestapo a alors fait lecture d’un bref verdict, après quoi on a ouvert la trappe. Un frisson a semblé traverser la foule lors de la chute des six condamnés ; leurs jambes ont été parcourues de secousses un moment, puis se sont immobilisées, et les corps se sont mis à se balancer. On les a laissés là, accrochés à la potence, durant 24 heures. L’humeur de la foule s’est assombrie, et les gens ont quitté les lieux en pleurant ou en gardant le silence. On m’a dit que le lendemain, les familles ont eu l’autorisation de récupérer les corps pour les enterrer. Cette démonstration a permis à tous de bien comprendre le message. Ma mère m’a dès lors interdit de retourner vendre ou troquer quoi que ce soit dans la rue.

Under the Yellow & Red Stars

The Rokitno Massacre

These horrors came to a deadly resolution on August 26, 1942. On that day the whole Jewish population of Rokitno was ordered into the market square. No one was exempt now, including infants, the gravely ill and the elderly. Those who couldn’t walk were carried to the square on stretchers. Some people carried others on their backs. German soldiers and German and Ukrainian police surrounded the square. They began by separating children, women, men and the elderly. The situation developed into fear and disorder. Soon, deafening screams and moans filled the square. People panicked. Children were clinging to their mothers. Everyone was trying to defend the old and the sick.

All of a sudden, a sharp scream pierced the air: “Jews, they’re going to kill us all now.” It was Mindl Eisenberg, a big, tall, brave woman nicknamed “The Cossack” who saw the police squadron arrive from behind the train station and alerted the crowd. Anguished, people began to run for their lives. Men ran to find their wives and children. Everyone was trying to escape. Only bullets could stop them. The guards fired at the crowd and dozens of people were killed instantly, covering the square with blood. In this hell, my seventeen-year-old brother, Samuel, found me, grabbed me by the arm and we started running….

That was the last time we saw our mother, our father and our five-year-old brother, Moishe. We found out later that our father had been captured with other survivors of the shooting in the market square and taken to the Sarny area, approximately forty kilometres from Rokitno. Just outside of Sarny, in the ravines by the brick factory, he was shot along with some 18,000 other Jews who met horrifying deaths in that awful place. Witness accounts of the massacre say that the ground, covered with hundreds of bodies, was moving for days because people had been buried alive.

We never found out exactly what happened to our mother and our youngest brother.

My brother and I ran away from the market square to the house of the German officer who had promised to save Samuel. We broke into the house through the back window, but unhappily encountered the Polish chef. Without hesitation, my brother took my hand and we ran out the door into the backyard and then through the yard toward the woods. We crawled underneath the rail cars that had, I know now, been prepared for transporting Jews to the Sarny area and escaped into the forest. We ran as fast as we could and kept on running.

Étoile jaune, étoile rouge

Le massacre de Rokitno

Ces horreurs ont culminé et trouvé un terme fatal le 26 août 1942. Ce jour-là, toute la population juive de Rokitno a reçu l’ordre de se rassembler sur la place du marché. Cette fois-ci, personne n’était exempté, ni les bébés, ni les vieillards, ni les grands malades. Ceux qui ne pouvaient pas marcher ont été transportés sur des civières ou à dos d’homme. Les soldats allemands, la police allemande et la police ukrainienne encerclaient la place. Ils ont commencé par séparer les enfants, les femmes, les hommes et les vieillards. La peur et le chaos ont gagné la foule. Bientôt, la place s’est emplie de hurlements assourdissants et de gémissements. C’était l’affolement général. Les enfants s’agrippaient à leur mère. La foule essayait de protéger les vieillards et les malades.

Tout à coup, un hurlement aigu s’est élevé : « Juifs, ils vont tous nous tuer maintenant. » C’était Mindl Eisenberg, une grande femme, forte et courageuse, surnommée « la Cosaque », qui avait vu l’escadron de police arriver depuis la gare et qui alertait la foule. Les gens, paniqués, se sont mis à courir de toutes leurs forces. Les hommes couraient pour essayer de retrouver leur femme et leurs enfants. Tout le monde essayait de s’enfuir. Seules les balles pouvaient les arrêter. Les gardes ont tiré sur la foule et des dizaines de personnes ont été tuées sur-le-champ, baignant la place de sang. Dans cet enfer, mon frère de 17 ans, Samuel, m’a trouvé, m’a attrapé par le bras et nous nous sommes mis à courir…

C’est la dernière fois que nous avons vu notre mère, notre père et notre petit frère de 5 ans, Moïshé. Nous avons appris plus tard que notre père avait été capturé avec d’autres qui avaient survécu au massacre de la place du marché et avait été emmené dans la région de Sarny, à une quarantaine de kilomètres. À la périphérie de Sarny, dans les ravins voisins de la briqueterie, il a été fusillé avec environ 18 000 autres Juifs qui ont trouvé une mort affreuse dans cet horrible endroit. Des témoins du massacre disent que le sol, couvert de centaines de corps, a remué pendant des jours parce que des gens avaient été enterrés vivants.

Nous n’avons jamais su exactement ce qui était arrivé à notre mère et à notre frère cadet.

Mon frère et moi nous sommes enfuis de la place du marché et avons gagné la maison de l’officier allemand qui avait promis de sauver Samuel. Nous nous sommes introduits dans la maison par la fenêtre de derrière mais, malheureusement, nous nous sommes trouvés nez à nez avec le chef cuisinier polonais. Sans hésiter, mon frère m’a pris par la main et nous sommes sortis en courant par la porte de derrière qui donnait sur le jardin et, de là, nous avons gagné la forêt. Nous avons rampé sous les wagons du train qui avait été affecté, je le sais maintenant, au transport des Juifs vers Sarny et nous nous sommes échappés dans la forêt. Là, nous avons continué à courir à toutes jambes.

A Drastic Turn of Destiny

Growing Up Under Hitler

My father was beholden to his Gestapo friend for extending a helping hand to us on three occasions. The first was in 1933, the second was during the Polish deportation in October 1938, and the third was just before Kristallnacht. In the early afternoon of November 9, 1938, he telephoned my father to warn him of what would be happening that evening. He suggested again that we seek refuge in the Polish consulate because he was sure that they would arrest my father and send him off to a concentration camp. This time, however, not only were there not as many people in the consulate but we only had to spend one night there. This was even more fortunate because we no longer had the good services of Uncle Dadek – he had already fled to Brussels, Belgium. The persecutions continued with Jews being rounded up. The elderly were most affected – in Leipzig the SS dragged them to a rivulet near the zoological garden and made them jump from one side to the other while the officers whipped the old people ferociously. Many of them couldn’t make it across and fell into the icy-cold water. Onlookers, mainly youngsters, stood on the bridge off Humboldtstrasse laughing, encouraging the SS as if this were a display of trained animals. Witnessing this was one of the most sickening memories that is indelibly engraved in my mind. Even today, I can still see this picture as vividly as if it happened yesterday. It was probably the first real exposure I had to seeing man’s cruelty to man. As Boy Scouts we had had fist and kicking fights with the Hitler Youth and during the last years of my attendance at the public school, we had been singled out by teachers and ridiculed, but I had never seen this type of barbarism displayed by fellow human beings.

Walking through the city it was incredible to discover the burned synagogues and the Jewish-owned stores smashed and plundered. The Jewish district of Leipzig, in the vicinity of the Gustav-Adolf-Strasse, Humboldtstrasse and Gerberstrasse, suffered the worst fate. There was hardly a Jewish store owner or wholesaler who did not lose all his or her assets that night. The destruction was not only total but systematic – one could see the old German edict of thoroughness in its execution. It was hard for me – a twelve-year-old boy – to grasp the logic or reason behind such intentional and planned wanton behaviour.

Were these the very same people whose culture had produced Schiller, Haydn, Schumann, and Goethe, who Lord Byron said was the greatest genius his age had produced? Or was this a new breed producing Hitler, Streicher, Goebbels, Heydrich? Was Goethe prophetic when he said, “The Germans should be transplanted and scattered all over the world, like the Jews, in order to bring to full development the good qualities that lie in them, and for the health of all nations?” Kristallnacht was not only the burning of synagogues and the destruction of Jewish property but a test that demonstrated the effectiveness of many years of anti-Jewish propaganda used to brainwash the population. The general population showed no reluctance to participate in the destruction and the photographs of German people’s faces taken during this unpunishable “freedom to destroy”speak volumes. We are frequently told that not everyone engaged in the horrendous events of that night, but when one looks at the spectators, one realizes that their facial expressions aren’t very different from those of the perpetrators. Nor can one excuse the rest of the world for not taking measures to challenge the Germans and to express the total unacceptability of these acts. When could we expect decent human beings to take a stand on matters of wilful and planned destruction and death? Ninety-one Jews were killed that night and 25,000 carted off to concentration camps to a fate worse than death. In those days the concentration camps were still located within Germany – Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. But the world remained silent and the Germans realized that nobody from the outside world was concerned about the Jews.

Un terrible revers de fortune

Grandir sous Hitler

Mon père était redevable à son ami de la Gestapo, lequel lui avait tendu une main secourable à trois reprises. La première fois, c'était en 1933, la deuxième, pendant la déportation polonaise d'octobre 1938, et la troisième, juste avant la Nuit de cristal. Au début de l'après-midi du 9 novembre 1938, il avait téléphoné à mon père pour l'avertir de ce qui allait se passer ce soir-là. Il nous avait invités, une fois de plus, à chercher refuge au consulat de Pologne, car il était certain que les nazis allaient arrêter mon père et l'expédier dans un camp de concentration. Cette fois-là cependant, il y avait non seulement moins de gens au consulat, mais nous n'avons pas eu besoin d'y passer plus d'une nuit. C'était d'autant plus heureux que nous ne bénéficiions plus alors des services de l'oncle Dadek. Il s'était déjà enfui en Belgique, à Bruxelles.

Les persécutions continuaient et on rassemblait désormais les Juifs. Les personnes âgées étaient les plus touchées. À Leipzig, les SS avaient traîné des vieillards au bord d'un ruisseau situé non loin du Jardin zoologique. Ils les avaient ensuite obligés à le franchir d'un bond en les fouettant comme des furies. Bon nombre d'entre eux n'y étaient pas parvenus et ils étaient tombés dans l'eau glacée. Les badauds, des jeunes pour la plupart, observaient le spectacle en riant depuis le pont qui donne sur la Humboldtstraße. Ils encourageaient les SS comme s'il s'agissait d'un numéro de bêtes de foire. J'ai été témoin de cette scène. C'est l'un des souvenirs les plus écoeurants qui soient et il restera gravé à jamais dans ma mémoire. Aujourd'hui encore, je revois ces images aussi nettement que si c'était hier. Pour la première fois ce jour-là, je m'étais retrouvé réellement confronté à la cruauté de l'homme pour l'homme. Lorsque nous étions boyscouts, nous nous battions à coups de pied et de poing avec les Jeunesses hitlériennes. Pendant les dernières années où je fréquentais encore l'école publique, les enseignants nous mettaient sur la sellette et nous ridiculisaient, mais jamais de ma vie je n'avais vu des êtres humains faire preuve d'une telle barbarie.

En traversant la ville à pied, j'ai découvert avec stupeur les synagogues incendiées et les magasins juifs pillés et mis à sac. Le quartier juif de Leipzig, situé à proximité des rues Gustav-Adolf-Straße, Humboldtstraße et Gerberstraße, avait connu le pire. Cette nuit-là, presque tous les commerçants et les grossistes juifs avaient perdu leurs biens. La destruction avait été non seulement totale, mais systématique. Elle illustrait bien la méticulosité propre à l'esprit allemand. J'avais 12 ans à l'époque et j'avais du mal à saisir la logique qui présidait à ces agissements gratuits et largement prémédités.

S'agissait-il bien du même peuple ? Celui dont la culture avait engendré Schiller, Haydn, Schumann et Goethe, celui-là même que Lord Byron avait désigné comme le plus grand génie de son époque ? Ou bien Hitler, Streicher, Goebbels et Heydrich étaient-ils le produit d'une nouvelle espèce ? Goethe avait-il fait acte de prophétie en déclarant la chose suivante : « On devrait transplanter et disperser les Allemands dans le monde entier, à l'instar des Juifs, afin que s'épanouissent pleinement les qualités qui sommeillent en eux, et ce pour le bien des nations » ? Lors de la Nuit de cristal, on avait non seulement mis le feu à des synagogues et détruit des biens juifs, mais cette nuit-là avait également servi de test. Elle avait démontré l'efficacité de nombreuses années de propagande anti-juive, témoignant du lavage de cerveau subi par la population. Le peuple n'avait manifesté aucune réticence à participer à cette oeuvre de destruction. Les visages des Allemands photographiés pendant cette nuit impardonnable où on leur avait donné la « liberté de détruire » en disent long. On nous répète que seule une partie de la population avait pris part aux événements atroces de cette nuit-là, mais, dès lors qu'on scrute les spectateurs, on ne constate guère de différence entre l'expression de leurs visages et celle des auteurs de ces crimes. Le reste du monde n'a aucune excuse de n'avoir pris aucune mesure à l'encontre des Allemands pour signifier le caractère parfaitement intolérable de tels actes. À partir de quand étions-nous en droit d'attendre que des êtres humains dignes de ce nom prennent enfin position face à des actes de destruction volontaires et des meurtres entièrement planifiés ? Cette nuit-là, 90 Juifs ont été tués et 25 000 autres ont été rassemblés puis déportés vers des camps de concentration où les attendait un sort pire que la mort. À cette époque, les camps de concentration étaient encore situés en Allemagne : à Dachau, Buchenwald et Sachsenhausen. Mais le reste du monde gardait le silence et les Allemands avaient bien compris que personne ne se souciait du sort des Juifs.

A Name Unbroken

Three Weeks

It was night and the place was lit up with floodlights. I saw German SS troops with machine guns and dogs. We were ordered out of the boxcars without our luggage. It was a cold but clear night and the scene surrounding me was unbelievable. SS soldiers were running with German shepherd dogs, yelling and occasionally shooting at people. The night was filled with thousands of people in total panic. We were ordered to line up five abreast at the side of the boxcars. Some people in grey-and-blue striped clothing appeared. They looked like prisoners and began to remove the dead bodies and baggage from the boxcars. I stood in line by an open car door and one of these men asked me quietly if I spoke Yiddish. When I answered him, he whispered to that I should try to get out of here because our people were being killed. He said I should say I was eighteen years old. As the line moved forward, several people were shot because they stepped out of line or because they were trying to join the rest of their family, from whom they had been abruptly separated. The line slowly moved forward. I found myself in front of a table with two men behind it. One of them asked my name, my age and my occupation. I replied that I was eighteen years old and a farmer. He pointed to my right.

I looked around me and did not see a single person I knew. A panic took hold of me – here I was, alone, in a killing place, unable to do anything about it. I was crying to myself, Why was I here? What had I done to deserve this?