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Howard Kleinberg

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Born: Wierzbnik (now Starachowice), Poland, 1925

Wartime experience: Ghettos and camps

Writing Partner: Judith Levine

Howard (Chaim) Kleinberg was born in Wierzbnik, Poland, in 1925. At fourteen years old, he was forced into the Starachowice-Wierzbnik ghetto and two years later to a nearby forced labour camp, where he endured horrendous conditions, fighting illness and starvation.

In 1944, he was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, then to the Mauthausen concentration camp and then to a forced labour camp in Hannover. Howard survived a death march to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the winter of 1945. There, he was left for dead until a young woman noticed him lying in the dirt close to death, moving only slightly, and saved his life. Howard immigrated to Toronto in 1947, where he reunited with and married Nancy (Nachama), the woman who had saved him years earlier. Howard and Nancy’s love story has been featured in various media, and he was very involved in Holocaust education. Howard Kleinberg passed away in 2020.

The First Changes

The Germans marched into Poland. Suddenly, we were told that we could not go on the street where Germans walked and had to wear armbands that labelled us as Jews. Gentiles could not be employed in Jewish stores. Things were happening so fast, with many restrictions quickly introduced into our daily lives. The Germans installed the Judenrat, the Jewish Council, as a tool to expedite their orders. The Jews who were members of the Judenrat had to establish an auxiliary force, which were referred to as police. The Judenrat had records of every household in the city, and every household had able bodies for labour. They came to every house; they were only interested in people under the age of forty-five. We saw this situation, and when we got a notice we assembled — we went to the factory with other Jews, worked a day and went home; there was no pay. After maybe a month or two, coupons were given for basic food to anyone who worked. The Germans reasoned that anyone who worked could live, and those who did not work did not need food. At age fourteen, I was the breadwinner of the family.

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Howard (centre) with his grandfather, Schloime, and his father, Hershel. Poland, 1934.

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Howard’s family. Back row, left to right: brothers Joe, Umchiu and Uris; sisters Helen and Manya. Front row, left to right: sister Raisl; father, Hershel, with Howard on his lap; brother Itzhak; sister Feige; mother, Sima, and brother Anchel. Poland, circa 1926.

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One of the first groups of Jewish Holocaust survivors, including Howard, to arrive in Canada at Pier 21. Halifax, May 1947.

I was lying on the ground; I have no idea for how long. I heard women’s voices, getting closer. Then I heard a girl’s voice saying, “He’s still alive, maybe we should save him.”

Hanging On

At the end of January 1945, we arrived in Hannover. There was a large steel factory there. We arrived at a camp that put fear into our hearts. There were no barracks, only cement buildings. We walked into a room where we saw Russian words on the walls that had been written in blood. There had been Russian workers there. They must have died. Looking at this was horrifying. Their conditions must have been terrible.

In the morning, we went to the factory. A number of Jews pulled a trolley on wheels. We soon found out what it was for – to bring back bodies. Workers were falling from hunger or from being beaten. The factory was huge, and the roof had been bombed out. Germans were working there, too. The painful part of this was that American planes were showing up every few hours, during the day, by the hundreds; the sky was dark with them. During the air raids, the SS stood at the entry to the shelter with large pieces of wood and beat us to get us down into the shelter. When the raid was over, we were beaten to get up out of the shelter. Those who were beaten badly enough became corpses for the trolley. This lasted until the end of March.

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Howard and Nancy on their wedding day. March 1950.
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Howard and Nancy. Toronto, 1948.
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Howard and Nancy.