There must have been fifty or more people already in this ‘carriage’.
Daniel Leigh 11Saul Holocaust Coursework
On the way to this man-made hell, I could smell the fear from all the people
around me. In addition, there was the stench of remains of old bodies which
had most likely died on the most treacherous journey from one place to
another (I didn’t want to think about it then, but I figured that out after the
war). As well as this, there was the reek of infection as the train was
juddering past the sunny countryside.
When we got out of the ‘train’, my eyes throbbed as I had to strain, a
product of the very little amount of light in the ‘carriage’. It seemed to be a
pleasant day. We were shoved into several ‘sorting fields’ where the men
were separated from the women, the thin from the broad, and the weak from
the strong. Also, there was a sorting field where people were made to say if
they had an occupation. I said that I was a jeweler (I only had the experience
from my Father’s shop, but I did not tell them).
After the painful separation, the SS men ordered the teen-aged to the
middle-aged and strong men and women into what they called ‘drill’ and
instructed us into ‘rank’.
Everybody was then divided into groups of two or three and told to proceed
to a wooden hut. We were marched there. It must have been over a mile
long. In the wooden hut there were the same machines that my Father used
in his shop.
I was deployed with a boy named Eric Drench, who was my age, which was
then fifteen. The first night I was there was a terrible howling wind. I did not
sleep at all, as I sensed that the future is not a particularly bright one. I asked
Eric where he was from and where his family came about. He started to tell
me his story:
“Well my family lived in Poland, but the Nazi SS men came to take us
away. My mother hid my brother, sister and me into our wine cellar
and locked us up for a few days and told us not to worry. On the
third day that we were in there, we heard thuds and screeching as if
the heavy furniture from upstairs was being moved we stay put but
Daniel Leigh 11Saul Holocaust Coursework
we had the impulse to shout out:
“What’s the matter, mother?” but we couldn’t. My eighteen year old
brother David tried to open the hatch for the door of the wine cellar
but it wouldn’t come open so somebody must have been standing on
it. David tried again after about half an hour. He managed to open it. I
said to be careful and open it slowly. He opened it very slowly and
cautiously and he saw our parents being taken away as if they had
committed a crime. David fell backwards in shock, he fainted. As my
sister tried to comfort him, I looked outside the hatch, and to my utter
astonishment, three burly soldiers were dragging my mother and
shoving my father out of the door. I then had the most uncontrollable
urge just to try and rescue my parents but I knew in my heart I
couldn’t. Then, we waited and waited for the houses and the street to
go quiet. After a while, we came out of the wine-cellar and I don’t
know how I knew but I had knew that I would never see my parents
again. We managed to collect as much food and water as possible
and we went. We traveled the country for a couple of months, but
inevitably we knew that we could not go on living like this so we found
refuge in a church. They knew that we were Jews, but they didn’t
hesitate to help. They employed, fed and clothed us for about a
month and then sent us on our way. This way, we had money, food,
water and we did not look so Jewish- which I thought was a bad thing
to give in to, but we had no choice.
Eventually, in the freezing winter of last year, 1940, my sister Eva had died
due to pneumonia, but my brother and I were still alive. We had stopped at
an empty farm- only to discover that when we rested we found it incredibly
hard to go on. Having sat down to rest, I suddenly realized how hungry we
were.
We carried on after a couple hours or so and then we were captured by four
lofty Nazi soldiers and were sent here.
By the Eric time had finished telling me about his experience, it was morning.
I felt it first. I felt the cold air float over me, around me, and through me, like
a spirit filling the room with nothing but the knowledge of its presence. We
were dragged out of the cabin and were expected to sprint to another field.
Daniel Leigh 11Saul Holocaust Coursework
At the time when we had to queue to receive our lunch, it was completely out
of control. When Eric finally got to the front of the ‘line’ there were two
soldiers, one holding a whip. Eric said
“Please may I have food, Sir?”. They did not give him any food. The
soldier holding the whip shouted for everyone to go back, but no-one did.
He repeated it again, but this time he said:
“GO BACK OR ELSE THE BOY ACQUIRES 30 LASHES!!!”
Still, everyone kept pushing forward. As a result of this, the SS men canceled
lunch and Eric got the 30 lashes. After this, he found it hard to breathe, let
alone move or even work
These sort of events continued for two more terrible years.
After this period of time, Eric and I had formed a secret legion of the Jews
which had survived through the loss of their families, the loss of some of the
Jews which had tried to escape, but either died on the way (mines) or they
were shot by the SS men. In this legion, we could practice our Jewish laws
including praying and lighting the holy Shabbat candles (if we could scavenge
them).
One Friday night, we could not get hold of any candles so we prayed and
sang through the night. The next day, Eric, whom I had become very friendly
with gathered a few men together and we discussed our immediate future,
and how that if we do not receive any help from people who have knowledge
about the SS men, how they operate and what were their weaknesses.
The next day, Shabbat, there was a battalion of Russian soldiers brought in
to the concentration camp for ‘war crimes’, some of them were Jewish
others were not but supported the Jewish way of life.
One week after they arrived, the squadron leader approached our small but
cosy gathering and started to mix with us. We hesitated at first but we
adapted. After a while, they trained us as soldiers and we eventually escaped
from the ultimate hell (for us) and Eric and myself lived on to fight in the
American army and to the end of the war.
Of the events of which I witnessed and live through, a nightmare invaded
reality.
