~Matthew Rozell, a history teacher whose project reunited hundreds of Holocaust survivors with the American soldiers who liberated them, takes a backwards journey to the authentic sites of the Holocaust, retracing the path of the survivors who are now his friends.~
A year ago I took one of the most transformative journeys of my life, with 24 fellow educators, to study the Holocaust and the Jewish resistance to it, in Washington, DC, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland. I kept an extensive diary and took tons of photographs. And contrary to many assumptions, it was a journey that led to profound understandings about life, not death. For the next several days, I have decided to go back and retrace my steps and try to process what unfolded for me.
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July 13. By now it’s probable that you have seen the film Schindler’s List. Today we visited his enamelware factory, now a museum. Part of the film was shot here.
Here is a look at some of the things inside:
Schindler factory. Stairwell leading to office.
Schindler factory. Oskar Schindler’s office. His desk, chair, wall map.
Schindler factory. Alan Bush photo.
Gusia moves us on to some of the other exhibits, explaining life in Krakow pre-war as well as life during the occupation. By 1943, when the ghetto in Krakow was liquidated, 21,000 Germans lived here.
One of the exhibits is on the Montelupich Prison, the Gestapo prison where people would be interrogated and tortured. When I see the sign, my heart skips a beat. I KNOW people who have been locked up here. So it is not ancient history, and here it is before my very eyes:
Montelupich Prison, the Gestapo prison in Krakow.
Montelupich Prison.
Our survivor Gina continues her story from the previous post:
One day in November I left my family with the purpose of finding work outside the ghetto with the idea of returning later to take them with me.
I left at 10 o’clock at night. I was accompanied by a young Pole who took me to Lemberg, where we arrived on the evening of the next day at ten o’clock. I had to stay over for a night in a farm while the young Pole went to see what possibilities there were for me. He came back next day at seven o’clock in the morning and he informed me that other Jews having obtained Aryan papers were in the district and they were trying to do something for me.
These people had obtained responsible posts in several factories as Aryans, and they helped me as much as they could. I got a job in a German office as typist. Nobody knew that I was a Jewess. After a few days the owner of the factory told me he wanted to court me as he liked my looks, and I had to run away from him.
I had to change my papers and my name so that he couldn’t find me. I altered my papers and I said that I was married. I then took up work in another factory where I could work without being disturbed.
One night I was sitting at home. I heard somebody knock at the door. It was the German police. I was asked for my papers, I showed them to them. And after examining them they told me I was a Jewess. I was asked to accompany them to the Gestapo. I refused to go saying that I preferred to die on the spot rather than go to the Gestapo. We talked for one hour and I was obliged to accompany them. In the street they took away from me all my valuables, my watch, my money and told me to leave Lemberg immediately. I was left alone in a solitary street. I couldn’t find a bed for the night. I had to change again my papers. I was tired out. I wanted to commit suicide. Next day I found a new home and I had many new troubles.
Coming in one day I was told by the land-lady that the policemen looked for me during the day. I left the house and I went to the place where I received the correspondence from my mother, in which she was telling that we had received foreign naturalization papers which would allow us to go to Palestine. I packed my things and returned home immediately.
When I returned home my mother was in one ghetto and my sister in the other. I had to hide in a cellar because if the German discovered that i had false Aryan papers I could be shot. I kept in hiding in this place for about two months.
Being now of foreign nationality we had to present ourselves regularly to the Gestapo. At one day they informed us that we would be sent to Palestine to be exchanged with German prisoners. On the next day the German police came at our house at 3 o’clock in the night and told us to pack up our things and go to the station. They told us we would go directly to Palestine.
Instead of Palestine they carried us in a prison in the town of Krakow; we were conducted in one of the prison cells where there were already 26 persons. It was a very dark place. We were very depressed and disappointed. We knew already what the Germans were capable of but it was new sadism on their part. The only food they give us was a tiny piece of bread and watery soup. At night we slept on the floor and we heard people crying because they were being beaten. We heard also a good deal of firing. We had always the impression that they will come to take us.
Then they informed us that we were interned and that we should have to wait. We waited and waited. In the day time we could observe how they were making sadistic gymnastics with the people. This made a very bad impression on us.
Gina was later sent to Bergen Belsen, where more trials awaited, and was liberated on April 13th, 1945 by the Americans who came across the evacuation transport near Farsleben, Germany.
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If you have watched Schindler’s List, you may be familiar with the scene of the liquidation of the ghetto in March, 1943, in accordance with Operation Reinhard. From the USHMM:
“The SS and police planned the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto for mid-March 1943, in accordance with the Himmler’s order in October 1942 to complete the murder of the Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement, incarcerating those few whose labor was still required in forced-labor camps.
On March 13-14, 1943, the SS and police carried out the operation, shooting some 2,000 Jews in the ghetto. The SS transferred another 2,000 Jews — those capable of work and the surviving members of the Jewish Council and the Jewish police force — to the Plaszow forced-labor camp, and the rest of the Jews, approximately 3,000, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in two transports, arriving on March 13 and March 16. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the camp authorities selected 549 persons from the two transports (499 men and 50 women) to be registered as prisoners and murdered the others, approximately 2,450, in the gas chambers.”
Liquidation of the Krakow ghetto.
Memorial, Krakow Ghetto.
Liquidation of the Krakow ghetto.
Belzec Site memorial.
So now it’s time to reflect again on where this all fits into the big picture.
Humans want resolution, closure, whatever you want to call it. Oskar Schindler was a complex man who made a difference. But he was one of the very few, and in reality there are no happy endings to this story.
Important lessons, yes. Happy endings, no.
Tomorrow we head to Belzec.
