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Posts Tagged ‘Farsleben’

The day of April 13 1945 was a Friday and a sunny and windy day.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2013|

Friday the 13th.

This account comes to me from a survivor’s son who lives in Hungary. He had read of Carrol Walsh’s passing on the internet and contacted me. It is Carrol who is commanding one of these tanks. Sgt. George Gross commanded the other, and took photographs.

I just came across this website . My father was on this train.
He passed away twenty years ago, in April 1992.

Here is an excerpt from his memoirs about his liberation day.
—————————————————-

Translation from my father’s Memoirs pp. 302-304.
————————————————-

The day of April 13 1945 was a Friday and a sunny and windy day. In the morning, the SS opened the doors of the freight cars, after they had argued with each other whether they should kill us with their submachine guns. But the US troops were too close.

——————————————————————-

Perhaps it was an older SS man who prevented our execution. Later that day, a Jewish woman, who had been his lover in the camp, saved him from becoming a prisoner of war or worse. She got him civilian clothes, I do not know how. The same woman became the lover of an American soldier later.
——————————————————————

Several hundred people wrapped in rags streamed through the open doors, if they could be called people at all. We were all mere skeletons.

The train was idling in a deepening, so I climbed uphill, across a road and to a field. I was pulling out potatoes planted on the field, when a motorcycle approached. It was a motorcycle with a side-car. There was an elegant SS or Nazi leader in the front: I could not decide, since he was wearing a mixture of uniform and civilian clothes. It must have been his wife sitting behind him and his child in the side-car. He pulled over and offered me a cigarette. I told him I did not smoke, so he closed his silver-looking cigarette-case and started the engine.
He seemed to hesitate about the direction he should take.

Prisoner taken. Photo by tank commander George C Gross, April, 1945.

Prisoner taken. Photo by tank commander George C Gross, April, 1945.

Then two small American tanks arrived. I was standing in the middle of the road, and noticed that the American soldier leaning out of the turret of one of the tanks aimed his gun at me.
The tank came closer and closer, and the soldier lowered his submachine gun. I must have looked terrible, so he did not take me for an enemy. I was lucky he had not shot me from the distance, since my small coat and boots vaguely resembled a military uniform. Lice were crawling all over my clothes and skin.

The few hundred former inhabitants of the concentration camp surrounded the tanks right away. Suddenly somebody remembered that the SS guarding us were still in the carriages. The SS were caught quickly, and lined up. The “intrepid” SS were trembling so heavily that their pants were flapping.

The first thing a Jewish woman asked from the soldier leaning out from the tank was money, and she received a dollar bill. She must have established her future with this dollar.

My attention was drawn to something else: in the rear of the tank there was a box of canned food. I climbed under the tank, emerged at its end, and pulled out a can. It turned out that I stole a can of oranges. This was my luck. I ate the potatoes charred in the can with the oranges, and probably this combination saved my life. Everyone who ate meat or anything greasy died within hours or within one or two days at the latest.

I felt fever in my body, undressed completely naked in front of staring women, and went into the ice-cold water of the lake next to the railroad. People warned me not to do this, but I went into the water, felt good, felt that I got rid of the lice and the burning heat of the fever. When I put on my rags again, I felt the fever ever stronger.

I asked an American soldier to sign the photo of my fiancee (I still have this photo). To my surprise, he signed the name Churchill. I thought he was joking. But he reassured me that his name was really Churchill.

(Once I read about a father named Churchill, who went to see his son’s grave in Vietnam during that war. The report mentioned that the father had been a soldier in World War II. He must have been my Churchill)

In the evening, there were news that we should flee, because the Germans pushed back the Americans. The Germans would massacre us for sure, the women had pulled out material for parachutes from a carriage in order to make clothes.

I was already so weak that I did not care whether the returning Germans would kill me: I stayed in one of the carriages, and fell asleep.

On Saturday, April 14, German peasant [horse-drawn] carts came for us by some order, so I was carried to Hillersleben. I dragged myself to the first floor of the first building, it looked like an office building, lay down under the sink of the bathroom, and fell asleep.

I am sure the American soldiers had no idea who we were and what we went through.

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The Golden Book.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 28, 2012|

Just when you think that maybe things are “quieting down”,  an email comes in your inbox again.

At Thanksgiving Time.

Can’t wait to speak to Kurt. In the meantime, read below. He has to be around the 230th survivor of the train to make our acquaintance…good work Frank and Varda! Frank, you never cease to amaze me, at 95 yrs young, you are doing laps around me! So now I can share with the students, and fellow survivors and soldiers!

In the words of survivor Dr. Micha Tomkiewitz, “welcome to the family!”

—–Original Message—–
From: Kurt Bronner

Survivors Kurt Bronner and his lovely wife. Thanks to Frank and Varda W. for finding them- “welcome to the family”

Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 2:31 PM
To: Rozell Matt
Subject: Thanks

Dear Matt…This last week I have been in touch with Frank Towers and Varda W….They found me on the list on survivors of the deathtrain..I have seen movies and stories…Its like my past has been opened up…On this day of Thanksgiving I would like to wish you a happy peaceful Year and thank you for opening up a chapter of many survivors on that train…I live in Los Angeles and the Burbank school system has had a similar program and I have been talking to students in junior and high schools…Have 100s of letters from the students…Teachers like you are in my Golden book..Thank you for your groundbreaking efforts…with my best to You and your family with my love, Kurt Bronner

Teaching tolerance

April 08, 2000

by Irma Lemus, Burbank Leader

MEDIA DISTRICT NORTH — Fifty-five years have passed, but Kurt Bronner can still vividly recall his mother being beaten by a Nazi soldier as he watched helplessly through a barbed wire fence. It was the last time Bronner, now 74, ever saw his mother.

The Encino resident revisited the horrific nine months he spent at Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in northern Germany, Friday during a presentation to Burbank High School students.

The event was part of the Burbank Human Relations Council’s Holocaust remembrance program, held every April and May to coincide with Burbank’s Interfaith Days of Remembrance. About 25 Holocaust survivors and liberators are involved in the program, speaking at area schools about the human toll of hate and bigotry run amok

“If you remember anything from today, remember that hate exists and you, as future leaders, must stop the Holocaust from happening again,” Bronner, a Hungarian native, told the students.

“People think that it can’t happen here, but I remember my father once told me that it couldn’t happen in Hungary and it did,” said Bronner, who was removed from his home along with his family at the age of 17.

Don Duplechein, who served in the U.S. Army’s 567th Ambulance Company during World War II, also spoke to students Friday. He described the scene as he and about 30 other troops arrived at the Nazis’ Dachau death camp at the end of the war.

“You couldn’t believe it. When we arrived we saw people begging for food with lice all over their heads. We knew we had to feed and bathe these people,” Duplechein said.

To a small group of students who gathered after the presentation, Bronner spoke in more detail about his experiences in the concentration camp.

“A lot of people think that children were held at the camps, but the truth is that in a lot of the camps the children were killed and the only ones allowed to live were young people and adults,” he said.

Danny Screws, 17-year-old Burbank junior, said it was difficult to believe that nobody was willing to act to stop what was happening.

“I asked him [Bronner] how the government could let the people be treated that way. He told me that, although they were from Hungary, they were still Jews. I think that was wrong,” Screws said.

Bronner described traveling to the concentration camp by train with hundreds of people piled into a single boxcar, barely able to move or breathe . He talked about the horrible living conditions at the camps where thousands of people died from starvation and disease.

“I remember trying to find my father’s body as he was put on a horse-drawn carriage. I couldn’t find him to say goodbye because of all the bodies piled up,” said Bronner, whose father died at Bergen-Belsen.

Bronner was asked if he hated the Nazis for what they did to his family.

“You know, a student once asked me what I would do if the people that killed my parents walked through the door. I told the student that killing the person wouldn’t bring my parents back and it would make me a killer. You have to forgive, but never forget,” he said.

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“It’s not for my sake, it’s for the sake of humanity, that they will remember…”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2012| 3 Comments »

  I am re-posting this on the anniversary of a car crash that would claim the life of Holocaust survivor and later U.S. Army Ranger, Steve Barry.

My friend on the left described himself at one point in his life as the “Happiest Korean War Draftee”. Steve was a  survivor from Hungary who beat the odds and lived through the horrors of the Holocaust after the Germans invaded that country in 1944 and did their best to kill him on several occasions. He spent his 20th birthday jammed in a boxcar destined for Bergen Belsen, witnessed people dying of starvation and disease by the thousands,  and was liberated on April 13th, 1945 at the hands of the 743rd Tank Battalion and the 30th Infantry Division of the US 9th Army, aboard the train near Magdeburg.  He emigrated to the United States in Dec. 1948 after spending years in a displaced persons camp, applied for citizenship immediately, and was drafted in 1950, only to be assigned occupation duty in a far off nation- you guessed it-Germany. He was so happy to serve his adopted country…

Steve passed away yesterday, January 16th, 2012, after a long and difficult ordeal from injuries sustained in an automobile accident in September. I’ll always remember his special Christmas and Easter cards that he sent to me, made personally on his computer; his funny, self depreciating humor; and above all his overwhelming happiness at being able to finally meet the men who saved him. I hope that the memories sustain his wife Stella and his children and their families, and also the friends that he made later in life and became soulmates with- soldiers Carrol Walsh and Frank Towers, the soldiers who arrived on the scene to free him and help him begin his life anew.

Matthew Rozell, Stephen Barry, National DOR Ceremony, Washington, DC April 2010. This photo was taken the day after the 65th anniversary of Steve’s liberation in April 1945. We had just been honored by the director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum before the national ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda.

I will leave you with a few of his words-and we will remember. Thanks, Steve, for all that you gave us, and for passing the torch to a new generation of students to carry your message forth.

An earlier post… The Holocaust Survivor and the US Army Ranger…

A fantastic national radio interview that I helped to arrange, knowing he would be the perfect speaker…

And the educational films I constructed from them.

 Stephen B. Barry, 87, of Boca Raton, Florida, passed away peacefully on January 16, 2012 following a serious car accident in late September 2011. A Holocaust survivor,who was proud to be an American, he went on to live the American dream. He is survived by his wife Stella of nearly 58 years, his children Barbara (Paul), Jamie (Jerry) and Randy and his beloved granddaughters, Amanda and Victoria and many extended family and friends. Services to be held at Beth Israel Memorial Chapel in Delray. In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions in his memory be made to The United States Holocaust Museum.
Published in Sun-Sentinel on January 18, 2012

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Kids at the DP camp Hilersleben. Irene.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 11, 2012| 3 Comments »

Dear Mr. Rozell,

Hilersleben -Luca Furnari

 My grandfather, Luca Furnari, is 90 years old and served in the 95th medical battalion with Mr. Gantz at Hillersleben. He has a number of photographs from this period.  For many years he has thought about trying to find a particular young girl who he helped sneak extra rations to at the DP camp and whose mother asked him to take back to the United States. He and some friends actually had a whole plan of how they were going to sneak her onto the boat back to the US, it’s a great story. Unfortunately, as you know, they were told they were going to the Pacific theatre and the plan became impossible.  Her name was Irene / Iren / Irena.  I have a photograph and have searched the manifest on your website, there are 3 possible people of approximately the right ages: Irena Gitler, Iren Roth and Iren Wittels.   I was wondering if you had come across any survivors from Hillersleben with the same name. 

Hilersleben-Irene is in the flowered dress

Also, I know my grandfather would love to be connected to any other surviving members from the US Army that were at Hillersleben.  

 My grandfather is the large picture on the left hand side.  Irene is in the flowered dress in the picture by herself and on the lap of another US soldier, whose name is Turner (?).  The picture with the baby is also Turner, and they are in the DP camp.  My grandfather’s inscription reads

Hilersleben-Turner-boy that kid sure did cry that day — until we gave her some chocolate.

“boy that kid sure did cry that day — until we gave her some chocolate”.  The picture of the building with barrels in the foreground is from Hillersleben too. It has a strange inscription from my grandfather

Hilersleben-some disorderly DPs getting a shower bath (DDT?)

“some disorderly DPs getting a shower bath”.  The one with the two girls just says “Two of the children that lived in the D.P. center we were taking care of. Cute eh hon?” (He was sending the pictures to my grandmother back in the States.)

The child Irene is the girl that my grandfather would like to try to locate. 

Soldier Turner and Irene.

Any help you can provide is MOST appreciated.

Best,
R.

Hilersleben-Two of the children that lived in the D.P. center we were taking care of. Cute eh hon?

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A Liberator’s 1945 Eyewitness Account of the Farsleben train appears.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 19, 2012| 1 Comment »


April 17th. (1945)

Dear Chaplain;-

Haven’t written you in many months now, its funny how a few moments are so hard to find in which to write a letter way past due; it’s much easier to keep putting it off the way I’ve done. I’ll try to make up for it in this letter.

Today I saw a sight that’s impossible to describe, however I’ll try. Between 2400 and 3000 German refugees were overran by my division during our last operation; most of them were, or had been, inmates of concentration camps, their crimes the usual ones, – Jewish parentage, political differences with der Fuhrer, lack of sympathy for the SS, or just plain bad luck. Not one of these hundreds could walk one mile and survive; they had been packed on a train whose normal capacity was perhaps four or five hundred, and had been left there days without food.

Our division military government unit took charge of them, and immediately saw what a huge job it was going to be, so they sent out a call for help. Several of our officers went out to help them organize the camp they were setting up for them. The situation was extremely ticklish we soon learned; no one could smoke as it started a riot when the refugees saw the cigarette, and we couldn’t give the kiddies anything or they would have been trampled to death in the rush that would result when anything resembling food was displayed. The only nourishment they were capable of eating was soup; now the army doesn’t issue any of the Heinz’s 57 varieties, so we watered down C-ration[s] and it served quite well.  It was necessary to use force to make the people stay in line in order to serve them. They had no will power left, only the characteristics of beasts.

A few weeks of decent food will change them into a semblance of normal human beings; with God willing the plague of disease that was already underway, will be diverted; but I’m wondering what the affect of their ordeal they have been through, will be on their minds; most will carry scars for the rest of their days for the beatings that they were given. No other single thing had convinced me as this experience has that Germany isn’t fit to survive as a nation. I’ll never forget today.

I was going to write mother tonight but thought better of it. I’ll be in a better frame of mind tomorrow. I’m only a few dozen miles from Berlin right now, and its hard to realize the end is in sight. I’m always glad to receive your scandal sheet. You perhaps missed your calling, as your editorial abilities are quite plain.

As ever,

Charles.             (transcribed by Kaylee Merlow, HFHS ’11.)

March 11th, 2009

Dear Mr. Rozell:

My father-in-law was 1st. Lt. Charles M. Kincaid. He was a Liason Officer with the 30th. Division Artillery.  He was honored with an Air Medal in the battle of Mortain and a Bronze Medal in the battle of St. Lo.  In the battle of Mortain he won his Air Medal by calling in artillery adjustments while flying in a Piper L-4 over 4 panzer divisions on August 9, 1944.

first-lt-chuck-kincaid-sept-1944He rarely wrote home. He did write home to his minister about one event that evidently really caused him to stop and think. Attached is a copy of that letter that his sister transcribed – making copies for others to read.  The letter describes the Farsleben train and his experience there.

I need to thank you for your website and work. You and your students work enabled me to connect the letter with the actual historical event. It further enabled me to show my children the pictures and to make their Grandfather’s experience real, not just an old letter – that this event so affected him that he needed to tell his minister before he told his mother.

Thank you,
Mark A.

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Whitwell.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2012| 1 Comment »

Whitwell, Tennessee.

Not much cultural diversity. 50% free and reduced lunch. Industry supporting then devastating the community, then leaving town. Home of the Tigers… sound familiar, Hudson Falls?

Last fall Hudson Falls kids and I had the pleasure of getting to know Joe Fab, the major moving force behind the film  Paper Clips, when he came to our town to speak.On Tuesday morning this week, a few educators and I  loaded into  cars for a pleasant drive from Nashville to Whitwell, to visit the middle school where it all began, and their Children’s Holocaust Memorial, a cattle car from Germany that was used to carry human beings to the killing centers.

The middle school is in  a new building that also houses a special Holocaust Memorial library, which is thought to be the largest single collection in the state, many volumes donated by survivors and congregations worldwide. Every letter they ever received is archived there, including the negative ones that arrived with the paper clips twisted into swastikas. Imagine. Middle school kids not picking and choosing what to save, but archiving like historians for the future.

Linda Hooper, the former principal, greeted the nine of us, and gave us a private talk about the impact of the project and the unbelievable ripple effect it has had on people’s lives across the world. Sandy Roberts told us how the project unfolded in her after school class, when a child raised his hand to say, “Mrs. Roberts, excuse me, but I don’t know what six million is.” Because they took the time to investigate together, students and parents reflected together in a meaningful way on the impact of learning about the Holocaust on their lives. And that is how this project was born.

Before we move to criticize the project as just another counting activity, the collecting and counting of objects to symbolize human life, come to Whitwell and meet the people. Read the letters from the survivors who send in a paper clip, or dozens, and reach out to these children who have touched them enough to tell their families’ stories.

No one can fathom six million plus. But read the letters to feel for yourself individual stories of the millions who were lost. Come to Whitwell and see for yourself the power of a small community excited about learning, and its impact on the world, because they wanted to care about other human beings.

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So, I am suspicious of education.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2012| 2 Comments »


Israeli educational psychologist Haim Ginott writes about a letter that teachers would receive from their principal each year:

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates.

So, I am suspicious of education.

My request is this:  Help your children become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

This has become the mission statement and educational philosophy of some Holocaust education institutions and it really sums up what my mission as  a teacher is all about. But please note  below that I did not intend it that way. At all.

Today I will be a special guest for the Tennessee Days of Remembrance Ceremony at the State Capitol in Nashville with legislative members, the governor and the lieutenant governor. This evening I will give my first address to fellow Holocaust educators.

How does a kid from a small town with no experience in Holocaust education go on to add a new chapters to the stories of thousands of persons’ lives? To become a regarded figure in Holocaust and History education circles, nationwide?

The honest answer is, I just don’t know.

My dad in the classroom. Around the time that I puffed out my chest and claimed I certainly would not be a teacher.

But it happened. This from a kid who distinctly remembers the purposeful slight given to his dad. Dad was a history teacher in Glens Falls, the next town over. He was good, and he loved the students. Everyday he came home happy and sometimes even humming a tune. Who delivered the purposeful slight? His first born son.

Our relationship,  as I grew into the teenage years, was a bit strained. So when he asked me, as a junior or senior,  in the car riding home from school one day down Main Street, the MAIN STREET of the town that produced him, what I would like to do someday after I graduated from high school, I told him, “I don’t know, but I won’t be in HUDSON FALLS anymore, and I SURE WON’T BE A TEACHER…..”- the desired effect was achieved by the angry teen, the wound deep, the twist of the knife distinct…

Yet there I was, eight years later, living in the room out back of the family homestead on that Main Street, fending my way on the other side of the desk in the classroom of my alma mater, and not just any classroom- a history classroom, teaching the exact same subject as the old man…

What if I had never come home, as planned? What if I had not gone back to school for a teaching certificate, after graduating with that “unmarketable” history degree? What if I had landed that job in the college town I called my new home, instead if coming in 2nd for it? I would have never met the tank commanders. Then, what if Walsh’s daughter had not said, after two exhausting hours of combat tales, just as we were about to turn the camera off,   “Dad, did you tell Mr. Rozell about the train? ”

Things happen for a reason. I think there are no coincidences.

In the words of a former  principal of mine, we are here “to make human beings out of them” (not that they were not before, but you get his point-the exact same point of the speaker noted above.)

I am suspicious of those who will dictate to me from ” on high” what I should be doing in the classroom. Perhaps Dr.  Ginott would have agreed.

 

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I was reminded of the words of the prophet Ezekiel-“He took me down in the spirit of G-d and set me down in the valley. It was full of bones.”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 28, 2012| 1 Comment »

I interviewed a Holocaust refugee and another liberator on Friday last… rolled into one! A special man. A German Jew whose father was mortally injured on Kristalnacht, Henry Birnbrey was sponsored and got out of Germany as a young teen and was given special permission from FDR to join the Army-previously classified “enemy alien” for his German birth- and stumbled upon the train as a forward artillery spotter scouting positions in the lead up to the final battle at Magdeburg.  Henry was in the 531st AAA of the 30th Infantry Division- Survivor Steve Barry mentions forward artillery spotters in his memoirs- and Henry was one of them. Much of what follows is his testimony as given to the Breman Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, interspersed with his memories as privately published in  his war memoirs.

I was born in Dortmund, Germany in 1923. During 1937 and 1938 my parents made applications for me to emigrate to Palestine, New Zealand and the USA. The USA visa came in first and an emergency visa was issued to me the week Hitler invaded Austria, as the various agencies feared that this invasion would be followed by war.

I left Germany on March 31, 1938, leaving my parents behind. In the meanwhile, my father had already been arrested. He was accused of having made statements against the government. He was released with the promise to abandon his business and livelihood. Consequently, we lived without income during the years 1937 and 1938. After I left Germany, my father was picked up again on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938) and he died a couple of months later from the wounds received when he was picked up and arrested. My mother died a few months later. The death certificate of my father stated the cause of death as “heart failure” and only in 1999 did I finally locate the documents that verified what happened in 1938, but too late to entitle me to compensation, which had been denied because their records showed a natural death.

The Birmingham Section of the council of Jewish Women sponsored my immigration to the US, and the social services were provided by the Jewish Children Service here in Atlanta. I moved to Atlanta in January 1939. In Birmingham and Atlanta I lived in foster homes.

I supported myself by working in a clothing store, later managing a shoe store, and in 1942 I went to work for a local accountant. In 1943 I joined the US Army. In 1944 I was with the Normandy invasion forces. During my service in the army, but towards the end of the war, I came across  a train of cattle cars full of Jewish concentration camp survivors and people who did not survive. We opened the cars and were shocked to see the condition of the occupants of these cattle cars. During this same week as we were advancing toward the Oder River, we passed ditches full of corpses of concentration camp inmates who had been marched to the West to escape the Russian advance. Around April 1945, I became a counter intelligence agent and interrogated German POWs and citizens.

After the war, I found out that most of my family had perished in the concentration camps. My mother was one of ten children, and out of that family, two first cousins survived. These cousins had made aliyah in 1937. My father was one of three brothers and again, two first cousins survived. One had made aliyah to Israel in 1938 and the other one survived behind the Iron Curtain. The rest of the family perished. I found documents in the Berlin archive that showed when these people were born and when they died. What I was not prepared for was the detail of information which included the place they were assembled, the number of the transport which took them to the concentration camp and all sort of sordid details.

Henry continues: During World War II, I wanted to get to our hometown but I could not because the British Army was over there and we were a little bit south of there, but my experience as a soldier I think is worth mentioning. First of all, we were in the neighborhood of Magdeburg on reconnaissance. And we had, we had this horrible odor. We didn’t know what was happening. And it turned out to be one of the freight trains full of Jews being shipped from one concentration camp to another. And therefore I was able to personally witness this terrible inhumanity that was taking place. And all of these were my fellow Jews and brothers and everything else. They were almost, they had been reduced to such a non-human state it was impossible to communicate with them. I mean, all we could do is to try to get them food and ask for help. There was nothing we could do. These people were half dead, half crazy. I mean they’d been locked in these cars, were lying on the floor. It was just a horrible thing to witness, and something I’ll never forget as long as I live.

http://www.thebreman.org

And from Henry’s memoirs…. skeptics note again a liberator describing “walking skeletons” ….We moved on to the Braunschweig (Brunswick) area. Here, along the highway, we encountered ditches full of dead concentration camp prisoners who had been marched from one camp to another and were shot before they had a chance to be liberated.
…In April of 1945 while on reconnaissance near Magdeburg we encountered a horrible odor. As we got closer we discovered an abandoned train of cattle cars. When we opened the cars they were filled with half dead and dead Jews being transported from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to another camp. The sub-human conditions to which these people were subjected to had reduced them to a very sorry state. We did not know how long they had been in those cars, they looked like walking skeletons and could barely speak. Unfortunately we had no food to share with them, which gave us a very helpless feeling. When headquarters was notified, someone evacuated all German civilians from a nearby village, Hillersleben and turned this village into a hospital. Unfortunately we could not stay around to learn more, to speak to and encourage these people or perform other deeds of human kindness…I was reminded of the words of the prophet Ezekiel-”He took me down in the spirit of G-d and set me down in the valley. It was full of bones.”

…and this is where I (MR) am trying to put the pieces of the story together….

 

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“I did not interview the dead.”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 14, 2012|

Haunting cover image from Boder’s groundbreaking interview book.

Today I was visiting links on the Internet related to oral history projects. The description I found below intrigued me-interviews recorded in the summer of 1946.

“Voices of the Holocaust – Online repository that contains audio clips and transcripts of interviews done by Dr. David Boder of Holocaust survivors in 1946. The mission of Voices of the Holocaust project is to provide a permanent digital archive of digitized, restored, transcribed, and translated interviews with Holocaust survivors conducted by Dr. Boder in 1946, so that they can be experienced by a global audience of students, researchers, historians, and the general public.”

I went to the site at the  Paul V. Galvin Library at the Illinois Institute of Technology. I then clicked on places in Europe that Dr. Boder went to record his interviews, displaced persons camps or transit areas as survivors sorted out their lives and tried to plan their future. On the actual pages you can not only read the transcription, but also hear the actual recordings…. and he encouraged several survivors to sing for him on tape. Amazing.

Well, I saw some names that I thought I recognized from survivors I have met or from the manifest list provided by the Bergen Belsen Memorial. Sure enough, several of these survivors were liberated on our train near Magdeburg!  Below I have the complete transcript, taken from the site, of a 24 year old Greek Jew who lost both of his parents upon liberation. If you go to the link, you can actually listen to his testimony from 1946! Below, I have taken the liberty of emphasizing his liberation story in bold print.

Dr. Alan Rosen recently published a book on this fascinating subject, and you can read his bio of Dr. Boder here. Dr. Rosen reports that his actual name is Mene Mizrahi.

*********************************************************************************************************************************************

David Boder: [In English] This is Spool 9-43B. The interviewee is Mr. Mizrachi and he speaks English. November the 21st 1950. Boder.
David Boder: This is Spool 43 continued. The interviewee is Señor Manis Mizrachi or Mr. Manis Mizrachi. Born in Greece, how old are you Mr. Mizrachi?
Manis Mizrachi: I am twenty-four years old.
David Boder: He’s twenty-four years old. He speaks good English and we will have his report in English. Also Mr. Mizrachi would you tell us again what is your full name where were you born?
Manis Mizrachi: My name is Mizrachi Mimi I have been born in Salonika.
David Boder: Yes. Your last name is really Mizrachi so we . . .
Manis Mizrachi: . . . Mizrachi, yes
David Boder: . . . call you in America “Minis Mizrachi.”
Manis Mizrachi: . . . Mizrachi, yes
David Boder: You were born where?
Manis Mizrachi: In Salonika, 1922.
David Boder: In 1922, yes.
Manis Mizrachi: The 17th of January.
David Boder: Yeah, and tell me, who were your parents and what was their business.
Manis Mizrachi: My parents – my father was Oscar Mizrachi and he was . . . he saled articles which he brought from every country and he was a representative of several firms.
David Boder: Ah! He was an importer?
Manis Mizrachi: importer yes.
David Boder: Yes, for instance what kind of articles was he selling?
Manis Mizrachi: He was selling clothing and paper, he brought paper and several other things what he could make.
David Boder: Now tell me how many people were in your family?
Manis Mizrachi: We’re three people.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: My father, mother and me.
David Boder: You were the only son?
Manis Mizrachi: The only son.
David Boder: Yes, and now tell me where were you and what happened to your family when the Germans came to Greece?
Manis Mizrachi: Before the Germans came to Greece since my father was a freemason, we . . . were afraid for the Germans, them not to take him away from us. That for we made it up to go to Athens, the capital of Greece, since it is a very big country so we could . . .
David Boder: [speaking over each other] Big city you mean . . .
Manis Mizrachi: Big city, yes,
David Boder: So you could be better protected . . .
Manis Mizrachi: Better protected.
David Boder: Tell me what citizenship did your father have? Greece or Spanish?
Manis Mizrachi: My father was Spanish
David Boder: And your mother?
Manis Mizrachi: My mother was Turkish.
David Boder: Turkish? And you were considered what?
Manis Mizrachi: I have been considered Spanish.
David Boder: Because your father was Spanish. Have you lived in Spain?
Manis Mizrachi: Never, I have never in Spain.
David Boder: Yes, all right, and so you went to AthensManis Mizrachi: And so we went to Athens but anyhow the Germans took us because although the Consul of Spain has certifies us that we have no reason to be afraid that the Germans will take us and but for this obliged us not to leave and not to hide ourselves and so the Germans came one night at two o’clock and got us [the whole family, they beat us firstly] and afterwards they put us into the Greek jail.
David Boder: All right, now . . . Tell me this . . . [mutters] All right, tell me this: Were other Jews then arrested already and deported?
Manis Mizrachi: A lot of Jews, Spanish Jews, were arrested and [spread?] with our family together.
David Boder: Yes, and what was it a kind of a raid at that time or what?
Manis Mizrachi: It was a raid, it was a raid for whole Spanish in order not to leave them the time to hide themselves because one day before they arrested all Greek citizens, Jews of course.
David Boder: They arrested the Greeks citizens that were Jews. And now they began to arrest the Spanish citizens . . . well didn’t you show your papers from the Consul?
Manis Mizrachi: We showed our papers from the Consul but it [laughing a little] helped nothing.
David Boder: All right, so then what did they do with the family, go slowly step-by-step.
Manis Mizrachi: Then they put us in cars and brought us in the Greek jail where we were obliged to sleep down without any help . . . they give us no things to eat, nothing. We’re made whole day without any thing . . .
David Boder: [interrupting] Was the family together?
Manis Mizrachi: The family was together firstly; afterwards, they ordered us the men to go separately and the women from the other side. So we remained there in the jail about fifteen days and the first of April we were obliged to leave the jail and they put us into trains . . . of beasts.
David Boder: Why do you call it “trains of beasts?” They were . . .
Manis Mizrachi: Because they were closed trains were they are putting the [laughing a little] . . . horses and . . . the pigs
David Boder: . . . the trains with the openings? Because animals they transport . . .
Manis Mizrachi: No, they were closed but they were with wires.
David Boder: [Talking over each other] Where were the wires?
Manis Mizrachi: The wires were at the windows. Little window was there, very high, although they were afraid us not to look from what happened around and so they put us there and they locked us, the door so we couldn’t get out for any necessary . . .
David Boder: For any necessary? Were you men and women together . . .
Manis Mizrachi: We were men and women together. Sixty-four people in a wagon, it was very difficult to take air and to eat, we had nothing to eat.
David Boder: Didn’t they tell you to take your things?
Manis Mizrachi: No, they didn’t give – they gave us only some carrots and bottle of water and place . . .
David Boder: What do you mean a bottle of water for all or what?
Manis Mizrachi: It was . . . two big bottles
David Boder: Two big bottles of water.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . bottles of water.
David Boder: What do you think? How many liters was there in each one?
Manis Mizrachi: Twenty-five liters about.
David Boder: You mean twenty-five liters to the bottle?
Manis Mizrachi: Yes, and it was very hard we couldn’t have water enough because we had children with us and we couldn’t wash ourselves we were very dirty . . .
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . and after the tenth day of traveling
David Boder: [astonished] . . . wait you mean you were ten days, ten days in the car?
Manis Mizrachi: In all we were fourteen days but after the tenth day they opened – they got out the wires so we could look outwards but we were without shaving ourselves and were like beasts.
David Boder: Now tell me what kind of toilet facilities did you have?
Manis Mizrachi: No one. Every two days they opened us the doors in order to get out things that . . . we couldn’t keep anymore in our leavings[?]
David Boder: Did you have a pocket for it?
Manis Mizrachi: No, it was in a piece of papers what they gave us specially for that.
David Boder: And women and men together in this . . .
Manis Mizrachi: Women and men together . . .
David Boder: . . . and children
Manis Mizrachi: . . . it was awful
David Boder: And so?
Manis Mizrachi: And so, until we arrived at six in the morning—six o’clock in the morning and the town of Celle which is some kilometers far from the camp, real camp of Bergen-Belsen. And so we went there, we were obliged to go—to step seven or eight kilometers.
David Boder: To walk?
Manis Mizrachi: To walk there with our grandfathers, with our fathers, sisters, sick women, with our children and however it was very difficult for us and this one who couldn’t walk he was beaten by the Germans, soldiers, by the capos . . . were the leaders.
David Boder: What is capos?
Manis Mizrachi: Capos were the leaders.
David Boder: Were they prisoners?
Manis Mizrachi: They were prisoners but who . . . somewhere . . . collaborated with the Germans together. And they beat us awfully we were not accustomed to this kind of manner and they were laughing at us when we made strange figures.
David Boder: Strange faces you mean?
Manis Mizrachi: Strange faces, yes.
David Boder: And well, and so how long did it last to walk these eight kilometers?
Manis Mizrachi: This eight kilometers took us about . . . one hour and a half.
David Boder: [after a pause] That’s very fast walking.
Manis Mizrachi: Yes! We were obliged to run.
David Boder: Well you had no things to carry
Manis Mizrachi: No things to carry, nothing.
David Boder: Well then . . .
Manis Mizrachi: Because we had some things we could keep with us but we were obliged to leave it in the way in order to go very fast because it was a Polish capo behind and he was beating you.
David Boder: A Polish capo?
Manis Mizrachi: A Polish, yes.
David Boder: All right, but you were together with your father and mother?
Manis Mizrachi: No I wasn’t even with my father, and my mother had been put in another range [?].
David Boder: Oh, your mother was put in another what?
Manis Mizrachi: In other file.
David Boder: In another file, all right. But she was marching the same way with you?
Manis Mizrachi: Yes, much in the same way.
David Boder: All right.
Manis Mizrachi: Afterwards we went to the camp they . . . were obliged to stay there for l’appel.
David Boder: What is the name of the camp?
Manis Mizrachi: The camp Bergen-Belsen.
David Boder: Yes
Manis Mizrachi: We were obliged to stay there about two hours waiting until the German come and ask our names . . .
David Boder: Yes . . .
Manis Mizrachi: . . . conforming to the list that he could have in Athens when he put us into the train
David Boder: Do you have a tattoo number?
Manis Mizrachi: No, in Bergen-Belsen there was no tattoo number.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: My account number was one thousand four hundred sixty two.
David Boder: Uh-huh, all right
Manis Mizrachi: . . . It was my account number
David Boder: One thousand . . .
Manis Mizrachi: One thousand four hundred sixty two.
David Boder: ..sixty two. And so . . .
Manis Mizrachi: And so we have been put in big barrack . . .
David Boder: You with your father?
Manis Mizrachi: With my father and with my mother in separate barrack. And around us was the wires—electric . . .
David Boder: Oh, electric wires. Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . have been charged. And we couldn’t go out firstly until the doctor came in order to see whether we’re ill or not.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: And afterwards we could be with our mother and with every friend and so on because of our citizenship.
David Boder: Oh, because you were Spanish.
Manis Mizrachi: Spanish, yes. The only thing which we had. As Spanish people.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: Of course, firstly we couldn’t eat what they gave us. It were carrots in boiled water. This was our eating. And we gave it to other brothers of us—other Jews—of Greece. And Polish people too who were with us in the camp. And we were obliged after one week to eat because we starved. And so we carried everything—everything green that we saw on the earth we took it out from there and we started to eat it without caring if it was dirty or clean.
David Boder: Uh-huh, without cooking?
Manis Mizrachi: Without cooking . . .
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . like beasts.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: And so they started to put us in this category of prisoners that starved to eat and wore closed and we had no rights to go out – to work – we were obliged to stay.
David Boder: Well, because the Spanish . . .
Manis Mizrachi: Because Spanish citizenship.
David Boder: . . . we were not supposed to work
Manis Mizrachi: We were not supposed to work but this was bad because the others who were out they were working at the transport of food, of legumes . . .
David Boder: Of vegetables.
Manis Mizrachi: Of vegetables. And they could have some profit in taking some of them. But for us it was impossible. And so we were obliged to live on only those things that we received from Germans.
David Boder: Did the Red Cross help in any way.
Manis Mizrachi: We had no help of the Red Cross. Never we got help from the Red Cross. Only our capos they had . . . many profits who unfortunately they put only for themselves and they never helped the others
David Boder: Were the capos Jews?
Manis Mizrachi: They were the Jews with us from Greece they came with us. And they started making friendship with the Polish capos, the old ones who were there and so they had a lot of . . .
David Boder: Polish Jewish?
Manis Mizrachi: Polish Jewish. I speak always from Jewish
David Boder: And so?
Manis Mizrachi: And so they made friendship with them and so they had everything for their own families. They had special room to live and they ate separately. We were not to see what they were eating, we smelled only the meat and everything else that they got . . . from the Germans.
David Boder: From the Germans?
Manis Mizrachi: From the Germans. And, unfortunately, our people—the people who didn’t want to beat and to collaborate with the Germans—starved and had only his home in back.
David Boder: Yes
Manis Mizrachi: This is all [slightly laughing].
David Boder: Well, and that was in . . . Auschwitz?
Manis Mizrachi: That was in Bergen-Belsen.
David Boder: In Bergen-Belsen . . .
Manis Mizrachi: Bergen-Belsen.
David Boder: Well . . . did you hear about . . . All right, so how long were you in Bergen-Belsen?
Manis Mizrachi: I have been there about eighteen months—one year and six months.
David Boder: And then, where were you taken from?
Manis Mizrachi: Then I have been taken—we have been put into a big train in order to be transported to Theresienstadt. In the last days—two days before the English came, the British troops came in Bergen-Belsen.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: Um, this train was a big train of sixty-four wagons.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: And have been put in, again in . . . beasts-cars . . .
David Boder: Cattle-wagons?
Manis Mizrachi: Cattle-wagons. Sixty-four to seventy people in a car and started of course many ‘spense [?] . . . many sick . . .
David Boder: Many sick people.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . many sick people. We started then with the Typhus.
David Boder: Oh yes.
Manis Mizrachi: It was then when I lost my two parents. Unfortunately, at the last days. I lost them—my father . . .
David Boder: What do you mean—in Bergen-Belsen?
Manis Mizrachi: In the train—the big train—they caught there Typhus
David Boder: Oh, in the train. About how many days before liberation?
Manis Mizrachi: The first died . . . at just at the same . . . at the moment of the liberation and my mother which was looking for [after] my father died ten days afterwards . . .
David Boder: After the liberation
Manis Mizrachi: And I got it too . . .
David Boder: You got it?
Manis Mizrachi: . . . because I was obliged to see . . . to look for [after] for my mother.
David Boder: You had to look for your mother, yes? And?
Manis Mizrachi: And so I got it also—”I meant thirty in one days”[?]
David Boder: What typhus was it? Ricket . . . Ricket . . . Spotted typhus?
Manis Mizrachi: Spotted typhus, yes.
David Boder: So then you lost your parents.
David Boder: [speaking over each other] .. of liberation. And you remained alone.
Manis Mizrachi: I remained quite alone without any help. Quite alone.
David Boder: All right, so where did you go then?
Manis Mizrachi: I was student and then the American troops were very kind with us—they helped us.
David Boder: Well, which camp were you freed or were you freed from the train?
Manis Mizrachi: From the train directly because it was an air attack.
David Boder: Oh, yes.
Manis Mizrachi: Attack of the air force.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: British Air force.
David Boder: And so?
Manis Mizrachi: And so the machine . . . had been in damage.
David Boder: The, yes, the machine was damaged.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . was damaged.
David Boder: Yes, and the train couldn’t continue.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . couldn’t continue. And . . . we made some activity there we got prisoners, the Germans, the SS . . .
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . and we waited until the American tanks.
David Boder: . . . came.
Manis Mizrachi: Came. Yes, it was ninth army. The ninth American army.
David Boder: Uh-huh.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . Which liberated us.
David Boder: Yes, so then you took the SS prisoners? Why didn’t you kill them?
Manis Mizrachi: [slightly laughing] We had no right to kill them . . .
David Boder: Why?
Manis Mizrachi: Because the capos—the chiefs . . .
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . who directed this movement told us not to do anything until the American troops arrived.
David Boder: Yes
David Boder: And then what did the Americans do with them?
Manis Mizrachi: The Americans took their arms and they took them away, we don’t know what happened.
David Boder: They took them prisoners?
Manis Mizrachi: Prisoners, yes.
David Boder: All right, and then you were in the train,
Manis Mizrachi: And then . . .
David Boder: . . . where were you taken from there?
Manis Mizrachi: And at once, the officers, the American officers went to the village—the German village of Farsleben.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: There. And he gave the order to every person to take us in, to take several families into his house.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: And so, we got the place for some days.
David Boder: Uh-huh, and who was feeding you?
Manis Mizrachi: The Germans were obliged to feed us.
David Boder: Uh-huh.
Manis Mizrachi: They had a lot to feed us.
David Boder: And what did the Germans then say?
Manis Mizrachi: The Germans said that they never knew every- . . . something that happened to Jews and out of Germany and that they behaved something so ill with the Jews in the concentration camps that they let them starve and that they killed them. They didn’t know anything about those things. And whenever they knew, of course, they wouldn’t leave it . . . let the Germans . . .
David Boder: [finishing the thought] . . . they wouldn’t have let them do such things.
Manis Mizrachi: Yes.
David Boder: Uh-huh and then, where did you go and how did you go?
Manis Mizrachi: Then I was where, I got ill and I went at Hillersleben.
David Boder: Yes
Manis Mizrachi: Hillersleben is not far from them, some ten kilometers.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: And then I meant the hospital, hospital El Melwani [?] there were three hospitals.
David Boder: Did you get typhus too?
Manis Mizrachi: I got Typhus too.
David Boder: So when they took you from the train did you have typhus already?
Manis Mizrachi: No I didn’t have.
David Boder: Oh, you didn’t have . . .
Manis Mizrachi: I was looking for [after] my mother.
David Boder: You were taking care of your mother?
Manis Mizrachi: Yes, taking care of her until she died.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: Afterwards . . .
David Boder: Did you see your father dying?
Manis Mizrachi: I . . . . My father died on my hands.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: I buried him with two other Jewish comrades.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: . . . in Farsleben. And my mother died in Hillersleben.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: They are seven kilometers away. I didn’t see my mother died – dead – because I was very ill at this moment. I was with 41.4 Centigrade . . .
David Boder: Temperature. Already with typhus?
Manis Mizrachi: With Typhus yes.
David Boder: And so when the freedom came . . . ?
Manis Mizrachi: When the freedom came, I was quite alone I remained quite alone . . .
David Boder: Did they take you to a hospital?
Manis Mizrachi: Yes.
David Boder: You were taken to a hospital?
Manis Mizrachi: I have been taken to a hospital.
David Boder: . . . and nurse to help?
Manis Mizrachi: Nurse help, German nurse. And they were not bad but they always tried to make sabotage.
David Boder: The Germans?
Manis Mizrachi: The Germans.
David Boder: In what way?
Manis Mizrachi: In what way . . . because they were throwing away the medicaments and whenever we were calling them but they didn’t come—only when the Brit- [corrects] an American soldier was present.
David Boder: . . . and then he would take . . .
Manis Mizrachi: . . . but not, they never took care of us.
David Boder: All right, and when you got well what happened then?
Manis Mizrachi: Then I took some days in order to get . . . stronger then because I couldn’t walk. I had forty-two kilograms.
David Boder: And where did you spend those days—in the hospital?
Manis Mizrachi: In the hospital.
David Boder: Yes.
Manis Mizrachi: And afterwards I have been taken by the American army and I said that I had parents in France. And that for they brought . . .
David Boder: You said that you had parents in France?
Manis Mizrachi: Yes, I had. I had.
David Boder: Relatives you mean?
Manis Mizrachi: I have relatives, yes. Relatives.
David Boder: Apart from your father and mother.
Manis Mizrachi: Relatives, yes. Relatives in France.
David Boder: And so they took you?
Manis Mizrachi: So they took me here and . . . unfortunately they had been displaced too. Deported and they didn’t come back.
David Boder: They did come back?
Manis Mizrachi: They did not come back.
David Boder: So you didn’t find relatives?
Manis Mizrachi: I did find. And I remained here.
David Boder: Yes. And for what are you working now?
Manis Mizrachi: Now I am working for the AJDC.
David Boder: For the American join . . .
Manis Mizrachi: [finishing] . . . distribution committee.
David Boder: What are you doing?
Manis Mizrachi: I am in the accounting department.
David Boder: Where did you learn English?
Manis Mizrachi: I learned English alone because I finished the German school . . .
David Boder: Where? Greece?
Manis Mizrachi: In Salonika, yes.
David Boder: You finished the German school where you learned Greek [corrects] where you learned English?
Manis Mizrachi: German. German and French and since I liked very much to learn English I learned it quite alone.
David Boder: with . . . [speaking over each other]
Manis Mizrachi: Just alone, myself.
David Boder: By which method? Shocked that haven’t got a better [ununintelligible] that you had to go to school?
Manis Mizrachi: No, I learned it quite alone. There was a friend of mine who went to the school . . . and I learned . . .
David Boder: And learned it alone. Now what do you plan to do in the future?
Manis Mizrachi: I am studying now; I am studying radio.
David Boder: Where, at the ORT?
Manis Mizrachi: No, quite alone, I am training myself.
David Boder: All right.
David Boder: You are studying radio and then you want to do what?
Manis Mizrachi: Then I hope to work in radio..
David Boder: Where?
Manis Mizrachi: I don’t know yet, perhaps I can go to the country I would be very satisfied.
David Boder: Which country?
Manis Mizrachi: I don’t know where to . . . the States? [Break in tape]
David Boder: . . . relatives in America?
Manis Mizrachi: . . . unfortunately, I have no one.
David Boder: You have no one.
Manis Mizrachi: No one.
David Boder: . . . Well this concludes Mr. .Mizrachi’s report. Taken on the- . . . on August the 12th at the offices of the American Joint Distribution Committee . . . recording of the Illinois Institute of Technology.
http://voices.iit.edu/interview?doc=mizrachiM&display=mizrachiM_en

Also note that the USHMM is looking for Mr. Mizrachi and several others who were interviewed that summer by Dr. Boder. For more information, click here.

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“Just as we were at the point of despair, two American tanks came rolling down a hill and saved us.”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 27, 2012|

Holocaust survivor recalls kindness of US troops

Another survivor of the train near Magdeburg appears. International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2012. I hope she finds her way to this site so she can meet her actual liberators! Thanks for Leslie Meisels for tipping us off to the article. Aliza’s memoir of life in the Warsaw Ghetto and beyond is very moving and can be found here.

By GIL SHEFLER 01/27/2012 00:34
JERUSALEM POST

“The American soldiers didn’t know what to do and they showered us with chocolates and cigarettes.”

Aliza Vitis-Shomron on Thursday vividly recalled her brush with death on the eve of her liberation from the Nazis in 1945.

The survivor, who spoke on a panel at the Kibbutz Yad Mordechai Holocaust Museum the day before the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, said a rumor had spread among the group of Jewish prisoners she was part of in Poland that they were about to be murdered.

Rather than surrendering them to the Allies closing in from the east and west, the prisoners feared their captors were planning to plunge their train into the Elbe River and drown everyone.

“Panic and fear spread quickly,” recalled the Polish-born Israeli who survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. “Just as we were at the point of despair, two American tanks came rolling down a hill and saved us.”

The feeble Jewish prisoners emerged from the train and embraced the stunned soldiers of the US 30th Armored Division.

the tank commanders who freed her.

“We were crying with joy,” she said. “The American soldiers didn’t know what to do and they showered us with chocolates and cigarettes.”

Vitis-Shomron said she did not feel that she had defeated the Nazis.

“I did not triumph,” said Vitis-Shomron, an educator who has four great-grandchildren.

“What happened accompanies me, but I try to live and live well. I try to teach humanitarian values to our youths. We must never do upon others what was done to us.”

The panel Vitis-Shomron was part of at Yad Mordechai, the kibbutz named after the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Mordechai Anielewicz), included Simcha “Kojak” Rotem, who fought in the uprising, and former defense minister Moshe Arens.

It was one of many events held in Israel and around the world commemorating the remembrance day.

On Wednesday, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor, American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris and members of the newly formed World Forum of Russian Jewry met at United Nations headquarters to honor the memory of those killed by the Nazis.

The AJC head said the lesson learned from the murder of six million Jews required the world to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities.

“This past September, indeed on these grounds, the notorious Holocaust denier, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke,” Harris said. “To their credit, several UN member ambassadors walked out, but, shamefully, the majority stayed in the General Assembly hall and applauded his remarks.”

The president of the World Forum of Russian Jewry, Ukrainian businessman Alexander Levin, joined the call urging the UN to take action against the Islamic Republic.

More Holocaust memorial events are planned for Israel and around the world on Friday.

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and ambassadors from more than a dozen countries including Germany, the US, Egypt and the Philippines are set to gather at the Massuah Institute for Holocaust Studies at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak near Netanya to take part in a memorial ceremony.

The UN designated January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005. It is marked by governments and organizations around the world.

Israel, however, observes its official Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 26th of Nissan, the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, according to the Jewish calendar. Its selection reflects the Jewish state’s preference to emphasize Jewish resistance to the Nazis.

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=255355

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