The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister

by Bannister, Nonna

  Anna was my very best friend, and I hope that you have as much talent as she did. Oh, how well she could play the piano and violin and sing. She also painted beautifully—she was a beautiful friend—and we loved her so. Anna fell and broke her arm, and they did not give her any treatment, but they still insisted that she paint and play the violin during the concerts held for the German “brass.” Her arm became infected and your mother became very sick and was running a high fever from not having the proper treatment. However they continued to pressure her to play and to continue her painting. She developed gangrene in her arm and became very sick, but the Germans thought she was faking her sickness. They took her to the infirmary, where they broke her other arm and some of her fingers. She became sicker, and the general ordered her to be thrown into the incinerator. She was in shock and unconscious and was of no further use to them. Little one, don’t wait for your mama—she only lived to see you again, and that kept her going for a long time. Do what she wanted you to do, and if I were going your way, I would love to meet you, but my destiny is a different road.

  It was signed “S. I.”

  After I read the letter, it took me a few minutes to figure it out and to even realize that I was actually reading it at all. I fainted or blacked out, and the nuns told me three days later that I had suffered from severe cardiac seizures (cardiac arrest) and I spent those three days in the “last room” where they transferred dying patients. The nuns told me that they had taken it upon themselves to get the Catholic priest to give me the last rites of the Catholic Church, even though they all knew that I had been baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church when I was a baby.

  When I tried to recall what I was doing before I passed out, I remembered the letter, which had disappeared—no one would tell me what had been done with it. I wish I had it now—and yet it might be just as well that someone had destroyed it or whatever happened to it.

  Perhaps it might have put me in a condition from which I would not have survived until today. But I had to be strong and have the courage that Mama talked about. After a few weeks, I decided that I would get well, and I was mad enough to do it. After all, it was the last thing that Mama had wanted from me. However, there was always the hope that this was all a bad dream and that the last letter was someone’s idea to leave it there for me as a cruel joke.

  I began to watch for Mama. I had plenty of time since I was still bedridden and couldn’t go anywhere. I just kept hoping that someday she would just appear—especially since there were a lot of people arriving from all kinds of KZ camps; I kept trying to seek them all out. The nuns continued to take care of me. I stayed in the hospital as a patient from 1945 through 1947 as my illness lingered and the doctors and nurses treated my rheumatic fever and myocarditis. I was completely bedridden and had lost a lot of weight. My muscles had atrophied, and I was unable to walk. However, with the skill, love, and care of the doctors and the nuns, I slowly recovered and received intensive physical therapy in order to be able to learn to walk again.

  The nuns moved me into the cloister to protect me from the danger of being picked up by the Russian troops who had arrived in the area after the Americans had set everyone free. I had a Russian visitor come to the hospital, and he told me that he could arrange for me to go back to Russia and that I should prepare to be moved back. The nuns came to my rescue and told the Russian that I was dying and that if they tried to move me, I would surely die before they got me out of Germany. I knew that if they took me back to Russia I would be tortured or even put to death as a traitor for not retreating with the Russians at the beginning of the war.

  * * *

  POETRY • In May 1946, during her stay at the hospital while she recovered, Nonna wrote several “Little Thoughts.” She later translated these “thoughts” into English and recorded them in her transcripts.

  * * *

  LITTLE THOUGHTS

  Being the one of yesterday,

  I veil myself in my illusions;

  I manage to survive today,

  The time of sorrows and confusions.

  * * *

  Embraced with thoughts and deepest feelings,

  I ask myself, “Was it all real?”

  Is there a chance that I have been dreaming—

  The dreams too horrid to reveal?

  * * *

  I saw the Angel come from heaven.

  He whispered softly in my ears,

  “I have my wings, which are God-given,

  You’re safe beneath them. Dry your tears.”

  * * *

  I never gave up hope that I would find my mother, and each day, I would hope that she would just appear. While I was recuperating, I had a lot of time to remember things as they were as a child when I was growing up, the love and the family that had provided a loving family unit. I thought a lot about Grandmother and would wonder what had happened to her after Mama and I left. As soon as I could move my fingers and hold a pen or pencil, I started to continue my daily diaries, and I wrote day and night.

  I wrote my diaries in several languages—in case someone got them, he or she would not be able to read them all. My memories were surfacing faster and faster, starting with how I never had a chance to know Grandfather Yakov (Mama’s papa). He was slaughtered by the Bolsheviks during the Revolution. His full name was Yakov Alexandrovich Ljaschov, and I thought about the chaos in Russia (World War I, combined with the Revolution). I wondered what life had been like for Grandfather Yakov. I never knew my grandfather on my papa’s side of the family, who, along with the other members of Papa’s family, lived in Warsaw, Poland. All my ancestors on my papa’s side came from Poland. Of course, I never met any of them since I was born in the year 1927, long after things had changed, and there was no way to keep in touch with my family ancestors from Papa’s side.

  I was very fortunate to have known my grandmother (Mama’s mother) and all of Mama’s brothers and sisters. I received a lot of information from them, especially from my dear grandmother Feodosija Nikolayevna Ljaschova. My papa taught me as much as he could about his background, and with having the knowledge of Mama’s family, I had an awful lot to remember and write about. There were a lot of photographs to go along with all that I remember.

  I thank God for having such sweet memories from the first twelve years of my childhood life. I can write for many years to come and never finish all that I know. I thank God for all that was left for me by my family, who were all destroyed by the Revolution, World War II, and finally my mother by the Holocaust. I have survived by a miracle—becoming the lone survivor of my family.

  * * *

  WHY?

  While my body was imprisoned,

  My soul was free.

  Now that my body is free,

  My soul is restless.

  How could this happen (or be)?

  Have I not dreamed of total freedom?

  The dream that stayed with me for years

  I dream no longer—shed no tears.

  Embraced with memories so vivid,

  I suffer quietly alone.

  There’s no one left who shared my sorrows,

  Who walked with me the road of horrors.

  How many thoughts remain unspoken,

  But memories can’t fade away.

  The horrors of the past still haunt me,

  The ghostly shadows won’t dissipate.

  I tried to free myself, pretending it never happened.

  Oh, what a fool I was in thinking I could easily forget.

  My nights are long, my thoughts are lingering.

  The past will always be with me.

  No matter how I try, there’s no escape from what was real.

  Should I continue to reveal?

  Should others learn the true life story

  Of more than one who can no longer tell?

  I am compelled to put everything into writing for those who do not know or refuse to believe the true story of what happened. There are not many of us left who know of thos
e horrible times, and we must pass the knowledge on to those who should know the true history of all the horrors. It is the only way to keep such a thing from ever being repeated again. If we keep quiet and do not speak now about what happened before, it could surely happen again. One of my deepest regrets is that while I was bedridden with rheumatic fever at Marienkrankenhaus, someone broke into my trunk and removed the Hitler postage stamps from all my correspondence (probably to sell to some stamp collector). It is up to us survivors to be brave and let the whole world know all about the horrors that took place. We owe this to our children and the good God who, mercifully, let us live.

  39: Searching for Mama

  Merxhausen Hospital

  I learned that the Allies had opened a hospital approximately two hundred miles from Kassel where they brought a lot of people from the KZ camps to recuperate and receive treatment for all kinds of diseases—but most of them were being treated for starvation and the psychological disorders related to the horrors of the KZ. I wanted to be transferred to this hospital to continue my recovery, as it would allow me to continue to look for Mama. The nuns did not want me to go, but they understood my need to search for Mama. I talked to quite a few of the Allied officials about granting me a transfer to Merxhausen. Finally, there was a French doctor who arranged for me to be transferred from Marienkrankenhaus to Merxhausen. I had to be taken by ambulance since I was still very sick, but I made the trip without any problems.

  When I arrived, I saw all those “friends”—which is what they meant and more—to me. There were a lot of them who had lost loved ones and who had survived by narrow escapes. Some of them were lone survivors of an entire family (like I was). I could identify with them, because I felt like I was the victim of the same horrors since I had lost the only precious relative that I had left—my mother.

  The hospital was very busy, and each day there were new patients arriving for treatment. I would meet people as soon as they arrived, and I would show them Mama’s picture, hoping that someone would recognize her and tell me some news about her. All of a sudden, I had a lot of people around me, and I was no longer alone. They were all suffering, the same as I was, and I felt like I had a large family now. They all just kind of adopted me, and when there were some happy times, the people always included me.

  I was also there when there were sad times, like when Leja did not make it. I shared a room with her for a few weeks before she died. Leja was twenty-six years old; she had survived the horrors of the KZ camps only to die from the results of their horrors. She was like a sister to me, and I took it awfully hard, along with our many friends.

  After Leja died, I asked to be transferred to the room of a lady who had suffered a stroke that had affected her speech and had left her paralyzed. She was confined to bed or a wheelchair at all times. I cannot remember her first name, but her last name was Rosenbaum—so we called her Rose. When I showed her Mama’s picture, she started to make loud noises and started to cry. She became so upset and shaken that the hospital staff had to give her a sedative—but she uttered a sound like she was calling Mama’s name, Anna. I would not leave her side, hoping that she would start saying some words, or even one word. She had no relatives there, and since she could not speak or write, it was hard to communicate with her. We all loved her—she was our pet, and I took charge of caring for her as soon as they let me out of bed.

  I shared the same room with Rose for three months, and then she died also—and we lost another loved one. Today, when I look at the pictures of Leja and Rose, the sadness still hurts.

  It was 1948, and I had spent some time at Merxhausen. After meeting and talking with the Jewish prisoners and others from the KZ, I realized that I was never going to find my mother. I decided that I would finish my nursing education since I had quite a bit of training from the doctors and the nuns at the Catholic hospital. I moved to Bad Hersfeld, Germany, where I was accepted into the school of nursing. I was able to complete nursing school at Fulda, Germany, in just a few months. My grades were very high—I graduated with honors and was offered a scholarship to pre-med school in Heidelberg, Germany. From there, I was sent to work in the General Hospital of Hanau (Hanau was three kilometers from Frankfurt, Germany) for a short while.

  After all my attempts to find Mama had failed, I finally realized (or accepted) that she really was gone, along with thousands of others, even after the Germans had lost the war. I finally accepted the fact that my mother had been thrown into the incinerator and burned alive and that the anonymous letter had been dictated by my mother just before she was killed by the Gestapo. All of this had happened just a few days before the death camps had been found by the Americans and the lucky survivors were freed.

  * * *

  “EVEN AFTER THE GERMANS HAD LOST” • On April 20, 1945, German guards evacuated, in a “death march,” some fifteen thousand prisoners from Flossenbürg. When the Americans liberated the prisoners at Flossenbürg, on April 23, 1945, they found only two thousand prisoners alive in the camp. [http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blflossenburg.htm, accessed July 10, 2008.]

  * * *

  New Life

  40: The Final Arrangements

  Every survivor of this ordeal was anxious to get out of Germany and was making plans to get out as soon as possible. I left the hospital and took a job with the IRO Center of Hanau, Germany, as a secretary, and I worked for a woman by the name of Mrs. Hawksley, from London, England, who was in charge. I told Mrs. Hawksley that I wanted to go to America, and she arranged for me to apply for a visa. I had a friend (Zoya Wagner) who was an attorney and also helped me apply for the visa.

  The process took something like two years to complete, giving me time to fully recover from my illness, make plans to leave Germany, and prepare for another long journey—to America. This would be a journey filled with promise and happiness for the opportunity to start a new life in a new country. Hope is a wonderful thing when one has been through the Holocaust and the horrors of war like I had been. This, after all, had been my father’s dream for as long as I could remember—going to America.

  * * *

  IRO CENTER • Begun in 1946, the International Refugee Organization had an office in Hanau, Germany. Following the IRO’s closing, a new relief organization was founded: the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is in operation to this day.

  * * *

  Before the visa was approved, I had to go through a lot of processing. I was required to appear before a lot of American and British authorities and to go through a lot of background checks. It was necessary for me to obtain and furnish verification about my mother and my family prior to being approved for a visa. At this time, the Germans had started a program to award money to the victims who had survived those terrible times, or to their families. My friend and attorney, Zoya, helped me organize all the documents, pictures, and proof of events that would make me eligible for some money from this fund (this was the first fund to be set up after the war for victims of the concentration and labor camps). There was much to be done, and the nuns had written me many letters stating that my mother had, indeed, been taken by the Gestapo and put into the KZ camps, from which she never returned.

  There was someone else from that hospital who had been taken by the Gestapo and never returned: a Catholic priest. The only reason I could imagine was that he had helped some Jews, or whoever had been targeted by the Gestapo, by hiding them in the monasteries or in the hospital, much like the nuns had hidden me by moving me into their living quarters—even giving me a German name (Lena Schulz) to hide my identity. I was told to keep it a secret that they would tell whoever was curious about me and wanted to know why I was there that I was an orphan and that my home and family had been destroyed by the bombing during the war.

  After getting all my papers together, I applied for the award money from the fund. I traveled to Wiesbaden, which is where the new German government was set up, headed by a chancellor. (I think it w
as Kohl.)

  * * *

  GERMAN CHANCELLOR • Nonna might have confused the chancellor’s name with that of the current chancellor during the time of her writing. Helmut Kohl was chancellor between 1982 and 1998; the chancellor she refers to here must have been Konrad Adenauer, the new German government’s first, who served from 1949 to 1963.

  * * *

  I had an appointment to appear before a panel of seven German men, who wore new uniforms and looked to be middle-aged. I was seated in front of a long conference table, and somehow I had a feeling that I was being interrogated again. It may have been my imagination, but I must say that I did not trust them. Their eyes were staring at me, and I did not feel comfortable.

  After looking over my claims and documents, they asked me why I wanted to go to America. They asked me if I would accept an offer to stay in Germany, and they wanted to know if I would trade my visa for fund money. I told them that I just wanted to get whatever money was owed to me and that I would keep my visa to America. They offered me German citizenship and a scholarship to medical school if I would stay. I could see that they were trying everything possible to detain me and keep me in Germany. (I realized, years later, that they simply did not want me to go anywhere because I had in my possession proof that the Nazis had killed millions of innocent people and that the concentration camps had indeed existed.)