The Remnant - Stories of the Jewish Resistance in WWII (Boomer Book Series)

by Othniel J. Seiden

  "What do you want of me?" Sol asked. "Who are you really? I feel it is something other than camp conditions."

  The stranger smiled. "Of course I'm not interested in the camp conditions. I can see all I need to know about the camp conditions. I am interested in emptying the camp! The Jewish Agency provided us with a front-and an excuse to enter these camps. I am really an American, but I come via Palestine. I'm with the Haganah."

  "Haganah? The Jewish army of Palestine? You are really with Haganah?"

  "Yes, with a special section assigned to bring 'illegals' into Palestine."

  "Illegals?"

  "Yes, illegals. It is the British name for those who enter Palestine without legal papers."

  "You are making an overture? Recruiting me to enter Palestine illegally?"

  "You come to the point quickly, don't you?" Milton Feldman grinned.

  "Why wouldn't I go? What fool would turn down such an invitation?"

  "It's not without risk, Solomon. Many get caught. If that happens, you will most likely be interned in a British prison camp on Cyprus. Believe me, the conditions here are much nicer than on Cyprus. Also, you will be taken off the quota lists. It may end your chances forever getting into Palestine legally. It is something to think about."

  "I have just given it all the thought I intend to. I want to go. What must I do?"

  "You just did it!"

  Solomon laughed, "I did?"

  You will be contacted," Milton told him. "Now go back to your work and say nothing of this to anyone!"

  "May I ask why you came to me for this privilege?"

  "There will be time for that later. Just return to your work and say nothing. If anyone asks you, you just told us of the general conditions here and how much you love it."

  94

  The Survey

  Results...

  Nothing happened.

  Nothing more was said.

  Several weeks passed and Solomon began to think he'd imagined the whole thing, except he knew of several other DPs who had been interviewed about "camp conditions." But none spoke to each other about the incidents. They all did as they were told and said nothing. Sol knew of at least seven who had been interviewed. Could it all have been a cruel joke? He wondered how many others had been asked. He was dying to talk to someone about the matter, but too much was at stake. He was not about to spoil his or others' chances.

  At long last, another stranger came to his bench one morning and asked, "Solomon Shalensky"

  "Yes!"

  "We finally have the results of the survey on camp conditions you took part in. You remember the survey, don't you?"

  Sol's heart began to pound. "Yes, of course. What's become of it?"

  "That is why I'm here. All those who are interested can hear the results. I assume you're still interested?"

  "Absolutely!"

  "Good. Tomorrow morning, leave the camp as if you were just going to town. Take only what you consider essential. No luggage-only the clothes you wear. Come to this address before seven in the evening, but not before noon." He handed Sol a folded piece of paper. "Again, say nothing to anyone."

  Solomon arrived at the address in the early afternoon. It was a bookstore. Milton Feldman was there, greeting each DP as he or she entered the store. They came throughout the afternoon. As quickly as they arrived they were taken away by another Haganah member. The DPs came from several camps so that not any one camp would turn up with a large number missing in any one day. A few absentees per day were considered normal attrition in most camps.

  From the store, Solomon and two others were taken to a farm just on the other side of the Austrian border. It was a safe house run by the Haganah. The tight security was not so much for fear of local authorities, for the DPs had every right to move about the country. Security was kept strict so that the British wouldn't be on the lookout for a large group of 'illegals' getting ready to run past their patrols off the Palestine coast.

  Solomon and the growing group stayed three more days at the farm. When the last of their numbers arrived, they totaled thirty nine; just enough to fill a bus which the Haganah simply chartered to take the DPs to the Italian port city of LaSpezia. Numerous other groups of DPs were waiting there and others were yet to come. The Jews were hidden on several nearby farms.

  On the evening of the third day after Sol's group had arrived at LaSpezia, a dilapidated Greek freighter steamed into port. It off loaded its cargo and moved to another pier to await its turn for a dry dock overhaul. Its crew was given a two day shore leave; only the captain and a skeleton crew of handpicked men remained aboard. A messenger was sent to a member of the Haganah with the code phrase, "Awaiting new manifest."

  That night, seven hundred and sixty seven Jews of all ages and nationalities were loaded onto the waiting ship. They were stuffed into cargo holds, crew quarters, officers' cabins and any place where people could be put below decks. At a quarter past midnight the skeleton crew fired up the boiler and the engines began to crank. As soon as the ship had cleared the harbor the Jews were allowed on deck.

  A message to the port authorities had informed them that the ship had been given clearance to another dry dock which would save several days and the captain had found a cargo at that other port. By dawn, the ship was well out into the Mediterranean Sea on its illegal voyage.

  The ship did not head directly for Palestine but churned toward Lebanon. Vessels headed in the direction of Palestine were watched by British patrols from the air. Once sighted, the ship's progress was charted daily. The crews and passengers watched for aircraft, but fortunately none was sighted. As they approached the waters off Palestine, the Captain started to run an erratic course, which slowed their progress but would confuse any British that did happen upon them. Slowly he worked his vessel into position to run the British blockade that night. At nightfall he dropped anchor and waited. They were still out of sight of land. The next two hours seemed an eternity.

  "I don't like it. It's been too easy," the Captain said to his chief. "I've done this several times now, but I feel very uneasy tonight."

  "Perhaps we shouldn't try tonight," the second officer replied.

  "No. The longer we are in these waters, the greater the risk. We go in thirty minutes. But I still feel uneasy."

  Thirty minutes later, the anchor was hoisted and the ship's crews began their struggle against the current. The Jews were headed home.

  In another hour, a light flashed from the shore at a predetermined location and the captain set his bow in that direction. Fifteen minutes later, the signal flashed again and the captain knew he was still on course. They were minutes from their destination when a crewmember on watch yelled out, "Patrol boat closing in from starboard!"

  No sooner had he called out than the approaching vessel turned on its powerful searchlights. Pandemonium broke loose on deck.

  "I'm going to make a run for it!" the Captain shouted. "Full ahead!"

  "We can't outrun her!" the bewildered second officer exclaimed.

  "No, but I can damn well ground her. These are shallow waters with a sandy bottom. As soon as we hit, lower every lifeboat loaded full. A few of these tormented souls may get to shore. The rest are headed for Cyprus anyway. What the hell do we have to lose?"

  As soon as the ship grounded on the sand, six lifeboats were put into the water. The patrol boat started after them but could only stop one before the others were in water too shallow for it to follow. The five successful, overloaded boats landed nearly a hundred-thirty lucky Jews on the sands near the ancient town of Caesarea. There they were met by Haganah members who whisked them off under cover of night.

  A few Jews jumped off the grounded British ship and swam for shore. No one knew just how many tried that or what their fates were. The Greek Captain and his crew were incarcerated in Palestine at the old prison of Acre. The remaining DPs were taken to the internment camps on the island of Cyprus. Solomon was among them...

  95

  Cyprus...<
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  Solomon's eyes lifted briefly to the barbed wire. His gaze fell back to the ground. His thin face was worn. Barbed wire confined him. A British soldier guarded him and fifty thousand other Jews. How quickly they've forgotten.

  These are our liberators?

  They liberated us from the Nazis. They imprison us here on Cyprus. God, why can't we just be allowed to live our lives in freedom? There are Jews in this camp who have faced death at the hands of the Nazis every day for the past decade. Now they are thrown into this hellhole by our 'allies.' There are children here who have not known a day free of fear in their entire lives.

  The sun burned down on the island. There wasn't even a breeze. The internment camp was a tent city quickly thrown up to hold the prisoners. Palestine was their only hope. But Palestine was in the hands of the British-and the British had closed the doors to the only country that would take the Jews of Europe.

  Now Cyprus was their concentration camp.

  For many who finally gave up hope, Cyprus became their death camp. Attempted and successful suicides were commonplace. Some of the elderly who had survived Hitler could no longer struggle against this last disappointment. Without hope, the soul died-shortly after, the body.

  "They have already forgotten..."

  Epilogue

  Dov...

  I have tried not to dwell too much on my own story because there were so many others who suffered far more, fought more bravely, made greater sacrifices, lost everything even life itself. There were many heroes in World War II, many of them Jews. Few have received any recognition at all. Those who died are remembered, perhaps only because we won't let the world forget. But what of those who lived? Our ordeals have been mostly forgotten. "They went to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter!" That they remember. Before the war was over, the ordeal of the living was forgotten, pushed from the minds of the guilty and the complacent. Not until the formation of the State of Israel did those Jewish displaced masses find a welcome in this world.

  In 1948, Israel achieved statehood and the displaced persons camps all over Europe and those internment camps in Cyprus emptied. Their multitude finally allowed the freedom to go home to the only country that truly welcomed them in nearly two-thousand years.

  Solomon finally found the freedom he'd fought so hard for.

  I moved to Israel as well, but I'd not been interned in a camp. After we arrived in Kiev with the Russian army, I bid my friends, Sol and Father Peter, farewell and continued with the Russian Army as they made their way west. I had no one anywhere in Eastern Europe. I worked as a battle field physician attending to the casualties where they fell. We did what we could to stabilize them for their trip back to the hospitals.

  When we crossed over into Germany and the number of Russian casualties dropped precipitously, I left the army before they had a chance to send me back to Eastern Europe. I made my way south to Austria where I made contact with members of the Jewish Committee and also the Haganah. I was given a job traveling from DP Camp to DP Camp all through Europe making sure that our people were getting the best treatment possible and, more important, surveying the health status of the recovering survivors from Hitler's death camps. During my travels, I learned of horrors that shocked me even after all I'd been through. Then I vowed to do my part never to let the world forget. But for years I tried to forget. Remembering was too painful. I actively tried to put it out of my mind. My nightmares would not go away.

  In 1948, I too moved to Israel. Solomon and I were reunited. We met on the field of battle in the effort to break the Arab siege of Jerusalem. But that is another story.

  After the 1948 War, I became a staff physician in a hospital in Afula a town North of Jerusalem and East of Haifa. Solomon moved to a kibbutz near the town of Ramat-Yishay, not half an hour's drive from me. We have become even faster friends than we were in the forests. Shortly after Solomon joined his kibbutz he met a Sabra, an Israeli born, ironically by the name Rachel. They married and have four wonderful children-three boys and a girl, named for his departed brothers and sister and grandfather.

  Father Peter became a professor of religious history and philosophy. He never was able to resolve his discord with his Church, which he'd dearly loved before Babi Yar. He died in 1956 of a myocardial infarction. His Church did put him to rest in hallowed ground. I hope he found his peace and reunion with his beliefs.

  I, too, found my love and marriage. We have three wonderful "children" grown up to have given us seven grandchildren. Since 1948 life has been good.

  After my retirement, my family insisted I put down on paper the memories that have haunted me all these years. And now that I have done it, nightmares of my memory are finally leaving me. If nothing else this writing has been a catharsis. But I hope it will be more than that. Though it has given me some peace, I hope it gives the rest of the world outrage enough to insist on remembering after we are no longer here to remind.

  About the Author

  Othniel J. Seiden

  Othniel J. Seiden, or Otti as he prefers being called, typically takes on an interesting historic subject and studies it to find the most fascinating storyline.

  When doing the research for "The Remnant," however, Otti found that it wasn't just one story, but the mixture of the stories of the survivors and their resistance work that really told the true story of the 'Free Jews of World War II' and the part they played in bringing down the Third Reich.

  After researching the transcripts of the Nuremburg Trials and interviewing 'The Remnant' or Jewish survivors of the holocaust; Otti was compelled to write their startling and remarkable stories of World War II while the remaining members of "The Remnant" were still alive.

  It is a stunning and compelling novel made of up the collection of stories of the Jews who were able to remain free and fight. Otti documents their escapes, their survival, their sacrifices, their suffering, their missions and their guerrilla warfare tactics against the Nazi occupation forces.

  Otti tells most of this story in the shadow of the atrocities of the now infamous Babi Yar ravine where it is thought that nearly a million people, Jews and non-Jews alike were massacred. Its existence was kept hidden for many years after the war by both the German and Russian interests. The brave few who escaped certain death here did so by acts of amazing bravery and sheer determination to live.

  Otti in this book, with these stories based on real people and historical transcripts, should dispel the myth that the Jewish people "went to their deaths like sheep to slaughter-" The Remnant and their incredible stories will erase that perception forever!

  The Remnant is Othniel Seiden's fourth historical novel following The Survivor of Babi Yar, The Capuchin, and The Cartographer - 1492. Since the release of the The Remnant, Otti has released two more historical fiction books including Seed of Avraham and Shtetl

  All of Otti's books current are available on the website BoomerBookSeries.com.

  If you enjoyed this book,

  here is another great book by Othniel J. Seiden!

  The miracle of its survival

  was predicted - guaranteed.

  Seed of Avraham

  A 4000 year history of

  The Jewish Family

  The written history of the House of Avraham has been born out by the pick and shovel of 20th century archeology. To doubt its validity in the face of all the evidence is foolishness. But maybe I'm mistaken for perhaps the family of fools is even older than the House of Avraham.

  Like every family, the House of Avraham is a mixed lot. There have always been a few who saw little value in the birthright - tried denying it - -gave it up - but seldom with success or to their own benefit. Others faced agony, torture, death - rather than give it up. Those who survived hopefully found their reward; those who perished - who knows what prize awaited them for their sufferings. Such are the things faith is made of.

  It was predicted. It has come to pass.

  www.JewishHistoricalFiction.com

  If you enjo
yed this book,

  here is another great book by Othniel J. Seiden!

  If you were a Jew you needed no last name ... we were all one big family ... and we all had the same tsuris, excuse me, I mean troubles...

  Shtetl

  The story of a life no more

  Shtetl is the story only about what life was like in my shtetl, a small Jewish village in Eastern Europe. At one time, there were many shtetls in Eastern Europe, but they and the lives led in them are no more.

  And I am the last remembered patriarch of the family in this story.

  I began my physical life on earth in the year 1820. The shtetl ... the little village, in Poland, where I lived my entire life, came into existence, maybe three centuries earlier. In all that time, little changed for either of us, except maybe the misery got worse. We both, the shtetl, and I, ended our time on earth together.

  So you might ask how it is, if I am no more that my story will get told?

  Well, when you are here ... here in what you call the "hereafter" or "the afterlife"... but God forbid, it shouldn't happen to you 'till you're a hundred and twenty ... you'll understand it all...

  www.JewishHistoricalFiction.com

  If you enjoyed this book,

  here is another great book by Othniel J. Seiden!

  An historic fiction novel about Columbus

  & the harsh times he lived in