I take a seat alone on the concrete steps in front of a memorial stone, right in front of the execution ditches. I have my journal out, but I don’t even know what to write, so I pretend to write, because I really do not want conversation right now. When the group does trickle over to the steps of the Soviet memorial with the saucer-like dome, we ascend. Someone who noticed that I avoided the crematorium and gas chamber tour today asks if I am okay.
Yeah, I’m fine. 18,500. Murdered, shot right here in front of me. In one day. That is twenty times the population of our high school, on a good day, when they all feel like coming to school.
Now we are under the dome, that stupid-looking flying saucer. We are in it, looking down on a mound the size of a small house. And as the realization dawns, now comes the shock that nearly knocks me over, the high-tension electrical jolt that poor saps must feel when they realize they are suddenly in a very personal episode of The Twilight Zone—this dumb-looking saucer roof is covering something I instantly recognize—and I don’t need a sign for this. As a trained avocational archaeologist, I have excavated this material more than a few times, though not the human type, or anywhere near this magnitude.
Calcified bone fragments, bone powder, and burned earth. Literally tons of it; I am looking at a mountain of burned bone. It’s a giant urn, an open-air mausoleum—I am face-to-face with cremated human remains. Bleached white and gray from superheat. How many thousands of human beings are in front of me? One of the most respected Holocaust scholars has suggested 50,000. A guess. There is a Catholic cemetery across the way, outside the gate. I suppose you could get an accurate count of the dead who lie there.
I don’t know why, but I don’t participate in the Kaddish here. I don’t speak. I don’t pocket a rock for a memorial memento today, either.
Today was like a bad dream day. And later I learn that Aliza Vitis-Shomron broke down leading a tour of high school kids on the very steps where I just had to sit. You see, her father had been one of those shot to death on that November day, as the music played.
And if there are any words to be spoken here in Majdanek, they would be outflanked and interrupted in some kind of twisted irony by the squeaking of the wheels of the baby stroller trespassing its way through the camp—yes, maybe a symbol of life in this monument to the dead, but more aptly a metaphor for the present, willful yet oblivious, dodging and darting the presence of the past.
*
Aliza Melamed Vitis–Shomron
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
He came in the evening. I look at my cousin Lazar [the former Jewish policeman whom I resented], a young man of twenty-eight; sunken eyes, a thin, pale face, eyebrows and his hair singed, his hands covered with blisters from burns. I am writing Lazar’s story; maybe someone will find my diary.
Everything was ready for the Passover Seder, which was to begin the next day, on Monday, April 19. But on Sunday night, we heard a stamping of boots on the sidewalks. When my father-in-law went out to see what was going on, several neighbors rushed in, their faces pale: The Z.O.B. guards[*] told us that the ghetto was surrounded. On the roofs of the houses all-round the ghetto, we can see machine guns and suspicious movements around them. The clock struck midnight. So that’s it. The last, final ‘aktion’ will probably start tomorrow morning.
We got ready quickly. Our hiding place was in the cellar. We had prepared two rooms under the cellar, with the entrance well-camouflaged. We had an opening for air, a well for water, and even electricity. In one room, there were personal belongings and food, in the other, wooden bunks to sleep on. We intended to survive for two or three months in this way; maybe the war will have ended by then. All the occupants of the house ran around, gathering their essential belongings. People were not afraid to go out into the street to visit their families and friends, to say goodbye.
In the morning, we heard dull sounds of firing and explosions. In another house, in Swentojerska Street 34, the Z.O.B. had their positions. People from the organization told us about a mine they had detonated when the Germans decided to penetrate into our area; about battles leaving ten Germans dead; about a ‘peace delegation’ of SS officers who came with a white flag asking for an armistice to pick up their wounded, and how they fired at them at once. The fighters were elated, exhausted—but looked happy.
The battle in most of the houses in that area lasted two days. They ran from house to house. The leader of the group was the commander Marek Edelman. Dozens of fighters took part in the battle; some of them were killed. They went out at night to try to make contact with their friends. They told us that the battle inside the ghetto was still going on, that the fighters had delayed the entry of the tanks and set fire to them with homemade Molotov bottles. They were stationed at windows and changed their positions by moving across the rooftops. We in the shelters decided to open fire only when they discovered us. We made up our minds to defend our families to the end, not let them take us to Treblinka.
On the third day, fighting also broke out in the area of the workshops of Töbens and Schultz. At the last moment many people preferred to move to the Poniatow camp. In the meantime, the Germans began to set fire to the houses. On the second day of the uprising, the fighters told us about fires in the ghetto. We sat in the crowded shelter, praying that they wouldn’t get to us. We had expected the worst, but not fires. The people in the shelter said goodbye to each other. We were in despair, expecting certain death. We could already smell the smoke. Someone came from the neighboring house; people were fleeing from adjacent houses. There were no Germans around. After a night full of dread, just before dawn, we did hear German voices in the courtyard. They were calling to the Jews to come out at once, or else they’d burn us alive.
The artillery was constantly firing incendiary bombs. Whole blocks of houses were on fire. The shelter was not damaged, but the water stopped running. The electricity went out. The walls of the shelter became unbearably hot, smoke penetrated the cellar. We sat there, coughing, wrapped up in wet sheets. People wept, dragged themselves to the courtyard with the last vestige of strength. We had no choice, we would defend ourselves in the yard. The men cleared the opening and gave the order—‘wrap yourselves up in sheets soaked in the remnants of water, lie in the middle of the courtyard, in the garden.’
The yard is full of people, smoke covers everything, the top floors are in flames, the fire is running wild without any interference, parts of walls are collapsing and falling into the yard. People lying on the ground are groaning with pain…
Suddenly, we hear German voices in the street. God! We thought it was all over, that they’ve left us here. What shall we do? Several Germans burst in through the gate…
Lazar was captured and beaten, but managed to escape deportation, and made it to his cousin’s hiding place on the Aryan side.
I saw a different Lazar before me. He used to be arrogant, a show-off. The person sitting here now was thin, withdrawn; he stammered slightly when he spoke. We’ll have to live together in that small room in the cellar. Who knows how long? Until this damned war is over?
The Beginning of May, 1943
They say that the ghetto no longer exists. The wreckage of the houses is still standing; the piles of cinders still crackle, and at night, shadowy figures, seeking food and shelter, still move about in there. But the ghetto no longer exists; 500,000 people have gone up in smoke. And those still alive bleed inwardly; their deep wounds will never heal. And maybe there will be no one left when freedom comes? Why are human beings so cruel and evil? They speak about the future, about truth, about Man as proof of God’s great wisdom, and it’s all lies, lies!
I know there are also good people, but they are persecuted; society rejects them as weaklings. Why am I prevented from seeing the wonders of nature and the world, from breathing fresh air?
The Hotel Polski
After the liquidation of the ghetto, the situation for any Jew still alive was growing increasingly precarious. Rumor was circulated that at War
saw’s Hotel Polski, foreign certificates or even passports could be obtained at a price for a complicated exchange for German nationals or prisoners interned by Allied nations abroad. Many of these were papers from South American governments that had arrived after the great deportations had begun, and their original owners had been killed.[30] Additionally, any Jews holding legitimate foreign certificates began to consider the prospect of taking refuge at the hotel.
Reunited with her mother and sister, and hiding in the home of a devout Christian, Aliza now recorded another dilemma in her diary.
July 8, 1943
Today, Mother met Mr. Wosz upon his request. He told her some exciting news. Jews, hiding in various places on the Aryan side, are gathering in Hotel Polski. It is not clear who is organizing it, but it appears that the Germans have a certain number of permits to go abroad. They are selling them by means of Jewish middlemen, and for a large sum, it is possible to obtain a ‘promesa’—an entry visa to a South American country. There are also ‘certificates’ to Palestine, and for these one can register for a smaller sum. All the people who register will be exchanged for German citizens, living in those countries, and until then, the Jews will be kept in camps for foreign nationals.
[But] what about Father?
July 11, 1943
Something very important has happened. We’ve decided to go to Hotel Polski. Uncle Leon and his family are already there. We are taking the risk of our own free will. Shall we get to Palestine? Who knows? If it were true, I would be happy. I am dreaming about that country, about freedom, studies… I am sure there are hard times ahead until then, but at least we’ll finally be doing something! No longer sitting around doing nothing in these hiding places, in apartments belonging to good people, who, with all their kindness and courage, look at us anxiously, begging us silently—leave, leave soon!
The tragic part is that we have not been able to bring Father out![*] Leaving without Father, abandoning him there, that’s terrible. What should we do?
What can we do?
*
July 12, 1943
We are already in the hotel. We parted, weeping, from young Mrs. Maria and thanked her from the bottom of our hearts. Maybe her savior, Jesus, will see her good deeds and reward her for saving a family belonging to our people.
There are many Jews here. They are all running about, excited and tense, talking loud. We have registered for a ‘certificate’ to Palestine, shared by 250 people. Uncle Leon has apparently paid for us. The excitement is tremendous: We are allowed to speak Yiddish, people are meeting acquaintances and friends, telling each other their experiences, and how they escaped from the ghetto. They say one transport left a week ago and we may leave tomorrow. Another transport will leave next week.
I listened to everything, and believed our luck. It may have been just childish.
*
July 13, 1943
We set out. We went on trucks to the railway station. We passed the walls of the burnt ghetto on our way. We were able to see the destruction and hear the deathly silence.
We traveled in silence. We all parted from the life we had led there, in the city of our birth. I also said goodbye to the ruins of burnt-out houses, the place where I had spent my childhood, a time never to return. I left my weeping soul among those ruins, still issuing a terrible smell, a huge graveyard of half a million of Poland’s Jews. Wait for the avengers, for the day of reckoning, you damned ruins! Germany will never be able to atone for its responsibility for the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people!
Farewell Warsaw, the city of joy and anguish, we shall never return! You stood uncaring when we cried to you for help in our despair. I hate you, you let a third of your inhabitants die before your eyes, without a word of protest against that terrible injustice!
The ghetto was lit from above by the bright summer sun, but darkness, the smell of burning, and stench of corpses reigned inside. [*]
Most of the more than 2,500 Jews who had purchased passport papers of others murdered by the Germans were murdered themselves. On the day Aliza and her family departed on the route to the exchange camp at Bergen–Belsen, over 400 others were transported to a nearby prison to be shot.
In September 1943, the slow-moving bureaucratic machine of the SS Reich Main Security Office finally caught up with most of the South American certificate holders at Bergen–Belsen when it realized that most of these ‘Hotel Polski Jews’ were not the original passport owners. Of the entire group, only about 260 people survived; the rest were sent to Auschwitz.[31]
CHAPTER SIX
A Child in Holland
With the fall of Warsaw on September 28, 1939, the German blitzkrieg planners had completed their first task in Poland in all of four weeks. In accordance with the secret protocol, the Soviet Union swallowed up the coveted eastern half of Poland, which they would exploit and use to buffer themselves from the fascist threat, for the time being. As for Hitler, he could carry out his conquest of Western Europe, and then turn his armies eastward.
Perhaps to Hitler’s surprise, World War II finally commenced with the British and French declarations of war against Germany on September 3. It now seemed the western democracies might fight, after all. The United States proclaimed its neutrality, but the president authorized moderate increases in the American armed forces; frighteningly, it had recently lagged behind Bulgaria as the 18th placeholder for the largest army in the world.[32]
For seven months the western front remained relatively quiet. In Britain the press began to dub it ‘the phony war.’ For the tormented victims in Poland it was anything but, and reports trickled in to the rest of Europe about the savagery of the blitzkrieg and the early treatment of the Jews during wartime. In desperation, most European Jews had found their paths to move hopelessly blocked; the appeals for sanctuary went unheeded even as the blitzkrieg in the west began in earnest the following spring.[*] One by one western democracies were rolled up on German terms; Denmark and Norway in April, and the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France in May and June of 1940. The United States, Canada, and Australia had formidable immigration barriers in place, and while the British had admitted 80,000 Jewish refugees, all of that essentially ended after the declaration of war.[33] British-controlled Palestine also began to turn back ships of Jewish immigrants, a policy they would continue all throughout the war and beyond, sticking to strict Jewish immigration quotas to appease the non-Jewish residents there. The doors slammed shut in a cascading crescendo of foreboding.
In Holland, however, Jews had generally enjoyed a level of secularization and equal rights following the ideals of the French Revolution and the establishment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814. While their integration into Dutch society, culture, and secular values was very well established, many still retained a Jewish identity. The German invasion of 1940, therefore, was an unforeseen and unmitigated disaster for the Dutch community, and the 15,500 Jewish refugees from Germany that they harbored; there would also be the shock of neighbors turning upon neighbors in this terrible new world.[34]
After Kristallnacht in Germany, young Fred Spiegel had been delivered out of harm’s way with his sister Edith to stay with relatives in Holland, as his mother tried to make other more permanent arrangements for the family. In the beginning, the children were happy with an aunt, uncle, and cousins. But soon the children could sense the danger returning all around them.
Fred ‘Fritz’ Spiegel
After Kristallnacht, November 9 and 10, 1938, my mother tried desperately to obtain visas for us to leave Europe. Nothing was available. The United States had closed its borders to immigration, especially German immigration. Palestine, which today is Israel, was a British Mandate.[*] The British Government had issued a 'White Paper,’ an official government document stopping any further Jewish immigration into Palestine. However, in August of 1939, my mother obtained a visa as an au pair, a foreign maid, for England. Unfortunately, this visa did not allow her to take us with her.
During World War I, Holland had been neutral, a policy it could presumably pursue in the event of another war in Europe; my mother thought we would be safe staying in Holland for the time being, until she could make arrangements for us to join her in England.
On the way to England, she decided to visit us for one week in Gennep. She was due to arrive on September 1, 1939. I was seven years old and had not seen my mother since November 1938, and so I was tremendously excited, looking forward to seeing her again. I had such a lot to tell her. When my mother arrived, I ran into her arms and cried. Then my uncle came, gently pulling me away. He urgently needed to speak to her for he had just heard the news on the radio that the German army had invaded Poland. He tried to explain to my mother that it would be better to leave immediately, as otherwise he feared that there would be no more passenger ships to England. He believed that Europe was going to be at war after the British and French ultimatum expired on September 3, 1939. I was very disappointed and upset when my mother told me she had to leave within the hour. How could I tell her everything that had happened to me since I left home about my new friends and school in one hour?
After too short a time, I said goodbye to her again. Little did I know at the time that not only would I not see her for more than six years but also what would happen to us and the terrible times that lay ahead. I am sure she could never have imagined the terror we would experience before we would be reunited. My mother did manage to take the very last passenger ship from Holland to England on September 1, 1939. As she left, she promised that as soon as she was settled we would be reunited with her in England.
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