A certain death sentence, if anyone knew.
Oh, what great wealth and secret we kept,
While on those precious diamonds we slept.
Rumors abounded of our block’s inspection,
We must conceal them before their detection.
In the rubbish Papa found an old suitcase,
There wasn’t one minute to waste in this race.
His ingenuity produced a master plan,
A spot under rag heap that no one would scan.
He threw them all into the cavernous box,
To keep them safe, despite broken locks.
He peered out the door—the time was right—
And ran with the treasure through the night.
One must not hestitate, be fearful, or stall,
Running on icy snow soon made him fall.
The suitcase opened, its contents all around,
Cushioned by the snow, not making a sound.
They lay like gems in a store on display,
Their contrasting hue made them easy prey.
Papa carefully picked up every one,
In a few minutes, his job would be done.
Placing the valuables in the chosen spot,
A deserted place that everyone forgot.
Nervously, we awaited Papa’s quick return,
His safety our chief worry and concern.
The door opened, his mission a success,
Next day’s search would bring much distress.
In a few days the coast was clear,
We would again have our valuables near.
Each and every “diamond” on the snow,
To us a treasure—a precious potato.
I WISH
I wish I could run free,
And play to my heart’s desire.
Climb mountains, walk on soft grass,
Never would I tire.
I wish these strange conditions,
Were no more than a nightmare.
That there are still people somewhere,
Who understand and care.
I wish I could sleep on a soft bed,
And eat a good meal.
Never again to hunger,
To barter, and to steal.
I wish I would wake up
To a new and brighter morn.
In another time, a different land,
And be reborn.
Some attempts were made to teach us in Beschaeftigung, or keeping-busy classes. School was absolutely forbidden, but some heroic teachers gathered us children in attics and other places where there was a little space. They taught us from memory, since very few schoolbooks were smuggled into the camp. In an English class I learned “I Wish I Were,” which I wrote into a worn notebook and hid from view on one of Eichmann’s visits. It was only recently that I completed this poem with my own thoughts.
I remember vividly the Bohušovice Ravine roll call on November 11, 1943. It was the only time I ever got outside the camp walls. We were told that some inmates were missing and a complete count had to take place outside the camp. At least forty thousand of us were herded very early in the morning onto a large muddy field. It was a cold and rainy day. We did not know what was going to happen to us. Our future seemed uncertain. We were surrounded by soldiers and guns. No food was given to us the entire day. No toilets were available to us. I watched in horror as an SS man smashed the butt of his rifle into my mother’s back. Some people had actually escaped and may have got away. News of our outing leaked out and was broadcast on the English radio. Consequently, direct orders from Berlin halted any further action on that day. We returned to the camp after midnight. Many people died on the field from exhaustion, cold, and severe beatings.
By the end of 1943, rumors of mass murder in the East had begun to circulate. The International Red Cross requested permission to inspect a camp to find out if these accusations were true. The Nazis chose Terezin for this purpose. Many months passed before this request was granted on June 23, 1944. In the meantime Terezin went through a “beautification” program. Certain parts of the camp were cleaned up. Some people were given new clothing and good food to eat. A few children received chocolates and sardine sandwiches just as the commission walked past them. I was not one of the lucky ones. In the center of town an orchestra played in a newly erected band shell. The areas filled with the things that had been stolen from us were carefully locked up. Blind, crippled, and sick people were warned to stay out of sight. Even the most brutal SS officer, Rudolf Haindl, acted friendly on that day. Transport lists to the East were carefully hidden. The International Red Cross inspections team left the camp believing the immense deception that Terezin was a “model” place for Jews to live in. A film was made at this time to document the “good” conditions in Terezin.
Camp money.
DECEPTION
All is readied for a Red Cross inspection,
Our very existence is based on deception.
Could the world be lulled to believe,
The camouflage only a devil can conceive?
Numbered blocks are renamed with a street sign.
It is paradise here; we are doing fine.
In the park a band shell is erected,
Special lines are taught us and perfected.
“Uncle Rahm,1 again we have sardines today?
We are really sick of them, we want to play.”
A children’s pavilion set up to impress and show,
Life is normal here; a “fact” for everyone to know.
In the square there is a new café house,
Only the selected are allowed to browse.
We have our own bank and money here,
On which Moses and the tablets appear.
With it nothing but mustard can be bought,
And a new school, in which we are not taught.
Markers to theater and playground,
All will soon be no longer around.
Only special areas are shown with pride,
Most of us are ordered to remain inside.
As fast as commission is out of sight,
We have to bear again tyrannical might.
Soon there will be another selection,
No change; the world believed the deception.
1SS camp commandant.
Terezin was the antechamber to Auschwitz. Eichmann personally saw to it that there was a constant flow of transports from Terezin to feed the gas chambers at Auschwitz. He and the SS commandant of Terezin determined which groups of people were to be sent East and then ordered the Jewish Council of Elders to draw up a list of one thousand people from the designated groups for each transport. At one time only old people were called up; at another, the most highly decorated war veterans. The selection process depended entirely on the whims of the SS. We lived day and night with the fear of being sent to the East. There were times when transports left every week. The unfortunate people who had been selected were given a number which was tied around their necks, and were told to assemble at a specific barrack. From there they were forced to enter the cattle cars. The doors were bolted and not opened until their arrival in Auschwitz. Most of the camp Elders eventually suffered the same fate: they, too, were killed in the gas chambers in Auschwitz. When the last selection to the East was made in 1944, all remaining disabled war veterans had to appear at SS headquarters. A red circle was drawn around our names. We had been spared from certain death.
The crematorium at Terezin.
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER ME BY
He was a stranger; we had never met,
He wanted me to recall him, not to forget.
Obviously sensing his awful situation,
Nervous and persuasive in his presentation.
He handed me a box filled with treasure,
And hoped it would give me much pleasure.
Odds and ends up to the brim,
For dreams of any child’s whim.
“Something to remember me by!”
I was startled a
nd full of surprise,
A rainbow of color before my eyes.
Things made of threads attached to eternity,
Knitted by loving hands without identity.
His eyes looked hopeless; in a daze,
He walked restless, as if in a maze.
He was a humble man—without fame,
Staying unknown—never stating his name.
“Something to remember me by!”
He rode away on the death train,
Filled with desperation and pain.
He rests with the ashes in sleep,
His memory I will forever keep.
The little girl now fully grown,
Remembers him, though still unknown.
To this day his words sound loud and clear,
His presence assured from year to year.
“Something to remember me by!”
HOLD ME TIGHT
Come with me, my child, hold my hand,
Be calm, my child, do not try to understand.
Don’t be afraid, my child, walk with pride,
You know your mother is here at your side.
Hold me tight,
Day has turned to night,
Soon we’ll see the light.
No, no, don’t look at the chimneys—see the blue sky,
My arm is around you to protect you; don’t cry.
Come close—let the blows fall on me,
There’ll be a day when again we’ll be free.
Hold me tight,
Day has turned to night,
Soon we’ll see the light.
Give all your belongings to them, quickly undress,
One day soon we will again have happiness.
Sleep my child—I have no more to give,
Oh, God, Oh, God—we are not going to live!
Hold me tight,
Day has turned to night,
Hold me tight.
My best friend Ruth and her parents, who had shared our bunks in a tiny room for two years, were in these last transports to the death camp. She was also an only child, just two months older than I. We were like sisters and shared our daydreams and secrets with each other. She had beautiful blond hair. Her greatest pleasure was to draw pictures on scraps of paper with colored pencils that she had smuggled into the camp. She had hopes of becoming an artist. Ruth and her parents came from Berlin. Her father walked with a limp caused by a World War I injury. We both found it strange to live with and see around us so many disabled men with missing arms, legs, and other war injuries. Ruth and I owned identical dolls. Before she embarked on her final journey, she entrusted me with all of her doll’s clothing, which her mother had carefully sewn from rags. Ruth’s father was half Christian and half Jewish, and Ruth was raised as a Christian.
Ruth died because of her Jewish heritage, even though she never considered herself Jewish. She would never live to see her tenth birthday. In “Hold Me Tight,” my heart still cries out to her and so many other children as they marched with their mothers to the gas chambers in Auschwitz and the other extermination camps.
CHAPTER 7
Liberation
I learned an old Czech folk song in Terezin. It speaks of the hope and the changes that come with spring. Would we ever be allowed to leave the winter that was Terezin, see the smile of spring, and feel the touch of May again?
The spring of 1945 was different from the other two I had spent in Terezin. Unknown to us, Hitler’s Third Reich was collapsing and the German armies were facing certain defeat. The Allied forces were closing in on Europe. Meanwhile the Nazis made their last attempts to kill all the remaining survivors in the death camps of the East.
As the Allies advanced, the soldiers forced their prisoners on death marches to places still under complete Nazi rule. I remember when these miserable people arrived at Terezin. They were barefoot, or their feet were covered with rags or torn sandals. Some wore blue and white striped uniforms, others only rags. Their heads were shaved. Many were no more than walking skeletons suffering from typhus and other diseases. In vain I searched the long lines, hoping to find Grandma among them.
During these last days of World War II, orders were given to build gas chambers at Terezin. The plan was to kill us either by poison gas or by drowning in a specially prepared area. Not one Jew in Europe was to stay alive. By the time we were freed, the gas chambers at Terezin were almost completed. It was only the rush of events that spared our lives.
Liberation at Terezin, 1945.
Guards fearing capture by the Allies began to burn the camp’s records. Bits of partially burned paper floated through the air. The evidence of death and suffering had to be destroyed. Then, at the beginning of May, most of the guards living outside the barricades ran away. They made some last efforts to slaughter us as they left, by shooting wildly and throwing hand grenades into the camp.
We were finally liberated on the eve of May 8, 1945 by the Soviet army. The first thing we did was rip off the yellow star from our clothes. I had spent three years in this human hell. I can still see the boisterous Russian soldiers singing and dancing on their tanks. All of us felt joy, pain, and relief. Many questions remained. Who was left of our families? What would our future hold?
After liberation, the barricades were left up for a while, because a severe typhus epidemic was spreading quickly through the camp. Having survived the war, many prisoners died of the disease even after liberation. I remember climbing one of the barricades to accept a piece of black bread with what seemed a mountain of butter from a Russian soldier. I chewed it gently, allowing the butter to melt slowly in my mouth. Was I awake or dreaming?
Despite the typhus quarantine, my father and I went outside the camp walls in search of food. We walked to the fields and picked rhubarb, and in the surrounding towns we begged for food. Back in the camp we bartered the rhubarb for bread and potatoes.
I joined a few other children, and together we stole into the former Nazi living quarters just outside the camp compound. We found bullets lying on the floor and strips of movie film showing sea battles. To our surprise, we saw a swimming pool inside a beautiful park next to these quarters. How different life must have been on the other side of the walls! While we were starving, suffering, and living in fear for our lives, these people just a few yards away lived a life of luxury.
When the typhus epidemic subsided, a few of the survivors began to leave the camp on foot. Most of them did not know where to go or who would help them. Finally, in early July 1945, a bus appeared from Stuttgart, Germany, to pick up the small group of survivors from the state of Württemberg, Out of our original transport of about twelve hundred people, there were thirteen survivors. Three of them were from my family.
LIBERATION
Our camp’s population began to swell,
Remnants of other places sent to our hell.
Time was running out; the tyrants began to retreat,
It was clear their armies were facing certain defeat.
One by one each guard was abandoning his post,
The uncertainty what next, we feared the most.
Urgency and anticipation filled the air,
Each minute we were torn between hope and despair.
I climbed the barricade and stole a forbidden glance,
A hand grenade flew close, but missed me by chance.
The sudden explosion gave me a scare,
I touched my head to make sure it was there.
Quickly I sought my parents’ side,
In a dark cellar we would hide.
A stream of people joined us as we did descend,
“Could we survive, would this tomb become our end?”
One small candle emitted a ray of light,
A beacon of hope against this darkest might.
Minutes became hours; time was impassively fleeting,
Deadly silence; only the sound of my heart beating.
I found solace in reading my prayer book,
Would someone dare go upsta
irs and take a look?
Evening had come; the hour was close to nine,
One man chose to go forward and lead the line,
We waited with trepidation; his absence was brief.
“The Allies are here, we are free, we have relief!”
MY OMA‘S2 LULLABY
In some strange and distant land,
A life snuffed out by flick of hand.
I hear the shot; I feel the pain,
My Oma did not die in vain.
I read her last postcard now and then,
“With God’s help we’ll be together again.”
Her birthday has become our Yahrzeit3 date,
To remind us of love and man’s hate.
She sang me to sleep with a lullaby,
My child, be happy, do not cry.
Her Shabbos4 candles had a special glow,
I hope she knew that I loved her so.
Only she held the secret to prepare,
The challes5 and cakes without compare.
I will always recall her last gaze,
Her eyes, soft smile, and beautiful face.
Her spirit still radiates with undying love,
I know she is looking down at me from above.
She sang me to sleep with a lullaby,
My child, be happy, do not cry.
We set off from the camp and soon found ourselves passing through badly bombed German cities. The once majestic city of Dresden had been turned completely to rubble. Wherever we stopped, curious Germans gathered outside our bus. One little girl pressed a small doll into my hands and insisted that I keep it and remember her.
After a few days on the road we arrived at the displaced persons’ camp in Stuttgart. Here we received our first good meal. I remember the beautifully set table and the white tablecloth. I can still taste the noodle soup, which I ate slowly to relish every spoonful. Never in my life would soup taste as good again. We stayed only one week in this temporary facility, which had been especially prepared to house returning Jewish refugees. Our aim was to return to my grandmother’s home. We hoped she would still be alive and greet us there.
Inge Auerbacher Page 4