Rose, you have seen the true works of evil and risen above its grasp on you at every turn. Your story restores the light back to my eyes once filled with darkness. I can’t thank you enough for sharing your story with me and letting me stand by your side. What a true honor it has been to know someone as strong as you are.
With love and abiding respect,
Hugh Reese Shulman
Dear Rose,
I am so glad I got to meet you and hear your personal stories about the hardest experience of your life. You are a true survivor and you encourage me to strive through my own journey. I was fourteen when I was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer, and there are times when I have felt like I don’t want to deal with what I have to go through.
I was excited when I was told about you and given the opportunity to meet you. Rose, you went through one of the worst eras of human kind, but came out strong on the other side. Your tattoo, A15049 is a mark of your tenacity, just like my scar from my surgery is a mark of mine. Although we both went through different situations, we are both proof that, no matter the situation, there is a light on the other side.
With love,
Peyton Gill
Dear Mrs. Williams,
Thank you very much for coming to Johnson High School to talk to us about your life story. I found it very interesting and emotional. Hearing about the tragedies and brutality you had to endure actually brought tears to my eyes. But your triumphant survival made me feel gratified, because, while it always pains me to hear of people’s suffering, your story reminds me that, ultimately, good will win.
I do hope you will continue to share your story with students. You’re a really great speaker, and you offer a unique perspective that I think is important for the next generation to hear. Perhaps we can work together to think of new solutions to solve problems around the globe.
I will treasure this moment for the rest of my life. You have further strengthened my devotion to human rights and equality. I promise to help pass on your legacy. I deeply enjoyed listening to you, and I hope that perhaps I will see you again someday. May you inspire others, as you have inspired me.
Sincerely,
Garrett Christiansen
Bergen-Belsen, April 15, 1945
Liberated survivors peeling potatoes
among thousands of corpses
Reprint courtesy of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Chapter Fourteen:
Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen, established in northern Germany in 1940 to house prisoners of war, began conversion to a concentration camp in 1943. Like other camps in the Reich, toward the end of the war, Bergen-Belsen began to be a dumping ground for Jews from eastern camps in Occupied Europe. Frenziedly, the Nazis attempted to remove these live witnesses to their atrocities out of the reach of Allied Forces.
Bergen-Belsen’s population of about 7,300 inmates in July 1944 burgeoned to approximately 60,000 by liberation on April 15, 1945. Estimates are that about 50,000 prisoners died at Bergen-Belsen, about 30,000 of them during the last few months of the war.44
Victims had somehow survived the winter exposure, lack of food and water, absence of hygiene and sanitation, as well as physical beatings on death marches in either hermetically sealed or totally exposed cattle cars. Now, they arrived to even more deplorable living conditions at Bergen-Belsen.
By January of ’45, internees often went days without food. The camp was so overpopulated that disease was rampant. Probably the most renowned victim of Bergen-Belsen is Anne Frank. She and her sister Margot died of typhus about a month before liberation.45
On April 15, the British 11th Armoured Division arrived. Guards had abandoned their posts by the time the first tanks rolled into the camp. The Allies witnessed approximately 13,000 corpses lying unburied, in all stages of decomposition. In the women’s section, hundreds of women had been packed into barracks meant for fifty; most had slept on the floor. Prisoners had no showers, no toilets; the facilities were filled with lice and the water contaminated. Typhus penetrated the barracks.
The stench from the camp is actually what led the Brits to the victims. Conditions were so deplorable that the British completely burned down the prisoner sections to prevent further spread of disease. The British troops forced citizens from nearby towns to witness the atrocity and to shovel corpses into mass graves. Still, of the 60,000 liberated, about 10,000 or more died after liberation, either from disease or malnutrition, too far gone to be saved.46
• • •
Arrival at Bergen-Belsen
Of all the camps I had seen on my sad pilgrimage, Bergen-Belsen was the absolute limit of filth and inhumanity. There I saw heaps, no mountains, of corpses. Guards took us to a single-room barrack in the women’s section. Hundreds of people were crammed into barracks; there were no beds for us, not even straw. We slept on the floor with the rats. The cattle wagons had been a terrible experience, not to mention the marching in blizzards both to and from railroad stations. While some Germans had sympathized and tried, as mentioned, to throw bread, there were other villagers we passed on foot who showed their visceral hatred of Jews both verbally and physically at times. All that abuse was nothing compared to life in this camp.
Barrack Life
Several pregnant women were in our assigned barrack. On the first night, we suddenly heard the shrill cries of one woman who was going to deliver her child. It was incredible, but we managed to deliver the baby and to preserve its life in spite of the filth and overcrowding. However, a second woman and her child died. She died in labor; the baby survived, but in the dark and densely crowded room, someone stepped on the baby and crushed it to death.
The living baby meant a problem. We had to hide it under straw during our roll call. I cannot recall now what eventually happened to that child, but likely the infant perished.
Bergen-Belsen had the same system as Auschwitz, for there were many of the same SS officers and guards in Bergen-Belsen who had been evacuated from Auschwitz. Josef Kramar, former commandant of Auschwitz now supervised Bergen-Belsen. One of Mengele’s SS physician colleagues, Dr. Fritz Klein, also transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen. Under the commanding staff, there were also female Jewish kapos from Auschwitz, perverted women who were worse than the German men. They were rewarded and distinguished by the Germans when they killed a prisoner. One even hanged her own parents and became a camp leader as a reward.
Our only occupation at Bergen-Belsen was standing for the roll call. We didn’t get any other work. For food, we got only a small piece of bread and a little coffee. The water taps were all closed. It was impossible to wash. During the first couple of months, it was still winter, so we could wash with a little snow. We were literally eaten by lice and ravaged by dysentery.
Daily heaps of corpses were thrown out of the barracks; there was not even time to bury them or to burn them. No gas showers existed in Bergen-Belsen, but the camp was no less a killing center. Corpses were simply tossed in high stacks, and the putrefying stench of decomposition overcame prisoners who might have survived otherwise.
My sister Binne, Helen, and I, all now in our teens, tried to survive the worst, even under these circumstances. We drew strength from our maternal figure Elsie as well. We would not be separated, and we would do whatever necessary to hang on to life.
The Black Market
Bergen-Belsen was a perfect black market. The food allotted to the prisoners was distributed by block leaders, who sold it for fuel to warm themselves or for jewels to barter with later. Some prisoners from Auschwitz, particularly those who had access to confiscated items being sorted in the building called Canada, arrived in Bergen-Belsen with secreted valuables. Helen had some money, and I still had my British twenty-pound note hidden.
Seeing how the underground camp system worked, I secretly left my barrack at night and sneaked into the kitchen. I st
ole some fuel, which I then bartered for soup, sharing it with my sister and friends. Often, my nightly trips could not be carried out as the guards watched the kitchen too closely and mercilessly shot those who tried to approach.
On such days, when I didn’t manage to reach the kitchen, I waited for the kitchen personnel, who carried the kettles, and quickly scooped some coffee into my bowl. I exchanged that coffee for bread from sick people who, unable to swallow solid food, traded their bread for something to drink.
I tried to bribe the kitchen kapo, an old, ugly hag called Miriam, with the money I still had left. I knew that she sometimes, in exchange for money, let people work in the kitchen. In my case, she took my British twenty-pound bill, but she wouldn’t let me enter the kitchen to work there.
I insisted. I pursued her. I even threatened to kill her if she didn’t give me back my money or let me work there. After a long time of hesitation on her part, she finally relented. Of course, now I had more than enough food for myself, but the problem was how to provide anything for my sister and friends.
To get from the kitchen to my barrack, I had to pass at least three guards, and each of them made a bodily examination of those who passed. Therefore, I tried to get my sister and Helen a job with the kettle bearers. Somehow, I managed to get at least Helen there. She smuggled as much as she could in spite of the strict control.
Although we were so close to the end of the war, conditions got worse daily. Sometimes, the prisoners didn’t get any food rations for three whole days. Even in the kitchen, we did not get any supplies. Terrible rumors spread in Bergen-Belsen. Once it was said that the whole camp would be sprinkled with gasoline and set on fire so that we all would perish.
Something Extraordinary
We felt, however, that something extraordinary was about to happen. We didn’t know how near the end of the war was, even though nearby towns were bombed one day. We had no idea what had happened when, some days after the bombing, the Germans rapidly left the camp without having time to destroy the camp or us. The Germans had been encircled by the Allies from all the four cardinal points, so they had no time to kill us.
What can I say? The last three days, there we were, totally abandoned, not knowing what was going to happen. We were without food or water, made indifferent by now to pain. Our hearts shriveled with fear. Our only thoughts were, “Will they kill us or not?” We waited, almost in a comatose state. A deadly silence reigned.
Then there came the afternoon of April 15, 1945. A shining, English, iron-clad tank rolled through our gates, manned by British soldiers. Nothing has ever seemed more beautiful to us than this tank. It was like sunrise after a long, stormy night.
A handsome English officer, who spoke German, said that we were free and that everything was behind us. Soon, loudspeakers throughout the camp announced in multiple languages that the Brits were our liberators. They would be assisting us with food, delousing, showers, new clothes, and transfer into the formerly German barracks. The Brits told us that the prisoners’ barracks would be burned to the ground to curtail further spread of disease.
The women howled, stormed the tank, lifted the English officer into the air, kissed him, and behaved like mad people. His words drowned in the jubilant shouts and tears. The soldiers threw out cans of powdered milk, chocolate, bread and other food stuffs.
Some ate too greedily, and, just at the sunrise of liberty, many killed themselves by overeating. Their broken digestive systems simply could not absorb the food. Such is the irony of human nature.
Bergen-Belsen
Women’s camp survivors, April, 1945
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Bergen-Belsen women are cooking over a fire,
surrounded by thousands of stacked shoes from
those who died in captivity.
Photo Credit: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of George Stein.
Photo taken on April 17, 1945.
British officers stand outside Camp no.1 at
Bergen-Belsen at the time of its destruction. Barracks
were burned down to combat the spread of typhus. On May 19, evacuation was completed, and two days later the ceremonial burning of the last barracks brought to an end the first stage
of the relief operations.
Photo permission from the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum,
courtesy of Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft.
Dear Rose,
I had the wonderful opportunity to listen to your story in 2009 at the San Antonio Holocaust Memorial Museum. I was a senior at Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson High School. Our English class was studying the Holocaust with Mrs. Robin Philbrick. Like you, I belong to a unique community. I’m a Blackfoot Tribal Member of the Piikani Nation. So as I listened to your story, I found that in some ways I could relate to you. I recall being amazed by the strength of your perseverance in a powerless situation.
In your early childhood years, your accomplishments started young. Your brilliance of creativity was exceptional. You discovered a passion for reading and writing and were eager to teach other children your skill set. Naturally, being a shy character and often misunderstood at times, your passion helped you learn to communicate in a unique way. And today you’re still teaching students in the same unique way by sharing your personal story and imploring us to “Take action when you see something is wrong.”
Moving forward to your early pre-teen years in 1939, it was supposed to be your first day of 6th grade. Instead, the beginning of pandemonium struck when your hometown of Radom was taken over by German troops, and your family went into hiding before being forced by Germans to relocate to “the ghetto, that offered nothing but hunger and sickness.” Meanwhile, you “volunteered” to work for a company called AVL that supplied business materials to the Germans. Your early experience helped you learn the German language and temporarily removed you from the ghetto. This demonstrated your continuous ability to create opportunity in order to survive. Unfortunately, the chaos escalated and the Germans decided to deplete the ghetto and exhaust “the useless.”
Under those circumstances, you instantly lost a part of yourself when the Germans decided to take your grandmother`s life into their own hands in front of your innocent eyes. And you “fell to your feet” as your grandmother lay in the street. This dreadful situation was engraved in your mind for many years. After this episode, you were immediately separated from your family and were unaware of their safety or location. As I write these words in this letter to you, my heart is heavy with the unimaginable, unbearable sorrow you endured.
During your experience at Auschwitz, the inhumane treatment continued, and you were forced to cut your hair and become a number, A15049. The feeling of defeat must have created an atmosphere of numbness inside. You mentioned the presence of God was absent to you. I understand why, during selection, you asked Dr. Mengele to send you to the left -- your death -- and not the right. But he looked at your youthful beautiful face and not your weakened legs, and your request was denied. Later, the presence of God filled your heart with joy when you were reunited with your sister again.
As I close this letter to you, my friend, my eyes fill with tears and my heart with compassion and love for you. I`ve learned many things from you that will continue to guide me in the future. I value your strength to forgive, your ambition to move forward, and your passion to continue to educate students by sharing your story. The gravity of your words “Take action when something is wrong” will not be taken lightly and will be passed down to my future children, along with your story. I sincerely thank you.
In Friendship,
S. Yellow Wings
Dear Mrs. Rose,
It was a pleasure and an honor to have escorted you and to have been at your side as a JROTC cadet during your visit to Johnson High School. Even though it wa
sn’t too far of a walk, I will always remember those steps with you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to hear your story and the hardship that you experienced, I can only imagine that the visuals that go through your mind are extremely daunting and painful to remember.
Thank you for staying strong against the pain they caused you in the many moments that could have been your last. Thank you for holding back the immense amount of fear you must have had in every line, every shower, every wrong move -- the way of life you were forced to endure.
I thank you for having spoken out to us. Your words gave me, not just motivation, but the courage and drive to take what challenges may be ahead of me. You’ve helped me understand that bravery and courage isn’t what it is just because someone wants to be brave or courageous. We must go through a trial of fear and face that fear. Your story, your past motivated me do what I have always want to do with my life: to defend freedom. Thank you.
Your guard,
LCpl Jonathon Ardoin
United States Marine Corps
Dear Rose,
I have had the honor of hearing you tell your story twice. The first time I was so astounded by all that you experienced in your young life. The second time, as you spoke, I realized just how strong you are. It was heartbreaking to me that someone as sweet as you went through so many treacherous experiences. You survived being beaten, battered and bruised and even worse, having nearly all of your family and friends taken away from you. But you stayed strong. I know there were times when you wanted to give up, but the world wouldn’t let you. Because somehow fate knew that you needed to live so that you could educate the minds of the next generations.
Letters to Rose Page 13