A Train Near Magdeburg

by Matthew Rozell

  First we toured the Small Fortress, which later became the prison, and then moved onto the former garrison town which became the infamous ‘model ghetto.’

  Theresienstadt served several purposes. It was a transit camp for Czech Jews whom the Germans deported to killing centers, concentration camps, and forced-labor camps soon thereafter. It was a holding pen where thousands would be eliminated in the poor conditions that would bring about their deaths. It was also the ghetto-labor camp where the SS deported certain categories of German, Austrian, and Czech Jews, ‘based on their age, disability as a result of past military service, or domestic celebrity in the arts and other cultural life.’ This helped to sustain the fiction back home that deported Jews would be employed at productive labor and not annihilated, made all the more obfuscated by propaganda efforts.[22] Succumbing to pressure following the deportation of Danish Jews to Theresienstadt, the Germans permitted the International Red Cross to visit in June 1944. It was all an elaborate hoax.

  The Germans intensified deportations from the ghetto shortly before the visit, and the ghetto itself was ‘beautified.’ Gardens were planted, houses painted, and barracks renovated. The Nazis staged social and cultural events for the visiting dignitaries. A propaganda film was even made for show back home—‘The Führer Gives the Jews a City.’ And this is the real Holocaust hoax.

  Once the visit was over, the deportations resumed with a vengeance. Fifteen thousand children passed through Theresienstadt, and ninety percent were murdered; many of the children were deported to Auschwitz soon after they smiled for Nazi cinematographers.

  On May 5, with the Führer dead nearly a week, and the Soviets approaching, the guards left. On May 8, the last day of the war, the Red Army arrived.

  We light candles. We wind up our day, like all visits, with a group prayer for the dead and with solitary reflection for the living. We quietly make our way back to Prague, where life goes on. People hurry about their business on the streets. But step lightly, lest your stride be interrupted, so that you must pause and look down. Then you may see the four-inch square brass stolperstein ‘stumble stone’ embedded in the sidewalk, engraved with the name of the former occupant of the dwelling here who was deported to his/her death.

  Yes, life goes on. But you stop and wonder—what was, what is, and what might have been.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Ash Yards of Poland

  As the world went about its business, the clouds of war gathered. German troops had swallowed all of Czechoslovakia by March 1939; Hitler continued to demand the area known as the Polish Corridor and the outlet to the Baltic Sea at the city of Danzig, which had been lost after World War I. Secretly, he directed his foreign minister to enter into clandestine negotiations with the Soviet Union. Strange fellows bedded down in a 10-year pact of nonaggression, and the secret protocol called for the division of Poland between the Germans and the Soviets, the fascists and the communists. On September 1, 1939, Hitler rolled the dice once more as Germany invaded Poland on false pretenses of Polish aggression. The Polish Army fought valiantly but was no match for the mechanized warfare of the blitzkrieg. In short order, the nation found itself submitting to the heel of the German jackboot.

  Ariela Lowenthal was an only child living in the city of Przemyśl (pronounced ‘Shem-mi-shuhl’) in the southeastern portion of Poland, near the border with the USSR. Following the German invasion, her city was divided between Nazi and Soviet forces in accordance with the secret protocol.

  Ariela Lowenthal Mayer Rojek

  I was born in Przemyśl, Poland, on September 21, 1933. I was an only child, but I had my grandparents from both sides, aunts and uncles, and three cousins. I lived in a very nice area; we lived in our house, which was my grandfather’s building, three stories; we lived on one floor and my grandparents lived on the other floor. Downstairs my grandfather had a restaurant, so I guess we were well off—I had everything that every child had normally; I had a very good life.

  My father was working in the family business. He had finished economic and accounting school but even before the war, it was very hard for a Jewish person to get a position in a bank or financial company, so he was working for my grandfather. My mother was at home, she was doing the usual, you know, a housewife. My father was a very quiet man. One thing that I remember is that his hobby was reading; he was a big reader. We had a big room full of books in our home; he had 2,000 books in his collection. My mother liked to crochet, to knit, and to sew. They were quiet, loving people. We were very close. I loved them dearly, from what I remember of them. I don’t remember their faces now because it’s been a long time. I was only eight years old when they were killed, but, this is what I remember from before the war.

  My mother wanted to go to Palestine, but she never went. They were teaching me Hebrew and even my name ‘Ariela’ is a Hebrew name, because she was always dreaming to go to Palestine. My parents met in a Zionist movement when they were young. When they met, they fell in love, but they were going out [many] years before they got married, because my father had two sisters who weren’t married, and in those days, you couldn’t get married before your older sisters, so they were waiting. They got married in 1931, and I was born in 1933.

  I was six years old when war broke out. In 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland, right away our city was bombed and a lot of houses were burned. We were hiding, and everything changed. My father ran away because there were rumors that the Germans were going to take the Jewish men; most Jewish men ran away, but after a few days he came back because he didn’t want to leave us alone. Then the Germans came in, they occupied our city, but we were only with the Germans for six weeks. After six weeks, they signed the agreement with Russia and divided Poland in two; they took some Jewish people and killed them, but our family wasn’t touched then. Most of my aunts and uncles who lived in the small cities ran away [in the German invasion] and came to us, and we were all together.

  The Russians came here into our city. Our city was divided in half—this was at the river San. One side of the city was in German hands, and the other side, the Russians. We were in the part where the Russians came in—the Russians were in our place for almost two years. Of course, we were happy that at least they didn’t kill the Jewish people, [but] our life wasn’t easy, because right away they took our business, the restaurant, and forced us to close it. They were claiming that we were rich people, and in Russia, you know, you’re not supposed to be rich! But I remember my grandfather had humor, and he told one Russian [officer] that ‘If I knew fifty years ago you would come, I wouldn’t have built a house and I wouldn’t have a business!’ They wanted our money, so right away they took our apartment, and our business. We had to move upstairs with my grandparents, so we were all together; everyone had to live in one room but we managed, because we were still together.

  I can remember the war broke out between Germany and Russia in 1941, I believe it was in June. Right away and right in the middle of the night, the Germans attacked our city because we were [just across the river]; we heard shootings and bombs right away. The fighting was very, very hard. They were fighting from street-to-street and from house-to-house—I remember we were hiding in our basement in our restaurant building, and they were even fighting in our house from floor-to-floor! There were German and Russian soldiers all over the inside of the house, because it was a really big struggle. It took a few days, maybe two days, until the Russians ran away and the Germans came in.

  Right away, the Germans started with [the persecutions]; you couldn’t do whatever you wanted [if you were Jewish]. There was no more school, and you had to wear those white armbands with a Jewish star. [And] right away, the first tragedy happened. My cousin was studying at the university, and just before the war broke out between the Germans and Russians, they went on some trip from the university. The war broke out, and the students were on the train to go back home. The Germans took out all the students and checked their papers. There were two Jewish students; in
their passports [it was stamped] ‘Jew.’ They took my cousin and another boy out of the whole group, letting the others go home. They got killed…They shot them right away on the spot.

  After a few months, I think it was November, or December, 1941, I went with my mother to visit her family and when we came back in the evening, we were going up the stairs up to our apartment, when we saw two men in civilian clothes. We knew that they were Gestapo. They were dragging my father down the stairs, and my mother started to scream, ‘Where are you taking him?’ They didn’t answer, they dragged him, and she ran after them. She held onto this Gestapo man and said, ‘Let him go, where are you taking him?’ I was on the stairs and I’ll never forget it. He kicked my mother and threw her into the other corner of the wall, and she fell down. They dragged my father away and we never saw him again. Our life wasn’t the same. We were crying; my mother [wanted] to do something; nothing could be done. Of course, we were very depressed…One day we got a telegram cable. It was from Auschwitz, to let her know that he died in Auschwitz and they are going to send his last belongings; we never got anything. This was the end of my father. This was May or June 1942.

  The Przemyśl Ghetto

  The Germans decided to open a ghetto, which is a special place in part of the city only for the Jewish people. We had to move to the ghetto; of course, we had to find an apartment there—I think that the Polish people who lived there had to move out, so we exchanged, they would go to our house and we moved there. We couldn’t take anything because we were moving to two little rooms. The whole family moved, what was left—it was my mother in one room and my uncle, the doctor, and my aunt. We were in one room; in the other room we had my grandparents, one of my aunts, and my great-aunt. She was in her eighties and had broken her leg, so she was lying down the whole time of the war.

  We didn’t even have a washroom in our apartment, you had to go downstairs and a few families shared it together. It was crowded, but you adjust, because you have to adjust. We knew that something was going to happen. We lived with a fear from day to day because everyone was saying that they are going to deport, deport, [that there would be] deportations. We knew it was going to come.

  [Before the ghetto was sealed] my aunt was going out of the ghetto to work, in a German kitchen. She used to take me with her because I wasn’t registered with any papers, and the Germans used to come and take the children that were left orphaned without papers, so they used to send me with her, [when my mother was gone]. I remember I went out with her two or three times. One time we went to the gate and the policemen were counting, saying, ‘What is she doing here?’ She said, ‘Oh, she is going with me.’ They said, ‘No, she is not, send her home.’ My aunt told me it was not far. I went down the street, and when I came close to my house, suddenly I heard a German soldier screaming, ‘Halt! Halt! Stop! Stop!’ And I felt his rifle on my back; I started to run to my house and he was running after me! I don’t know what happened; something happened, probably in his heart he didn’t want to shoot me. He would shoot if I was running away from the transport [but I guess I was running towards it]—my house was right where they had the assembly for the transports. I managed to go to the door and knocked on it. Someone opened it and I went in.

  Then in July, rumors started that they were going to evacuate people who did not have a job. There was a card, if you worked or something, and you could stay. All other people were going to be evacuated. They didn’t know where, but they were saying that it was going to be another place to get work and good conditions. These were the rumors. People started right away to think that they weren’t so true, that they were going to kill us, but people didn’t know exactly.

  Then the time came, and we knew that we had to go. My mother [who did not have work in the ghetto] decided she couldn’t stay. She didn’t have permission. My uncle the doctor and his wife, they had permission to stay in the ghetto. My mother decided that she was going to leave me with them because she said, ‘I know they take the children right away and they kill the children.’ They knew that the children would not survive. Of course, I didn’t want her to leave—who wants to let their mother go, while they stay? I was crying.

  When the time came, it was July 27, 1942. They had to go to a [gathering] place. We lived in the center of the ghetto and there was a big place and all the Jews were supposed to go there. The transport was supposed to come there in the morning, so my grandparents and my mother went to this place. I said goodbye and I was crying. They took my grandparents and my mother. The Jewish policemen came upstairs; they did most of the dirty work that the Germans told them to. They knew that my great-aunt was still with us.

  I have to tell you something that I just remembered. Some people committed suicide. The day before, my uncle the doctor said, ‘She can’t walk, and they are going to kill her.’ So they gave her cyanide in her coffee—they gave her this to drink and she said, ‘Why is it bitter?’ She knew something was wrong with it, so she spit it out and she swallowed some, but nothing happened to her. The next morning, the Jewish police came, and they had to take her in her chair because she was a heavy woman, and they couldn’t even drag her. Right away they took her on a truck, and I think they shot her. They used to shoot people in the city, in the Jewish cemetery. The [empty] chair [that they had carried her out in] was standing there out in front of our house for a few days.

  After a few days, my mother came back and she told me that when she was waiting there, ready for the transport, some Polish people came for a work group to work in the fields. They called out the names on a list. They called out a name, and that woman wasn’t there, so someone pushed my mother and said, ‘Go, go!’ They took her with the women, and after two or three days, they released her to go home. She came home, she came back! Of course, I was very happy. After two days there was another deportation and another… After a week my mother was still in the ghetto, but she had to go—she didn’t have any papers to stay. She decided to go with her mother and her sister—they were supposed to go on this transport. The evening before she left me again, she said I had to stay, but again, I didn’t want to. The same thing repeated itself after a week! I was crying, and in the morning, my mother, my grandmother, one of my aunts, and another uncle came in the doorway while we were sitting downstairs. My mother came and said goodbye to me. I held onto her, and I was holding her, and she was pushing me away… [Cries] My aunt was pulling me to her side. They pulled me off her; of course, they didn’t let me go with her. That was the last time that I was with my mother.

  They went to the gathering place before our house. It took half a day before they collected them and marched them to the train. We were living on the second floor, so my aunt picked me up; she said, ‘Look, this is the last time that you will see your mother.’ [Wipes her eyes with a tissue] I was crying and crying, but you get used to it… My father’s sister, my aunt, was Klara Mayer. Her husband, Doctor Edmund Mayer, had some connections outside the ghetto, and they decided right away to adopt me because they were afraid since I didn’t have papers that the Germans would take me, too. I stayed with them, and the ghetto life was very hard. We had food but we didn’t have a lot, but we managed; he was a doctor so he worked in the hospital and he took care of some patients at home. That didn’t last a long time.

  People were trying to find hiding places, mostly to go out of the ghetto, to hide on the other side of the ghetto with the Polish people. My uncle said, ‘We can’t survive together, we have to divide up, and we have to find a place to hide.’ They tried to give me away to a [convent] where the nuns are; they bought me special papers and clothes, they taught me how to pray and everything. I didn’t want to go. I said, ‘No, I look Jewish, it won’t work!’ I was crying all night, but again, I didn’t have a choice. In the middle of November 1942, there were rumors that the next day there would be a big deportation. The rumor was that the workers on the railway knew that they took people to a place called Belzec, and the Germans gassed them there. Right away rumors c
ame back in the ghetto that you would not come back, wherever they take you.

  They tried to give me away then. [They arranged it so] a woman had to take me out of the ghetto and give me to another woman. [The day before the deportation] people were running and rushing everywhere—everyone wanted to get out of the ghetto, and it was very crowded beside the gate! We went with this woman, me and my aunt and uncle. I was holding my aunt’s hand with one hand and this woman’s hand with the other. At the last minute, this woman lost my hand and we couldn’t find her! We couldn’t find her, and I was left again in the ghetto. [But] it was like from G-d or something; later we heard that the nuns from this convent took those Jewish children and gave them to the Germans, and no one survived.

  [But at the time], my uncle said to my aunt, ‘You didn’t want to give her away, look what happened, now we are going to be killed tomorrow!’ We came back to the house, and the people in the house had managed to dig under the ground, like a basement [hideout]. There was a room to hide. Everyone was looking for some place to hide, but they agreed to take us because my uncle was a doctor. We had my other aunt with us and her little baby, a year and a half old; her husband was out of the ghetto working and he couldn’t come back, because the ghetto closed before the deportations. The people didn’t want to take them, because babies cry… my other aunt said to the people, ‘If you want my husband as a doctor, you have to take her,’ the condition being that he was going to give the boy something to sleep. He gave him something and the baby fell asleep and they took us.

  We were in there for three days and three or four nights. We were sitting in a small room with maybe 50 people. There was no oxygen, you couldn’t breathe. You wanted to light a match or candle, but it wouldn’t burn because it didn’t have oxygen. After two days, the baby woke up and he was very weak and my uncle was afraid to give him more [medicine]. The baby started to cry and they forced my aunt out in the middle of the deportation; they opened the hole in the wall (it was closed with bricks) and they kicked her out in the middle of the night with this baby! We didn’t have any choice—she went out, and we stayed.