Authors: Martin Gilbert
The Holocaust (93 page)
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Among the Jews in hiding in Poland was Helena Manaster. A survivor of several ghettos and ‘actions’, including the Petlura Day massacre in Lvov, she had found refuge in the Capuchin monastery in Cracow. There, posing as a Catholic, and as the wife of a Polish army officer, she was safe. At the same time, she was expecting a baby. On October 6, at two in the morning, as labour pains began, Helena Manaster was driven to the hospital. There, in the delivery room, as she later recalled:
…all of a sudden a nurse rushed in frightened, and told me, ‘Get up quick! The Gestapo are waiting for you’.
Forty years have passed and I am still not able to describe the shock I was in. Helped by two nurses, one on each side, shaking all over, probably more from fear than labour pains, I walked out to the lobby to face the Gestapo agents. They were young, very tall and strong-looking, and when I noticed their insignia, the skull with two crossed bones, insignia of death, I knew that this was my end.
I don’t remember what thoughts went through my mind then, I only remember apologizing to my unborn child for having created him, when I would not be able to bring him up to see the light, to let him live.
At that moment a miracle happened: the two butchers looked at me—I kept calm—told me to go back to bed and turned away.
A few hours later, my oldest son, Arthur, was born. I learned later that the Gestapo were not exactly checking on me, but on the midwife who had been out after curfew on her way to assist me in labour. They just wanted to see her patient and didn’t suspect that the patient was Jewish.
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A month later, Helena Manaster was given a second baby to care for, Krysia, a Polish orphan brought to the monastery from a rescue mission. ‘What a paradox!’ she later recalled. ‘Jewish and in hiding, I was raising a Polish child. I hoped to survive in the monastery but it was not to be. Some refugees suspected my origins and denounced me. I was forced to flee, leaving Krysia behind. But before I left, I had another encounter with the Gestapo. I was confronted by two of them, while watching the children in the garden. Again I thought that the end had come, but miraculously they just had a look at us and then left. It was in June 1944 that I thus had to resume my struggle to survive, with an eight-month-old child.’
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At Janowska camp in Lvov, the killing of the surviving Jews of Eastern Galicia took place at ‘the sands’, a hilly, sandy area containing a deep pit, beyond which burned the huge pyres on which the newly shot corpses were placed. Here, too, any resistance by the unarmed and naked was without hope. ‘The victims’, Leon Weliczker noted in his diary on October 26, ‘undress quickly, wanting to get it over with as fast as possible, to save themselves from prolonged torture.’ Mothers undressed their children, he noted, and then ‘the naked mother carries her child in her arms to the fire.’ However, he ended:
Sometimes a mother will undress herself, but will fail to undress the child, or the child refuses to let itself be undressed out of panic. When this happens, we can hear the voices of the children. ‘What for?’ or ‘Mother, mother, I’m scared! No! No!’
In these cases, one of the German police takes the child by its
small feet, swings it, crushing its head against the nearest tree, then carries it over to the fire and tosses it in. This is all done in front of the mother.
When the mother reacts to this, which happens a few times, even if only by saying something, she is beaten and afterward hung by her feet from a tree with her head down until she dies.
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At Koldyczewo camp in White Russia, where six hundred Jews, Poles and White Russians had been burned alive in the crematorium a year earlier, and twenty-two thousand prisoners murdered within eighteen months, the Jews still refused to lose their desire to live. One of the prisoners in the camp, a rabbi from Slonim, had managed to hold a form of service on the Sabbath. The camp’s Jewish doctor, Dr Levinbok, himself a prisoner, not only succeeded in making contact with the partisans, but smuggled medicines to them from the SS store.
On October 30 Dr Levinbok decided to try to escape. Together with his wife and eight-year-old child, he ran away, reaching the partisans. Before escaping, he wrote a letter for the camp commandant. ‘I apologize’, he declared, ‘for being such a swine as to leave. But nobody is guilty who runs away. Nor are we guilty, although we are Jews. We are still young, and ready to serve humanity. Forgive us that we want to live.’
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In Greece, the will to live had been given a focal point on September 25, when the Chief Rabbi of Athens, Ilia Barzilai, escaped from the capital disguised as a peasant, and reached the relative security of Thessaly. There, in a village near to the Greek partisan headquarters, Rabbi Barzilai encouraged Greek Jews who could do so to join the partisans, or to go into hiding. He also worked with the Greek partisans to arrange for more than six hundred Greek Jews to be smuggled by boat across the Aegean Sea to the safety of neutral Turkey. In return, the Jewish Labour Federation in Palestine smuggled boots and money by sea to the Greek resistance.
In the Volos region, another Greek rabbi, Rabbi Pessah, through his contact with the resistance, obtained shelter for more than 752 fellow Jews of Volos. When the Germans came to deport the Jews of
Volos, only 130 were found. In Trikkala, 470 Jews found refuge with Greek villagers in the mountains; only 50 were captured. In Patras, the German Consul wrote to his superiors that ‘after the newspapers announced the obligatory registration of all Jews, they disappeared.’
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In Poland, where helping Jews meant certain death, if caught, individuals continued to defy the threat of execution. Indeed, the help given to Jews by non-Jews had led, in Cracow, to an increase in the number of special courts set up to try Poles accused of helping Jews. A report of the German Chief of Police in the Government General, dated October 7, recommended that cases of Poles helping Jews should be dealt with by the police ‘without the necessary delay of court hearings’.
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Even in Berlin, there were Germans who helped Jews, among them a senior Intelligence officer, Hans von Dohnanyi, who saved fifteen Berlin Jews and their families from deportation by having them sent to Switzerland as ‘counterespionage agents’.
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Courage could be shown in every conceivable circumstance of horror. Every day, Jewish girls who had been selected for the barracks at Birkenau were driven, starving, beaten and naked, to the bath-house. As they were pushed along, SS men and SS women, as a Jewish girl from Poland, Kitty Hart, has recalled, ‘sniggering and idly flickering their whips’, watched them pass. On one such occasion, Kitty Hart recalled, a Jewish girl ‘deliberately scraped a handful of lice from her body and flung them in the face of a guard who had come too close. She died immediately; but after that the SS were even more careful to keep their distance.’
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‘She died immediately.’ We do not know her name, nor from what country she came; only that she was a Jewess whose spirit no surfeit of torment had been able to destroy.
‘Do not think our spirit is broken’
The British and American bombing of Germany, and especially of the industrial cities of the Ruhr, continued relentlessly throughout the autumn of 1943. The Western Allies, including Polish national forces and Palestinian Jews, were now in southern Italy. Plans were also well advanced for a landing in northern Europe in seven months’ time. In the east, the Red Army advanced steadily, albeit with massive casualties. Four years after Hitler’s first, confident onslaught on Poland, Germany had to face the prospect of setbacks, retaliation and even defeat.
The spectre of defeat, and the reality of daily losses of territory in the east, led to an intensification of the murder of Jews, in order to ensure the completion of the ‘final solution’. In the Riga ghetto, on November 2, more than a thousand Jews, most of them old people, children and the sick, were sent by train to Birkenau, reaching the camp three days later. Only 120 men and 30 women were sent to the barracks. The rest were gassed.
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In the Lublin region, on November 2, an operation, given by the Germans the code name ‘Harvest Festival’, was begun, its object being the murder of those survivors of the Warsaw ghetto uprising who had been held since April in labour camps at Poniatowa, Trawniki and elsewhere in the Lublin region. In a few days, fifty thousand Jews were shot in ditches behind the gas-chambers of Majdanek, among them more than five thousand former Jewish soldiers of the Polish army, who had been held prisoners for the previous four years in the Lipowa Street camp in Lublin.
Brought to Majdanek in small groups from Lipowa Street throughout November 2, for each two Jews in the group, one SS man stood guard. But even then, the instinct for survival could not
be crushed. Led by a former Hebrew teacher, with the surname Szosznik, the Jews broke through the armed guards shouting, ‘Long live freedom.’ The SS opened fire. Most of the prisoners were killed. Ten were able to escape. Other Jews from the Lipowa Street camp, also former soldiers, taken to Majdanek, refused to the last moment to take off their army uniforms. They too were shot.
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Only one camp in the Lublin region escaped the ‘Harvest Festival’ slaughter, that at Budzyn, whose labour was needed to operate the Heinkl aircraft works. But even at Budzyn, all elderly people were ‘selected’ in November 1943 and taken to Majdanek. One of the Jewish cleaners in the camp, Jacob Katz, saved the lives of seven elderly Jews by hiding them under the mattresses during the selection, and later smuggling in bread to them.
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The rest, taken to Majdanek, were shot.
The Jews deported from Warsaw in May had been offered the ‘protection’ of work in two industrial installations, one set up in Poniatowa by Walter Toebbens, a German merchant from Bremen, the other set up in Trawniki by Fritz Schultz. Both men had owned large factories in the Warsaw ghetto, employing thousands of Jews. Both had enriched themselves in Warsaw by the exploitation of Jewish labour and the confiscation of Jewish possessions.
Schultz and Toebbens had promised the Jews ‘protection’ at Trawniki and Poniatowa. But in the first week of November that protection came to an end. The ‘Harvest Festival’ began at Trawniki on November 2. ‘That night all Jews were killed by machine-gun fire,’ David Wdowinski has written. ‘That night I lost my wife, my older brother, my brother-in-law, and two nephews.’ A year earlier, in Warsaw, he had lost his mother, his two sisters, his younger brother, a brother-in-law, a sister-in-law and three nephews. Of five hundred thousand Warsaw Jews driven to Treblinka from July 1942, and to the camps in the Lublin region, in May 1943, Wdowinski added, ‘only about three hundred survived. I am one of those few fortunates, or unfortunates.’
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One of the few survivors of the Poniatowa executions later recalled the moment when all fifteen thousand Jews had been assembled in the camp hall. It was rumoured that they were to be sent to a new camp elsewhere. The women, it was said, ‘would go by train’. In groups of fifty, the men were led away. Then it was the women’s turn. ‘Together with my daughter I left the hall,’ the
eye-witness recalled. ‘We looked around and heard shots, but were still unable to grasp what was going on.’ Her account continued:
The Germans stopped us on the road near the new huts, and ordered us to pull off our shoes. I said loudly: ‘It seems to me that we are being led to the grave.’ With stockings for our only footwear, we reached the second hut. We heard the voice of an SS man, ‘Gold, silver, jewels, watches! Those who fail to hand them over will be shot!’
I looked around and saw naked women in a circle with arms raised aloft as if they wanted to show their beauty. ‘What’s that?’ I thought. ‘Selecting naked women? I am young and my body is well-shaped, but I shall not pass the examination, for they would not let my child stay with me.’
One had to enter the hut and to undress quickly. I could see a naked woman calling to her mother-in-law, ‘Mother, till we meet again in the next world!’ In one of the rooms of the hut three women were sorting out the clothing. It occurred to me that I could join them and take part in the sorting, but I could not leave my child. I still had a few thousand zlotys in my possession. I put them into a handkerchief which I concealed. I told my acquaintance that I would take the money with me into my grave. My wedding ring as well as another ring I had to hand over. One ring I concealed in my hair.
We undressed quickly and, our arms uplifted, we went in the direction of the ditches we had dug ourselves. The graves which were two metres deep were full of naked bodies. My neighbour from the hut with her fourteen-year-old, fair-haired and innocent-looking daughter seemed to be looking for a comfortable place. While they were approaching the place an SS man charged his rifle and told them: ‘Don’t hurry.’ Nevertheless we lay down quickly, in order to avoid looking at the dead. My little daughter was quaking with fear, and asked me to cover her eyes. I embraced her head; my left hand I put on her eyes while in my right I held her hands. In this way we lay down, our faces turned downwards.
Shots were fired; I felt a sharp pain in my hand, and the bullet pierced the skull of my daughter. Another shot was heard very close nearby. I was utterly shaken, turned giddy and lost consciousness. I heard the groaning of a woman nearby, but it came to an end after a few seconds.
I realized that I was still alive, and expected another bullet to hit me, but I did not move. After a few moments, an SS man brought a woman with a child. I heard her imploring him to permit her to kiss the boy, but the murderer did not permit it and so the unfortunate woman lay down close to myself, her head near my head. A shot was heard and blood splashed on my head and neck. Apparently I made the impression of being dead. More shots were heard for some while, and then silence descended.
An hour later I heard the voices of SS men. One of them put his foot on my body and went on shooting, remarking: ‘This blonde, that brunette.’ Apparently he had come to examine whether somebody was still alive. Many of the women were only wounded, and groaning was heard all the time. Following these shots there was complete silence. The SS men went away, but I still did not dare to raise my head. I shivered with cold. Ukrainians approached the place several times. They talked loudly to one another, spat at the bodies and went away.
Time passed very very slowly. When darkness fell the Ukrainians came back once more and covered the grave with spruce foliage. I was terribly frightened. I thought that they might burn the bodies. I wanted to shout that I was still alive, but the words stuck in my throat. When I perceived that they were going off I allowed myself to raise my head. I glanced at my daughter. Her face was usually oval, but now it was round and as pale as a sheet. With my lips I touched her back and hair, and her little hand slipped out of my hand. I looked at my own left arm, which ached very much and I saw two holes and blood trickling from them.
I put my head on the ground again for I felt terribly tired. Yet in spite of the tiredness and my sore head I racked my brains: What am I to do? I did not know the neighbourhood too well. I thought I might succeed in reaching the forest, but how could I do so while I was naked? The grave was near the road that led to the living quarters. Should I stealthily try to reach the living quarters and get some clothing there? In order to reach the living quarters it was necessary to pass the guards; and the gate was lit up. I realized that this was no way out. I kept gazing at the huts of the Ukrainians and the hotel.
It seemed to me that I was seeing a naked woman running in
the direction of the gate, and I thought that I would never succeed in passing it. I do not know whether she actually succeeded in passing it or not for suddenly I heard a woman screaming terribly: ‘Help! Help!’ I do not exactly know whether the voice came from the huts of the Ukrainians, or from the hotel. I thought that they would do better to die like myself. After a few minutes the screaming died away.
Suddenly I heard a voice from the grave: ‘Mammy, mammy,’ and a few more words which I did not understand because of the wind. I wanted time. It had grown even darker. It was surely seven o’clock already. Where the guards were standing a large fire suddenly broke out and spread to the huts where our clothing was kept. When I saw the fire I thought that they might burn the dead. I shivered at the thought of being burned alive. I caressed my daughter—I was afraid to kiss her because of the blood-stained bodies lying all around—and shook off the foliage. I passed by the heaps of bodies and started running in the direction of the forest.
After a few steps, while I was creeping on all fours, I noticed two naked women. Without realizing what I was doing I started passing my hands over them and asked them whether they were really alive. I did not believe my own eyes and caressed them again and again.
We had to hurry and get away from the place as quickly as possible. I made up my mind to go to Melnik, the nearest village. I recalled that I had concealed several thousand zlotys and told my companions in misfortune: ‘Don’t worry because you are naked. I have got money and we shall buy clothing.’ They asked me how I had managed to conceal the money, and I showed them how I had concealed the banknotes.
We had not time to lose and entered the first hut, still creeping on all fours. In the hut an old peasant and his wife were living. At the sight of three naked women they appeared frightened to death, and started crossing themselves. The old peasant woman flung us a pair of worn-out trousers and a torn gown, and turned us out for fear of the Ukrainians. I wanted to go to the kitchen in order to get a bit warm, but the old woman insisted on her demand and forced us out of the house. One of us tore off a curtain and muffled herself in it. When we left the hut I did the same.
We went into another hut, and asked for some water to wash off the blood-stains from our faces and bodies. Our request was granted, and I was given a blouse for I was still naked. Each of us received a slice of bread and we were told to go away.
We entered a third house, where a young girl gave us a linen skirt and ordered us to get out quickly.
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