מאגר סיפורי מורשת

“Happy birthday, Alex!” all my family cheered. On September 1st, 1939, I celebrated my second birthday. But while there was a party in our little home in north Poland Varenz, outside, a war had just begun.

I was too young to understand what was truly happening, but I knew those great booming sounds were not fireworks, and those wailing calls throughout the city were not a happy sound.

Things had been getting bad for a while and my parents caught on quickly. They knew we had to leave, had to hide ourselves and our identities. We were Jews. I remember watching as my father packed all the gold he had collected into a toolbelt as my mother, sobbing, stuffed as many warm clothes and perishables as she could carry. We left everything behind. My bed, my bear, I had nothing with me but my family.

We began our journey travelling south – away from the shelling in the northeast where the Germans were heading fighting the Russians. Joining a group of Polish refugees, I remember wanting my father. But he could not travel near us. His large nose and brown eyes were too Jewish and might expose us. My mother had told the group he is sick with tuberculosis, a contagious disease, and must travel in the back – away from the rest. It was miserable, but it worked.

By the age of 5, I remember watching helplessly as my father begged for shelter from house to house. It wasn’t until he offered some of the few precious gold coins my dad had with him, that someone opened their door to us and let us in. They hid us away in a bunker in their yard. It was cold, dark, and so small.

On the tenth day, late at night, the owner of the house opened the bunker doors. A little tipsy, he wobbled his way down the stairs. I remember the euphoric scent of food coming our way – no, not just food – dessert! Holding a half-eaten blueberry pie, the man offered us his leftovers. “It’s my birthday, and I wanted to celebrate with you” he claimed. Starving, we began devouring the pie, but my mother sensed something wrong immediately and gagged. She ran over to me as I threw up as well. By the time she made it to my father, it was too late. The man had put rat poison into our food, and it had already reached my father’s blood. His jaw clenched and body shaking, my mother and I could do nothing but watch, sobbing and hugging him until his last breath. “There is no time”. My mother pulled me off of my father as she reached for the trap door. With no time to mourn or to say goodbye, we sprinted off into the cold, dark night.

Days went by, and the food becomes scarce. There was no choice. My mother taught me how to beg, as we began knocking on door to door once again. One no, another no, three no’s. We did our best to find food – even eating frozen potatoes we found in the garbage. But it wasn’t enough. I could see mother’s strength grow weaker and weaker every day. Until, one day, she couldn’t go on any longer. She laid in the frozen snow and hugged me as she prepared her soul to leave her body in peace.

Just at that moment, as if the sun had finally come out, a woman was standing over us helping my mother off the ground. She brought us into her home unaware of our heritage. She gave us warm food, milk for me and insisted we wash off in a warm bath. After my mother bathed herself, she realized it was time for us to go. The woman refused to let us leave without cleaning me as well. My mother did her best to hide my circumcision as she bathed me, but only a few minutes later, our savior left the house. When she came back, there was one Polish policeman at her door. “Get these LEPORUS JEWS out of my house” she cried in utter disgust.

We soon found ourselves sitting in a big cell at the Polish police station, knowing our fate was to soon board a truck to the concentration camps. As we were waiting, an officer comes out from his office and asks, “is there anyone here who knows how to cook?”. Naturally, all the women raise their hands, including my mother. After a brief look around the room, he turned to my mother and said, “I know you are lying. You’re too young to be a good cook. But you are the cleanest one here – so come with me”.

Weeks went by and I would spend my days sitting in the corner of the station as my mother would cook in the kitchen. She would often listen in on their conversations as she never told anyone she spoke German, so they’d speak right in front of her.

One day, she overhears “we can’t hold on to the woman and boy any longer. We’re being shut down. They must be sent away – tomorrow!” Knowing what this meant for herself and me, she knew she had to plan an escape. Being in the kitchen so long she became quite familiar with the guard’s shifts and patterns.

So, that night, once she saw the guard pass through her window and the coast was clear, she reshaped a hanger from the kitchen and used it to unlock herself from the room. She grabbed me and we began sneaking in and out of spaces, just missing the guards as they passed by. Finally, we were outside and found ourselves facing a barbed fence about 8 feet tall. Wincing and holding back the pain, my mother pulls up the fence as the small, rusted spikes pierce the skin of her palm and I crawl through slicing up my clothes and my back. My mother crawls through as well and we begin to run to our freedom leaving nothing but drops of blood from our sliced bodies behind.

As we bolted into the frozen night and into the shadows of the woods, my mother decided north was the safest direction to travel. The Nazis had already begun leaving that area. A man driving a carriage came by and was willing to take us with him while it was still dark out.

When the sun rose, there was no choice but to drop us off. Our cuts and ripped clothes were too suspicious to be seen in the daylight. My mother found some clothes hanging on a line that she and I could change into. By that point my hair had grown out long and so my mother gave me a dress. She couldn’t risk letting anyone see my circumcision ever again.

Finally, we made it to an old family friend’s house owned by my father’s former business partner, Mr. Burka. We gave him all the gold we had left and in return he gave us shelter in his cellar. We spent nearly two years in that cellar. The only time I got fresh air was in the middle of the night when my mother would crack open the door just for a few minutes before rushing to go back inside.

Concerned for my development when the war would finally be over, my mom would give me all kinds of activities and drills to perform as we spent our time down there. She’d have me crawl, do jumping jacks, math problems, memory games, storytelling – anything she could think of to keep my mind and my body active.

In the daytime we’d hear from upstairs German voices, and then Russian voices, more German, more Russian. Until one day, we heard nothing at all. Then again the next day and the day after that – silence. It seemed the war was over. My mother peeked her head out from the trap door to see what was happening outside. But just as she opened it, there were four Russian soldiers standing over her, guns in hand. “Juden! Juden!” “I’m a Jew” she shouted, but it was no use. One of the soldiers went right up to her and punched her in the face and she went tumbling down the stairs. Just as he began pulling out a grenade to blow our little cellar up, one of the other soldiers puts his gun to the head of the man. “They are Jews. They’re not the enemy. If you kill them, I’ll kill you” he says. As it turns out, that soldier was a Jew too (a very rare exception for the time). With great joy and celebration, they helped us out of the cellar. They gave me a pair of goggles with dirt rubbed on them so the sun wouldn’t burn my eyes. They put me on their shoulders, and we sing and dance our way into the village.

We were liberated, and finally safe.

אלכס עם משפחתו

הזוית האישית

Racheli: My grandfather has been telling me his story my whole life. He’s always been my hero and our connection is very close. From a young age I developed a deep maturity for the holocaust stories because of my connection with his. Knowing the story already in my head, I decided to dramatize it by making it more story-like. I would have video chat meetings with my grandparents as we’d discuss each new scene. Given that during my grandfather’s pension his hobby is lecturing his story in different halls and schools, telling the story was very natural for him. It was the reason the word “education” was most important to him. He devoted his life to educate and believes we all must be educated on the horrors of the holocaust.