People always ask me what I did to get out of there. The truth is, I did nothing. I wasn’t resourceful. I wasn’t smarter than anyone else.
I wasn’t stronger. I was, above all, extremely lucky. I maintain that every Holocaust survivor—deported or hidden, with help or without—if they made it, it came down to a series of chances and coincidences. Luck, nothing but luck.
Every survivor has their own story of lucky breaks. Nothing else played a part. When we look at photos of the liberation now, we see people who look fairly well and happy. I wonder who they are.
Because we were all half dead. Those must have been people who arrived very late from somewhere else. The majority at Belsen were half alive, half dead, or already dead. My memory of that time is silence.
I weighed just 29 kilos, probably the weight of my skeleton. I imagine I resembled the corpses they dug up. One of my last clear memories is of my brother trying to make me drink water. I couldn’t swallow.
The water just trickled back out. I ended up in hospital. There were two of us in the room. The man next to me, called Bluff, wasn’t much older than me, maybe seven years.
We talked about this and that. One day, he wasn’t there anymore. I asked a French soldier where my buddy had gone. He told me, “Listen, your buddy is luckier than you.
He’s going back to France. ” I said that was good and asked when I could go home. He said, “Not yet. ” Five or six days passed.
I asked again. This time a doctor was present, and he said, “No, because he won’t make it to Paris. ” So I said, “Sir, you’re saying I won’t make it to Paris? ” He said that wasn’t what he meant.
But I insisted, “It is. You said I wouldn’t make it to Paris. So this is the end. ” Then I added, “I’d rather die in Paris than here.
” He looked at me and said, “Sir, you’re right. You’re leaving tomorrow morning. ”
The French were taken back to France, the Belgians and the Dutch too. But me, what nationality was I?
I’m German. It was very embarrassing to say that in those circumstances, but I was born in Germany. What else could I say? As soon as I said I was German, people backed away.
Then I’d add, “I’m not really German, I’m Jewish. ” The reaction to that wasn’t always very nice either. For me, there was no question of going home. I swore I would never set foot on German soil again.
I didn’t want to see the people who had looked on with such indifference as my parents and others were taken away. We decided to go back to Poland, hoping to find members of our family. We arrived in a town called Poznan. There were soldiers there, Jews, Polish soldiers, circling us and staring.
Suddenly one of them glanced at us and said, “Am ha. ” That’s Hebrew for people. I understood Hebrew, so I answered, “Ken. ” Yes.
He asked, “Where are you from? ” They could see our numbers. We were still in stripes. Then, “Where are you going?
” We started listing our hometowns. They said, “Listen, children. You haven’t heard what’s going on in Poland. They’re killing returning Jews now.
You mustn’t go back home. ” The Poles were murdering Jews who came home. They had taken all the Jewish property and were afraid there would be heirs. So they killed them.
Many people from my region were murdered after the war. When we heard that, we were astounded. Not again. We were expecting anything but that.
Then we heard that de Gaulle had been told about the existence of a thousand young people in Buchenwald. He was deeply distressed. It was explained to him that this was an exception among the camps. He said something had to be done.
He informed other European nations, telling them everyone had to take in these youngsters who did not want to return to their countries, where there was nothing but graves and tombs. They had to be adopted, he said. They were orphans. They needed adopting.
We learned that France was willing to take in nearly half of these youngsters. We were put on awful German trains with completely rotten wooden benches. The train moved at a snail’s pace because half of Germany had been bombed. We were packed together in difficult conditions.
Our main pastime, whenever the train stopped, was to get off and wreck everything in our path. We broke trees, tore off branches, destroyed whatever was destructible. It was Germany. That was the reason.
The train went through Belgium, and at every station we received a marvelous welcome. Flowers, sandwiches. We didn’t even talk about food because we were stuffed with it. But the welcome, the human warmth, was overwhelming.
Did the people understand where we had come from? Yes, they already knew. They could see we were human wrecks, still in striped uniforms. We could barely walk, barely speak.
We broke down for no reason. We cried for no reason. And they knew. They received us like gods.
Belgium remains a wonderful memory. Then we reached France. When we crossed the border, that was the moment. That was when I felt: it’s over.
We are home. Though the hardest part was yet to come. I still didn’t know if my sister was alive. We arrived at the Gare de l’Est in cattle wagons, just like when we left for Auschwitz.
And just like when we left for Drancy, buses were waiting to take us, who knew where. At every stop, people saw us at the windows and said, “They’re deportees. They’re deportees. ” We were given Parisian bread, which tasted extraordinary.
I think that bread tasted of freedom. Then we arrived at the Hotel Lutetia. There was a crowd of dozens, hundreds of people outside the door. They parted for us, showing photos, asking, “Did you meet my mother with her three children?
Did you meet my father? ” We had met no one. And we were all very harsh. We were as harsh as the inmates who had greeted us when we arrived at Birkenau.
When someone asked about their family, I remember saying only, “They were all gassed. No one survived. ” And the look in their eyes meant, “But how come you, in the state you’re in, are home? And my relative, a handsome man, a beautiful woman, isn’t back.
” That’s what it meant. Why you? At the Lutetia, on a pillar, there were long lists of names. Lists of survivors.
I pounced on them and found the three names of my mother, my brother, and myself. I had my life back. Then, after a week or so, I learned that my mother had died of exhaustion. And it took me practically a month to understand that my brother would not be coming home either.
He had likely been a victim of typhoid in one of the camps at Bergen-Belsen or a relocation camp. I was repatriated to France by plane and arrived at the Hotel Lutetia on June 5, 1945. I was put on a stretcher and taken up to a room. When I got there, who did I find?
Charles Zelty. He was in the same room, had been on the same plane. We had lost one another two weeks previously. For more than three weeks, I didn’t leave the hotel.
Then I started walking along the corridor. I started going downstairs. Instead of two walking sticks, I had just one. I made progress, but ever so gradually.
I was given an Alba suit to wear. It was plus size and very thick. But there was no belt, so I took the string I had worn around my striped uniform. And I went into Paris like that, heading straight to the terrace of the Deux Magots Cafe.
On the way, I passed a barber’s shop. I went in. I didn’t have much hair to cut. The barber rushed over and asked what he could do for me.
I said, “I’ve come to have my hands done. ” So I sat down, closed my eyes, and had my nails filed. It was great. At one point I felt my hand shaking.
I opened my eyes, and the manicurist was crying. I said to her, “There’s no need to cry. Let’s have dinner together. ” Which we did.
It was a disaster. It took me, and this is no lie, almost six months to become a man again. Try to understand me. Do you know what it’s like for a 20-year-old to see a girl and not know how to react?
Sexually, that is. It was very hard. That’s when a Red Cross nurse turned up with a telegram. “Your mom is looking for you.
” But I didn’t know I still had a mom. In my mind, she had been deported. I was in a truck about to leave for Palestine with my buddies, guys like myself who had been amputated, too. There was David, Georges Judkowski, Salzmann.
A small group at the Lutetia. Then this nurse appeared. Obviously, I wasn’t able to leave with the others. They envied me.
The fact was, I had a mom, and they had no one left. Jews from Hungary, from Romania, from Germany, from all over. My mother checked every train arriving from Paris. She was on the platform.
I told my sister, “Don’t get off with me. I want to surprise her. ” I was being childish, of course. I walked toward her and then passed her.
She was on tiptoes, watching everyone get off the train. I walked right past her. I had to stop, retrace my steps, then tap her on the shoulder and say, “Don’t you recognize your son anymore? ” She passed out in my arms.
When I reunited with my mother, could I tell her what had happened to my father and brother? The truth is, I wasn’t able to tell her. It’s a psychological problem that will remain with me forever. I arrived with two crutches, two slippers like big bear paws, and this was half bandaged.
When I got off the bus in Saint-Cyprien, the people were happy. The French were fond of me. But my mother was looking for my father and my brother. I didn’t know how to tell her the truth.
What did I say? I said they were coming later. So for her, I abandoned them. I left them.
All sorts of things that left me with a heavy heart. When I wanted to talk about it, it never went down well. Reality was so incredible, so unlikely, so unimaginable, that when I said the tiniest little thing, people thought I was bragging or making it up. They didn’t believe me.
My doctor thought I was insane when I told him what I had endured at Auschwitz. He wanted to have me admitted. And from that day on, I never spoke about my deportation to anyone again. At the time, we didn’t have shrinks.
These days if you break a nail, you go to a shrink. We were abandoned after the camps. We managed on our own to survive. Maybe that’s why many of my fellow inmates committed suicide on their return.
Because they couldn’t bear the fact that they returned alone. They had lost their wives, their children. Or they were ashamed of being alive. Survivors feel a deep sense of shame.
You have a suicidal man before you. I’m suicidal too. If I hadn’t promised my wife 13 years ago that I wouldn’t commit suicide, I’d probably already be dead. I intend to keep my word, but it weighs heavy.
There are days when I really want to die. People don’t realize that when we returned, we had no ties, no family. No ancestors. Not only did I have no parents, I had no uncles, no aunts, no one.
Our home had been plundered. I had no photos from before. I had nothing to link me with my past. I was all alone at 14.
My brother was 16, but he was a thousand kilometers away. Our younger sister was with a foster family. It’s hard to find your place again, to fit in again. Plenty of people showed me friendship or more.
But I had nothing to give. I had lost my mother, who was such an extraordinary person. When people said, “Consider me your mother,” I pushed them away. When you return from where I returned, you’re hardened.
I must have seemed hard, changed, unfriendly. I was violent beyond belief, beyond words. No one could calm me down. I thought about what had been done to me.
At that point, I was only thinking of myself. Later, I found out my family had died too. I said, “It’s unbelievable what they did to us. ” And I was angry with the whole world.
I told myself, “I don’t want to stay in Metz. I’ll become a thug, a thief. If I stay here, I’ll do nothing. ”
I decided to join my deportation buddies in Paris.
I got there, and who did I see walking along? My buddy from the Auschwitz tailor shop, Sam Schimitz. He had a government factory. He asked what I was doing there.
I said, “Nothing. I don’t have a job or anything. ” He replied, “Stay with me. I’ll teach you the trade.
” And I ended up learning the trade with him. I met my wife, whom I adore, and my marvelous grandchildren. I’ve had a wonderful life, thanks to my wife and my children. I haven’t forgotten the deportation.
I can’t forget my brothers and my sisters. But that made up for it a bit. It gives me some solace to know that I made a success of my life, that I created a wonderful family. We have to take our hats off to our wives.
And the women to their husbands. The nightmares came on average three to four nights a week, practically every two days. I remember how my wife, who knew, would give me a good shake, and it would stop. Then it would happen again two days later.
What were my nightmares about? The SS, the beatings, the Kapos. I’m frequently woken up by the camp bell. It’s been 61 years since I last heard it.
But it still rings in my ears. Has time eased things? I’m still at Auschwitz. I live all the time at Auschwitz.
I said to my wife, “Make no mistake. I’m not living with you. I’m living next to you. ” I have never left the camp.
I have never functioned in life other than as if I were in a camp. And yet I’ve made films. I experienced wars. I filmed those wars.
When I went to the National Cinema Center, I was scared, because it represented authority. Any kind of authority petrified me. When I found myself poor, with no money, having to work, I had to strip the man facing me mentally, to reassure myself that he was like me. If he were in a camp, what would he do?
All of my references have always been in relation to the camp. When I set foot on the soil of Birkenau 20 years later, I had the impression I was home. The impression everything belonged to me. Far more than anything I owned in France.
The real place where I was at home, where the soil belonged to me, was the soil of Birkenau. There, I thought about my parents, because it was the last place they had seen when they were alive, the same air they had breathed. But worse than that, I had the impression there was a sort of continuity between my feet and the soil. As if I was so at home there that my feet were part of the ground.
There’s a pond where they threw the ashes. It’s a small lake, full of ashes. I collected some. I figured they were probably the ashes of my father, my mother, my little brother.
And even if they aren’t, I believe they are in there. This is me and my grandson in front of the gate that says “Arbeit macht frei. ” If I’d been told I would go back through it one day with my grandson, when I think of the day I entered that camp and what I did 60 years later with him. I often visit schools to bear witness.
When I started, the fight against anti-Semitism concerned me most. As a rule, there were three or four of us. There could be a resistance fighter, another deportee. I was the Jewish resistance fighter, so I could talk about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.
Then I moved on to racism of all kinds, because life goes on, and things happen everywhere. And then I changed again. Now when I give talks, I try to teach youngsters to accept differences, to accept others as they are. On one condition.
That others accept you as you are too. It’s a privilege to be able to talk about it. It’s not so much that my story is so important, but since there are millions of people who can no longer talk, all those in the mass graves at Belsen, I believe we survivors speak for them. Because they cannot.
There’s this great silence. What do we know about those people? They were all completely normal people who no longer exist, who do not have the possibility to tell their stories. So maybe we are telling our stories for them more than for ourselves.
I would say that on my deathbed, that is what I will think of. Not about my parents or the facts themselves. About the babies. One and a half million children, just like that.
When I see my grandchildren, I think about that. I would never tell them, of course. And what would I like to say to my grandchildren?
I don’t know.
