Lost Innocence, Part 3 - Children of the Holocaust
On October 6, 1943, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the S.S. declared it would not be wise to exterminate the adult Jewish men and women, leaving their children to "grow up to become avengers". The decision had to be made to annihilate every Jewish child as well. Two young girls who survived recall the horror of the Holocaust.
This year, with war going on all around us, we've been acknowledging the anniversaries of a number of historical wars. It's the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, and the 100th anniversary of World War I. It's also the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.
Lost Innocence: The Children of World War Two is a five-part series that originally aired on CBC Radio in 1989. Each episode will be rebroadcast on Friday nights until November 7. The series was hosted by Timothy Findley. This episode was awarded the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence. It was produced by Karen Levine. The associate producer was Grazyna Krupa.
Children of the Holocaust
Between 1.2 and 1.5 million Jewish children under the age of 16 died in the Holocaust.
In this episode, we explore the Holocaust through the eyes of two children who survived it. Their's were very young and innocent eyes, and the way they saw and absorbed the horror around them was a child's way, very different from their mother's, father's and the rest of the grown-up world.
The 1 million Jewish children who were killed during the Holocaust, are part of my reality today"
Elli-Livia Bitton-Jackson
Elli Friedmann (Livia Bitton-Jackson) was 13-years-old and just finishing her last year of grade school when the Nazi's marched into the town which she was born in Czechoslovakia. Miriam Steiner (Miriam Steiner Aviezer), known to her family by the pet name, "Biba", had not yet started school when she was deported from Trebnje, Slovenia. She was 6-years-old.
Miriam
In this train, there were many children. In the corner was a bucket which was supposed to be a toilet for the children. We were ashamed to use it in front of everyone. And everyone wants to use it only in the dark, but that wasn't always possible.
One day a girl was standing there, crying. And she kept crying. We all understood what her trouble is. And then the big girl decided to make a curtain. She took blouses, and shirts, and from the belts she made a rope, and she made a curtain in front of the bucket. And now we had our own corner. We were entering from one side, then coming out on the other side. Then everyone came out smiling.
For us it was very important that we had something that we built ourself, for ourself. It was important to be behind the curtain. So you were for a little bit, for one teeny second, you were alone with yourself. To be a little bit alone. To hide yourself, maybe to speak to yourself, maybe to cry a little bit so nobody could see. That was our corner.
For three days and four nights we were in this wagon. There were soldiers who were coming in, they were very young. And actually they didn't do any harm to us. They only brought water and bread and they took the bucket away. We were very afraid that they would destroy our curtain. The first day they didn't see it, because we put the bucket outside. But the second day when they came suddenly in, they saw it and they cut it down and destroyed it.
We hated them so much for this. This was maybe the first time, that we had an impression that these soldiers are on the other side. They are our enemy and we have to fight them. Then one boy he put the curtain back and that was a kind of victory, we are not afraid of them. And that was the only way we could fight them.
Elli
As a young girl I had long thick braids, very long. They were striking because of the size and the colour.
The trip from the ghetto to Auschwtiz took three days and we arrived very early at dawn on a Sunday morning. As we left the cattle cars, we were lined up and we had to march between the trains on the platform. We had to march on and on. My father had been taken away from the ghetto to a labour camp so we were left, my mother and my aunt -- my mother's sister -- who was 9 years older than my mother. She was a widow, a very, very lovely lady who hadn't had any childen, and I was her adopted child, and pet, and confidante, and friend. I was very attached to this aunt who was soft-spoken, and very, very loving. And the three of us -- my mother, and my aunt, and myself -- we were arms-locked marching among the other women.
There were dogs -- German shepherds, and SS men, and some other workers whose job it was hurry us on and on. They were using whips and shouts and dogs barking to make us proceed at a run. It was a very, very frightening and intimidating experience as we were marching on. And then finally the marching, shouting, screaming and crying came to a halt.
At the head of the line was Dr. Mengele. Of course I didn't know the name then. He was a tall man standing with legs akimbo, in one hand he had a stick, and in the other he had a whip. And Mengele with the stick in his hand was this doctor who we saw as this SS officer pointing to the right and to the left, and so the line, when it moved again, was split in two.
I saw, and my mother and my aunt also saw, that the children and their mothers were marching to the left side, so we immediately fell into line behind them. The three of us were marching and we already passed the selection. We were already several steps ahead marching to the left, when Dr. Mengele noticed me, and he reached with his stick, and touched me on my shoulder. He said, "Stop, you with the braids." I turned back. And he said, "You, with the blonde braids, are you Jewish?" And I was taken aback, because we were all Jewish. For the past month and a half we had been ghettoized, and surrounded -- crowded in, just because we're Jews. We did not even know any other world, just the world of the Jew. And here we have just arrived in Auschwitz, and now he's asking me if I'm Jewish.
So I said, "Of course, I am Jewish."
And he said, "Now come back." And he took one of my braids in his hands, and he said "What beautiful golden hair you have." And then, "How old are you?"
I said, "I'm 13." And he said, "is this your mother?" and he pointed at my mother.
I said, "Yes."
He called to her, "Come back". He says, "Now the two of you go this way." And he pointed to the right.
And my aunt started to weep hysterically, "Don't leave me." And my mother wanted to reach after my aunt, but Dr. Mengele ordered us to march on, quickly. There was no time. He only called after me and said, "Now from now on, remember you are 16."
And we did not know what this meant. And we also did not know that the left line went to the gas chambers, and the right line went to the working camp. And we did not know that children up to the age of 16 were taken with their mothers to the gas chambers.
And if later another selection takes place, and if I'm asked, and I say that I am 13, I will immediately be sent to the gas chambers. I only knew that the SS man told me to say that I am 16, and I only knew that he ordered me to go to the right, together with my mother. And I knew that my aunt -- whom I loved more than anyone in the world -- I don't know what made me say to her, "Aunt Serena, I'll never see you again."
And this made her panic even more, and she started screaming. She was dragged away, and this was possibly the most painful moment of the entire experience, if one can speak about painful and more painful and more painful.
Listen to other episodes in the series: