Kleinberg - Bread or death : memories of my childhood during and after the Holocaust

Bread or Death

Memories of My Childhood Before and After the Holocaust

2015, Milton Kleinberg. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Photos used on the cover and throughout the book are either from the personal collections of the Kleinberg family, or used with permission from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives as noted. Historical references, timeline and discussion questions were created in conjunction with the Institute for Holocaust Education in Omaha, Nebraksa.

The views or opinions expressed in this book, and the context in which the images are used, do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of, nor imply approval or endorsement by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Just as Turkey served as a refuge for Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Poland became the Promised Land for the persecuted Jews of Western Europe. After the Holocaust, the United States of America and Israel became the last refuge for the Jewish people. This story is to remind my descendants not to forget our familys tragic history and our ancestors struggle to remain Jewish under the most extraordinary circumstances.

I dedicate this book to my children, Hershel Kleinberg and Cindy Levy; Cindys husband, Michael; my grandchildren, Liza Eisenstock and husband, Dani, Zev Levy and wife, Shachar, Yossi Levy and wife, Shani, Natanel Levy, Maayan Levy (Machnes), and husband, David, and Avishai Levy. Last, but not least, is Noam and Idan Eisenstock, Nevo Levy, Raphael Levy, and Sara Machnes, my great-grandchildren, the next link in our story of survival and all future additions to this expanding family.

CONTENTS

Az mlebt der lebt men ales.
(If you live, you live to see it all.)

O nce upon a time there were many hundreds of thriving Jewish communities in Poland, and for a thousand years they contributed immensely to Polands cultural and economic life. Now only tombstones in neglected old Jewish cemeteries from before the war remain. No individual tombstones exist for the three million Polish Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. Only mass graves and some isolated monuments stand.

Jews have all but been erased from the Polish consciousness. Its as though we were never there. Jews, who were a big part of Polish life, are now merely a footnote to Polands history.

My family is one of those footnotes. And this book tells our story for the world so no one will ever forget.

My familys history in Poland dates back to the fifteenth century, but on September 1, 1939, at the start of World War II, our long history there was about to come to an abrupt and violent end. Of the one hundred five souls that comprised our immediate family in Poland before the war, only a few survived. I among them.

Longevity has its own reward, but my seventieth birthday in 2007 marked a significant benchmark in my life, which meant that against all odds, I was alive and doing well.

The speech I wrote for my family birthday celebration started me thinking about life during the war. My grandchildren were going to Poland with their schools to visit the concentration camps and wanted to know how their grandparents and great grandparents survived the Holocaust in Poland.

This story is my attempt to answer some of their questions. Certain events my parents and I never shared with anyone except on rare occasions. Some events are too painful to talk about or make no sense telling them out of context.

I wrote this story from a childs perspective. I was, after all, just a child when the Nazis forced us into the street with just a few items on our backs and took everything we owned except our instinct for survival.

My focus is on the war years, which means my memory is stretched some seventy years. Consequently I had to do some research for dates, names, and places.

I recall vividly many of the life-and-death events I describe as though they occurred yesterday. Events I have not personally witnessed were told and retold in private conversations around the table in the German DP (displaced persons) camps. These painful recollections came to life in conversations before the scars had a chance to heal. These eventsbut not always the exact time or place when they happenedare deeply fixed in my mind. The scars, both mental and physical, remain.

My grandchildren, as they were growing up and wondering about our Jewish heritage and our familys experiences in Poland during World War II, asked to hear my story. And from time to time at the dinner table, I would relate bits and pieces. Here, now, is my story in full.

Background to War

Germany suffered great humiliation at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles, signed June 28, 1919, made Germany accept responsibility for causing all the loss and damage of the war. As a result, it was forced to pay war reparations, surrender conquered territories, give up its air force, and greatly reduce its army. These were difficult provisions for a once proud country to accept.

Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 by President Paul von Hindenberg. Hitler, along with many others, believed that Jewry (Jews, collectively) controlled Germanys wealth and sought world domination. So when a scapegoat was needed for Germanys ills, the Jews became the focus for the Nazis.

Nazi ideology embraced two concepts. One was Lebensraum (German living space). Because Hitler sought to expand Germany beyond regaining territory lost in WWI, German troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, including the authors small town of Pabianice, to gain Lebensraum and to regain German territory, the Polish Corridor and Posen, given to Poland in the Treaty of Versailles.

The other concept was the supremacy of the Aryan race. Nazi racial views saw Aryans as a superior race and Jews as inferior and destructive. Jews, of course, are not a race of people, yet Hitler was able to convince much of the world that this was true.

The German invasion of Poland officially marked the start of World War II.

E ight days after the war started, stomp, stomp, stomp, the German soldiers marched in lockstep down our cobblestone streets. When we heard those jack boots resounding, my parents feared the Germans would organize a massacre (known as a pogrom