Rose's Story

2005-04-01T06:49:00.000-08:00

Epilogue

2005-03-31T14:59:00.000-08:00

Debbi Portnoy: What effect have your experiences had on the way you brought up your own children?

Rose Silberberg Skier: My kids say that it has a great effect. I don’t see it. But they say, “Mommy, you hover over us. You’re scared. You cross us at age 18, you take my hand...” I do it automatically. I take my daughter’s hand and I cross her, she says “MOMMY!!” And I did not let them do a lot of things, such as:

They weren’t allowed to cross the street until they were very old. 12 maybe. This street going across, I used to hover over them.
Also I did not let them go on the subway. I didn’t care how much money the buses cost. They used to have private busing going to Washington Heights [Yeshiva University]. And there was a point to it. My son still remembers “I had no liberty. It was terrible. If I wanted to go somewhere, either you drove me, or I had to take a bus, I wasn’t allowed into a subway…” I said “Listen,” There was a friend of his who was attacked in Harlem, coming with a yarmulke from Washington Heights and he’s still paralyzed. I said, “Do I want to take chances like that? I’d rather pay, or drive you.” Which wasn’t so easy.

So they say that we were overprotective. At least I was. So they say. Whether it was true? Probably yes. But it didn’t hurt them? Right? So what. It didn’t hurt them. And I always did drive them.

Then I used to always run after them with food. My neighbor, who still is the same neighbor as when I came here when I was pregnant, used to say, “God. Where do you think you are, in Poland? Leave them alone! They’ll eat later.” Because they didn’t want to eat, and I had this thought that they could die of hunger, God forbid. Silly, right? Maybe because I used to go around hungry so much. So I used to go run around after them with food. And they were terrible eaters. Probably to spite me! With my last child I didn’t do it anymore. Eat, don’t eat. Do what you want.

DP: Do you ever dream about your war experiences?

RS: Absolutely. I’ve had such nightmares, and whenever I’m worried about something, it comes right back, and my kids are in it. That’s the worst part. My son is never in it. It’s just my two daughters. And the last one I had was like six months ago. I don’t know what triggered it. But it’s a crazy nightmare that recurs. I’m in a bull-ring. Now if that makes any sense, I don’t know. In Mexico City. To me, it looks like. Then I realize, I’m in a bull-ring, but it’s not Mexico City, it’s Bosnia or something crazy. Probably I’m listening to the news. But, there are woods there, and I hear them yelling: “Cross out! Cross zig zag! Come to the woods, and we’ll rescue you!” And around the whole bull-ring are SS men with guns. And I say to my middle child, “Come let’s zig-zag!” And she says “No, NO!” And I drag her, and she won’t go, and they shoot her.

It’s a terrible nightmare. I say this is bad. Maybe because I knew that she’s a little timid? She was always a little timid, and she’s very refined, and I used to worry about her that she’s so refined, I wondered, how is she going to get through life, being so utterly refined. She could never refuse anybody a favor, things like that. So maybe this was in the back of my mind, that she couldn’t be rescued? It scared me. But it’s a recurring thing.

DP: How does your present level of belief or observance of Judaism compare with your pre-War belief or observance?

RS: Well, before the war I was too little. I did what I was told. And I always believed in God, and I still do. I never doubted Him. I never thought it was God’s fault for what happened. Never. I thought people did it, not God. And I truly believe in God. I believe in the destiny of the Jewish people. They’re the greatest. I love them. They are my brethren.

And what happened…happened. I think it’s terrible. I can’t sometimes visualize how this happened. Six years? All it took was six years to murder six million Jews? Terrible.

DP: Are you involved, or were you involved, since you came to the United States, in any Jewish organizations?

RS: Yes. I was working originally for the Jewish Defense League, which was Meir Kahane’s organization. He wasn’t famous at that time. He was just working to release the Russian Jews, at that time, and also equality for the Jews, those who were persecuted here in Brooklyn, those who were attacked, and so on. I worked in his office. I had no children then. And the funny thing is, I used to come in the morning, I came late, I left early, because this is what they told me to do. I used to sit, type, file, do everything, I never saw him. He was gone by the time I came. He had not returned yet by the time I left. And I was a great admirer of his. Later on, he formed the Kach party in Israel, and I was all for him. And I still am. And he was always right.

And other than that, I’m a member of the Young Israel here, in the sisterhood, but nothing very special, because basically I just used to take care of my kids and do homework.

DP: Have you ever given your testimony to any other organizations?

RS: Yes. I did the Yale University. And also there was a book that Maxine Rosenberg wrote about 14 children. Basically it’s a juvenile book, and she contacted me and she said she’d like to interview me and write about it, and she did. It was mostly abbreviated, but it was there. It has been published.

DP: Why do you think you survived?

RS: Why? I ask myself that. I really do. First of all, I say, why not my sister? Who I considered much smarter and better and cuter. Except that she had the misfortune to have brown eyes, which is unbelievably horrible. I have asked myself this many times and I have no answer. I don’t know.

DP: Why did you give your testimony?

RS: Now? Well personally I think this should be, at one time or another, maybe sometime in the future, somebody should be interested, it should be there for them to hear, and to learn something from it.

And I’ll tell you something. The fact is, that this what happened, the Holocaust, is the most terrible crime that ever happened in human history. In it, one nation focused on strictly murdering another nation for no reason whatsoever. And they succeeded. And the world was very silent. The Jews had no sanctuaries. America did not let them in. Even a ship like the St. Louis was denied entrance. The British closed the gates of Palestine. There was a White Paper in force. They could not escape. They were just trapped.

And now [1997], the thing is repeating itself. In another way, but similarly. For instance, the terrorists, as we see right now, are attacking the Jews in the heart of Jerusalem, in their own capitol. Why? No reason. Because the Jews want peace, they offered peace, they gave up a lot of land, they pulled out of Hebron, they do their best. Yet they’re being attacked. And what does the world do? Press Israel to give more concessions to the Arabs.

Now I think, having seen what happened in the past, we have to learn from history. We have to first of all be behind Israel. We have to support our Jewish brethren there. Because to cave in to the demands of the world and appease the Arabs is comparable to dining with a tiger. You may enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.

Part XX

2005-03-27T15:20:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg Skier:This is an exerpt from a newspaper from 1928, and my great grandfather, Abraham Klapholz, who was the head of the Jewish Community, is greeting the president of Poland. And with him is a rabbi bearing the Torah.

Debbi Portnoy: Which one is your grandfather.

RS: [3rd from left]. The president is 2nd from left.

The gentleman 3rd from the right, with the beard and the hat, is my grandfather, Abraham Silberberg, he is on a ship, going to what was then Palestine in 1938, in order to build a house for his children and bring them all over to Palestine. Because he saw that problems were coming up. And first of all, he was a Chossid, but he also was a Zionist (unusual for those days), and he decided he wants to live in the holy city with his children.

Unfortunately, what happened a year later, is that in 1939 he was cut off from his whole family. And when he heard that his children were murdered, he laid down, he was so despondent, he laid down on the bed until he died. And he was not an old man. He just died from Tzores.

The shorter house is our house. My grandfather built it [in Jerusalem] in 1938. There are six stores on the bottom and five apartments there. My grandfather was hoping we would come, and as we were not coming obviously, the refugees from Germany who were able to come somehow past the blockade of the British, came and rented these apartments and rented these stores. Even though it’s under rent control, I know when I went to Israel, that some of the people who are now in their 90s told me how much they loved my grandfather. He was the one who rented to them.

The bride in the picture is my aunt Sara, whom I mention in my story, who looked so Polish.

DP: What was her last name?

RS: Originally Silberberg. She was my father’s sister. And here she married a Mr. Klagsbald but he was murdered. And she had a baby who was murdered too. Then she remarried after the war, and her name is Wachsman.

But here, in this picture, this is in 1939. My grandfather who is in the middle with the beard, came from Palestine to just be at his daughter’s wedding, and then he went back.

I am here, the little child, the 5th from the left. And my mother is next to me. I’m 4 ½ years old.

DP: How did you get this photo?

RS: This is the photo that my aunt Sara had in the pocket of her coat, that she had had in the cellar, and later brought up again. She took it from the bunker and always carried these photos around. And that’s the only way we have it. From all these people, except for my grandfather, who died in Palestine, just my aunt Sara and I have survived. All the others, members of my family, were murdered.

The lady on the left is my mother’s mother. Gitel Klapholz. And she was a lovely lady. She’s the one who gave me that doll that said “mama mama.” That’s my grandmother. She was taken to Auschwitz in 1943. A few months before my parents went. And she was murdered there.

DP: What year was this photo taken?

RS: 1938 probably. Before the war. This looks like a vacation spot. Carlsbad, in Czechoslovakia. The gentleman on the right is my father.

This is my uncle, Samuel Klapholz, who threw me into the sub-bunker, and saved my life that way. Then he opened the drawer and took me out again. So he definitely saved my life. He was very brave. This picture was take in 1947, after the war. My uncle now lives in Flushing, Queens, two blocks from me. He’s married and he has children and grandchildren and they all went to Yeshiva.

This is my father, Moses Silberberg. He was born on the birthday of Moses, the 7th of Adar, that’s why he was named Moses. Also, the saying goes that he almost died at birth and so “Moses” was a double-meaning name.

He was sent to Auschwitz from the ghetto Srodula around August 1943. And from eyewitnesses, this is what I heard about him. That he survived until about March 1944. He worked in the kitchen in Auschwitz so that he had a little food. But a man from his hometown who was very sick approached him and asked him if he could give him a potato. So he took a raw potato from the kitchen, and put it in the pants of his pajamas (because that’s what they used to wear there in Auschwitz), and as he handed the potato to the man, an SS man saw it, and he beat him to death.

This is my mother, Felicia, or Fela (actually she was also called Feigel) Klapholz Silberberg. She was taken also to Auschwitz together with my father, in August 1943 from the ghetto of Srodula. And again there are eyewitnesses who told me after the war how she died. Died? How she was murdered, I should say. It seems that about 4 weeks after she got there, she started to get very sick. She had typhus, and they just let her lie on that cot until she died. They never fed her. They said she died of hunger.

She was 29 when she was murdered, so you can imagine how old she was [when this photo was taken]. At 29 she was dead.

This is my sister Mala, or Malka Silberberg. And she was 3 years old when this picture was taken in our town of Jaworzno Poland in 1942.

I was called by the Yeshiva of Flatbush to come over in 1989. They were going to set up a Holocaust museum in New York, and they were getting ready with all kinds of artifacts. And when I got there, they told me they had this picture, and they wanted some details and verification, and they were very interested in my sister. I was very surprised to see this picture. In fact, when I got there, in the auditorium there were so many people, and this picture was hanging, and it was magnified so many times. When I got there, she stared me right in the face. I became hysterical almost. I ran out and got my kids. I said, “take a look—that’s your aunt.” Would have been their aunt, had she lived. I was very moved.

So they told me, “One day we will open up a museum, if you have anything to remind you of her, give it to us.” And I did. We made some [playing] cards, and these cards I gave to the museum.

This is the stationary of my grandmother and grandfather, Jozef Klapholz. They had a big hardware store. And my grandmother wrote a Will on this stationary in 1921. I think it’s such a beautiful handwriting. I’m very proud of her.

DP: How did you get a copy of the Will?

RS: You know my uncle (Sam Klapholz)? The one you saw in the New York Times? Well this was together with the insurance policies that he had which was shown in the NYT.

This house is the house of Mrs. Stanislawa Cicha in Sosnowiecz. This is the back of the house. This is where we were hiding from 1942 to 1944. Till we were discovered. And in that house, also she had the chicken coup, that was the bunker. This photo was sent to me by Mrs. Cicha. [reading the caption on the back] “This is the house where we lived together during the very hard times.”

This is Mrs. Stanislawa Cicha, who was hiding us in the chicken coup. This is from 1962.

This is Sister Andrea of the Convent of the Grey Sisters of Neisse-Neuland. When she was being evacuated with the German troops, as she was a German Nun, they were going to Berlin when the Russians were nearer and nearer, she left her room and she left the door open. I was standing in the corridor and I said, “Sister, you forgot your picture.” And she said, “I don’t want it, but if you want it, you can have it as a souvenir of me.” I went in and I took the picture. This was 1945.

This is a picture of me when I was 10 years old in the Convent. We went out, and they had a kind of 5 and dime store, and we went in. And just as they have in this country, you could just put in a coin and get a picture taken, and I decided I’ll do that. So the picture is not very clear, but here I am, in the Convent in 1944.

This is a very unusual document. It’s a certificate of liberty. When we were questioned by the Gestapo at Gestapo headquarters, and they accused us of being Jewish, and we denied it, at the end, as they were letting us go, evidently believing our denials, they gave my aunt a certificate of liberty. That we are released and not under suspicion anymore. So not only that we were released, but at the same time the three SS men signed it. It says “July 6, 1944, in Neisse.” On the bottom is a picture of my aunt, with the name Maria Masur, false papers, and it gives her permission to go back to work.

This is a letter that was written by my aunt Sara in Germany when we were on Aryan papers. The letter is addressed to my uncle, Sam Klapholz. He also received Aryan papers from that man, Nedza, but he was on the same list as us. And even though we were released, my uncle was not released. Being a man, he didn’t deny that he was Jewish, and he was sent to Auschwitz. He lived through Auschwitz, and he was liberated in 1945.

But the letter is very interesting. Because my aunt wrote him this letter because she heard that he was on Aryan papers. By that time, he had been taken to Auschwitz. And the letter came back as “man is absent, or unknown.” We were lucky that the letter came back. Had they connected us with my uncle, who was already in Auschwitz, especially since they had already questioned us, they would have probably figure out that we were Jewish.

This is an exerpt from Maus 1, by Art Spiegelman. When I was reading it, I realized that I had been in the same bunker in the attic, with the entrance hidden by a chandelier. And I wrote to him. And his sketch is very exact. It’s exactly as it happened when we were caught by the Germans. And then after I had written to him, he wrote me back a very beautiful postcard.

This is the postcard I received from Art Spiegelman replying to my letter. And he also sketched that little mouse, because I had told him in my letter how the child died in the garden. And on the other side, he makes I believe two mice that are dead mice and the parents are looking on.

I forgot to say something, apropos this baby. I would like to say something.

This is an original sketch by Art Spiegelman depicting the story I told him. The mouse is that little baby in the garden that’s dead, and the people here are pointing to the dead baby. Actually, it was only the father at that time who saw the baby dead, not the mother. But the thing is that the father, who gave himself up to the Germans did not survive the war. The mother did. That woman, Frieda, survived the War, and went to Israel. And about 15 years ago my aunt Sara, who was together with us, went to Israel, and as she was in Tel Aviv, looking through a window for pocketbooks, through the reflection she saw in the back of her a woman that looked familiar. She turned around—it was Frieda. It was the mother of that baby. They hugged, and she said, “My God, I didn’t know you survived!” She said yes, and she remarried, but she had no more children.

This is a stamp that was published by the State of Israel, depicting 50 years after the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, plus other concentration camps. And they blew it up, and it’s above Yad Vashem entrance in Jerusalem. It happens, that the man on the right is my uncle, who was liberated from Dachau. His name was David Klapholz. He’s my mother’s brother [and brother of Sam Klapholz]. And the picture was accidentally found, and blown up. They never knew the names, until my cousin went and said, “This is my father. The man on the left is his friend. The man in the middle died the day after liberation.” And then they put down the names of these people.

Unfortunately my uncle, who is in this picture (and this is such a famous picture), never saw it because he died before this was published.

This is my grandfather’s house in Jaworzno Poland. In the back was the printing press. And up on the top floor was my grandfather’s apartment. And that’s where we were during the war. In that apartment the Germans took away my Shabbos doll. And at one time this was a pharmacy, but I see it’s something else today. This was taken four years ago, 1993.

Part XIX

2005-03-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: From there, we took a train, and we kept going for about a whole day until we reached a place called Frankfurt am Main. There was a displaced persons camp there, which we were told at that time to go there. And it was called Zeilsheim.

Debbi Portnoy: When did you arrive there?

RS: We arrived there maybe November 1945.

DP: Was there any type of registration when you got there?

RS: Yes. There already you had Jews in charge. It was a displaced persons camp, run partly by the Americans, and the Joint. And they gave us food, they gave us places to sleep…It was like a barracks at that time.

DP: Who was in your barracks?

RS: Maybe 100 people. I didn’t know these people, but they were Jews. That was the main thing. They were all fellow Jews.

DP: Was it divided, men and women?

RS: No, because we slept in our clothes. It wasn’t a hotel. But they said, “Don’t worry, you’re going to get regular homes, regular rooms. But this is just temporary.” And it was.

And General Eisenhower I think was in charge at that time. Still, he was there. Because as soon as another general came, they threw all the Jews out. But when Eisenhower was there, they gave us housing, regular housing.

DP: Did you ever see Eisenhower?

RS: No. I saw Mrs. Roosevelt. She came to see the Displaced Persons camps.

DP: Describe that to me.

RS: A lovely lady. Not pretty, but lovely as a human being. There was a young boy there in that camp, little boy. He was maybe nine. He had beautiful blond hair and blue eyes. He was gorgeous and he had a beautiful singing voice. And when she came, he stood there and he was singing the American National Anthem (they taught him). She was so impressed, and she went over, she hugged him. And she asked us all questions. Do we have food, where do we want to go, and what happened—well, she didn’t want to go into details about what happened. She knew what happened. But just generally. Do you have parents? No. Do you have parents? No.

DP: Did you make any friends in the camp?

RS: Absolutely. I had a lot of friends, and I started school. The Jewish way. Right away there came some Shlichim, people from Israel, teachers, and immediately started a school. And all of us kids went to school, at different levels, because some kids were like 18, and some were like me, 10-11, some were 15. Didn’t matter. We were all bunched up because we had no education throughout the war.

So we all were together, and they used to really have terrific intensified courses. They used to give us everything. We even studied German and Latin. We studied Hebrew, math, reading, geography, you name it. History. Everything.

DP: And when you weren’t in school, what were you doing?

RS: When I wasn’t in school, then finally they gave us housing. My Aunt Sara married and had a baby, and I used to take care of him. Otherwise I used to have a lot of friends.

Now my friends, all were from the school or from the camp. We used to go walk to each other. I remember they all had parents, at least one parent. Most had mothers. And I had never been jealous of anybody in my life. But I was jealous of anybody who had a mother. The first thing that I would ask a kid when I met one was, “Do you have a mother?” “Yes.” I though, Oh, you’re so lucky. You have a Mother! And this was my first question. It was pathetic. But this was how I felt. And do you want to know something? I still feel like that, till today. Till today.

Because even when I was married, and I had children, my children never had anybody. My children didn’t have a grandparent to hug them or love them or something. They were alone. And I took care of them. It wasn’t a matter of getting aid, such as physical aid. But it was just a matter psychologically there was nobody to love them. I said, “If God forbid, something happens to me, these kids would go to an orphanage. There’s nobody to take over and nobody to take them. Or they’ll split them up.” And I used to worry about this. I’d say “I can’t wait for them to grow up.”

Even when my son was Bar-Mitzvah, I sat there in the Shul and I thought “If my father were here to see how well he’s doing, my son, how he would be proud of him.” But all things like that, you know. You visualize. So I have always missed my parents, and especially my mother. But I did have a lot of friends.

DP: When did you get to the United States?

RS: First we tried to get to Palestine, but you know the English—first you had to have certificates, they had closed borders, the white paper, and they wouldn’t let the Jews in. So we decided to register for the United States. And I came here August 24, 1951.

DP: How did you get to the United States?

RS: On a troopship, General Blanchford, all by myself. Because I did have family. My uncle, Sam Klapholz was there, but he was a “K” in the alphabet. My aunt was Wachsman (“W”). I was “S” for Silberberg. Now they went according to the alphabet. You either went, or you forfeit your right to go. So there was nothing to talk about. I was 17, and I picked myself up, I had nothing to wear, no clothes and no money, and I got on the ship and I came here.

It happens, that I had an aunt here, who also was a refugee. And she said, “Come on over to me and stay for a while.”

DP: Describe your journey here on the ship.

RS: It was terrible. Even though I was grateful to go. The people were nice. There were American troops there. They were being shipped back to the States. And the refugees. They gave us to eat. And we had terrible quarters. We were so many women together, bunched up. And we were very very hot. There was no airconditioning. They gave us the worst little cabins. I couldn’t wash anything. I had no clothes. I wanted to wash my clothes. Overnight, no facilities.

I remember that finally I volunteered to work at the dispensary. They had a lot of women who had babies. So these babies used to come there, and so on. And I used to help a nurse. She was a Navy nurse, and her name was Jeanie Johnson. She spoke with a Southern accent. I couldn’t understand one word.

And I want you to know that when I was going to school there I learned English, but Shakespearian English. They taught us Shakespeare. Like this was going to help us. So when she talked, not only did I not understand the English, the colloquialism, I didn’t understand the Southern [accent]. So when she spoke to me, it was like a blank. And she used to tell me, “Rosie? ROSIE?” She thought I was deaf. But I wasn’t deaf. I just didn’t understand. When you don’t understand, people think that you’re deaf, so they talk louder to you.

next

Part XVIII

2005-03-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: Suddenly, my aunt came to get me.

Debbi Portnoy: How did you spend your time during those few weeks?

RS: Nothing. I was just lying there like that and I was so miserable and I used to say, “get me out of here, at least into the corridor, let me be with the other kids,” because there were other kids there. “No, no, you’re contagious.” So why did you put me there? “Be quiet.” They had no time. They were very overcrowded. It was a terrible place. When my aunt finally showed up, it must have been October, I was so glad to see her.

She said: “I came to get you. We’re going to Palestine.” And at that time, there was no iron curtain yet. It was ‘45. So you could get out of Poland, but you had to maneuver a little bit. But there was no transportation.

So my uncle, Sam Klapholz, had come…what happened to my uncle Sam, is that the same man who had the false papers for us, gave papers to my uncle. But what I didn’t mention to you before is that the man who gave us the papers, who sent us to the Convent to work [Nedza], he had to have an operation. He was very sick. And when he was on the operating table, there was a Polish doctor who was going to operate, and he told this doctor, “I have a list of Jews that I sent on fake papers and I’m sorry about it, but that’s what it is.” So this Polish doctor called the SS, and they came, and they said, “Where’s the list?” And he told them. They got the list, and systematically, they came to round up all these Jews. That’s why they came [to our Convent], because we didn’t know how they found out in the Convent that we are Jewish. That’s why the SS man came and said, “Come to headquarters, we’re going to question you,” because we were on the list. He gave us the work, so we were on the list.

So what happened was that my uncle Sam also had false papers, but they came and they got him, and they took him to Auschwitz. And he has the number from Auschwitz. But he survived Auschwitz, and he came to our hometown, and when my aunt came to get me that time in the orphanage, she said, “Your uncle is there, and he’s waiting for you. We’re all going to go together to Palestine.”

And that’s how we started to go from Poland, to the Russian part of Germany. Because there was at that time four parts: Russian, American, British, and French. We went to the Russian part. To the Russian part of Germany, you didn’t need a passport, because Poland was under Russian control too. And we had to wait 2 weeks on the tracks to get a train. There was no transportation. We were just like Gypsies.

The Russian soldiers used to come, and take everybody’s watches away. So they had watches here, here, here, here, here…(points up arms). They open their jackets, here, here, here…they said they’re taking the watches to Moscow. They robbed you. Whoever was stronger robbed you. That’s how it was.

DP: Did you have to do anything to protect yourself from the Russian men?

RS: Not me, but my aunt did, because they used to rape the women something vicious there. Very bad.

DP: Did you ever see or hear about any?

RS: Yes, I heard, I did. I didn’t see it, but I heard. Somebody told us. We were told that this is what’s going on, we should be very careful, because they’re coming, and they’re taking the women away, and they’re raping them. This is what they did. But we took the chance anyway. And there were a lot of people on the tracks. Mainly they were interested in robbing you. Because they were going to go back to Russia and bring stuff. So if you had anything of value, you were doomed. You had to give it up.

And finally when the train came, I remember, we were sitting like Gypsies on the floor, waiting for the train. Then we sat inside the train on the floors. And it used to stop and go, stop and go. It took us weeks to get to the Russian part of Germany. Once we were there, we had with us whiskey, which we knew, this was the only way to bribe the Russians to go to the American part.

DP: How did you get the whiskey?

RS: My aunt got it, I don’t know how. But whiskey was not hard to get. In Poland you could get whiskey, vodka, anytime. Must have been vodka. You could get it anytime, because it’s cheap. Because they all drank.

DP: At this time, how were you getting money, how were you getting food?

RS: My aunt got it. She didn’t tell me how, but she got it. My uncle told me that he had, at one time when we were still in the Polish woman’s house, he was hiding there jewelry and things like that. And when we were discovered, this stayed there. Because nobody knew where it was. He went back there, and he got some stuff out. So he must have sold some of the jewelry. Because they had a little money, not much. But just enough to get on a train and things like that.

So from there we went to the Russian part, and then he bribed the guards. Oh, it was a terrible ordeal to the American part. Because I remember there was a tremendous ravine; it was as if there was a river on the bottom. And it was dark. And my uncle said, “We have to go there, and then go up, and there will be the American part.”

So we said, “How can we go down there? We’re going to drown?” And he said, “I’ll be the first.” He was the first one. And he slid down right into what looked like a river. But he screamed, “IT’S NOT A RIVER! IT’S OK!” So we started to go. We all slid down and fell in. And then finally we started to go up again, and we stayed. He said, “Wait, and let me see if we are on the American side. Maybe we are still with the Russians.”

He went. He came back. He said, “I just saw the most gorgeous soldier. He’s an American, and he has a cap like that. Gorgeous people, and they gave me white bread. White! Not Challah, white bread!”

We said, “Ach! Go away, you’re lying. I never heard of white bread!” He said, “Yes, yes! White bread!” We were hysterical. We ran with him. Sure enough, the Americans came out and gave us bread. We were like refugees.

next

Part XVII

2005-03-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: I stayed at the orphanage and I used to daydream. It was such a nightmarish place. I’m in my grandfather’s garden. There are lilacs. My cousins are playing. And I used to just lie there for hours. Time was passing that way. They used to talk to me and they would say, “ARE YOU DEAF! You don’t answer!” And I used to just lie there like somebody on dope.

And after a few days, I heard that downstairs, they have a tree. And on the tree they have a list of people who survived the concentration camps. And every day there is a new list, and maybe my parents are alive, after all. I used to go downstairs, look at the list, did not find my parents, and then I’d go upstairs, lie down and daydream.

Suddenly, we heard shots. Screaming, yelling. They started pogroms in Krakow, and in the orphanage. All around the orphanage. So after that, the people who were the head of the orphanage said, you cannot go down anymore, because they probably will start shooting.

Debbi Portnoy: Who were they?

RS: Lena Kuchler, she was the one in charge.

DP: Who was shooting at you?

RS: Oh, the Poles. It was the Polish Underground Army called the Home Army. These were the fascist army against the communists. The west was for them, because they were against the communists. But basically, they were a vicious lot. Here, these were children, who just survived the war, and they’re mostly orphans who are sick and depressed. And even those who were not children were around that Dluga 38, because this was like an agency also. People who maybe got a little food there and so on. And they came and they were shooting at the Jews. But not just in Krakow, in all of the cities.

So this woman, who was in charge of the orphanage said, “Something has to be done about the kids.” Finally, they decided to split us up into two groups. 50 apiece. They took us in trucks that were covered, so the population couldn’t see, and we went to the mountains. One bunch went to a place called Zakopane, and one bunch went to a place called Rabka. I was sent to Rabka.

DP: Tell me about when they first put you onto the trucks. What were you thinking?

RS: I was thinking anything is better than what I’m leaving, because what I was leaving was horrible. I was just worried about my aunt. Could she find me? They said “We’ll let her know, we’ll let her know where you are.”

And when we got to the mountains, two things happened. The place was much nicer, and we got food. And they said, “Do you want more food?” (gasp) That was a revelation to me! More food? Really.

And what happened is that since I had lice, everybody had lice in that orphanage. They decided to delouse us. And how did they do that? They used a thing called Naphtha. Naphtha is like gasoline. And they put gasoline on our heads, soaked it, then they would put a towel around it, and between 3 days to 7 days the lice were dead. Meanwhile we walked around smelling like anything, but it was still better to kill the lice.

Now, those who were finished with delousing, they used to be the big shots then. They used to take a shower, whatever, and they used to run around. But we used to be stuck mainly indoors. Because here with the towel and the gasoline on our heads.

So they did this, and they gave us some clothes which they said came from America as donations, from Joint. So here, all of a sudden I got a dress, which I hadn’t had in God knows how long, something new. And they gave a pair of shoes, and they deloused us, and gave us food…You know, things started to look up. And even I got a letter from my aunt. The letter was channeled from Krakow to there. And she wrote: Sooner or later I’ll get you.

Everything seems fine until that night. Suddenly, there was gunshots. They were shooting at us like crazy. A big pogrom. And the pogrom was, they realized, here are Jewish kids. It’s a free for all. These were grown men coming with guns and with hand-grenades. Throwing the grenades. My roommate was wounded. She wasn’t killed, but she was wounded. But they had nowhere to take her. Because to go outside, you were dead. And there was one doctor on the premises, but the doctor was helpless. It was terrible.

But, something very beautiful happened then. About two days later. Because every day they used to have this. And we used to huddle in the corridors, every night. It was only at night that they did this. They were shooting and shooting. A Russian detachment came in about two houses down. These were all like villas. And the commanding officer went over to his soldiers, the Russian soldiers, and he announced that there are Jewish orphans two houses down, and they’re being attacked at night by the Poles. If there’s anybody who would like to stand guard at night, he should volunteer.

Four soldiers volunteered. Four Russian Jewish soldiers. There were only four Jews there, and the four Jews volunteered. When they brought those Russian soldiers to us, were we happy to see them! They were such dolls…we loved them! First of all, they couldn’t speak Yiddish, Hebrew, or anything else. They knew nothing about the religion. All they did was take out their little passports, or IDs and point “Yevrei, Yevrei! See I’m a Jew, I’m a Jew.” That’s all they knew. But they had a Jewish heart. They had a spark in them. Like a pilot light. Something was there, that they came to guard the Jewish children.

Not only that, but there were two boys, the oldest—I want you to know how young we all were—the youngest were 3 years old—the oldest was 14 1/2, and one was 14. So two were teenagers. So these soldiers started to teach them how to shoot. They gave them ammunition. They said, “look, we’re not going to stay here forever, because we probably will be recalled.” And they taught them how to shoot. And this was very important, because when they did call them back, and they did, because they had to move on, they weren’t on Holiday, as soon as they moved out, they had spies. And later they said the cook, who was a Polish cook, told them when the soldiers moved out. That night they came already and they started to shoot at us again.

DP: What type of contact did you have with the four Russian soldiers?

RS: First of all, we used to stare at them. Here I am, by that time I was probably like 11. They were in uniforms, and they were cute. I don’t care how cute or not, but to us they were the sweetest thing on earth. And we used to just look at them. They probably were embarrassed, but we used to just stare at them. We couldn’t talk to them, because we couldn’t speak Russian and they couldn’t speak Polish. Just looked at them. And they used to smile at us. You know, like big brothers.

And when they moved out, we really were scared, and we were right. Because that night they started again the same thing with the shooting. That was when, finally they decided, this place has to be vacated, it’s no good. So they took us from that orphanage, which is the second orphanage, to a third orphanage called Bielsko. (October 1945).

But this one was the pits. First of all, they boarded up all the windows, knowing that they would have pogroms. They were overcrowded, because other Jewish orphanages brought kids there. And there was just one little light, everything else was dark. They kept everything in the dark. But me, for some reason, they put me into a room with kids who had German measles, and chicken pox, and this type of thing. So what happened is, once you got into this kind of room, they wouldn’t let you out. They would not let me out, because they said now I’m contagious.

So I was stuck with barely light, I could read, and I said, “give me something to read.” So they gave me some baby stuff to read, but I couldn’t even read because it was too dark. And I couldn’t leave, and I wasn’t sick. I never caught anything from these kids. But I had to stay there a few weeks in that room. It was very bad.

next

Part XVI

2005-03-10T19:21:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: And when we arrived in our hometown, everybody was dead. There wasn’t a Jew left. And we went to our house, and there was nobody. And we had nothing to eat. We had no money. And even if we had, there was nothing to buy. But we specifically had nothing to eat.

And the people, all around, when they saw my aunt, they knew her. So they knew that she’s Jewish, because they knew her from her youth. “Oh my God, how come you survived? I thought Hitler killed you all! You survived??” Very unhappy. “What do you want?? You want your house back? What is it that you want here?”

Who thinks of houses? We were looking for our FAMILY. “Do you want your house back?” That was all they were worried about.

Then my aunt said, “Let’s find out 100% what happened. Maybe the maid, Maria, maybe she will know what happened.” So we knew where she lived. My aunt went there with me. As she opened the door, she was wearing my mother’s clothes. And there was silverware all around from my mother. I didn’t want to say anything. But just automatically I said, “This is my mother’s!” I was happy to see something from my mother. This was like…home, you know? And she [Maria] brought me up, I want you to know. And she said, “Jew! Get out or I’ll call the Home Army.”

The Home Army was like a fascist Polish Underground, that was against the Communists. They used to make pogroms all over Poland against the Jews. “I’ll call the Home Army.” She slammed the door, and we walked away. We said out of this town. We better get out of here, because we’re dead.

So my aunt went to Krakow, and in Krakow, which is very near, she heard there was an orphanage, on Dluga 38. She said “I will bring you to the orphanage, because maybe they’ll give you something to eat. I have no money. I have nothing. And when I get myself together, I’ll pick you up, and we’ll go to Palestine.”

DP: Was this a Jewish orphanage?

RS: Yes. In fact, there is this book, My 100 Children, that describes the Krakow Jewish orphanage. When she brought me to that orphanage, and then she left, I can tell you that was one horrible place. Horrible. First of all, there was nothing to eat. There were 100 kids there, crowded in together, and lice were crawling all over. Some kids were on the floor with blankets, and some were on cots. I got a cot. That cot was crawling with lice, and the blanket was crawling with white lice. These are typhus lice. I didn’t have any lice throughout the war. Suddenly, in five minutes, I was full of lice. I was itching…it was just unbearable.

And the kids were crying, and some were sick. You name it, they had it. And there were not enough people to take care. And I remember they fed us…once a day? At that point it was once a day. This is how I remember it. If it was more, it’s possible, but I remember it as once a day.

And the one who was in charge of the kids, she was cutting for everybody a piece of bread, she had some soup. The soup she gave out. But the bread she put in the middle of the table. Now where I came from, you would never grab. I waited for her to say “take your slice of bread.” But she didn’t, and the kids grabbed my bread. I was always left without the bread. I used to cry, not just from hunger. I was so angry at her. I used to say, “this stupid woman is so unjust. Why doesn’t she watch out for me?” She sees the kids are hungry, they’ll take my slice. Because my mother said you don’t take, you have to wait until they tell you to take. And I waited, because I was stupid! But this was how I was brought up.

DP: How old were you now?

RS: Now I’m 10.

DP: Did you ever change your name back?

RS: Yes, when my aunt brought me to the orphanage it was under Rose Silberberg. And at that time her name was Klagsbald. She was a widow because husband was murdered and her kid too.

next

Part XV

2005-03-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: We stayed in that Convent, and other than these incidences, we were comfortable. Because they didn’t torture us, they didn’t beat us. They thought we were Christians.

In April 1945, there was a lot of bombing going on. The Russians were bombing the Convent, and most of the nuns started to go with the soldiers to Berlin. They left. And I remember that one Sister, Andrea, was leaving her room, and the room was open. And I said, “Sister Andrea, you forgot your picture in your room.”

And she said, “I don’t want it. You want my picture as a souvenir? Take it.” So I went in, and I took Sister Andrea’s picture.

One thing I forgot to say: When we came back from Gestapo headquarters, after we had been interrogated, when I say my aunt was lucky that she told me to take the pictures from the cellar, there was a work crew there. They were making an air-raid shelter from that cellar. And taking everything out. All the stones, all the rocks. My aunt said, “Can you imagine? They would have found those pictures!” And that morning she said, “bring me the pictures” out of the blue, for no reason. And sure enough, they made the air-raid shelter and everything was gone.

So, we went to the air-raid shelter, and in April 1945, the Russians finally entered that town. But I remember that before they came, that last day, there was such terrible bombing going on, that we realized that they’re bombing the Convent. All around, the grounds were bombed. One nun was killed.

So I said, “Oh my God, I lived through all this, and now I will be killed by my allies!” And I started to pray. And this is what I prayed, because I remember:

“Oh please, God, let me live through this day. Please let me live through this one day. Because if you let me live, I vow to you I will rebuild the Holy Temple! I will rebuild the Holy Temple!”

This was my background, evidently. I mean where did it come from? I must have heard it somewhere. That this is the greatest thing to do. And I lived through it.

Debbi Portnoy: What language did you pray in?

RS: Polish. And sure enough, the bombing stopped. The doors opened. The Russians were there. I can tell you, when we came out from that shelter, and when I saw maybe 500 Russian tanks lined up there…it was so quiet. Suddenly it was so quiet. I looked, and I thought the Messiah had come! Oh my God, the Messiah had come! The Russians are here! We are FREE!

And we were free. For a while.

My aunt thought, this is the end of all persecution. But she was wrong. She went out, she approached one of the Russian officers, and she said, “I’m a Jew!” As if to say, are you happy? Look, I survived.

And he said, “You’re a Jew? Come here. Bourgeois?” He was a communist, but he also was a Ukrainian. Hated Jews just as much as the Germans! So she said she was joking. And she said to me, “Uh-uh. Don’t tell anybody you’re Jewish. I see we’re back to the same thing.”

We wanted to leave in order to go back to Poland. We wanted to see if anybody survived from the family. So, my aunt approached an officer, who was known to be Jewish, and she went over and she said to him, “Look, I’m Jewish, and I’m afraid to be here. Because they hate the Jews.” He was an officer in the Russian army, he wasn’t afraid. “Do me a favor. Give me a horse and buggy, and I’ll go back to Poland, because I want to see where my family is.”

And he said, “YOU are JEWISH?? You don’t look Jewish to me!” And he didn’t believe her! Frankly, she didn’t look Jewish one bit.

She said, “How can I prove it to you that I’m Jewish? I’m going to talk to you in Hebrew.”

He looked at her like, what? Hebrew to him was like from the moon. He was brought up in Communist Russia. He didn’t know Hebrew. He didn’t know Yiddish. He only knew, that on his passport, he had the stamp that said “Jew.” But he had a feeling…when she kept saying “Please, please, you want to hear the prayers? You want to hear Shma?” And he was like, what?

Finally, he said, “Alright. If you say it so many times, you’re Jewish.” And he did give us a horse and buggy, and a few other workers came, and we went all back to Poland.

DP: Did you have any contact with the Russians? Did you say anything to them? Did they say anything to you personally?

RS: No, the only thing is that they liberated us, but we saw that we have to be very careful because they were very anti-Semitic. Maybe that was a detachment of Ukrainians there. But they hated Jews. And the others were from…Mongols. So we didn’t know what they were like. Except that they used to run horses. If you saw them ride, you’d be scared to death. Just over our heads. This was their sport. So, we were scared, we said let’s get out of here.

next

Part XIV

2005-03-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

We come back, and this SS man is holding the coat, and he says, “You forgot your coat!” And with that lining on the outside, the same way, he hands it to my aunt. That’s it. We took the coat and we started to walk. I said, “Aunt, I have to sit down.” Because I couldn’t STAND IT!! I was SHAKING, like THIS! And there was a little park there and we sat down. You forgot your coat! My God! I thought they were going to shoot us!

So I said to my Aunt, “Let’s run away, let’s run away!”

“No! We’re not running anywhere. Because, if we run, we have nowhere to go, they will know we’re Jews. But if we go back to the Convent as if nothing happened, we have a chance.”

She was right, and she was very brave. We came back to the Convent, and the Mother Superior came right away and said, “What happened? Why did you have to go to the headquarters, to the Gestapo?”

My aunt was very wise. She didn’t deny. She didn’t say, “Nothing.” No. She said, “They thought we were Jews. Evidently, somebody has the same name, or stole our passports, I don’t know what. But they thought we were Jews. Of course we’re not Jews. Some dumb Jew has our papers, so therefore they let us go, because they realized we’re not Jews.”

So she said, “Oh…now I know.” But she knew in advance why, because she was told by the Gestapo man why he came. I mean, she was the Mother Superior. But every after that, the phone rang, and he was asking if we were there, and what we were doing. Because there was no phone in every room, but there was a phone in the foyer. So I remember her answering the phone, one of the nuns, and saying, yes, they’re still here. No they didn’t run off. Yes, they seem ok. They’re normal. They never took us again.

So it was the first and last time we were there. But it was a terrible, terrible experience.

Now, in February or March of 1945, the doorbell was ringing like crazy. One of the nuns opened the door. And there stands, my cousin, Sammy Silberberg, with the uniform of a concentration camp. You know how they have those pajamas from concentration camps? And two other concentration camp guys. And he says he wants to talk to Maria.

And the nun didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know it was concentration camp (uniform). And my aunt sees this, and she was motioning like, ‘go away.’ But she said in Polish, “come back at night.”

What happened was, that they were on a death march. You know the Germans, towards the end of the war, were marching these people to death. From one camp to another, into inner Germany. And he knew that we were in a Convent. And how did he know?

Because when we were still with the Polish woman, the reason we later found out that we were even discovered by the SS [in the coup]—why were we discovered by the SS? Nobody even knew we were there. Because this woman, Dudwauka, who used to threaten Mrs. Cicha, we realized that something had to be done about her, because every day she was threatening to call the Germans. So it was smartly done. They took one of the girls, who didn’t look too Jewish, and they said, “Take a lot of money and knock at night at her door. Say ‘Here’s some money, let me stay two hours. I’m Jewish, let me stay for two hours and I’ll leave.’” And they did it. She opened the door, took the money (she was very greedy) and let her stay. But she ran off very shortly, because she knew that she’d take an axe and kill her. And we told her, “when you leave, make sure she doesn’t follow you,” because she had to come back right next door. After that, this woman never threatened Mrs. Cicha. She felt already, hey I’m traife, I’m not playing games.

So we said, “How did they find us?” The story was, that my uncle, who was the brother of my father, was in a concentration camp. He knew a German guard, who seemed to be on the level. And he said, “When you go back to Poland, (because he was going back on vacation), go to this woman, Mrs. Cicha, (whom he knew from before the war), and there is my wife. Just tell her I’m OK.” Nothing else. So, the man went, he came, and he said, “your husband is OK.” So we knew about the husband, and the son, Sammy, the young boy. So my aunt [note: this is not Aunt Sara] wrote a Jewish letter and told him to give it to her husband.

On the way back, the guard forgot his ID. Once he didn’t have his ID, he was searched on the train, and they found a Jewish letter. Now, the guard was not Jewish. Maybe they punished him for this. But they weren’t going to kill him for forgetting his ID. But the Jewish letter? What is this?

“Well, I did a stupid thing, I went there, there’s a Jewish woman there.” He never saw anybody else except my aunt. So when they came to get us, they thought they were coming for one Jewish woman. They got 17 Jews there that time, with my sister.

So what happened was, my cousin knew that someplace we were in a Convent. [See Comments] He came and my aunt at night snuck him in and two other guys, snuck him into a loft. There was the spare hay for the horses. And they were there for 3 months, hiding. My aunt used to bring food, stealing from the pigs. I used to be the lookout. Used to help with the water, and take out the pail (because you had to empty the pail).

But what happened is, the Polish workers used to go in the morning to take some hay, they used to take these hay forks and just stab. Now, if you are hiding there, if they would hit you, they would kill you! Because they didn’t know anybody was there. And if they did, for sure they would kill you, the Polish workers. Either way.

One of the boys, and his name was Moshe Ganger, said, “I cannot stand this anymore. I will not stay here. I’m going out, I’m going to go to the employment office, and say I want to work for the war effort, I’m a Polish man, and that’s it.”

My aunt said, “You look Jewish! You don’t look Polish. Brown eyes, brown hair, forget it!”

No, he wants to go. So we said, “If they catch you, if you give us up, then we’re all going to perish.”

He said, “No, don’t worry.” So he decided he’s going. So my aunt said, “I’ll follow you at a distance, because I want to know what’s going to happen to you.” Like Moses and Miriam. And we followed together.

This man goes into a factory to volunteer to work for the Germans. A half hour later we see SS. SS are coming into the factory and out he goes with the SS. Into the same Gestapo headquarters that we had been questioned in.

DP: So you were there watching this?

RS: Watching, but like a block away. Oh my God! My aunt said oh my God. If they torture him, for sure he’s going to give us away. He’s going to tell them everything, because you cannot withstand the torture.

Well, he was gone like that for hours on end. And we were standing, and we didn’t know what to do. But my aunt said, “We have to wait. We have to see if he comes out at all.”

Sure enough, maybe six hours have gone by, he comes out, with the SS, and he shows us like everything is fine. And what happened was, we looked at his face from far away, but we could see that he had not been tortured. He was not beaten up. He looked normal. So what took him so long?

After the war, my aunt said, “What happened to you?”

He said, “If I tell you, will you believe me? You will not believe me. This is what happened: When I got there, they said, ‘He’s a Jew,’ and they took me to Gestapo headquarters. But one SS man said, ‘let’s see if he’s circumcised.’ So one said, ‘yes’ and one said ‘no.’ So now, they wouldn’t kill a Christian just for the hell of it, so they said they had to call a doctor. And he will be the one to judge. But the doctor was busy a whole day in his office, and by the time the doctor finally decided to come, the day was gone, but he came. And he looked, and he said, ‘this man is not circumcised. So take him to work.’” So he went to work. If I tell you that he was circumcised, he came from Chassidim! And his son lives today in Kiryat Arba, he has five children!

But it was like a miracle. The doctor said, and this is it. But meantime, we lost years off our lives just looking, watching for him.

next

Part XIII

2005-03-07T15:32:00.000-08:00

Debbi Portnoy: Mrs. Skier, tell me what happened at that point:

Rose Silberberg-Skier: Well, just prior to that, about two months before[November 1944?] , something else happened. We were working in the Convent, and suddenly, the gate opened, the nun let a man in who happened to be an SS man. And he was asking for us by name. And she called my aunt, and said, “This is Maria Mazur.” That’s who he was asking for.

He said, “Get dressed, take your stuff. You’re going to the Gestapo headquarters, because you are Jews.” Like that.

So my aunt was shocked. “What is going on here? Everything is in order! Why?”

“Just get dressed.” And that’s it.

Now just prior to this SS man coming in that morning, she said to me, “Go into the cellar, and bring me back the pictures.”

I had said, “Leave them there!”

She said, “BRING BACK THOSE PICTURES.”

So I went down, and brought the pictures. So I had the pictures, and here, the SS man walks in and says, “Come to Gestapo headquarters.”

I had the pictures. So my aunt took the pictures, and the SS man didn’t realize it, because they were wrapped, and she threw them under the bed. She said, “Oh God, I hope they don’t clean tonight under the bed.” But she took her stuff, we took the suitcase that we had. We never opened that suitcase, to tell you the truth. It was just sitting there for months.

And on the way, she said to me, “I have to make believe that I’m tying my shoe.” Because he came with a bicycle. Imagine that! He didn’t come with a car. He was on the bicycle, and he put the suitcase on top, and we were just one at each side.

So my aunt said, “My shoe is falling off! I have to do something.”

So he said, “Do it.” And he continued.

But what she was really doing was…in the lining of the coat she had a $100 bill. American money. I can’t even tell you what that meant. Even if you were the Pope, if you had American foreign currency, you were dead. You weren’t allowed to have it since 1939. Now it’s 1944. And secondly, for sure, the only people who would have it are Jews. The peasants didn’t have $100 bills. So she knew that if she doesn’t get rid of this, on the way, before she’s questioned, and before she’s searched, forget it. So she opened the lining, and then she said she had to tie her shoe, and she squashed it and she threw that money into the weeds.

DP: How did she get the $100 bill?

RS: Oh this she had from some time ago, from the family. They used to have money. They didn’t give everything to the Germans. They had it for rainy days. They used to distribute it. I case we had to bribe somebody. So hers was in the lining.

Now, when we got there, this was the story. They brought us to a room to interrogate us. There were 3 of them. 3 SS men. Gestapo men, basically, because they were in civilian clothes. We were sitting next to each other, my aunt and I, and one SS man was sitting with us. Two were just sitting, on the opposite side. And each one was questioning us. At all times there was one from this side and one from that side. And they started with my Aunt:

“You are a JEW. You are a Jew!”

“No, NO! I’m NOT a Jew!”

“But your father was a Jew! Your mother, your grandmother…You’re a half-Jew a quarter-Jew…” They continued on and on. This was going on for hours. Yelling and screaming. Finally, they took me out. One guy took me out.

“You come with me.” Oh, boy, was I scared. And he put me into the lobby, against the frame of a door. And he took out a small revolver and he put it against my temple.

“If you tell me that you are Jewish, I will let you go. If you tell me that you are Catholic, I will shoot you.”

I cannot tell you how frightened I was. I was frightened before he took out the revolver. I was scared to death. But when he did this, I fell asleep. Evidently this is my nature. I fell asleep! I stood there sleeping! And he started to shake me.

“You wake up! I’m talking to you, hear?” But he put away the gun. “I’m talking to you!”

I said, “I’m not Jewish, I’m not Jewish!” So he saw, maybe I’m telling the truth for one reason, because he said he’ll shoot me if I say I’m NOT Jewish.

So he said, “OK. Then let me hear your prayers.”

I knew all the prayers. Every one of them. Paternoster, Ave Maria, all of them. Then he said, “Did you go to Church?”

“Yes.”

“With whom?”

“With my mother.” I remembered my maid, and I visualized it. “With my mother.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“We went Sunday morning to church, and we sat down. And then other people came, and they sat down. Then the priest came on a podium, and he started to chant, and he had his hands out like this (spreads arms), and he said, ‘Dominus Vobiscum.’ And we said, ‘Et cum spiritutum’…He said, ‘Oremus.’”

He said, “OK, get out! Let’s go back!”

We went back to my aunt, and he started all over again. But then he stopped suddenly, he said, “Let’s search your stuff.” They opened that suitcase, and one was looking at the lining, and one was looking at the front. And they were mainly looking at the lining, to see if something was there hidden.

Now what I didn’t remember, was that I had a winter coat, and it was like velveteen? And I had had a Jewish star attached to it. Evidently, when I left the ghetto, childlike, I ripped that star off, but, first of all, you could see the outline of that star. Secondly, six points were there, yellow threads. But I didn’t know that I had it. This was the last item on the bottom of the suitcase.

The funny thing was, that there were two guys on one side and one guy on the other. The one who was on the other side was the one who used to look at the front of the coats. He suddenly got up, and he must have gone to the bathroom, because he was only gone 5 minutes. Just then, these two guys took out the velveteen coat, and looking only at the lining, touching touching touching the lining. And I am sitting there and I am seeing those six points of thread. But this guy was in the toilet, evidently.

Oh my God, I thought. Now all they have to do is turn it around, or this guy is going to come…But instead, they took the coat, and with the lining on the outside, he folded it, neatly, and put it against the chair. And just then, the other guy comes back and sits down again! But it was the end of the search.

It was miraculous. I tell you, miraculous!

Now you’re talking about a whole day. They said, “OK, let’s go.” So we got up, and they took us all the way to the cellar. With big keys. So my aunt said, “They’re going to shoot us. Don’t say anything and don’t admit anything.”

They opened the door, and they gave my aunt a certificate of liberty, that she’s not Jewish, and they say, “Go! Go to the Convent.”

I cannot tell you—we looked at each other like…Is this POSSIBLE? Go back to the Convent. And we started to walk, and just then, the door of the headquarters opened and this SS man screams:

“Come back again! Come back!”

And my aunt said, “This is a game they play! They’re going to shoot us, but don’t admit anything no matter what! They’re going to shoot us now!”

next

Part XII

2005-03-06T15:29:00.000-08:00

Now this convent was located next to railroad tracks. Side tracks. So most of the trains were going with soldiers to the Russian front. Passing us, going through Poland to the front. But some trains were Red Cross trains, or rather hospital trains, with soldiers, wounded. When they were wounded, they sometimes used to put them on the side track because they weren’t important enough to be on that main track. They still needed it for the soldiers to go to the front.

So sometimes for a whole day, a train would sit there with soldiers, and we could look through from our window to their window. We could see what the nurses were doing. We could see their faces. And that’s it.

Now, that January 1945 I remember, suddenly the door opened, and out of the blue, 20, 25 SS men came in. It was unbelievable. I said, they’re not coming for us, there are too many! But they were a scary-looking bunch, I tell you.

The Mother Superior was a Nazi. Her brother was an SS man. (She was German, I must point out). And she invited them all for lunch. And they sat down in the dining room, and there was a long table. She was sitting at the head of the table. On each side were SS men. And then a little further down were the other nuns. All German nuns. And I was helping Sister Roberta, and I brought in string beans, all the way to Mother Superior.

And suddenly I heard her say, “Who is on the train?”

And he said, “Jews.”

“You have JEWS on the train??”

“Yes.”

She said, “I thought you were FINISHED with all the Jews already!”

“Don’t worry, we’re taking them from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen and we’re going to finish them off.”

(whispers) I heard it!

I snuck out. I ran to the pig sties where my aunt was working. I said, “There is a train of Jews from Auschwitz! Maybe my mother is there or my sister or my father! Let’s run!”

She ran to the train (it was just…five minutes away). But it wasn’t a regular train. It was a train like a cattle car. And through the slits, we saw just young girls with shaven heads and pajamas. And they were crying, “water…water” in German. It was snowing at that time. And I went over and I said, in Polish, is there anybody by the name of Felicia Silberberg, Mala Silberberg…and they couldn’t understand. So I started to talk German, is there anybody like this, so they said, “No! There are no Polish Jews here. We are a Hungarian transport. There are no Polish Jews in Auschwitz. Give us water give us water!” I went to another car, same story.

So we took the snow, and we started to throw the snow against the grate. Then my aunt says, “You know what? I’ll run down, and get the potatoes from the pigs,” because she was just making boiled potatoes with the peels. “We’ll bring them back.” And we went together and brought a heavy pail of potatoes. We started to squash them and throw them.

Just as we did that, the Polish girl, Irena, came out. She comes over, she takes a look, and she was screaming, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? ARE YOU CRAZY?? You’re taking food from the pigs, and you’re giving it to the Jews?? These are JEWS!! ARE you CRAZY?? I’m going to call the SS!!”

She ran back to the Convent, and she called the SS. And they came running out like wild animals. Screaming, “GET AWAY FROM THAT TRAIN!! These are Jews!! Get AWAY!!” And my aunt was still lingering throwing the potatoes, and he came very close to her. “You LOVE Jews?? I’ll put you on the train! You want to go on the train? Come with me and I’ll put you on the train.” He was going to do it! He was going to open up the train. So we started to run away.

So this is now from the other side. We’re seeing it from the other side. So she ran away. She said, “Come back to the Convent, or he’ll put us on the train.” And that’s it. And then the train took off.

And then I said to my aunt, “What is this? There are no Polish Jews in Auschwitz? That’s where the all went! Where are they? This is our whole family!” So we got very shook up. Because till then, we really didn’t know what was going on. Until it dawned on us, something is very fishy here. Something is terrible. But 100% we didn’t know what happened. Maybe they were evacuated somewhere else. But still it was very bad.

next

Part XI

2005-03-03T19:55:00.000-08:00

So we came there, to the Convent, as workers. I was just a kid. My aunt was the worker, field worker. And because the Convent had a farm and a dispensary, and a small school. But mainly it was a farm. And the nuns were German nuns. And here we had papers that we were Christians. So this was nothing to do with Jews anymore. Just Christians.

I remember before we left Poland, that the woman, where we stayed a few days, she went out and she bought crosses for us. She said wear the crosses, you know, just in case. We did.

Now, when we were in that Convent, I remember that we were told that we were going to sleep with another roommate. Her name was Irena. She was a Polish Christian girl. She was 19 years old. She was very anti-Semitic. And we realized right away that we had to watch our step.

My aunt knew that she had the pictures with her. And she was afraid that this girl was going to discover the pictures. So she said, “You know what? I’m taking these pictures, come with me, we’ll go to the cellar. We’ll put it underneath a rock. But just let’s remember where we put the pictures.”

OK, so the pictures were gone. And the clothes, we left in that suitcase, never unpacked, because most of it was summer clothes. So we just had what was on our backs. Very little clothes. And my aunt started to work there.

Now, the nuns told my aunt, “Look, even though you’re Christians, it makes no difference. Because you are Poles, you are not considered on the level of the Germans. And therefore Rose cannot go to school with German children, because she’s not allowed to sit next to German kids. So therefore, Rose is just going to work in the kitchen.” My aunt said, “Whatever you say, fine.”
So at that time I was still nine years old.

So I was like a busboy..busgirl. I used to help. I remember especially Sister Roberta, she was half-Polish/half-German, so she used to do all the menial work. And cooking. All the lousy stuff. And she used to be my boss. And I used to help her out. Bring string beans to the dining room, and things like that. And we served the nuns.

And, I’ll tell you one thing…life was not bad. If you were Polish and you were a Christian, the Germans didn’t do a thing. As long as you did your work, it was peaceful. It was very pleasant, considering where we came from. From the horror. Here we were among civilized people. So we thought. I mean, they didn’t know who we were, so they were civilized. We used to go for walks. After work on Sunday we went to Church. And it was beautiful.

Now, suddenly, it dawned on my aunt, that she said, “You know, Christmas is going to come? Christmas, do you know what that means?” I said, “What?”

She said, “It means, that something is done on Christmas, which I remember, with a wafer. And I don’t know what. And I’m the oldest among the Polish workers. And if I don’t know what to do, they will know we are Jews.”

There was no library where you could go to find out what do you do on Christmas. It wasn’t America! And you couldn’t ask anybody because you would arouse suspicion. To say, hey, tell me what do you do on Christmas? Forget it. You’re dead!

She was in despair. She started to cry. She said, “I don’t know what to do. We’re going to die.” Over a little technicality!

But, two days before Christmas she says, “I got it! I know! We’re going to assemble Christmas eve. They’ll take out the wafers. I’m going to pick a fight with one of my co-workers, and I’ll run off to my room. You stay behind. You’re the smallest. You watch what they are doing. After the second one does the same thing, you say to them, ‘I’m going for my mother. I don’t want her to be alone on Christmas. I’ll bring her back.’ Come up, tell me what they do, and I’ll come back.”

That’s exactly what happened! I watched, I saw the same thing, and I said I want my mother, and they said, yeah, go get her…I went and I told her and she came back. And then she went over to the worker and she said, “Oh I’m so sorry I picked a fight. I miss Poland, and it’s Christmas…” And the other one said, “I thought you were CRAZY, and I didn’t do a thing to you, and what were you yelling…but OK, I’ll forgive you. It’s Christmas.” They hugged and they kissed; they made up.

Now this is something you don’t anticipate when you are assuming somebody else’s identity. Who thinks of such things? How do I find out what they do on certain holidays?

DP: What did they do?

RS: They were putting the wafer on the tongue. Now I don’t remember what else was going on. But still you had to know what to do with the wafer. What did you do? Bite it? Eat it? Chew it? Spit it? What? You still had to know what to do. It was so important.

Then came something else. It came January 1945. That’s a very important time.

DP: At this point did you have any information about what happened to your family?

RS: Nothing. Not a thing. We didn’t know anything. We used to get propaganda from the radio. We weren’t allowed to listen to the radio as Poles. But we overheard the radio, where they said that Germans are winning on all fronts. Beautiful. Oh, God, you know? But we’re going to stay here for the rest of our lives, that’s what we said. Of course it wasn’t true, but that’s what they said. That’s what we knew. The Germans are winning, and nothing else, and we were not allowed to read newspapers. Even though the nuns were reading, but we were not allowed, and we were afraid to take them, because these were German nuns.

next

Part X

2005-03-02T19:06:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: The others, some of them survived, and some of them were killed. And we went out from that bunker, to look for another bunker.

Since there was curfew, even for Christians, and this was at night, it was very hard, because they could shoot on sight, regardless of who you were. And here we were looking for somewhere to stay overnight. But my uncle, Sam Klapholz, knew someplace. He said, “Come, let’s go.”

We went from one to the other, and stayed one hour. And everywhere we went, the super would say, “Get out of here, because we’ll call the Germans!” and so on. Towards dawn, we finally found another place to stay. And there were a few other people there too. And this Polish woman said, “OK, you can stay here for a few days, and then you have to leave, because I have no room, and I’m scared…” etc. So we stayed there for a few days.

But my uncle went outside, and he met a man from his home town. His name was Baruch Kahane. He was impersonating an SS man. He was in SS uniform, he looked like an SS man, with a gun. And he said to my uncle, “I can get you false papers. Aryan, Christian papers. Tell me how many you need, and I’ll get it for you. But you’ll have to go to Germany on a train. There is a man there who is bought off by us, by the Underground. And he will channel you to go to work for the Germans. In Germany, but at least you’ll be able to survive.

“See me tomorrow, at the same spot. I’ll meet you at the railroad tracks later, and I’ll have a newspaper, and when I have this newspaper you’ll come and just take these.” And they were envelopes with the swastikas stamped on them and false names.

Debbi Portnoy: How did you know that he told this to your uncle?

RS: My uncle told me this. Just recently! He told me this at the time, but I didn’t remember. But recently he said to me, “Remember what happened with Baruch Kahane?”

So Baruch Kahane gave him the papers for himself, for my aunt, and for me. My aunt’s name was Maria Mazur, my name, I was supposed to be her daughter Rosalia Masur, and my uncle was George something.

This Baruch Kahane somehow was discovered. And as he was walking, another SS man shot him dead in the city of Katowice. For his good deed. He shot him dead.

We took the false papers, went on a train to Germany, and on the train, even though it was going from Poland to Germany, you did not need a passport. Once you had something with a swastika, because it was occupied territory, it was all belonging to Germany. But my aunt only had one for herself.

So she said, “You know what, I don’t have a name for you written out here. Go into the toilet because I see the SS are coming.” They were not looking for Jews, because there were no Jews around anymore. They were looking for just, all kinds of spies, this, that…who knows! They just liked to harass people.

And I went into the bathroom, and I hid there. When they passed, my aunt showed them the paper, and they saw the swastika, and they saluted, fine, good. And then she came to the bathroom and let me out.

We were on that train a whole night, and then we got into a city in Germany called Ottmachau.

DP: When did you arrive there?

RS: February 1944.

And we asked where this place was. It was an employment office, but run by the German state. And they told us (because now we were just fine, with the papers with the swastika)—

DP: What did you do about your clothing?

RS: We had the clothing with us. Some clothing, my aunt took like in a little suitcase.

She did something else yet, which is important that you ask. She was ready for escape, in case of escape. So she had a coat, and inside the coat she had the pictures, which you’ll see later, of Jews with beards, her father, my grandfather, with peyes and so on. These pictures were dangerous. Once you were out of the bunker, if you had these pictures, you gave yourself away. But she had these pictures because she knew these are pictures you cannot replace. So she took her coat with this.

And she had like a little suitcase, and she threw in everything that was like lying around, because you had to do that fast, get out of there. Because we figured the SS will come back. Which they normally would just to clean up the place, take everything away. 1-2-3 in a little suitcase. So we had that. So I had the suitcase, and she had the pictures, and that’s it.

We came to Ottmachau, and this German, his name was Nedza. He was an ethnic German but he was also speaking Polish. And he said to my aunt, “Look, I have a place for you on a farm.” Rattmansdorf was the name of the farm, and he sent us there.

At that time they used to send Polish workers to replace German workers. Especially German men, who were sent to the front. They were all in the army. Except for once in a while you saw a German man who was overseeing a few farms, let’s say. Overseeing the workers.

Now, this one German, I remember, took such a dislike to my aunt, that he started to beat her. And he broke her thumb. And she started to have an infection, and she was in such agony, that she went back to this Nedza, and said, “Look, can you find me another place? Because this man is going to kill me! He beats me every day.” So he said ok.

And he found us a place in a Convent.

next

Mrs. Cicha

2005-03-02T06:39:00.000-08:00

The following is a translation of several letters about Mrs. Cicha, which was forwarded to me by my cousin, Goldie Wachsman Maxwell, Aunt Sara's daughter.

Here's an exerpt from the email she sent me:

Dear Mark,
Hope you are well and getting some sleep -- I gather you are
transcribing after work and it's a time consuming effort.
I've been tracking
each installment and am sending you some relevant information about Stanislawa
Cicha. These letters were originally in Polish and I had them translated by an
archivist at Yad Vashem who was born in Lvov and educated in Poland. The English
is quite good but not perfect.
One letter from Mrs. Biesam--(I don't know if
your mother's story takes her experience into account. Mrs. Biesam was in the
bunker too, where she discovered she was pregnant--after 11 years of
childlessness. Already widowed, she had a miscarriage in the bunker, my mother
had to serve as "midwife." Hygiene being less than perfect in that bunker, Mrs.
Biesam became infected and had to be seen by a doctor and then hospitalized.
Four weeks later the bunker was discovered)--refers to Cicha's courage and her
right to the status of Righeteous Gentile. The other letters are from Halina
Furgalinska, a friend of Cicha's, who describes her last days and her final
request to be buried with a picture of my mother. There are numerous references
to Mrs. Rozia, and I think that is your mother. I also have a few letters
written by Cicha herself.

Goldie

Letter of Ms. Regina Biesam from Hertzliya to Mrs. Wachsman
November 30, 1963
Dear Mrs. Wachsman!
Let me inform you that I forwarded the article concerning Mrs. Cicha to the newspaper. Enclosed please find a copy of the article. I wanted to mail you a clip from this newspaper, but I sent to Mrs. Cicha a month ago. then I received a letter from her telling me that the newspaper was confiscated in Warsaw. She asked for another clip because she would like to use it for a kind of rents. She told me that she had mailed you a newspaper from Poland with her story written by Mr. Feder, Fela Katz’s brother-in-law [¼]
[omitted irrelevant text. – MSh.]
Sincerely,
Biesam

[Text of the article copied by Regina Biesam for Mrs. Wachsman]
A DEED OF HIGHEST NOBLENESS
Lately, it is being much written and spoken on the noble Poles that saved Jews during the occupation.
To their bevy belongs also Mrs. Stanis_awa Cicha from Sosnowiec (Dzielnicza street 29), who risked her life hiding in her dwelling 16 Jews. I was among the hidden. It happened in 1943 when a general deportation of Jews took place. My husband has already been taken away. I survived by miracle because Mrs. Stanis_awa Cicha sheltered me. When I found myself in her apartment, I learned that I wasn’t the only one whom this noble lady saved. Everyone who came at night and knocked at the window of her apartment found his or her asylum. Some of the Jews protested against a large quantity of the people, which could cause their give-away. Mrs. Cicha answered them that human beings want to live. She was secretly buying ration cards. She did her best that we would not suffer from hunger. One day I fell badly ill. I had sepsis after an accident. At night she took me to a confidential physician that after examination at once referred me to a hospital for operation. We were running out of time. Mrs. Cicha procured for me the Aryan papers.
During my stay at the hospital this woman skated on very thin ice visiting me and bringing me food that I would recover as soon as possible. It lasted for about two months because I had post-operational complications. Some time later, my hide was revealed. The Gestapo arrested 7 persons together with Mrs. Cicha. The rest of the people hid in the next room under the floor. Next day, they came out of this hide. Nowadays, part of the survivors live in America and in Germany. Mrs. Cicha went through real hell; she was in camps. It is a miracle that that after all the tortures she is still alive. She survived owing to our evidence that we terrorized her and therefore she had to shelter us though she wanted to inform the Gestapo about our hide. The Germans sent her to Ravensbr_ck. Until now her health is destroyed.
She fully deserves the right to be recognized as Righteous among the Nations in order to reward her for her noble bearing during the war, for saving the Jews while risking her life owing to which she experienced so much.
Regina Biesam
Nof-Yam 12
Hertzliya

Letter of unknown person to Mrs. Wachsman notifying her on Mrs. Cicha’s death
Dear Mrs. Sala,
I take the liberty to address to you like this because through all the talks with Mrs. Cicha you became very dear to me and I feel as if you were Mrs. Cicha’s daughter as I heard so many warm words about you during her last moments. I must inform you about Mrs. Cicha’s death. She passed away on October 24, 1980. We lost a woman with great heart whom we loved very much and who was and still is very close to our hearts and left in them wound that do not close up. Until now I cannot stop crying because I lost a great friend, a life guide, a very intimate person. I read to Mrs. Cicha your letters; you guessed right that she was unwell. Right after your leave she was unwell, she caught cold and kept on suffering from flu. I took Mrs. Cicha to the best private physician; it was differently – sometimes better, sometimes worse. We fully supported her. She would come for breakfast and stay till the evening or run the house. Later on, she complained on pains in her left side. The doctor said it was intestinal. Meanwhile, arose sciatica, acute joint pain after those camps that she went through. Because of the pain, she couldn’t lie, sit or walk. To diminish her sufferings, we massaged her with ointments, etc. Later on, her condition deteriorated. I brought home a surgeon. He said he would try an operation. We prepared blood, taken all necessary examination; it should have been an operation under local anesthesia, but in the last minute Mrs. Cicha changed her mind. Her health condition deteriorated, she was unable to get up, had problems with the stool and suffered from acute pain. I made her analgesic injections twice a day and pills in the meanwhile. Then came problems with swallowing, she ate less as after meals she suffered from acute pain and screamed day and night. I was doing my best trying to save Mrs. Cicha. I lived through her disease and her death as I could. It was so terrible that I didn’t look a human being, until now I cannot get over. I became very attached and couldn’t think quietly about what had to come. Her death was horrible because she died of hunger, she didn’t eat for 10 days, and she couldn’t swallow liquids. She lost consciousness half an hour before she died. She seized me by my neck when I leaned over her; she loved me very much and kept me by my hand. I didn’t leave Mrs. Cicha for a while. I took a leave and took care of her with my mother. Mrs. Cicha felt uneasy that I had to do some unpleasant things, but I told her she should feel Mrs. Sala doing that because if she were not so far away she would have done that. But life is a very cruel thing - one must live on. We buried her body in her family vault. We put your photograph into the coffin as she wanted that. We are missing her and wish she had lived at least one more year, even sick. We visit her in the cemetery; she’s not alone as she wished. She will always be close to all of us, to those whom she loved so much.
If I missed something in this letter, please let me know, I will write you gladly.
Thank you very much for your holiday regards.
Sincerely,
[signature illegible. – MSh.]

Letter of Halina Furgali_ska from Sosnowiec to Mrs. Wachsman mailed also after Mrs. Cicha’s death, probably 1980 or early 1981
Dear Mrs. Sala,
Please receive my hearty thanks for your kindness about which I learned from Mrs. Cicha. I didn’t answer your letter as I was waiting for the parcel to arrive in order to acknowledge its receipt. I don’t know how I will repay you. The parcel moved me so much that I cried.
I want you to know that Mrs. Rózia was also very dear to Mrs. Cicha. I brought Mrs. Cicha to the bank to draw the bonds [in communist countries, there were special bills called bonds, given instead of Western currency deposited or transferred to bank accounts that could be cashed in special shops as Western currency was not permitted. – MSh], she spoke highly also about Mrs. Rózia’s kind heart and her help. She loved you much. I didn’t write you as I didn’t know about your mutual attachment; she asked me not write you before her death “because those my children may cry and will be crying for a long time when I am away”: she didn’t let me write letters as she was badly ill. Until her last days she couldn’t stop enjoying your visit here. She was worried about your health as then it was quite cold. I love Mrs. Cicha, I go to the cemetery, her tomb is always clean, I bring flowers, candles, and when I feel uncomfortable I go to the cemetery and cry there and return as if I am another person, quiet, Mrs. Cicha as if by God’s will brings me will-power. I believe we will meet some time if I am noble as Mrs. Cicha.
I visited the cathedral in Cz_stochowa [the most famous and adored among the Poles, the Jasnogórski Cathedral of Our Holy Virgin in Cz_stochowa. – MSh.], I paid for the mass for Mrs. Cicha’s soul. Her property was divided between her intimate friends. I received her house, we are busy with connecting water, we should do something with it, and I received some clothes too. If you or Mrs. Rózia come on a visit here, please consider this house as yours too, I will receive you heartily, to my best, modestly but warmly. Dear Mrs. Sala, you write wonderful Polish without mistakes, and each your letter is a holiday for me. Our Lord will reward you and Mrs. Rózia hundred times for the kindness of your hearts. Thank you for the dresses from Mrs. Cicha, I think they were yours.
I wish you and all your family all the happiness in the world. God bless you!
Halina

[P.S.] I read my letter once more and understood that I cannot write well and express all my feelings, but I think you would understand me.

Part IX

2005-02-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

Debbi Portnoy: Mrs. Skier, what was the first thing your uncles said to you when they saw you?

Rose Silberberg-Skier: They were amazed. They were amazed at my story. They were amazed that I could survive! That I could even escape! They couldn’t believe it! But they knew the terrain; they knew what I was talking about. And I said, that the aunt will come too. And I said there was another aunt, that will probably also come. And this policeman, Feder, will probably also come. And that’s what happened.

They all came, and then some other people…all total we were about seventeen people in that chicken coop. Can you imagine that? Unbelievable. Very crowded, but there was no choice.

DP: How did you spend your time there?

RS: My time was spent sitting doing absolutely nothing, because you were not allowed to talk. You were not allowed to move. Simply because she was living alone…and that neighbor, Dudwauka, was one in a million. She had nothing to do all day long. She used to sit at the window and watch the street. She knew everything that was going on on that block. And she disliked the Polish woman, Mrs. Cicha, particularly, because Mrs. Cicha was not Polish. She was Lithuanian. She was a Catholic, but she was Lithuanian.

And she was very modern, in that she was married, and her husband drank and used to beat her. So she divorced him. That was unheard of in Poland. Divorce?? So people said, “How dare you get divorced! When I get beaten up, and I don’t divorce my husband!” You know, they were really jealous of her. She was so independent!

And she remarried. The second husband was working in Germany. So she had no friends. So this Dudwauka, she hated her altogether. And she started to make these remarks like, “I think you have some Jews living with you…” This was the worst thing you could tell somebody. If you wanted to curse them, you would say, “You have Jews living in your house.”

And she used to say, “I don’t have Jews, because I don’t know any Jews. You have Jews but I don’t know Jews.” And this is how they used to fight. But still you had to be very careful.

So we were doing absolutely nothing. We used to whisper. It was very boring. My aunt told me (and I remember too), we had two slices of bread a day. That’s what we got. I used to cut them in a hundred pieces, each slice. And then, every ten minutes I would take a piece. So I ate all day long. And she was very angry, because she said, “If somebody knocks on the door, we have to hide, and they’ll find these pieces, and they’ll know somebody was here. Eat up and be done with it!” She had no patience just to watch me. Nothing doing. This was my occupation. Just to sit there doing nothing.

But in January 1944, suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and the Polish family that had taken my sister brought her back. And they said, they loved her, they loved her very much, but they said, “We have to bring her back, because she has brown eyes and brown hair. And that means she’s Jewish. And the neighbors are threatening us. They’re saying, ‘We’re going to call the Germans, you’ve got a Jewish child.’”

And this family said that this was a “niece,” because everybody knew that they only had two sons. “No, it’s a Jewish child, and we’re going to call the Gestapo.” And after a while they got very scared. So she was 4 years old, 4 ½.

Now, when she was taken away, at least a year and a half before, she was just a baby. But when she saw me, she ran over to me, and she said, “I am not allowed to say this to ANYBODY, but to you I will.” And right into my ear she said, “I’m Jewish, and my name is Malka. And you’re my sister Rozia.” She knew that too. I could flip out! She was so smart! I loved her! She was just amazing.

And she spoke (whispered) with a Polish peasant accent. The Jews never spoke like that. She sounded so cute! And she used to sing in a whisper. And knew all the words of songs, and everything.

I said later, even after the War, I said to my aunt, “How did she know that she’s Jewish?” A baby, of three? So my aunt said when she used to be the courier, she used to bring the money to pay off. Even when my father and mother were gone, they had left money, to pay for the Polish woman where we were hiding, plus for my sister. So she used to go once a month, and pay. And my aunt didn’t arouse any suspicion. She could move among the population. She was one of them.

So she said, “When I came there, once a month, I used to take her aside, and whisper to her a few things, like don’t forget who you are, and things like that.” Just in case we should all get killed, she should know one day. So she said she had like a booster shot.

DP: Did she recognize you when she first saw you?

RS: Immediately! She came over to me, she was running.

So this family…in fact they cried when they left, they said, “We’re so sorry!” And that Kazek, that boy, he was in tears. He loved that kid. “But we have to leave her, we cannot help it.” It wasn’t as if they had thrown her on the street. They brought her to her family, they brought her to the hiding place, and they left. And there she was with us.

Five weeks went by. In that time, the Polish woman brought us boxes, from cigarette cartons and we used to cut it up and make playing cards. These cards, my sister was sketching the animals, and I put the numbers in. Because she was like 4 years old. These cards were found after the war and they are now in the museum, and I will see them on Sunday. They are being exhibited.

At one time I remember she started to climb into the attic, back and forth, back and forth. This was just the day before she was caught, and I’ll never forget that I slapped her. And later I was so sorry that I gave her a big slap.

In February 1944 in the middle of the night, suddenly, there was screaming going on. The SS came to get us. At first, when she (Mala) was brought, there were two uncles, one from my mother’s side and one from my father’s side.

DP: What were their names?

RS: The one from my mother’s side was Samuel Klapholz, he’s the one from the NY Times (editor’s note: An article in the NY Times regarding life insurance policies taken out in pre-War Poland).

And I’d rather not mention the other one. Just that he was a Silberberg, but not the first name. This is what they did. They said just in case something happens, we have to make arrangements, as a precautionary measure. If someone knocks on the door, or the Germans come, that we should take care of these children. So Samuel Klapholz was going to throw me into the sub-bunker, and the other uncle was going to throw my sister. And then run off through the window. And close the bunker. And this they were even sometimes discussing with us. They said, “Look, if something happens, you go with Uncle Sam, and you go with this uncle. And they’ll throw you in.”

And this is what happened in the middle of the night in February. Terrible screaming going on. “OPEN UP OPEN UP OPEN UP!!” And the SS came in full gear, and just as they were coming, and we heard it (we were all sleeping, it was midnight), my uncle Samuel Klapholz took me, and threw me into that sub-bunker. He even took my Aunt Sara and another aunt into the bunker. And he ran out.

Now, the one who was supposed to take care of my sister panicked. He ran out, and he left her lying on the floor, sleeping.

We were in that sub-bunker. We could see everything through the slits. The SS came with full gear, with tremendous flashlights, and they were shining it right into her eyes and this is how she woke up. You’re talking about a four year-old child, waking up and looking at the SS, and she knew who SS are. And they said, “GET UP!!” And she saw this and she started to cry.

“Where is my sister!! Where is my Aunt (whom she knew)?? Where is my Aunt Sara, where is my sister??” And they said “Come on! You’re coming with us!”

I cannot tell you…I was there, just beneath…(breaks down)

This has haunted me all my life…I couldn’t help her…they were just grabbing her in her pajamas. They took her to prison…in February. You know what that was? She was just 4 ½ years old. I heard her say, “where’s my sister, where’s my sister” and she left.

They took the others too. They took Mrs. Cicha and they arrested her. And they took them all to Auschwitz. Except for my Uncle. After they had left, my Uncle Sam came back through the window, which was very brave, and opened that drawer for us and took us out. Because had he not done it, let’s say had he said, “Well why should I go back, if an SS man is waiting there?” Then we would have died there, we would have suffocated.

But he came. He was very brave. He opened it, and we all came out.

Now what happened to my sister, is that they were all going to Auschwitz. Mrs. Cicha was a Christian, so they separated the Jews from the Christians. She went to the Christian part of Auschwitz. They did not kill the Christians. Whatever they did, they definitely did not kill Christian children. This was never done that they would just round up [non-Jewish] children and kill them. They took the Jewish children with the adults.

But for a little while, for a few days, she was together with Mrs. Cicha. Before they separated, before they realized who was who etc. But the story goes, and after the war I heard from other people, and Mrs. Cicha, that an SS man heard that she could sing beautifully.

And he came, and he put her on the table, (and she was just a little kid), and he said, “Sing.” And she was singing. And he gave her candy. The next day he came back and he put her again on the table and said, “Sing.” And he gave her candy.

On the third day, he did the same thing. He put her on the table, he said, “Sing,” and as she was singing he took out a revolver and he shot her DEAD, right in the back of her head. He just blew her brains out. And he killed her. That’s what happened to my sister.

next

Part VIII

2005-02-26T19:45:00.000-08:00

So I was in those weeds, and I saw that I was a little further off, I said to myself, “I’ll cross the tracks. I’ll try.”

And I was about to go into the ravine which would lead me up. Some Polish teenage kids came with a dog, and screamed, “A JEW is ESCAPING from the GHETTO!!” If I tell you that I looked like a puny nothing. And the dog was barking and started to bite me. I was so scared!

But I said, “You are the JEWS!! You are the JEWS!!” I was like hysterical. And my aunt was still in the hospital, watching this. And the other people were watching it. It was like a show. They were all seeing what is going to happen to me.

Suddenly I saw a woman, dressed all in white, and she was approaching me. Where she came from, God knows. She didn’t come from the ghetto, and she didn’t come from the tracks. I don’t know. She was there.

And she was saying to the kids, “Get away from her! She’s a Catholic! Don’t you see that? Get away!” So they looked at her, and they got away from me. They went back to the Christian side. And she said to me, “Follow me. I’ll show you the bridge.”

So I said, “Can I take your hand?”

She said, “NO!”

“Can I go home with you?”

“Get away from me! Do you want them to get me too?? I’ll just show you the bridge.”

So I just followed her and followed her. And she was all dressed in white. And suddenly she said, “Go a little further up. To the left there is a bridge. Cross over to the Christian side.”

And I looked, then I looked back. She was gone. She was GONE! She just disappeared. My aunt saw this, and she said, “Where did she go? I was looking and she disappeared!” She said she looked like an angel from heaven! She disappeared!

Well, I continued, and I went to the bridge, and there was no SS. I crossed over to the other side and I was saying: “My father is going to be so proud of me! That I managed to do this!” And I started to pick flowers, a bunch of flowers.

Now this is all taking 5 hours, all total. Suddenly, the kids with the dog were there, and they were screaming, “She is here, the Jew is here! Let’s get her now!” They were on the Christian side. They belonged there.

And just then the streetcar came, I hopped on the car, and off I went. And they were left behind. I didn’t go inside the streetcar, but on the outer side. I was facing out, with my back to the people, because the back (of my dress) was not dirty. The front was very dirty. And people were still looking at me like this. There was something very strange about me.

I had a rash, because in those four weeks, we had so little water, and we couldn’t wash, and the sweat was all over, so I had a rash. And here I was so dirty. I looked disgusting. And I knew it.

So, 5 stops later I got off. At this point I totally blacked out. I had no idea where to go. I didn’t remember a thing. After what I had gone through already, I didn’t remember. What did she say to me? But I knew the address. I knew the street number, and the name was Ulica Dziewicza 29.

So I saw an old man. I figured, I’ll ask. I said, “Where is the street Dziewicza?”

And he looked at me and he said, “Are you a JEW?” So I was afraid already to discuss it, so I ran away. I said that’s it. I can’t ask anybody. And then he left.

I went back to that spot where I got off to remember the directions. She had said, “When you get off you do this and that…” I stood there. I was so desperate that I started to remember. And I went there, to the right house. The only thing is, they didn’t have numbers. G-d forbid they should have numbers! And I didn’t know the house. I had never seen it from the front. Always from the back door. But I figured I’d take a chance.

And I screamed, “Mrs. Cicha, I have alterations!” And I heard the dog barking. I figured that’s it, this is the right house.

She opened the door, and she looked at me like, “Oh my G-d!” She said, “Come in before anybody sees you!” And she brought me in. And she said, “What is going on??”

My uncles were there. One was my mother’s brother, and one was my father’s brother. And they said, “What happened, what happened??” And of course I told them what happened. Terrible things happened, that’s what happened. The whole ghetto was dissolved, everybody was practically dead…

next

Part VII

2005-02-24T19:44:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: I was so petrified, so scared…that I fell asleep, standing up like that, in a trance. And he was screaming—I could hear the screams—but I just slept. And my aunt was shaking me. She said, “Wake up! Wake up! He’s going to SHOOT us!” So finally I woke up, and we went down.

And when we went down, they took us to an assembly place. It was formerly a hospital, within the ghetto. It was a ghetto in the ghetto. It was by itself. Overlooking the railroad tracks. He took us there.

And I remember, on the way, there was one SS man, his name was Donenberg. He hated that mother of the baby something vicious. He had a whip, and he whipped her so much it was unbelievable. And she said to him, “Let me go…will you let me go?” I don’t know—she was out of her mind by that time. And the more she talked, the more he whipped her.

He finally brought us all into that hospital. He put us on the 3rd floor. And when we got there, there were other people there who evidently also had been hiding and were caught. And they told us that every Wednesday, a van would come, sometimes buses, and take everyone to Auschwitz.

So this was Sunday. They said, in three days they’re going to come for us. Now, when we looked out from that window, since it was right next to the railroad tracks, we could see the Christian side of town. But there was nothing we could do since it was totally surrounded. That hospital was totally surrounded by SS, and the ghetto. So this is now the hospital inside, outside on every floor, and in the yard, and also on the tracks. I mean we were just totally surrounded.

But my aunt said to me like this: “Do you want to live?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “If you want to live, you must escape, because if you don’t, you’ll go to Auschwitz and you are a kid. You’ll die.”

Debbi Portnoy: How did they know for sure you’ll die? Did they know at this point?

RS: At this point there were rumors already coming through that people were dying. So she knew it. But she knew also that some people went to work. She was an able bodied woman. But children? No. So that’s why she talked to me like this.

So I said, “How can I escape?”

She said, “You’ll try your best. Try to jump around like a kid does from floor to floor. See if you can get down to the main floor.”

And then, she showed me there were weeds, very high weeds there, right outside the building. “See if you can just jump into the weeds, and stay like that. And little by little, in those weeds, start to get away from this building. Maybe it will take you a long time. Try to get out of the ghetto. If you can see at any point that there are no SS on the tracks, go on the other side.

“I have 35 pfennings (which was like cents) and there is a streetcar going on the Christian side. Once you hit the other side, there’s a streetcar. It’s 35 pfennings. I’ll give it to you. It’s exact. Get on it and go 5 stops. Get off.”
And she started to describe for me, from there, how to go to the Polish woman’s house.

Of course, I didn’t know what the house looked like from the front. But I remembered that she used to do alterations, and she didn’t have a bell. She did have a bell, but it never rang. She did it on purpose so that we had time to hide. And people used to call out, “Mrs. Cicha, I have alterations, open up!” Then she would open up, let them in. By that time, we were already in the chicken coop hiding.

So my aunt said, “When you go there, just scream out, ‘Mrs. Cicha, I have alterations,’ and she’ll open up for you.

Now this was the plan. Now the idea how to go down, this was another story. And we had 3 days to do it. So I started to skip and hop and do this, and the 35 cents I was holding on. And each time I started the SS man would say, “UP! Upstairs! What are you doing here! Go up again!” And it was no dice.

But one Jewish Policeman, his name was Feder, saw me doing this. And he realized that if I’m trying so hard, and my aunt is trying so hard to let me escape, I must have somewhere to go. I must have a hiding place. Because what’s the use of escaping? A little child going nowhere?

So he approached my aunt, and he said, “Look. I have a feeling that you have a hiding place on the Christian side. If you do, if you let me know where it is, I have a wife and I’d like to escape with my wife to a hiding place. I will let your niece somehow go. I will talk to the SS man, and I will make it so that his attention will be diverted, and she can skip back and forth until she can go down and hide in the weeds.”

Now this was a very iffy situation. First of all, in that bunker, already my other uncles were there. My other uncles had escaped there. We knew that they were there. Secondly, what if he was a traitor, and he would just betray the bunker? She was scared. She didn’t know the man. But somehow, he sounded so sincere that she thought she would take a chance.
So she said alright, and she gave him the name of the woman and the address. She really had palpitations when she did that. And he said, “I’ll let you escape too.” Because she also had to escape.

And he did. How he did it, I don’t know. But I remember when he said, “Move,” I moved. And I went fast as can be. And the SS were here and there and he was taking me by the hand as if he were leading me somewhere, as if under the SS auspices. And I jumped into the weeds, and I was in the weeds.

Now the SS were all around. They were on the tracks. They could really see the weeds. But I was so skinny, after those four weeks of eating practically nothing, that I was just covered by the weeds, like a rabbit. And they didn’t see me.

Now my aunt also told me something else. She said, “Listen, first of all, go like a mile approximately, then there is a little bridge. If there are no SS on the bridge, cross over. And when you go on the other side, start picking flowers, and you have to have flowers to cover the dirt. Because this was Sunday, and the dirt was such from the weeds and everything, that I would arouse suspicion. Because this was a Catholic country. On Sunday, all children were clean and going to Church. Nobody was running around, dirty, filthy like this, a kid alone someplace on a streetcar. Nobody. They would know that it’s a Jew.

So she told me what to do. She didn’t give me a time limit, but within reason. Pick flowers, get on the streetcar, go. So I was in those weeds, and I saw that I was a little further off, I said to myself, “I’ll cross the tracks. I’ll try.”
And I was about to go into the ravine which would lead me up. Some Polish teenage kids came with a dog, and screamed, “A JEW is ESCAPING from the GHETTO!!”

next

Part VI

2005-02-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: I remember that my father said, “In case you cannot leave, here is a piece of paper with an address. There is another bunker in the ghetto. It’s in an attic, with the entrance hidden by a chandelier. Try to get there and hide. And when the ghetto is dissolved, try to escape and go back to the Polish woman.”

So we went to that bunker. That place had about 16 people there. There was a ladder there, on the side, and she (aunt Sara) was knocking. And he gave her, I think, a sign how to do it. Because nobody was in that apartment. And they opened the chandelier and we just went up.

Debbi Portnoy: Can you describe how the chandelier opened?

RS: It came down. They had it in such a way that from upstairs they would lower the chandelier. And you could go in, and then they would take it up again and evidently hook it up inside. I would imagine. 100% I am not sure. This is how I remember the chandelier opened up. And we went in.

And it was Hell on Earth in that place. It was so Hellish. It was so hot. It was an attic and it was summer. It was terrible. And there was no water. They had stored some water, but basically they were counting on rain, which normally it rained, but it did not rain. It was a drought. Very little food. The food was mainly dried beans. And I remember that they had bread which was so moldy it was blue.

And that was it. Because actually it was made in such a way, just to wait out until the ghetto was dissolved, say 2 or 3 days. And then, get out of there. So we stayed there, and somehow the ghetto was still going on, it wasn’t dissolved completely.

Actually, the people were deported, but they had about 800 people, Jews, who worked as commandos under the SS. They used to go from house to house, and pack up everything that the Jews had left behind, and these things were being shipped to Germany. It was looting, plain and simple. Furniture, bedding, clothes, you name it. Household goods. And these 800 Jews, as long as they had this work, they were safe. They knew that eventually they would be the last ones, but they would go also.

So they used to pass our place, and we used to hear (because we couldn’t see anything) but we used to hear them pass, and the Germans shouting, and the dogs and all that. But they never caught us because they weren’t looking for us. We were inside a house.

I remember, suddenly a couple came in, also like this, out of the blue. With a baby. The woman had long reddish hair; it went really up to her waist. A very pretty woman with green, green eyes. The man was dark haired. She was 24; he was 26. And the baby was blond and blue-eyed, like a little doll. She was eight months old. She was cute as a button. But the mother had no milk, and the baby started to cry bitterly. Cry and cry. And she used to rock that baby and rock that baby. There was nothing you could do. That baby was so hungry. And there was no milk. And they waited, they said maybe it’s going to rain and she could have some water. Nothing doing. And that baby cried and cried.

And finally—I wasn’t privy to it, they discussed these things privately, in a corner—they decided that the baby has to be brought down, because if the SS come with the commandos all around, they’re going to hear the baby cry, they will say where is this crying coming from…they will look for us.

So they implored the father to bring the baby into the garden. As soon as it rains, then she’ll start to drink, she’ll have milk for the baby, then we’ll bring the baby back, then maybe we’ll escape from this place, etc.

Very reluctantly, he brought the baby down. He put the baby in the garden, he came upstairs, and he drilled a hole in the wall of that attic, in the side. It was like a lookout. All day long he sat at the hole, watching that baby. The baby was crying. On and off, because sometimes it went to sleep. It was dehydrated.

For three days this baby cried like that. Suddenly, the crying stopped. So he ran down to see what happened. The baby was dead. This man came, he went berserk when he came up. And he was saying, “What did I do! And what did you make me do? My baby was killed!!”

So we weren’t sure if that baby had died of “natural causes” or hunger, or whether it was slashed, because the SS used to come through and slash kids like that. Whatever it was, he said, “I don’t want to live in this world anymore! I want to give myself up!” And he said, “I’m not going to be able to live with myself, what I did to my baby! She died all alone!”

So his wife, her name was Frieda, said, “What are you going to accomplish? Don’t give yourself up! What is done is done! You can’t help it now!”

He said, “I don’t want to live and I’m giving myself UP!” And he lowered the chandelier and he jumped out. And he ran.

Now, evidently he was followed, or spotted. Somebody saw him coming out of that house. Probably an SS man. Because 4 weeks had gone by already, and the ghetto was dissolved for 4 weeks. Where did this man come from? He had to be hiding somewhere. I know that he would never go and deliberately denounce us.

After a few hours, we heard noises downstairs. And they opened the chandelier just slightly to see, and a man was running there, back and forth, and then the SS came. We heard screeeaaaming… "Jews!! Open the chandelier and come out! We know you are in there! Do it now or we are going to shoot you all!!”

And we opened the chandelier and there were dogs, and those dogs were barking. It was horrifying. And when they opened the chandelier, I remember that I went to the opening, and as I looked down, I saw an SS man pointing a gun, right at my eyes.

next

Part V

2005-02-22T20:12:00.000-08:00

Rose-Silberberg Skier: And as far as going back to the ghetto, as I was saying, the last time that I left her place was with my aunt. My aunt came to get me, and we went through back ways.

It was a Friday, for the Sabbath, and my birthday. And when I got to the place, we were so happy to see each other, my mother and I.

That night, was when the Germans surrounded the ghetto with SS men. Practically, from what I could see, every yard. The whole ghetto was surrounded. And when we got up Saturday morning—we were like in a little valley, and there was a hill above, we had no curtains—and they were looking at us with guns pointed at our window. And our windows were open. And we thought, “What is THIS?” And then my father went and he said the whole ghetto is surrounded. And not only that, but they didn’t let my father go to the synagogue. They didn’t let anybody out. Everybody had to stay indoors.

And then they came with loudspeakers:

“All the Jews have to go to the railroad tracks. You’ll go to work. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.” Something like that. It was very bad.

So my father had made a bunker even in that ghetto. And it was in the stove. They dug out underneath. So it looked like you were going into the stove. And underneath was like a cellar. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. So my father said “let’s go in there and hide.”

But of course, what they didn’t realize, is that the SS could see everything. We had no way to hide, really. And they saw us going into that bunker. And they came running from that hill. And they were saying, “JEWS!! Get out! Get out of that stove!” And we were lucky that they didn’t shoot us. Just then they weren’t in the mood for shooting.

So we got out. And they said, “OUT! And go to the railroad tracks!”

Now my father and my mother were saying this was terrible. But what’s more, they realized that children would probably not go to work, but be killed. There was already the rumor. So they felt bad that, here, I’m only one day here, and they made me come, and I probably won’t survive, under normal circumstances.

(click to watch video)

But I know that my father was very religious and he took me aside and he said, “The Torah says, that in cases of peril or emergency you should ask a small child for advice. I’m asking you. Do you think we should go to the railroad tracks, or should we try to hide in this ghetto, and see if we could get out and get back to the bunker? They say we are going to go to work.”

So I remember what I said. I said: “If you think you’re going to work, go to the tracks. If you think that they will not give you work but will kill you, stay here and look for a bunker.”

So my father was thinking and he said: “You know what? I will go with your mother to the tracks, because we are young and we will probably go to work. You stay with your aunt.” Because my aunt Sara had Aryan papers. And she said she would try to get out of the ghetto legally, because she had these Christian papers and she looked very Christian, so that was no problem.

He said, “Let her take you out, as a child, and try to go back to Mrs. Cicha, to the bunker. And then we’ll probably all survive.” And this is what happened. So they went to the tracks, and suddenly they’re back. The trains were so full, they said you have to come tomorrow. So it was kind of a hopeful sign. Maybe that’s it. Maybe they’ll change their minds. They did not.

That night, I remember my mother said to me, “Come, I’m going to cut your hair. Because I don’t know when I’m going to see you again. I don’t want you to get lice.” (I had long braids). And she cut my hair, and she told me, keep yourself clean, and all this, and probably I’ll see you again. But it was very sad when she was cutting my hair. It’s something that stayed with me. (cries)

DP: Did she say anything else to you?

RS: She was just hugging me and kissing me…but the next day my father said: “I want to talk to you.” He said, “Always remember that you are a Jew. Whatever happens, remember that. And whatever happens, remember you name. Because I hope we all will survive. But in case you don’t see me, and you survive, go to Jerusalem, because we have a cousin there, and his name is Tzemach Silberberg. The street is Alfassi 31, Jerusalem.”

And he made me repeat it many times. I was nine years old so I could repeat it. Alfassi 31 Jerusalem. “And you tell him your name is Silberberg, and you tell him who you are, and he will take you in.” That was so sad for me (crying).

Then we got dressed. My mother I remember put a kerchief on, which she normally didn’t wear a kerchief. She put a kerchief on, and she left the hut with my father. And we actually left together. My aunt and I, and my father and mother. To the tracks was to one side, and to go to the gate where the SS were standing guarding the ghetto was another side, just the opposite direction.

And I remember my father turned around, and I turned around to look. And I wanted so much my mother should turn around—but she didn’t. She just walked straight away. That was the last time I ever saw them.

After that, my aunt and I went to the gate. And as we were approaching the gate the SS man was screaming, “Get away from here! Go back into the ghetto!”

And my aunt said, “Look! I have papers!” And she took out the papers. “Look! I’m a Christian! Take a look! Take a look!”

He said, “What? You’re a Catholic? And what are you doing in this ghetto? I’m going to shoot you!” And he pointed a gun to shoot. And we went back. We couldn’t get out.

next

Part IV

2005-02-21T14:39:00.000-08:00

DP: So, describe the first day that your parents took you to the bunker.

RS: When they took me to the bunker (it had to be 1943) they stayed with me. As long as my parents stayed with me, what happened was, that sometimes we left the chicken coop, and went up to…she had hay up on top, in an attic or something. And as long as we stayed in the hay, she had a little lookout. We could see the outside. Barely, but we could see the outside. So we used to look there and see what’s going on in the world.

And at that time, I remember my parents used to teach me how to spell, they used to teach me how to multiply. Not only it kept me busy, but it also taught me things. So I wasn’t even behind, practically.

But when my parents left, it was nothing but loneliness. I used to just sit there. But even though I was lonely, I became the type of person that, later on, could be always alone. My kids say, “Oh, you like to be alone.” Really I don't like to be alone, but I know how to be alone. I just…daydreamed. And I used to sit and daydream for hours. And this stayed with me later on, many years later on. Whatever happened, if I was sad, I used to daydream. And it kept me alive, because otherwise I would have been just crying all the time.

DP: Did you have any information about what was going on outside the bunker or outside the ghetto?

RS: Not when I was alone. When my parents were there, then the Polish woman would discuss with them, “I heard such and such is going on.” Or sometimes you could hear the shooting and all this. Or there’s another transport that left for Auschwitz, something like that.

DP: Mrs. Skier, we were talking about the bunker. Please describe if you took anything with you when you went into the bunker.

RS: My mother took clothes. And she took some books. This is all that could really be brought in. Not only because there was very little room, but because you couldn’t just carry things around, because it would arouse suspicion. Plus we didn’t have much. But whatever we could was there. And even when my parents left to the ghetto, they used to leave stuff behind. And sometimes bring a little more.

And as far as the Polish woman went, Mrs. Cicha, she had a real problem. Because she had to buy food on the black market. You couldn’t normally buy food anyhow. And she had to buy enough for all the people. For us, later on some others. And bring it home without the neighbors being suspicious: “What is she carrying all this for? Who is there?” Because she was all alone.

So I must say that I remember those hardships that she had. Naturally, when some people left the hiding place, it got easier for her. When I was there alone with her, there was no problem at all.

next

Part III

2005-02-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

Debbi Portnoy: You talked about how you were surrounded. Describe the guards and how they surrounded it.

Rose Silberberg-Skier: Well, I’ll describe the guards a little later on, because what happened…Let me tell you this. I was with the Polish woman, basically, most of the time. My parents used to go from there, into the ghetto, to get some supplies, and to get some clothes, and to see the relatives, and to just get some fresh air. Because in the Polish woman’s place, we were not allowed to move. We had to sit, in our bare feet, and not talk at all, because she was ‘alone’, and the next door neighbor—you could hear everything there that was going on—the next door neighbor was very very anti-Semitic.

Had she known that Mrs. Cicha had Jews, she would have instantly gotten the Germans. So in order not to make noise, in order for her not to hear any voices, we had to be totally quiet all day long. And we couldn’t go out.

In fact, when we came to the house, we went through the back way. I never saw the house from the front. I didn’t know what it looked like. I only knew the chicken coop. I knew that she had pigs in the back yard. I never saw them but I heard them. And she had rabbits inside, that we could see. We could go out from the chicken coop, into the kitchen when nobody was around. As soon as somebody came, of course, we used to hide and close the door.

So in a sense, if you went to the ghetto, and just got some fresh air, it was a novelty. I know that even when my mother took me once in a while, just for a day, it was like…people are actually on the outside, and talk loud?! Because in the ghetto you could talk loud…you could get killed…but you could talk loud. So sometimes you needed that.

When they left, I remember, then I stayed, and the last time when they left, they left in June, and in July was my birthday. And there was an aunt with me in that bunker. Her name was Sara. She had Christian/Aryan papers.

She looked very Polish. Natural blond hair, grey blue eyes. Skinny. And spoke just like a Pole. She was typically a Pole. She was like no other member of the family. She was like out of…somewhere! And this aunt took me by the hand and said, “Come, we’re going to the ghetto because your parents want to see you.”

July 1943. And it was a late Friday afternoon. When we got there, my mother was so happy to see me, and I was so happy to see my mother. It was wonderful.

(Click to watch video)

Now, mind you, there was still another story about my sister. Originally, my sister had been also in the hiding place, but she was very little. And my parents were afraid that you could not tell a child, “Don’t talk, don’t sing, don’t jump…” And here you had to sit still. It was a 2 1/2 year old, almost 3 year old child.

So my father knew another Christian Polish family he was friendly with, and he got around to them, and he said, “Would you like to take my child for the war?” And he was going to pay them, also. They liked her very much, and they said yes.

But, there was a condition: After the war, she would become a Christian. Also, they knew the family, and one of the sons (his name was Kazek) was crazy about my little sister. He said, “I’ll marry her!” So they said, “I want your permission, that when she becomes a Christian, that one day he’ll marry her, in case something happens to you.”

I remember that scene, because it took place in Mrs. Cicha’s house. My father consented, under duress. It was either having her there and who knew what would happen, (or if you had to escape suddenly, what would you do?) or saying yes. Now, he was very Orthodox. For him to say, “Yes, my child will not be Jewish anymore after the war, if she survives…” It was traumatic.

And I had never seen my father cry before, but I remember when he said yes, he cried (breaks down)…I remember when he said yes…he cried…he said “Allright…she’ll be a Christian…” And they took her. He never saw her again.

But they were good people, and we knew she would be safe there…they would treat her well. So…that was as far as my sister went.

So then my parents went back to the ghetto for a little while. And my aunt took me to the ghetto, and that was July 1943.

DP: You talked about how your parents went from the ghetto to the bunker, from the bunker back to the ghetto. How were they able to get back and forth so freely, what happened?

RS: At that time there were gates, but they knew little places where you could sneak through. People used to sneak through just to go to the Christian side to buy food on the black market, because there was so little there in the ghetto. So only the Jews knew where to do it, of course. If someone got caught, they got shot.

But they didn’t do it that often. Maybe two times or so. But I remember this because when my parents left I was very lonely, at that point, and I used to write them letters. And I used to stay with the Polish woman, especially after my sister left.

DP: How much time did you actually spend, originally, in the ghetto?

RS: Probably about 2 months.

DP: So during that two month timeframe, how did you spend your time?

RS: As I said, I went to school, for a few weeks, until they started to take the children in the vans. And after that, I was just playing with my cousins. Everybody was all together, and we were 17 people in two, three rooms. As far as children…children are children. They play. We were playing with each other. I had company, my cousins were there. Each of my uncles had children.

DP: What did you play with?

RS: Oh not WITH! We just played with each other! We used to just take a little…rock, and play with a rock. Throw it, and this was a ball…we had no toys. We had nothing. Or sometimes we used to make games. Like from paper, you know. But otherwise, nothing. Just playing with each other, mainly. Running after each other, screaming, hollering like this. “I’ll catch you. You catch me.”

DP: You talked about making games. What games did you make?

RS: Well, what we used to take at that time, I started to learn how to do it, from cigarette boxes and cartons of cigarettes, because there was no paper to be had, we used to make playing cards. And on these cards we used to sketch something. And I knew how to write numbers..1, 2, 3 etc. And make a king, a queen, and so on. And that’s how we used to play with each other on the ground.

DP: Which card game did you play?

RS: I don’t know exactly, but I think we called it “bridge.” Probably it wasn’t. We called everything “bridge.” We were very funny. Bridge—six year olds!

DP: What did you eat in the ghetto?

RS: I remember that my mother gave me potatoes, which was something terrific for me. I was a poor eater before the war. And she used to beg me, run after me in the streets, and I was spoiled. But at that point, I was hungry. And when she said come and eat, I ran!

But I do remember one thing. That there was so little food, and I realized it, that I never asked my mother for food. I never said, “I’m hungry.” Only when she said, “Come sit and eat.” So mainly it was potato. We didn’t have any meat anymore. No vegetables either, not fruits. Potato and bread, more or less. That’s what it was. But I was very aware of the fact that there was just so little of it.

So she used to say, “Are you hungry?”
“..no..” And I remember that.

Now my mother used to teach me manners. She used to say, “If you go to your friends (which was like on the block) and they say, ‘do you want something to eat,’ always say ‘no thank you.’ They DON’T have it. If the offer you because they’re giving it to their own children, it’s because they’re polite. Always say ‘no thank you,’ no matter how hungry you are. Unless you’re so starving. If they offer you three times, on the third time you can say yes. Then they mean it.”

DP: Tell me about the religious observance in the ghetto?

RS: We did observe everything the same way. I don’t know if my father went to the synagogue, but I know he used to pray at home. He used to put on tfillin. And they had minyans there because everyone was so crowded together, so there was no problem with that. They definitely observed everything.

DP: Do you remember any types of Bar Mitzvahs, or anything else going on there?

RS: Oh, no no no. There was nothing, nothing, nothing. Don’t forget, mainly, that they had started to deport the Jews already. We were not deported yet, by sheer accident. So once this started to happen, the ghetto was depleted, people were just crying. Because either the sister, or the mother, or somebody was taken away. There was no joy there, nothing. It was tragic.

next

Part II

2005-02-17T18:28:00.000-08:00

Rose Silberberg-Skier: Now in Sosnowiecz, very shortly thereafter, they also made a ghetto. This was the first time I had heard of a ghetto, and there was a real ghetto, and it was called Srodula. It was a very poor suburb of Sosnowiecz. Mostly peasants lived there. And what they did was transfer the peasants into Sosnowiecz, into the Jewish homes, and they took the Jews and transferred them into the peasant’s homes in Srodula. But they used to bunch us up. We were, like, 21 people in one room.

Terrible conditions. Huts. Very little food. And by then, it became a ghetto that, even though it wasn’t with barbed wire, we were not allowed to leave the ghetto. So if anyone was caught wandering around in the Christian part of town, he was shot. But definitely you never heard from them again.

Also what the Germans did, was they used to “target shoot.” They saw Jews walking, so they used to shoot. So you never knew if you went out, even in the ghetto, if you ever were going to come back. If you saw them, you better hide.

DP: When did you first arrive to Sosnowiecz?

RS: I would say 1942. And Srodula started probably the beginning of ’43. That, I have a great memory of already.

DP: Where did you go when you first arrived to Sosnowiecz?

RS: We had a little apartment. And again, the same story happened. The Jews had to go and register. And when they registered, the Germans had a few different registration forms. And cards with different colors.

If you got a certain blue or green, then that meant that you would get coupons for food. If you didn’t, that meant that you were probably going to be deported, that you would NOT get the food.

So everybody naturally wanted to get certain colors, etc. And in order to do that, my parents wanted to show that they were young, that they could work if necessary. They got dressed very nicely. Everybody used to get dressed very nicely, so that the Germans would figure, “OK, these people are on the level.”

Of course we didn’t realize that it made no difference to the Germans if you were dressed or not dressed or WHAT. But nobody knew that, so naturally you wanted to make a good impression.

I know that my parents went, and they got the cards, and they came back and said, “good, I think we’re lucky.” Later on it turned out it meant nothing.

But this was in Sosnowiecz.

But very shortly thereafter, my father realized that he has to do something about his family. The family was definitely going to suffer, or who knows what else. So he had someone he knew, a Polish woman, a Christian woman, and he went to see her, and he said: “How about if we make a bunker in your house, and we hide?”

And he did offer her money, which was understood, and also he said he would sign over the house in Jaworzno to her, which he meant. And she said, “Alright, fine.”

Now, she was alone. Her husband went to work in Germany. He was taken by the Germans, but not into a concentration camp, just labor force for the Germans. And she had no children. She had just pets. She had a dog, a cat, rabbits, pigs. But otherwise she was alone.

And she lived in a house which was a two family house; it was attached. And she said to him, “You know what? It’s OK.”

Now when she said OK, he said, “I also would like to do as a precaution, make a sub-bunker, before we move in.” Because what she was offering him was a chicken coop. She said she’d get rid of all the chickens, and board up the little window that was there, and this would be our bunker.

So what he did, was he opened a wooden floor, and he made like a grave, it would be probably the size of a grave. And after that, he put a drawer on top of it, and potatoes on top of the drawer. So that it was sliding back and forth. If you wanted to go in, you would slide it and go in.

The problem was that you needed somebody on the outside to slide it back, so it would be closed. We always figured she would do it. Her name was Mrs. Stanislawa Cicha. If we had to hide suddenly, then she would slide the drawer back. And then open the drawer when the peril was over.

So this was very important what my father did. After he finished digging and all that was done, then they put some clothes there, and some food, whatever, something that could be held. And we moved there.

There was my mother, and my father, and I, and my little sister.

DP: Before you moved into the bunker, I wanted to go over some information about the ghetto itself. Can you describe your living situation in the ghetto itself? You talk about there being a lot of people there, but what kind of facilities did they have there for your bodily needs?

RS: None. I mean, the toilet was on the outside. No running water. The water you had to bring from some kind of a well, or barrels, in pails. So everybody used to go up to the mountain and bring water down. Food? Very little food. Only what you got on coupons, or on the black market.

DP: At this point how old were you?

RS: Well, it was 1943, so…eight.

DP: What did your parents tell you about what was happening in the ghetto?

RS: I was in the ghetto too.

DP: What did they tell you about that?

RS: They didn’t have to tell me a thing. I saw everything myself. I saw what was going on, and people used to talk freely. My parents didn’t hide anything from us. We children had to know. We were very wise to what was going on.

And I remember, while I was in the ghetto, two SS men walked in unexpectedly, and took two of my uncles—they came with German Shepherds—and they said, “Everybody into the yard!”

We went into the yard, and they said, “Everyone sit on the ground.” We sat down, and they took two of my uncles and told them to run back and forth, and they made two of the German Shepherds run after them. One of them, they opened his head, the dogs, and the blood was streaming down. It was so horrible. You have no idea. And we were shocked. Shocked.

And then they took my father and put him into a…ditch there, and they were going to shoot him. And I remember my mother went over and spoke—in German—because the Jews knew German, because Yiddish and German were very similar—she begged him, “Don’t shoot him!” And he looked at her…and said, “OK.” And they left.

And when they left, my father came out from the ditch, and this uncle, who was a young boy (20 or 22), his head was open, and they said to me, “Go away, go away!” I shouldn’t see this.

In fact, this uncle had a brother, and his brother survived the war. I...I never told him this. Because I figured, why should I tell him this? He’s dead, the other one’s dead. Why tell him such a terrible story. I never told him that. But it was something to behold.

DP: What was the uncles name, that got killed?

RS: Moses Wachsman. And there was another one who was also running back and forth, because they took two men, and he survived the war. Because he had all the wounds, all the bites, but somehow he survived. The other one didn’t.

In fact, my mother had sent me to school. They had a school there. And what happened, is the children would go to school, and like once a week, the vans would come, and they used to put the kids into the vans, and drive them off to Auschwitz. The parents would come for the children, and there were no children there. It was terrible, the wailing of the mothers. So finally, my mother said, “You’re not going to school anymore. That’s IT. Finished. We’re going to the bunker, and we’re going to hide. We’re going to go into Sosnowiecz, to the Polish woman, and hide.”

DP: What was the approximate size of the ghetto?

RS: That, I don’t know. As a child, I don’t know. But I know one thing. In the Holocaust museum in Washington there is a big plaque, and a description of the Sosnowiecz ghetto saying it was the second largest ghetto in Poland. But I don’t know the details.

DP: What type of boundaries did the ghetto have?

RS: The boundaries were such that they had a railroad track, and where the ghetto was there was a ravine, then came the railroad track, and then there was another ravine, and then there was the Christian side of town. So if you wanted to go to the Christian side of town, normally one had to go to a bridge and cross, under normal circumstances. But since they didn’t allow the Jews to go to the Christian side, if somebody could sneak out over the railroad tracks, then that was it. But nobody could, because usually there were SS men watching. So we were totally surrounded.

next

Part I

2005-02-16T20:19:00.000-08:00

Debbi Portnoy (interviewer): Tell me how things started to change for you and your family.

Rose Silberberg-Skier: Before the war started there was no change. Everything was just normal. The first day of the invasion it started to go haywire.

DP: Tell me about that.

RS: First of all, when the Germans invaded in 1939, they took my maternal uncle, who was 18 (his name was Yehudah Klapholz), my paternal uncle, Menachem Silberberg, who was a married man, but a young man, and other uncles and cousins, and they put them against a wall and shot them dead. This was in the city of Trzebinia. Because when they invaded, some people ran to Krakow, a little bigger town, figuring the Germans had already a name that they would be looking for. To just hide. But they rounded them up.

I understand that when they saw my uncle Yehudah Klapholz, he was walking in the street. The SS came over and said, “Are you of the Chosen People?” And he was startled…he must have said yes. And they took him and they shot him dead.

DP: How did you know that?

RS: Well, as far as what happened, I know from my uncle, who is his brother, who is alive now. And there is a book written about this town and how my uncle was killed. Exactly. In fact, from the book, as I was reading, and from people who were eyewitnesses, who were not shot. Women were not killed at this time. Only men.

They used to call them the Einzatzgruppen. These were just “death squads.” They used to come with the soldiers, and round up the males, and shoot them.

DP: So that happened to your uncle. What about to you yourself. How did things start to change for you?

RS: Well I remember my mother, whose brother was murdered like this, how she cried, and my grandmother. And I remember how they had to go and identify the bodies, because they were all in one pile. They just left them there like dead, to bleed to death. And some were not even dead yet.

And my grandmother, who was a widow…it was a major tragedy for the whole town, because everyone was going there to look for the dead people. And who were the people? Young people. A boy of 18. This was a son who was murdered for no reason whatsoever.

In fact, I understand from my aunt, who was in that town last year, that this mass grave is there in that city of Trzebinia. So it was already a terrible thing to see my mother cry for her brother. And I remember him because he used to give me piggy-back rides. He used to give me little chocolate fish with green paper wrapped around it. And then I hear 2 or 3 days later that he’s dead.

It just was horrible, horrible. It was the beginning of all the misery.

DP: What went through your mind when you first heard that he was killed?

RS: I…You know, when say “killed” when you are 5 years old or 6 years old…it still doesn’t make that much sense. It’s just that I realized that I’ll never see him again. I couldn’t believe it. And then, of course, he wasn’t the only one. There was another uncle and another uncle…terrible. Because from both sides of the family they were grieving.

DP: Were any anti-Jewish laws put into effect at this point for you?

RS: Oh, absolutely. First of all, the Jews had to give everything up that they had. They had to give up furs, or diamonds, or any kind of money, or foreign currency…

DP: How did you hear about that?

RS: That I heard as they were discussing it. And they used to go to a certain point, to a certain place and give everything up. And if you didn’t give it up and they found you that you had it, you were shot. So it was just like that. And then what happened was, we were living near the highway going to Krakow, all the Jews were evacuated from the highways, from the main places, and put into the inner city.

So that we were moved from our apartment. Everything was lost. The furniture too. Everything was gone, out. And we moved to my grandfather’s house. That was really in the middle of the town. That was his own house, three stories high. So the whole family, all the uncles, brothers, so on, all moved to the same spot. And even though the house was nice and spacious when my grandfather was there, but still, when you had a few families, it became very crowded.

DP: How many people were you in the house, approximately?

RS: Well, I know that I was in one room with my mother and my father and my sister, so just one room. And a few of his brothers and sisters and families, and there were also some single brothers and sisters…maybe 20 people? But on the main floor there was a store, and then in the back there was a printing press which was still running…run by the Germans, taken away from the Jews, but still running. And the stores too.

So it wasn’t just that it was an apartment. There were apartments there. But still, it was very crowded.

And then they had to have coupons to buy food, and there was very little food already. There was rationing. And you had to stand on line for the food. Which before the war, there was no problem with food in Poland. If you had the money, you could buy it.

And also, you could not go anywhere out of town. So for instance, the six buses that my grandfather had, which were his buses, his business, that was taken away. And the Jews were not even allowed to board them.

DP: Describe a typical scene where because of the crowding, people were having difficulty getting along.

RS: I had one uncle, he was a single boy, and he was maybe 18, 20 at that point. His name was Motl Silberberg. And he used to pick fights with his sisters and brothers who were all adults already, because of the nervous situation that was there. And I remember my father used to say, “Stop it.” My father had never used to live with him at this point, except now we had been there together. He used to say, “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”

And then, I remember what happened to him. The Germans came, and that was the first action they started in this town, must have been the end of ’40, ’41? And they came and they took away my aunt. Her name was Goldie Silberberg, she was very pretty. And because this Motl, who was the brother, used to fight so much with her, for no reason at all, suddenly he felt very bad about it, and he went down to the Germans, to the market place where they were all assembling there and said, “I want to give myself up, and give back my sister.” Of course they took both of them. Nobody ever heard from them again. They were taken to Auschwitz.

DP: How did you know they were taken to Auschwitz?

RS: Because it was known later that all transports were going to Auschwitz, and we were only ten miles from Auschwitz. That’s where we were born. So it was just 1-2-3. And there was a railroad track there. They used to go by rail.

DP: At this point, in ’40, ’41, did you know what Auschwitz was?

RS: Not at all. Just we thought they probably went to work. Because that’s what they used to say, the Germans. “You’re going to work.”

DP: You talked about having to wait on lines with coupons for food. Did you ever have to do that?

RS: No.

DP: Who took care of that for your family?

RS: My mother, because at that point there was no more maid. Because we had to move away, but also because the Germans forbade Christians to work for Jews. So she had to quit even though she wasn’t happy because she needed the money. But she had to quit, so my mother used to do everything after that.

DP: Were you able to stay in contact with her (the maid) at this point?

RS: No. Because she was in the Christian side, and as they put us in the inner city, then they got rid of the Christians, and they moved the Jews in. It wasn’t a “ghetto,” but still it was already a separation, and you couldn’t go to the other side of town.

DP: How did you take care of religious activities if you were kind of constrained like that?

RS: The synagogue was still within that part of town where the Jews were living. There was only one. So there was no problem there.

DP: Were there any type of curfews set up?

RS: Absolutely. I remember, even before we had moved to my grandfather’s house, that I and a cousin of mine, were walking around 7 o’clock. And it was Friday, and we totally forgot the time, and we were playing, and right after that we realized as we were going home that an SS man was following us.

And we were just little kids! 5, 6! And he was following us right into my house. And as we came home, the door was open, and my father was making Kiddush. And he had a beautiful voice.

And the SS man stood, and waited till he finished, which was unusual. And then he said, “They broke the cufew. Next time this happens I’m going to take them away. You’ll never see them again.” And my father was thanking him. I remember that.

Of course, when he left, the SS man, my father almost hit me. “What did you do! That’s all I need!”

DP: Was there any type of schooling that you attended at this point?

RS: Well, it was in my home town. As long as I was in my home town…up to the six months. After that, no, because the Jews were not allowed to go to school. Because these were schools that were Christian schools, basically. And there were no Jewish schools. The Jewish schools were shut down.

DP: What happened after that?

RS: After that, I remember that we were…my father heard from a Polish man who told him that he had overheard Germans (because he was working for the Germans, in a hardware business or something) that they will come the next day, and dissolve the whole town and take all the Jews to Auschwitz. When he told this to my father, I remember my father hired a wagon with a horse, and a driver, and we all got in that wagon and we went to another town called Sosnowiecz.

At that time, since this was still not a ghetto, we could do it. We could just drive off. And we did. And the following day, true enough, the whole town was gone. Our home town of Jaworzno. And we were in Sosnowiecz.

next

Prologue: Pre-War Poland

2005-02-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

Debbi Portnoy (interviewer): Tell me a little bit about the Jewish Population of your town (Jaworzno).

Rose Silberberg-Skier: I don’t know exactly how many people were there (I was very young), but I’d say at least half were Jewish. Probably between 10,000-15,000.

DP: What about on your block, your local area? How many Jews lived there?

RS: Actually it was integrated. Jews and Non-Jews lived together. And my particular block was a highway going towards Krakow, which was about 15 minutes away from where I was born, and it was named Jagielonska Street, after King Jagielon.

DP: Describe your home.

RS: It was an apartment, like 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a spare room. And a dining room, some storage upstairs.

DP: Who lived in your home with you, before the war?

RS: My mother, my father, and a maid. My mother’s name was Felicia, and my father’s name was Moses.

DP: And the maid’s name?

RS: Maria.

DP: Tell me a little about your father.

RS: My father was extremely handsome. Tall, with green/blue eyes, and kind of quiet; they used to call him “the diplomat” because he always thought before he spoke. And didn’t make stupid remarks (laughs). And he was a Chassidic Jew, very Orthodox.

DP: Which Chassidic group did he belong to?

RS: The Kielce Chassidim. And, well, he was killed when he was very young, but at that point I remember him still as a very young man. Nice. Pleasant.

My mother was a sweetheart.

DP: I just want to go back to your father for a little bit. What kind of work did your father do to support the family?

RS: He was a partner with his father, my grandfather, and his brothers, in a printing press. They had 3 businesses there: a printing press, a bus line, 6 buses going all around southern Poland, and a store. A store with stationary, which was part of the printing business.

DP: What was your best memory of your father, growing up, before the war?

RS: I remember he took me on vacation. I was very young, four and a half.

DP: Tell me about that.

RS: I remember that we went on vacation, and when he took me, he brought me a big bunch of grapes, and in Poland that was a novelty, because we didn’t have this, it had to be imported. And he said “You can eat as much as you want.” And I was eating until I got sick (laughs). But I remember that.

DP: Where did you vacation?

RS: Zakopane, which is in the hills, the mountains, of Poland. Far away. Very Nice.

DP: Was your father involved in any type of organizations or societies?

RS: Just Mizrachi, that I know of.

DP: Tell me about your mother.

RS: She was a sweetheart. Very outgoing. Happy, go-lucky. She was 11 years younger than my father; she was very young. She was twenty years older than I, that’s all. And she used to sing and she loved to dance. She used to always grab my father and say, “Come, let’s dance!” He used to say “Oh, please.”

But this is the type of person she was. She loved to read; I remember my mother always reading books. She also worked in the printing press. She was the proof-reader, because she was such a great speller in Polish. So she used to work for them. Not that she needed to work, but she did work.

I remember her as very pretty, very slim, very pretty legs, always dressed beautifully and always in high-heels. In the house too. High-heels. Great mother, very affectionate, loving.

DP: Tell me about your best memory of your mother, before the war.

RS: I remember that she used to show off with me. I used to lisp. She liked that very much. So she used to take me around to relatives and friends and she used to make me sing a song, which was a very cute song (“Mazula (luck) is the main thing”). As soon as I finished she used to applaud me, and people were…forced to do that too, she put them on the spot. I loved her.

DP: You mentioned that there was a maid that lived with you.

RS: Yes.

DP: Tell me about the maid.

RS: Well the maid used to take me…you know, my mother used to work on Sundays, often, and then the maid used to take me with her to her little village. She used to go Sunday to Church, and she used to take me to Church.

Now, I was very Orthodox, I came from a very Orthodox family, but I was very little. But she used to give me candy after Church. And she’d say, “Don’t tell your parents about this, let me just take you.” And I loved going with her to church because it was beautiful. They used to sing, and they had statues, and I thought these were dolls. I used to love the dolls, there were all kinds of statues. And it wasn’t a great hardship, because after an hour or so we used to go out, and then I got all the candy.

But it happens that she did me a great favor when she did that, because later on, when I was on Aryan papers, all these songs and things that I learned and some prayers, that I got used to, came in very handy later on.

DP: Describe a typical Shabbos preparation.

RS: My mother used to do all the baking and cooking, I remember, even though she had help from the maid too. And my sweetest memory is Friday in the afternoon she used to bake Challahs, as the maid used to wash the floor, just a few hours before Shabbos, and my mother used to pick me up, put me on the table, and take a knife and open the challah up, and give me a tremendous slice with butter and strawberry jam. And she’d say “Eat.” So I wouldn’t be so hungry when the evening rolled around, I’d be there for the Sabbath. But I remember that, and it has always been my favorite thing to eat a strawberry jam (on challah) till today, because it reminds me of my mother.

And she used to make Cholent…the usual. And usually my father used to go to shul. Women didn’t go. Very seldom, except on Holidays, or Yizkor maybe. So he used to bring home some poor people who didn’t have where to eat. I remember this, that we always used to have somebody at the table.

DP: Did you have any job to prepare for Shabbos?

RS: No. Well, as she used to make the Challah, she used to give me a little piece of dough and I used to make the Challah with her, and little noodles. At that time they didn’t buy ready made noodles like here, so we used to chop them up and make little noodles. She used to let me go next to her, and I used to be the helper.

DP: Which was your favorite Jewish Holiday, and why?

RS: I cannot really say that I had a favorite. As I said, the holidays came on every now and then, and on the Sabbath I didn’t go to the synagogue. The men used to go, and they used to take the sons. The girls used to stay behind, as a rule. So that I really couldn’t say that I had a favorite, no.

DP: What about Passover, tell me a little about that one.

RS: It was never in my house. It was always in my grandfather’s house. And the whole family used to be together. And all the uncles and cousins used to come…tremendous crowd. And I know that they used to make us children sleep before the seder started, so I used to have a nap. We used to all just sleep on the floor, because there just wasn’t enough room for everybody. We used to lie down on the floor, and then sleep, and then wake up, and it was a joy. I remember this too. Because, in fact, from other towns as they came, we finally knew all the cousins. We all got together. It was very nice.

My grandfather was not there. He had gone to what was then Palestine, so I don’t remember him in the house. I remember him visiting later on, but not really living in the house. But his unmarried children lived there. So we used to go out and say “Let’s go to grandfather’s house,” even though he wasn’t there.

DP: What type of schools did you go to before the war?

RS: Well, before the war I didn’t go to any school, because when the war started I was 5. During the war, in the very first year, when I was 6, I went to a Polish school. And only for six months, because then as they got rid of the Jews of the town that was the end of that schooling too.

But in the afternoon, we used to have Hebrew school, so even though that school that we went to was a state school, and it was basically also Catholic, because the children who were Catholic used to pray in that school, they used to start with the prayers in the morning. And the Jews used to just stand up, and listen. And in the afternoon we used to have Hebrew classes in another place.

DP: But for the time that you were in school, do you remember if you had a favorite subject, or what you liked to do?

RS: I don’t remember any favorite subjects because it was just reading, writing and arithmetic. It wasn’t much. But I do remember that I liked to spell. I was always a very good speller. Till today, even though I only had six months of schooling in Poland, I can spell perfectly in Polish. I have a girl working for me and I left her a letter, because I had to leave, and when I came back she said, “How did you learn how to spell like this?” The schools were excellent in Poland. Because once you were there for six months you could read and write and spell.

DP: In those six months that you were there, did you experience any type of anti-Semitic behavior in the classroom?

RS: Very much so. The first day of school, and that stands out in my memory. My mother had bought me (or maybe she had it made) a new coat. And when I was there, that first day, it was during intermission that I put on the coat (we were in the yard), and the non-Jewish children, the big kids, started to spit at me. And systematically, they were spitting, and then they went around in a circle and spitting and spitting, all around my new coat.

The teachers (these were non-Jewish teachers) were all standing around laughing. They were encouraging them by laughter. They didn’t say, “Do it,” but by not stopping, by just laughing, they thought it was so funny, they encouraged it. And this is the environment we were living in. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. I was just used to it. It was better than being hit.

But when I came home, my mother couldn’t get over it. She was crying. She said, “My God…” You know, it was just like, “Poor kid…” But that’s it. So yes, definitely.

DP: What year was that, the approximate date?

RS: It had to be…probably 1940, because I must have been six.

DP: You mention that your family was from a Chassidic background. I wanted to explore that a little bit with you. Tell me if you recall any time that your father might have gone to the Rebbe.

RS: Well I know for instance, that my parents were married by Rabbi Twerski. So he was the Kielce Rabbi. And when he came to the town in order to marry them, and they were married on a Friday, I was told, he had to stay somewhere. There were no hotels. And he stayed in the house of my grandfather. It was a great honor for my grandfather, because it meant that he trusted the kashrut, etc etc.

(photo from Sara Silberberg's first wedding. Sara is Moses's sister. Her husband perished)

And for him to just come to officiate at a wedding was unusual. Maybe in Krakow he’d do it where he was usually staying, but to come to another town…it was a great honor.

DP: Please describe…what was your best game or toy that you liked to play with?

RS: Well, the best toy I liked to play with was a doll that my grandmother bought for me. And that was called the Shabbos doll. Only for the Sabbath. I was not allowed to play with it otherwise. And it was in the box, the original white box that it came in. On the Sabbath my mother used to take it out, and give it to me, and the doll, when you put her down, she closed her eyes, and when you put her up, she opened her eyes and said mama, mama, mama. This was the seventh wonder of the world. They didn’t have those dolls at that time, so my grandmother, who was very well off, went to Krakow, especially to look for such a special doll. Later what happened to the doll is another story…if you want me to tell you?

OK, when the Germans raided the whole town and took away Jews on the way to Auschwitz (that must have been 1941), my father had made a bunker, like a hiding place in a closet, a double closet. So when you opened the closet, there were some clothes, but behind the clothes there was another door, an invisible door, where we used to go and hide in case of a raid. And the doll was in the closet, outside (of course, we’re not hiding the doll).

So when the SS men came, I remember they were opening the closets, and they were screaming, “WHERE ARE YOU! WHERE ARE YOU!” And one said to the other, “They must have gone away; they're not here.” And then they left.

After they left and it got quiet in the town, we went out of the hiding place. And she opened the closet to take a look around, and she said:

“Guess what? The SS men took the doll!”

So evidently when he took the doll with him, he must have had a child that age, because otherwise, he’s not a crazy man. I was very sad about that, but the strange thought was, can you imagine a man who comes to kill a Jewish child, and then takes a doll because he has a child of his own? He seems to have separated himself from reality. This is my child, OK. The other kid, I can kill. Normally one doesn’t feel that way. When one has a child, one feels for the other. Very strange. This is the type of mentality that they had.

DP: What type of a child were you?

RS: I think I was a very good kid. But I was a little bit of a nag. And I know I was a nag, because my mother told me so! But I’ll tell you why I was a nag, now that I have children of my own I realize, because I didn’t get enough attention. I was not nagging until the war. When the war started, and my parents were so preoccupied with what was going on, just to stay alive…that my mother at that point just didn’t have so much patience for me anymore. And I was spoiled before that, because I was the only child for 5 years. And then my sister was born.

So here I was used to all the attention, I was never jealous of my sister, but I just needed the attention that my parents couldn’t give me because they were just trying so hard to survive. So she said, “You’re nagging, you’re nagging.” But other than that, I was a good kid.

DP: Tell me about your sister. What was her name?

RS: Malka, or Mala, in Polish. She was absolutely magnificent. She was beautiful. She had dark eye, and dark curly hair. Very pretty, and dimples when she smiled. Smart as a whip. And jolly, happy go lucky, and everybody adored her. You could talk to her as if she were a grownup. She was very mature.

And what happened to her is just horrible. Horrible.

DP: What year was she born?

RS: May 1939.

DP: So that was about the time when things started to change for you.

RS: September was the invasion of Poland already.

next

Forward

2005-02-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

I first got the idea for posting my mother's story while participating in Israpundit's Auschwitz Blogburst. My original thought was to exerpt the book, "Hiding to Survive," by Maxine Rosenberg, which contains a chapter about my mother. But I found that the story was a bit too short, and factually wrong in places.

My next thought was to have my mother type the story, and mail it to me. She suggested instead that I write the story myself, based on the interview that she gave Spielberg's Shoah Foundation. I had planned to rewrite it as a narrative, but in watching the tape, I realized that I would never be able to improve on my mother's own words.

The testimony is not a story. It is an interview, conducted by Debbi Portnoy, on September 11, 1997. She asks excellent questions which help to focus the testimony in a logical, sequential manner. It will become clear that in truth, I don't think my mother required much guidance, but it did encourage her to be more complete in areas that would otherwise likely have been skipped over.

The interview is 210 minutes on two video tapes. To facilitate my transcription, I transferred it to my computer. I had thought to edit it in places, but I could not find much that was excess. While I considered skipping the Prologue, which takes place before the war, I realized that this was perhaps the most important piece of the story. It may seem mundane, but the description of life in pre-War Poland, of her family and home, was vital to gaining a true appreciation of the horror that she and the rest of European Jewry had to endure. Without a description of the normality of life before the invasion, this would be reduced to the stereotypical depiction of the Holocaust. Endless scenes of men with beards being herded onto cattle cars; shaved-headed skeletons walking into gas-chambers.

You have to know the people before the War, if you are to appreciate the loss caused by the War.

It is fitting, too, that the day that I officially start this project is the 7th day of Adar. This is the yahrtzeit of my grandfather, Moses Silberberg, a man who died more than twenty years before I was born, and for whom I was named. He was also born on this day, as was Moshe Rabbeinu, for whom he was named.

(In the transcript that follows, DP is Debbi Portnoy and RS is Rose Silberberg-Skier.)

next

Rose's Story

2005-02-08T06:11:00.000-08:00

My name is Mark Skier. I was born in Brooklyn in 1966. I had a normal, happy, American Jewish childhood. 30 years before my birth, the situation was quite different for my mother, who was a Polish Jew and who lived through the Holocaust. Her entire immediate family was murdered by the Nazis, and she survived with the help of her aunt.

Many second generation survivors state that their parents are uncomfortable or unwilling to share their experiences with their children. My mother was quite different. She is very eloquent and eager to share her story, not only with her family, but with the world. She has been the subject of articles and books, and has spoken publicly many times.

Her story is quite frankly unbelievable, but the sad truth is that it is not uncommon enough to be fiction. In 1997 Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation interviewed her for their archives. I recently received a copy of this testimony. What follows here is my transcription of her interview.

next