Ever
y wonder in the world
has a beginning
y
Ever flower in the world
has its end
y
Ever piece of string has a meaning
And with a bit of luck
it will long time stand.
y did such a thing as the Holocaust have to
happened? We do not know.
We remember.
Index
Introduction page 4
World War Two………………………….page 4-5
Warsaw Ghetto page 5-9
Escaping the inescapable ………………………….10
To Roam 10-11
A group of madmen………………………….12-15
The beginning of the end 15-17
A Land Stained with Blood ……………………….18-20
Starting a new life 21-23
Appendix A Max’s letter………………………….24-26
Bibliography 27
Introduction
I have chosen to do a research project about my family’s background in Poland and the
way their lives were changed and affected by the Holocaust. I have tried to focus my
work on the life of the Bromberg couple who are my great grandparents, Esther and Max
and their child Lila who is my grandma. I had to tell about the life of others because as
the story developed they became a part of my family and a part of their lives. During this
project I interviewed my grandma whose words are quoted throughout this account. This
work is dedicated to my family and to all the Jewish people who have been affected by
the horrifying period of World War Two and the shocking event known as the Holocaust.
May the world know and never forget.
World War Two
World War Two also known as the Second World War, was a mid twentieth century
conflict that engulfed much of the globe and is generally considered the most intense war
in human history. The conflict began on September 1, 1939 and lasted until may1945.
The war was fought between two groups which were mainly made up of the United
States of America, United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Australia and the Commonwealth
as the Allies, and Germany, Japan and Italy as the Axis.
Germany which was controlled by the Nazis and led by Hitler, passed through a chain of
the following events: reoccupation of the Rhineland, a merge with Austria, incorporation
of Czechoslovakia and finally the invasion of Poland.
The Bromberg family lived in a luxury apartment in a rich suburb of Warsaw (Warszawa)
in Poland. Max was a translator in his profession and knew how to speak fluent English,
French, German, Polish, Russian Yiddish and more. Esther was a second year chemistry
student at the University of Warsaw. They had a young child who was at the aged of
three called Lila.
During this time an Anti Semitic policy was common in Germany and supported by
Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, a twisted version of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution which
stated that the Aryan race is the purest of all races and that the Jewish race is the lowest
one. The policy banned Jews from all profession, schools, and public places. It prevented
them from having any influence in education, politics and industry. By 1939 nearly all
Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure or had been forced to sell
out to the Nazi-German government.
The German Army entered Warsaw on September 28, 1939, after a three weeks’ siege
and the destruction of large sections of the city. Immediately on their entry, the Germans
began persecution and large-scale maltreatment of the Jews, and draconian laws were
passed that deprived the Jews of all human rights. On November 15 1940, after several
months of preparations, the Ghetto that the Germans set up in the northern part of
Warsaw was closed off. The 380,000 Jews of Warsaw estimated to be about 30 per cent
of the population of the city at that time, were squeezed into an area of some four square
kilometres, representing in all 2.4 per cent of the area of the city. This area was soon to
be known as the Warsaw Ghetto. During the same year the Bromberg family was moved
to the area of the Ghetto into a small apartment in a poor suburb. Most of their property
was taken away. All that they were able to save was a small amount of money, jewellery
and some furniture. “The Nazis forced them to move very quickly and they did so while
being full of fear - a real family tragedy”.
Max couldn’t find a job in his profession and Esther had to stop her chemistry studies at
university. They rented a small shop, learned hairdressing from one of the Ghetto
residents and started their own salon.
Warsaw Ghetto
The situation within the Ghetto was very hard as the German authorities deliberately
created conditions for mass mortality from starvation, by means of drastic restriction of
food, and from epidemics as a result of the intolerable sanitary conditions, with 120,000
people to the square kilometre. Some 85,000 people in the Ghetto died “natural deaths”
from hunger and illness, some 20,000 of them children. Lila was lucky as her parents had
connections to obtain food supplies. Max and Esther had many Christian friends who
entered the Ghetto as tram drivers and sneaked some food in. “My parents deny the food
from themselves and gave it to me as I was very young - if they hadn’t I would have died
a long time ago”.
Even though the Ghetto was very new a group was formed that took it upon themselves
to organise the Ghetto. The committee made tremendous efforts to protect themselves by
organising mutual aid, medical services, smuggling in food, setting up institutions to care
for orphans and many other such actions. Max joined this group as he thought that he
could help.
The Nazis had two groups of police in the Ghetto. One was the Nazi soldiers in uniform
and the other was a Secret Police force who wore normal clothes. “One day people from
the Nazi’s secret police came and hit my dad on the head almost a lethal blow - I was
never told why”.
When the situation got harder and diseases were spreading, Esther decided to escape from
the Ghetto with her child. She remembered that she used to employ a maid in her house
who was Volksdeutsch, who had run away when the war began. Volksdeutsch was a term
for Germans living outside of the German Empire. On the one hand the status of being
Volksdeutsch In occupied Poland gave many privileges, but on the other hand they were
treated with special contempt by the Poles if they had Polish ethnic origins. Esther found
the maid’s ID papers and switched the photograph with her own. She(Esther) had an
Aryan appearance, blond hair, blue eyes and a fair skin. That was fortunate as it allowed
her to move around with less fear.
Escaping the inescapable
Max’s older brother Jacob owned tall buildings on both sides of the Ghetto wall. One
night at dusk, he took Esther and Lila, who was around four years old at the time, to the
roof of one building and passed them across the wall to another building on the outside.
“I remember this feeling that I am being passed from one pair of hands to another and I
am above a chasm, it’s a feeling that you don’t have a safe ground under your feet and
that in a moment you feel you could fall or something will happen to you…This feeling
follows me until today”.
Men in the Ghetto did not even try to run away because they would be captured very
easily, as they were circumcised and easily identified. The ghetto was still very new
during 1941 and no one even knew that death camps existed. Esther would have put
pressure on Max to join her as she had a place to hide him. “No one expected that it
would be such a tragedy, that people would be burned alive – such a thing was unheard
of”. And so while Esther escaped with Lila, Max decided to stay and help in the Ghetto,
and his brother went back to his family as soon as he delivered them to the other side.
Once outside of the Ghetto walls, Esther did not know where to take shelter, “it was a
wilderness, nothing was there, everything was burnt to the ground. I can actually see it - I
remember the burnt smell, it follows me until this day”. Not all of the buildings around
Warsaw had been destroyed. Max’s brother probably chose this spot because it provided
the least possibility of them being noticed.
Their greatest fear was that they might be seen and captured. “We were standing on the
ruins - Mum had a bag on her back, and held me by one hand and a suitcase in the other,
when suddenly a small truck appeared out of the blue, and stopped next to us. ‘Lady,
come get in quick’, the driver said”. And without any discussion the people on the truck
took them on board and drove them to the train station as Esther requested. They dropped
them off and disappeared into the distance. “Mum believed that they were angels from
God”.
To Roam
They took the train to a small unknown village, where lived a woman whom Esther knew
and who had promised to help her in times of trouble. From this point onwards, Esther
took for herself the name of her maid, Yanina, and Lila was to be called Yuliana. They
kept these names until the end of the war. Esther and Lila stayed with the woman for one
day, and organised a small hut for themselves in which Esther opened a hairdressing
salon the following day. “I remember a miniature town: the roof of the hut was half
broken, and Mum made me a corner which I could play with my dolls. I even had a doll”.
On Sundays Esther used to dress Lila nicely and take her to church with all the people
from the village, in order that they would look like Christians.
I was curious about the kind of person my great grandma was. My grandma told me that
Esther did not trust people but on the other hand knew how to make friends very easily.
She also said that “she was a tough mother, I never had the option to ask. It was always
you eat that or you wear that… It was like a Spartan education”. As people asked
suspicious questions around the town about her, she decided to move to a larger town
called Tarnobrzeg.
Here she rented an apartment and found a job in a hairdressing salon. She lived in great
fear as she was a single mother, which was frowned upon by society then. She was more
afraid for her daughter Lila who looked Jewish, “Dark eyes and red hair were my curse,
how does a woman with light blue eyes have a child like that?” Esther never took Lila to
her salon. Lila was probably left with a nanny or a neighbour, “I was left at home and I
knew letters and numbers when I was very young, some old lady taught me”. When
going outside Lila would have had to look down at the ground to avoid being noticed. “I
was a bad thing that you should be ashamed of, like a mentally defective kid that needed
to be hidden… when we went to church Mum used to make me wear a big hat and told
me, ‘Put your head down, put your head down’… It was a horrible feeling, being treated
like an idiot, a bit more and I would have become one”.
Max and Esther were helped by people who they knew or had bribed in order to interact
with each other. Every two or three weeks Esther used to sneak into the Ghetto, helped by
truck and tram drivers and bring food to Max. The couple were also communicating by
letter. Max was helped by the transport workers in order to get the letters in and out of the
Ghetto “The post here works. Write immediately back to me. If you receive your letter
back, know that I have been deported or no longer alive. If you do not receive your letter
back be assured that I have received it”1.
At a certain time, communication between Esther and Max has stopped. This was a
result of two factors: the one was the Nazis who became stricter about business between
Jews and Christian Poles. Any person breaking this regulation would be killed. The other
reason was Max’s money, which was soon used up, and so he could not bribe anyone
anymore.
Back in Max’s salon something interesting was happening. “It is not sure what was
happening there but something definitely did”. Over the years my grandma investigated
the issue herself. A friend of her’s found information in a book that a group of Jewish
guerrilla fighters was meeting in the salon from time to time. The group tried to organise
better food and social services for the inmates of the Ghetto, as well as new clothes which
began to be needed as time left its mark on them and the tough Polish winter drew nearer.
There is a possibility that Esther and Max had telephone contact during this time.
1
see appendix A - Max’s letter, first page line 9
A group of madmen
On January 20, 1942 during the Wannsee conference, a decision to commit genocide and
kill the entire Jewish population of Europe was made, also known as the Nazi’s Final
Solution to the Jewish Question. From this period onwards the Nazis established death
camps that were built to accomplish industrial mass slaughter of the Jews. Some of the
main death camps were Auschwitz, Treblinka, Mauthausen, Bcuhenwald and Maidanek.
During a period of three years Jews were burned in furnaces, poisoned to death in gas
chambers and shot by Nazi officers. This period which was extremely inhumane, brought
the world to recognise the atrocious result, the extermination of 6 million Jews.
There does not seem to be evil within humans until a group of
madmen comes along.
As Hitler’s Final Solution drew nearer Max became a letter writer for the group, as he
was a translator in his profession. He wrote letters to different organisations to ask for
help for those suffering in the Ghetto and to make the world aware of the ghetto’s
conditions that the Nazis worked so hard to keep secret. Many did not believe those such
things were happening, including the Jewish people in Israel at that time. He wrote letters
to the French Résistance and groups in Britan and Poland. He also requested weapons
from the Polish partisans to help in their planned uprising. One of the organization that
helped the Jews in the Ghetto was A.K (Armia Krajowa) that supplied the Jewish group
with 60 pistols, some hundred of grenades, explosives and other kinds of ammunition.
During this time the situation in the Ghetto was horrible: “Take any place in the world
with bad conditions and time it by at least 10”. In response to the July 1942 deportations
from the Warsaw ghetto and reports of mass murder in Lithuania, the Zydowska
Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Fighting Organization, henceforth ZOB) was founded led
by Mordecai Anielewicz. When the first wave of deportations ended in September,
300,000 Jews had been removed leaving a ghetto population of around 60,000, most of
them young people. At the outbreak, the ZOB consisted of about 600 members.
However, thousands of Jews spontaneously joined the uprising once it had started. It was
not a question of saving Jewish lives; this was hopeless. It was a question of what kind of
death the Polish Jews would select for themselves.
The uprising took place on April 19, 1943 corresponding to the 15th day of the month
Nissan in the Hebrew calendar, which is the first day of Passover. During the fighting
approximately 7,000 of the Jewish residents were killed. An additional 6,000 were burnt
alive or gassed in bunkers. The remaining 50,000 were sent to German death camps. It is
until this day unknown what happened to Max Bromberg; it is believed that he lost his
life during the uprising or later on in one of the camps. Approximately 300 Germans and
collaborators were killed in fighting. The battle raged for 27 days and when it ended the
Jews had lost, leaving behind them a heroic act that gave encouragement to Jews
elsewhere as news of the brave stand taken by the Warsaw fighters spread.
Back in Tarnobrzeg, while working in the salon, Esther overheard the wives of Gestapo
officers gossiping about the capture of Jews on the run. This was helpful for her to plan
her next move to another town and moving around in her daily life in order to stay out of
the Nazi’s clutches. Esther and Lila left the town after a period of approximately a year.
Esther and Lila moved to Rzeszow a much larger city then the last one. As Esther looked
for work in another salon, she found out that any stranger in the city had to prove that he
is not Jewish in order to work. If Esther wanted to be able to work, she had to show
documents that proved that she was not Jewish and a recommendation letter from her last
workplace. “She faked a letter and took it together with her maid’s ID papers straight to
the Gestapo”. The Gestapo officers had problems believing her, so she started to yell:
“Do you even dare to think that such a tight Christian like me is Jewish?!” The Gestapo
officers agreed and ask Esther to forgive them and somehow the case passed in silence
and Esther got the Gestapo stamp. This stamp was the most important as it shows that the
Gestapo itself had checked her and found that her ID cards were right. From then on,
every time someone did not believe her to be Christian, she would show the ID papers
together with the stamp and all suspicion would be gone. Esther found a job at another
hairdressing salon for a higher salary. Due to the better conditions, she was able to hire a
nanny who could take care of Lila while she was working. She was also able to afford a
private French teacher for her.
Lila used to stay at home with the nanny. The nanny taught her how to write and read or
just let her play with her dolls. Sometimes the nanny used to take Lila to the salon, “she
would go inside to talk to my mum while I had to stay outside and wait for her to come
back”. The nanny was very religious and took Lila to church with her every day. Esther
probably allowed this to happen because it was a good camouflage of the little girl’s
identity. After many months of attendance, Lila grew to love the services and rituals so
much that she wished to become a nun. “The priests used to put incense or some spice
into a metal box and the scent would go to all directions, it had a very special scent… I
loved the church very much”.
At that time Nazis did not go into churches, they respected the religion. The Nazis did not
interfere with the priests and nuns which was lucky because many Jewish children were
saved as they were hidden in churches and nunneries by these good people who saw that
the things which the Nazis did were horrible.
One day at the salon, the wife of a high Gestapo officer had a discussion with her friends
about her inability to have children. As it was known that Esther was a single mother, the
woman asked the manager to speak to her about it. The manager told the woman to speak
to Esther directly. The woman offered Esther to adopt Lila until she told her, “You are
single and young, you might get married, all kinds of bad things can happen to you and
you can even be killed. Let me take care of her. I will take her to Germany and she will
be protected there, and when the war is over, I will bring her back”. Esther was suddenly
faced with an amazing way to ensure that Lila was given the best chance to survive the
war safely. This is the same as the opportunity Moses was given when he was rescued
from the bulrushes and raised as a prince in ancient Egypt. Esther rejected the offer as she
knew that the woman would never bring her back. The woman tried to force her but
Esther kept to her decision: “What will happen to me, will happen to the child”. The
decision was ultimately the right one. The Russians invaded Poland a few months later,
which could have led to much trouble for Lila, if she was associated with the Gestapo.
German forces invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 composed of three army
groups. The groups included more than three million German soldiers and supported by
half a million troops from Germany's allies. By early September 1941, German forces
had reached the gates of Leningrad in the north. They had taken Smolensk in the center
and Dnepropetrovsk in the south. German units reached the outskirts of Moscow in early
December. In December 1941, the Soviet Union launched a major counterattack against
the centre of the front, driving the Germans back from Moscow in chaos. The battle for
the city of Stalingrad proved a decisive psychological turning point, ending a string of
German victories in the summer of 1942 and beginning the long retreat westward that
would end with Nazi Germany's surrender in May 1945.
The beginning of the end
In the summer of 1944, the Soviets launched a major offensive against the Germans
which liberated Belorussia and Ukraine, most of the Baltic states and eastern Poland from
Nazi rule.
When the Russian entered Poland, Esther and Lila were hiding in a bunker under the
building where they used to live, together with many people from their building,
including Lila’s nanny. They sat in the dark for a number of days while the Russian
forces bombed the Nazi forces. “Every time I heard the noise of the bombs, I used to ask
my mum, is that ours or theirs? - My mum used to answer me: it is ours, they are coming
to save us - and I did not care who exactly it was, as long as my mum protected me”.
During those days Esther did not leave Lila alone, and so Lila, who was around the age 7
at the time, sat on her mother's lap, waiting for the fighting to be over.
After the war finished and the Russians liberated Poland, there was a very tense feeling in
the air. The Russians broke into stores and houses in search of goods. Another big
problem was maintaining food supplies. Esther and Lila were affected but succeeded in
sustaining their supplies: “I have never had a problem with food supplies. My mum
always found ways to ensure that I would not starve; at this time she used to cut people’s
hair in exchange for food”.
After the Russians liberated Poland and saved the people from further suffering, danger
was still present. Anti-Semitism was still part of the life of many Polish people and Poles
tried to get rid of the Germans who still lived in Poland. Having her maid’s Volksdeutsch
identity papers Esther again had the good fortune to avoid danger as in the ID papers she
was not described only as German but as having some Polish origin as well. She might
have been treated with some contempt by the Polish, but she was most certainly treated
better than other Germans and Jews.
As soon as she could, Esther finished paying her rent and quit her job. Within a few
months Esther and Lila moved, this time to the city of Katowice. In Katowice Esther
contacted a group called UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration, an organization that was founded during World War II to give various
types of emergency aid, including distribution of food and medicine, restoration of
public services of agriculture and industry, to areas liberated from the Axis powers.
Poland was one of the chief beneficiaries. The UNRRA had a department to help Jews
who were affected by the Holocaust and needed help to recover or look for lost relatives.
There she placed on record the real names of herself and her daughter in case Max
survived the war and was looking for them.
A Land Stained with Blood
Esther decided to make an attempt to find her husband. She left Lila with friends whom
she had met at the UNRRA centre and went back to Warsaw. When Esther arrived at her
old neighbourhood, she found that “everything was burned to the ground and there were
barely any stones on top of each other … All kind of people who survived were living
there in the ruins, mainly looking for the Jews treasures”. Esther was terrified as there
was no proper control and decided to go back to Katowice. She left a note on the
building’s remains that said she was looking for Max Bromberg and if anyone knew
anything about him to please contact UNRRA where he could find her.
When Esther returned some days later, she requested the organisation to arrange that they
leave the terrible country of Poland in any cost. “I remember her speaking to her friends
and telling them that she was sick and tired of this country which is stained with so much
blood of Jews and Poles”. The organisation moved them to Italy, the centre for Jewish
refugees after the war.
Esther and Lila were moved to a DP camp called Santa Maria di Leuca where they lived
during most of 1946. The camp was located in the fishing and resort town of Santa Maria
di Leuca, a beautiful place on shore which used to be a vacation town for rich Italians
until it was rented by UNRRA. The camp was the only mixed (Jewish and non-Jewish)
DP camp in Italy. It is estimated to have had 1,800 DPs included approximately 400 nonJews, even though the population regularly exceeded that figure. In the camp people lived
in small houses, “like little palaces”, and each family was given a room.
The camp was run by Jews, American volunteers and an Israeli emissary. These people
helped to organise all kind of activities for the refugees, for example, “small shows and
bonfires and Israeli dancing in the evenings, groups of learning for the old and young and
lots of lectures by the Israelis who encouraged making aliyah2”. In the camp was a small
school which became the first school that Lila had ever attended. There was also a dining
room for every one in camp, but whoever did not want to eat there was given foodstuffs
and could prepare meals in his room, “just like what Mum did”.
In the camp there were almost no children Lila’s age. Lila was around 8 years old and
people from all over the camp used to come to see her. “It was like a pilgrimage, people
were amazed and kept on asking, how does such a young child survive?… People used to
look at me and pet me but Mum didn’t like it, she was scared that they would bring me
bad luck”.
During this period Esther tried to use the UNRRA to find her husband. “She searched for
a long time until she finally accepted that he would never be found and that his fate
would remain unknown”.
2
Moving to Israel
Esther was a very intelligent lady and understood that they might be stuck in the camp for
a long time. The camp was located somewhere in the wilderness and was very far from
any embassies which were usually located in big cities. Esther decided to move to a
different camp. She thought that if they could be closer to the embassies, they would have
a better chance of getting permission to move to a different country. Esther did not care
so much about which country they move to, she wanted anything rather staying in the
camp. After a period of approximately a year in Santa Maria di Leuca, Esther and Lila
moved to a similar camp called Adriatica, one of the few large DP camps in a major
Italian city.
Adriatica was located in northern Italy near the city of Milan, and was home for a
population of roughly 1,100 Jewish DPs. In this camp Esther and Lila met a young
Jewish man called Srulik who had had a parallel fate to them. He was a survivor of the
war a very lonely man who had no family left in Europe except an older brother which
the UNRRA had documented to be alive, and suffered from a disease called tuberculosis.
“My mum liked Srulik very much and took care of him as an adopted child”. Srulik had
cousins in Argentina. He told Esther that on the day he got there he would send visas for
her and her daughter. Esther treated him with great respect and believed in him as the
way to get out of camp.
However Srulik did not go to Argentina, not as long as he knew that his brother was alive
somewhere in Europe. “He used to go from one camp to another in a search of his
brother, but time after time he would return to us with empty hands”. Finally Srulik found
that his brother was in a hospital. Unfortunately, by the time he got there, it was too late
and his brother already had passed away. He returned to Adriatica, told Esther all that
had happened and moved to Argentina straightaway. As soon as he got there, he sent
access passes to the whole family.
During the same period of time when Esther met Srulik, she also met a man called Wolf.
Wolf had lost his wife and child in the Holocaust. When he was captured by the Nazis, he
was sent to a work camp, as he was a strong and tall man. His wife was sent to a
concentration camp and his child was taken away by a Nazi officer shot dead in front of
the helpless eyes of his parents. Wolf was a metal engineer and survived because he was
found useful by the Nazis. After the war ended Wolf was left with a tattoo on his hand
saying K.L (Konstrntration Lager 3) and terrifying and horrific experiences from
Auschwitz, Treblinka, Mauthausen, Buchenwald and Maidanaek. When he just got out of
the last camp he weighed 37 kilograms. Although he was a two metre tall man, his
weight equaled today’s weight of a 10 year old girl.
3
- German for - concentration camp.
On board the ship, the family had a terrible two month journey. The ship was packed with
all kinds of refugees from all over the world; some were Jews and some were people who
had lost everything and wanted to get a new life. “All of the families lived in miniature
rooms - it was very crowded”. Esther was scared as she had two little children and one of
them was a two month old baby. “I didn’t like the food and was as thin as a stick. I kept
on vomiting all the time, and Mum who had to take care of the baby too, desperately tried
to get better food for me”.
At the beginning of 1948 the journey overseas was over and the family stopped in
Uruguay, waiting for the political climate in Argentina to settle down. The Uruguayan
Jewish community accepted them with warmth and kindness. They gave them a place to
stay and helped them in whatever way they could. Although it was already possible to
move to Argentina, the family did not do so as they agreed that there was nothing wrong
with where they were living at the moment. One of the main reasons that caused the
family to stay in Uruguay was Wolf’s good friend Sevek who had left Adriatica a short
time before them for Argentina. Later on this friend moved to Uruguay and when Wolf’s
new family arrived, he used to give them advice about where to go, where to rent an
apartment, and so forth.
Later on, with the help of the Jewish community, Esther rented an apartment and opened
her own hairdressing salon, which afterwards become very successful. Wolf bought a
small truck and became a rubber salesman. He used to go from town to town selling all
kinds of rubber materials, like rubber gloves and other items. “Both of my parents used to
work very hard”. Lila started to go to school and Susi to preschool. At home the parents
spoke Yiddish between themselves and Spanish with the children.
Both Esther and Wolf came from a very religious background but both left it behind and
kept only some of the traditions at home. “On Friday night Mum used to make a nice
Shabbat dinner, and at times of Jewish holidays we used to go to synagogue”. Sometime
later the family moved to a Christian area and these rituals became their only connection
with the rest of the Jewish community.
As the years went pass Esther almost did not speak about the Holocaust at all. However,
one time at her house, my mum remember her to talk about it. My mum remembers her to
say, that even though the Nazis tried to terminate her husband, his memories were not
deleted as he continues to live through her. And just like that, Esther will live through
Lila, Lila will live through my mum and she will continue on living through me. This is
the ultimate proof that the Nazis failed. This is the way the strings of life were pulled
from up above and this is the core of my story.
May the world remember and never forget
.
Appendix A – Max’s letter.
The following is the last letter that Esther received from Max and the only one the
survived the war.. “She got rid of all the other letters as she was scared of being
searched and identified as Jewish. She sew this letter to her cloths. This letter
together with a few more objects is the only thing that left to the family heritage
from the period of the Holocaust”. The letter was translated from Polish to Hebrew
and later on from Hebrew to English.
Tuesday, I cannot recall the date. I know that now it is the month of July. Yes my nerves
are very poor.
Warsaw
I am still in Warsaw and I am still working in the factory. In Warsaw hell continues. In
Warsaw the pogrom continues. There is no end to the victims, there is no stopping the
deportation. Already more than 200,000 people were deported from Warsaw and it is
most likely that no one would be speared. Today it is Tuesday. I am writing this letter
whilst being very nervous/jumpy. The entire time I’m squinting towards the yard to make
sure the Jandermia does not arrive or that people will come in. The post here works.
Write immediately back to me. If you receive your letter back, know that I have been
deported or no longer alive. If you do not receive your letter back be assured that I have
received it. It appears to me that I only have a few days to live in Warsaw, but I will
survive, I will try to make contact with you. My little one, do not despair as it can’t be
otherwise. I have already sent a letter through someone else, but I do not know if he sent
it. In that letter I have described everything to you. I am certain that had you been in
Warsaw, you would have gotten work as a hairdresser in the factory. I am not suitable for
this and cannot as I am afraid to go out to the street. Little Jacob and his family have
already been transported. Elisha, most probably has been transported as well. Jacob was
already in the wagon, but was sent away, a policeman, saved him. I do not know what to
do: to come before them or to wait for the terrible death. In Warsaw it’s becoming more
and more crowded. Passes are checked. It is only possible to arrange a pass for five in the
morning. As to food, a kilogram of potatoes costs 25 Zloty. One cucumber costs 5 Zloty.
I drink water that has been boiled. What can I tell you, people are running from street to
street because the houses are taken to be used by the factories. Our house in Dezelina
Street has not been taken, I don’t go there at all. The house in Prenchishkanska is still
empty, but it can be taken any day[…]. When I work in the factory I earn money that
allows me to buy 4 cucumbers a day. And what will happen as time goes by? Do not be
surprised that I write in such a confused manner, as I cannot concentrate and I am also
rushed. I am standing and looking at the yard to see if people are running. Do not move
with the child from your place and do not dare to go out. One thing I ask that you should
remain alive, perhaps we might meet again at some stage. Perhaps, though I have greave
doubts. Do not cry, my little one, I kiss you a thousand times. If you have spare time
during the day, sit Leileka on your knees and tell her that her father loves her more than
life itself. If you do so it will be much easier for me. If only we will see each other one
more time, deep in my hart, I want this so much and than I will be able to die. I shall not
regret my life. And perhaps, when I travel to the unknown place, I will be lucky and find
work and I will have a slice of bread. At this moment I received news that the house in
Prenchishkanska is about to be taken, I do not know if this is true. If so, than tomorrow
morning I will volunteer for deportation. I will take with me my warm underwear, my
summer clothes and all the literary equipment, and the rest will be left to its own fortune.
Imagine to yourself my feelings because every small thing was important for us and cared
for. Why did I suffer so much? And now, where shall I go? Where? Where? Had I known
where, it would have been ok. And here they are sending you to an unknown place and
you will be made into fat or rubbish. It is good that you have not seen how thin I am. For
the last time, may you be healthy. You, the two souls that are dearest to me and besides
you I have no one in the world. I plead you, if there was a dark corner in our life, than
forgive me. It was out of delight. I have only loved you, besides you and the child I have
seen no one.
A thousand kisses. You may write, even though not a letter has arrived at […] [the
address] Tzernovitch, USSR, sabstopolskaia number2. One of your letters I take with me
on the journey you must have the other one. If it will be difficult I shal through away my
belongings but not it.
Kisses kisses kisses for you and for Leila. Do not cry.
Bibliography
Web sites:
- http://www.yadvashem.org/
- http://www.tapuz.co.il/tapuzforum/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/
- http://www.answers.com/
- http://www.ushmm.org/
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/
- http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/cgibin/data.show.pl?di=record&da=encyclopedia&sf=entry_name&sv=Warsaw%20Ghetto
-
http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa072699.htm
http://www.gfh.org.il/
http://www.jewishgen.org/jgff/jgffweb.htm
http://warszawa.getto.pl/en/site/
http://www.dpcamps.org/dpcamps/italy2.html
Books:
- A Day in the Warsaw Ghetto, A Birthday Trip in Hell, Author Yad Vashem
Publisher Aviv 1988.
- The Encylopedia of Jewish Life, Before and During the Holocaust., Editor
Shamuel Spector. Yad Vashem Jerusalem, Publisher New York Univeristy 2001.
- Encyclopedia of the Holocaust , Editor Israel Gutman, Yad Vashem, Macmillan
publishing company 1990.
- The Time Atlas of the World, publisher Times Books London 1988.
Others:
- A letter from Warsaw Ghetto by Max Bromberg, around 1942. Translated From
Hebrew. Original source is Polish.
- Interview with my Grandma (Lila), translated from Hebrew.