The International DP Children's Center Kloster Indersdorf 1945

Life After Survival

The International DP Children’s Center Kloster Indersdorf 1945 - 1946: A Photo Exhibit by Anna Andlauer (Indersdorf Historical Society/Dachau Concentration Camp Association)

Lesson Plans and Classroom Resources by Diana Morris-Bauer and Anna Andlauer

Sponsored by a Fulbright Classroom Teacher Exchange Alumni Grant Life After Survival

This guide for teachers of middle and high school students provides Child Survivor Profiles materials to support the photo exhibit Life After Survival, which The following biographical profiles of child survivors can be used chronicles the efforts of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation for multiple purposes. They serve primarily to invite students to Administration (UNRRA) to care for traumatized displaced children empathize with an individual child survivor of physical displacement at the end of the Second World War in Markt Indersdorf, Germany. and personal loss during the Second World War and the Holocaust. Students visiting the exhibit should already have a basic under- Depending on class size, students may work individually or in pairs standing of World War II and the Holocaust. Overall, the student on the profile activities. Copies of the profiles are also available at the activities found in this booklet may also be expanded to investigate exhibit. Each profile is composed of two parts: the plight of current refugees and asylum-seekers. ◆◆ Part one is designed to be read by students before or as they enter The materials include the following: the exhibit and provides them with the story of that child’s life up to his/her care in the children’s center. Each profile includes a ◆◆ Context and background for UNRRA and the prompted activity for students to complete as they engage with DP Children’s Center Kloster Indersdorf 1945-46 the exhibit. The activities guide students to search for information ◆◆ Pre- and post-exhibit classroom activities, within the exhibit’s photographs, accompanying filmThe Rage incorporating a primary source to Live, or text panels. Students may also use Internet access via ◆◆ Survivor profiles for use before and during the exhibit mobile devices or tablets, where appropriate.

Classroom Activities ◆◆ Part two is designed to be read by students after they have gone Prior to visiting the exhibit, the teacher should familiarize students through the exhibit and have completed the activity in part one. with the historical context and background of the exhibit. The activ- This part updates students on how each child pursued a new life ities in this guide include primary source extracts from UNRRA after the war. worker Greta Fischer’s official report. Students should be prompted to consider the physical as well as emotional needs of children traumatized by displacement and war.

2 established in London in February 1944. Even prior to the end of hostilities, the agency prepared to establish food and supply chains The United Nations Relief and to address the consequences of war: famine, disease, and dislocation. Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) UNRRA recruitment included highly skilled individuals from all of and Displaced Persons (DPs) in Germany the United Nations, who were paid well for their service.

By mid 1943, UNRRA estimated the number of Displaced Persons (DPs) on the European continent to total 21 million people, who UNRRA was an international aid organization formed in November fled advancing armies or were forcibly removed by invading forces. 1943 by 44 “United Nations,” whose aim was to provide immediate They estimated that 8 million of these DPs had been driven into or postwar relief for, and coordinate the repatriation of, millions of removed to Germany, with another 8 million displaced within their displaced people in European and Asian regions devastated by World own countries. Plans for how best to address the critical needs of War II. By the time UNRRA completed its mission in the summer these people began as early as the spring of 1944. By April 1945, a of 1947, it had provided over $4 billion of relief on these continents month before German capitulation, the first UNRRA teams entered – half of which was food – and had a peak personnel of over 14,000 Germany to assist the allied military authorities with the vast workers. In anticipation of the widespread need for food, medical numbers of DPs. By June of that year, the governments of Britain, the treatment, and other material assistance, UNRRA’s headquarters was United States, and France authorized UNRRA to operate within their respective occupied zones, utilizing existing military infrastructure to expedite supplies. In the wake of the retreating German forces, 6 million DPs had returned to their countries of origin by the autumn of 1945. At this point the allies estimated that there were still 11 million DPs in Europe, with approximately 7,725,000 in Germany alone. By October/November 1945, UNRRA had officially taken over administration responsibilities of DP camps in the American and British occupied zones. Those eligible for UNRRA relief included all nationals of the 44 United Nations, stateless persons, and any national displaced because of race or religion. Countless post-war refugees moved into Germany, the majority of whom were Jewish survivors seeking protection in the Allies’ occupied zones. All Jews had “special status” and were eligible for UNRRA aid. Starting in early 1946, thousands of Jewish refugees, so-called “infiltrees,” streamed increasingly into the American Zone from Poland, Hungary, and Romania. Some had survived the Holocaust under assumed names, in hideouts in the ghettos, or in the Soviet Union. The German region of Bavaria within

3 the American Zone became a refuge for Jewish DPs, who saw this area as a migration point to another country: to the United States, to other western nations, or to Palestine, with the purpose of founding The International DP Children’s the nation of Israel. Center Kloster Indersdorf

In addition to supplying basic needs to these displaced people, UNRRA’s mission included repatriation, when possible, or relocation to another country, especially for persecuted Jewish survivors Immediately after their liberation from Nazi concentration and who had no desire or possibility to return to their nations of origin. work camps, adult and child DPs lived together in provisional To facilitate this mission, UNRRA set up a Central Tracing Bureau camps. Kloster Indersdorf became UNRRA’s first specially desig- with regional bureaus in all three occupied zones, to locate and nated facility exclusively for children and young adults within the reunite relatives of displaced families. UNRRA workers adminis- US Zone, a model center after which others would be built. In June trated DP camps set up in former German military bases, former 1945, UNRRA Team 182 arrived in southern Germany with the task concentration camps, hotels, and monasteries until the agency of establishing such a first refuge for displaced foreign children, with achieved an appropriate resolution for every individual DP’s situ- material support provided by the U.S. 3rd Army in Munich. By the ation. In preparation for a future after repatriation or relocation, end of June, the Army had expropriated the centuries-old former UNRRA facilitated schooling and training within the DP camps, monastery under the mandate of UNRRA Team 182. Nuns from the which included, in addition to compensating for lost years of basic order of Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul had run the facility as education, instruction in shoemaking, tailoring, dressmaking, and an orphanage from 1878 until they were driven out by a Nazi orga- carpentry, as well as other trades. nization in 1938. The monastery had several dormitories, each with beds for up to 25 children, along with activity rooms, workrooms, Of particular concern to UNRRA was the number of “unaccompa- a dining hall, a large kitchen, as well as a comprehensive agricul- nied children,” DPs under 18 years of age with no parents or other tural operation with a vegetable garden and several farm animals. relatives. These youths required special attention for their health, At the UNRRA team’s invitation, the nuns returned in July to assist nutrition, education, and training. They had suffered years of malnu- with the farming, care for the infants, and oversee the German trition and abuse and were deeply traumatized by their profound loss staff. A few of the German former orphanage personnel assisted and the atrocities they had witnessed. These children and teenagers as custodians, secretarial staff, and farm hands. UNRRA’s interna- needed a therapeutic environment in which their basic needs could tional staff included director Lillian D. Robbins (USA) and assistant be met and in which the trauma of their experiences would be taken director Marion E. Hutton (USA), social welfare officers Andre Marx seriously so that they could take their first steps toward a new life. (Luxemburg) and Greta Fischer (Czechoslovakia), as well as other In the U.S. Zone alone were an estimated 7,000 of these children. By educational and child-care specialists, nurses, a doctor, and supply 1946, 20% of all eastern European Jews still living in the American officers. Before long, the first 200 children, teenagers, and young Zone were under the age of 17. adults arrived.

4 In the course of its operation, the children’s center would take August 1946 – September 1948 different forms: The Jewish Children’s Center Kloster Indersdorf

July 1945 – July 1946 UNRRA International DP Children’s Center Kloster Indersdorf

This exclusively Jewish children’s home for children from Poland, Hungary, and Romania was run by a new UNRRA Team 182 and was assisted by several Jewish organizations, such as the “Joint” (Amer- Run by Team 182, this center housed non-German unaccompanied ican Joint Jewish Distribution Community [AJJDC]) and Dror, a children of all backgrounds to provide these child survivors with Zionist youth group that promoted the kibbutz movement and advo- immediate medical and psychological aid, find living relatives, repa- cated for the orphaned child survivors to immigrate to Eretz Israel. In triate children when possible, and help children immigrate to a new mid-1947, UNRRA transferred administrative responsibilities to its country. This center relocated to Prien on Chiemsee in August 1946. successor, the International Refugee Organization (IRO).

5 Overall, from 1945 to 1948, the center cared for over 1,000 chil- This mission of UNRRA Team 182 at Kloster Indersdorf was dren, teens, and young adults. After its first month of operation manifold. All of the children needed immediate physical and in 1945, the center housed Jewish and gentile children from 13 psychological care, as well as a vision for their future lives. Every different countries, providing them with food, clothing, medical child’s first priority was to locate surviving family members. Upon and psychological care, as well as general and vocational education. each child’s arrival, UNRRA wrote a detailed report about the child’s The center created a therapeutic environment for these children history and disseminated photos. UNRRA aimed to prepare the chil- and endeavored to address their psychological as well as physical dren for a future life on their own and explored all possible options. needs. The mixed population included Jewish adolescents who had Every option was considered the “right” one, as long as it reflected performed slave labor under inhumane conditions in the concentra- that child’s individual desire. tion camps and who were often the sole survivors of their families. Many of these child survivors had been liberated by the American Army while on a death march from Flossenbürg concentration Sources and Further Reading: camp, headed toward Dachau. However, there were also gentile adolescents at the center who had been forcibly shipped to German Andlauer, Anna. The Rage to Live. USA: CreateSpace, 2012. Print. farms and factories as slave laborers, primarily from central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Others Göttler, Norbert. Nach der “Stunde Null”: Stadt und Landkreis Dachau were the children of adult forced laborers. There were also babies in 1945 bis 1949. München: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2008. Print. Kloster Indersdorf. Some of these newborns had been taken away from their forced-laborer mothers, the so-called “Eastern Laborers,” Kloster Indersdorf 1945-1948, 2012. Web. and had been consigned to certain death in crude quarters where they received minimal care. A large number of the babies at the Remember Me. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, children’s center had survived such neglect in the notorious “Inders- 2015. Web. dorf Children’s Barracks,” which in the final year of the war, was located directly behind the monastery wall. Still other babies were Steinbacher, Sybille, Hrsg. Überlebende des Holocaust in Bayern der sent to Kloster Indersdorf from “Lebensborn” homes in France and Nachkriegszeit. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2013. Print. Belgium, where their German fathers and foreign mothers had aban- doned them to be raised according to the Nazi ideology. Woodbridge, George. UNRRA: The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Vol.s 1-3. New York: Columbia UP, 1950. Print.

6 Primary Source: Excerpts Excerpt 1 • Clothing Transforms the Child from Greta Fischer’s Report As concentration camp prisoners or forced laborers, the children had worn filthy, ill-fitting striped uniforms or institutional clothing in which they had lost their individuality. Their clothing did not prop- In January 1946, child develop- erly protect them from cold in winter and from the dangers of factory ment specialist Greta Fischer machinery. In the section of her report subtitled “Psychological drafted a comprehensive report Factors,” Greta Fischer describes the immediate transformation the on the DP Children’s Center children underwent when provided with decent clothing: Kloster Indersdorf, documenting UNRRA Team 182’s approach to Clothing is simple but fitted to size and, wherever possible, caring for traumatized children. the children are encouraged to choose their own colors and Her report details the resources patterns. One seems to see the entire personality of a child required to care for hundreds of change when he discards his old, dirty, misshapen garments displaced and orphaned children for clean, neat-fitting, non-institutional ones. The provision of in post-war Germany, features clothing has been fully as important for the purpose of estab- individual children’s stories, and lishing a sense of personal dignity as for decency and warmth. describes the team’s efforts to introduce the children to life after Classroom Response Suggestions: surviving the Holocaust. 1. Describe the clothing that the children may have worn as The following excerpts from Greta Fischer’s report emphasize the concentration camp prisoners or as factory laborers. scope of the physical and psychological care these children required. 2. Explain how you feel when you wear your favorite outfit or when you dress up for a special occasion. What effect does appropriate clothing have on our well-being?

3. In your own words, explain the saying, “Clothing makes the man.” How does proper clothing contribute to identity and self-confidence?

7 Excerpt 2 • Finding a New Home Classroom Response Suggestions:

Under the subtitle “Ambitions of the Children,” Greta Fischer 1. Describe the wartime conditions in countries such as Poland and describes the child survivors’ desire to find their family members Hungary that led to Jewish families being deported to concentra- and return to their homes. Teens such as Zoltan Farkas and Katalin tion camps. Why would some children not want to return to the Szász ventured by themselves across dangerous postwar territories countries where they had spent nearly their entire lives? to return to their towns, but they found none of their loved ones. Even before the start of the war, many Jewish children had experi- 2. Research and summarize the aims of the Zionist movement in enced anti-Semitism, and now with little hope that their parents and Palestine after World War I. Why would some of the Jewish chil- siblings were still alive, they didn’t want to be repatriated to their dren be eager to move to Palestine? original countries. Instead, they wanted to start a new life in a new country. The UNRRA team was charged with relocating the children 3. Explain why the educational and work opportunities would be to the most suitable environment, as well as with preparing them for better in England or the United States. Would you choose to life in the future: return to your home country or immigrate to a new country? Why would you make this choice? [T]he very first comments a child makes are in relation to seeking relatives. . . . Several of the children have gone off on their own search to Poland, to Czechoslovakia, to Roumania Survivor Profile Activity: [sic], to Hungary. Many have been bitterly disappointed. Most of them have found their homes destroyed and no word about Using a child survivor profile from the exhibitLife After Survival, their parents. [. . .] write a report about the child as though you were Greta Fischer. What was the child’s life like before the war? What trauma did this Another hope of the older children is that they can leave child experience? In the opinion of UNRRA Team 182, where could Germany quickly. However, some, especially those who know this child create the best possible future for him- or herself? that their parents do not live, state positively that they do not wish to return to their country of origin but want to go where educational and work opportunities will be greater. . . . Some of the children said simply in response to the question as to where they would like to go, “Anywhere – where I can live in peace.” A large number want to return to their country of origin. Others want to emigrate to England, the United States, or Palestine.

8 Israel Benedikt

Israel, called Salek, was born in 1925 Salek moved to London where he in Lodz, Poland, to Jewish parents at first lived with a group of other who owned a delicatessen and ran a young Jewish Holocaust survivors restaurant. After hearing of Reichs- who called themselves “The Boys.” kristallnacht in Germany, his family This group became lifelong friends considered fleeing Poland, but and formed the “’45 Aid Society” decided to wait until Salek’s beloved to help each other in times of older brother Isaak returned from need throughout their lives. Even Russia. In 1941, his entire family was today the aid society continues forced into the Lodz ghetto. Salek to assist family members of “The fled but was arrested and impris- Boys.” In London Salek became a oned in Starachowice camp. In July successful graphic designer with the 1943, he was deported to Auschwitz pseudonym “Benny Benedikt.” He where he was forced into slave labor designed the magazine for the ’45 in the subcamp Buna. In January Aid Society and worked actively to 1944, he was taken to Oranienburg promote life-long friendship among concentration camp before arriving The Boys. Salek’s photographic at Flossenbürg concentration camp memory has preserved the lasting in February 1945. On April 23, 1945, he was liberated from a death march recollections of their mutual experiences during the Holocaust and their by the American Army. Much later in life, he learned that his brother Isaak time at the Kloster Indersdorf children’s center. and everyone else in his family had been killed.

Activity Can you find a picture of Salek in a skit depicting the rough treatment of prisoners in the concentration camps? Why do you think these child survivors reenacted this scene? Please give three possible answers.

9 Nachum Bogner

Nachum was born in 1933 into a While Nachum was at Kloster Inders- Jewish family in Berezhany, Poland dorf, Madrichim (teen mentors) (today in Ukraine). His father was from Dror provided the kibbutz a bookkeeper for the local flour group with general schooling and mill until 1941, when the Germans Hebrew instruction. The teenagers invaded the USSR, beginning the worked in the garden and prepared persecution of Jews in this region. to establish the new nation of Israel. Nachum and his parents fled to In 1947, Nachum illegally immi- Pomorzany and lived there until grated to Palestine where he has lived December 1942, when they were on Kibbuz Netiv Ha’Lamed-Hey forced into the Przemysl ghetto. In ever since. He became a historian, January 1943, the SS liquidated the specializing in the history of Jewish ghetto, killing more than 500 people persecution in Poland during the in the streets and deporting more war, as well as on the history of the than 2,000 to concentration camps. post-war era. He has written about Nachum and his parents were loaded the ships that brought Holocaust with other Jews into boxcars, but survivors like him to found the new Nachum’s family was able to escape nation of Israel. by tearing up the floorboards and dropping out of the moving train during the deportation. Along with some other Jews, they lived in the woods for months. However, when Nachum’s father returned to the ghetto in May 1943 for items to sell for food, he was killed. In January 1944, as Nachum’s Activity mother gathered wood in the forest, she was captured and tortured to What can you learn from Nachum’s life about the conditions for Polish Jews death, and Nachum was alone without any family until his liberation by during the war? the Red Army. Nachum ultimately headed to Lwów and then to Zakopane, where he lived in children’s homes until he joined the Dror youth movement, which brought him to Kloster Indersdorf in summer 1946.

10 Miriam and Hanna Both

Sisters Miriam and Hanna Both were At Kloster Indersdorf Miriam and born into a Jewish merchant family in Hanna were inseparable. They would Krakow, Poland. Their father owned sometimes travel together to see a candy store and worked as a glazier. their aunts in a different DP center After the German invasion in autumn for adults. The sisters wanted to 1939, the girls fled with their parents immigrate to Palestine. At Kloster to Zmisluwka to live with their grand- Indersdorf there were Madrichim parents. In 1940, their father went (teen mentors) and representatives to Russia but was never heard from of the Zionist kibbutz movement again. When the Polish Jews were Dror, who provided the teenagers being deported to ghettos and concen- with general schooling and Hebrew tration camps, the family fled to the instruction. They worked in the woods, where they lived for months garden and prepared to establish hiding in a shelter. When Miriam and the new nation of Israel. In July her mother went to find food, they hid 1947, Miriam and Hanna boarded Hanna in a hole they had dug, but on the completely overcrowded ship from front to back: the way home once, their mother died Exodus as it steamed toward Pales- Abram Wengrowski, Hanna Both, of exhaustion March 1943. Miriam tine. The ship was carrying 4,500 Halina Wengrowska, and Miriam Both and Hanna separately spent the next Holocaust survivors when British two years hiding among friends’ fami- destroyers rammed it in the Mediter- lies until the end of the war. In summer 1945, the sisters reunited in Silesia, ranean Sea. The refugees were forced and from then on, they remained together. With their aunts, they returned back to Germany. In 1948, Miriam to Zmisluwka, but it was too unsafe there for Jewish survivors, so they came and Hanna eventually immigrated to Germany, where the sisters joined the kibbutz group Dror, which brought to Israel and helped create a new them to Kloster Indersdorf in September 1946. kibbutz: Netiv Ha’Lamed-Hey, where Miriam still lives today. Miriam cared for infants in the nursery, and Hanna became a nurse. They both began Activity new lives, started families, and now Before the German invasion, Hanna and Miriam went to school and lived a have many grandchildren. comfortable life. By the end of the war they had lost everything from their former lives. Explain why the kibbutz movement was their only hope to build a new future.

11 Henia Bugajewicz

Henia was born in 1932 in Lodz, After six years of living as a refugee, Poland into an affluent, educated Henia no longer went hungry at Jewish family. Her father owned a Kloster Indersdorf. Madrichim (teen textile factory and was politically mentors) from Palestine provided the active. In 1939, he went to Warsaw kibbutz group with general schooling to fight the Germans and later fled to and Hebrew instruction. In July Lwów (then Soviet-occupied eastern 1947, Henia, her mother, and her Poland, today Ukraine), where he brother were on separate decks of the sent for Henia, her mother, and her horribly overcrowded ship Exodus as baby brother David. After many it steamed toward Palestine. The ship unsuccessful attempts to join him, carried 4,500 Holocaust survivors, the three later managed to cross the when British destroyers broke it apart border into Lwów, where they were in the Mediterranean Sea. They tore reunited with Henia’s father. There a gaping hole in the ship’s hull, right they lived in squalor, in a tiny apart- next to Henia’s berth! The refugees ment with an old woman. In 1940, were forced back to Germany. Not the Soviets forcibly moved them to until April 1948 did Henia’s family a remote camp in the woods by the finally reach Palestine, where they Volga River. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the lived on a kibbutz. Henia met her husband Schmuel there and started family moved east to Kazakhstan. Hungry and barefoot, Henia and David her own family. David joined an elite commando of the Israeli Army and wandered the streets, unable to attend school. In 1943, Henia’s father died was tragically killed in action in 1955. Henia worked very hard to put her because they could not afford a doctor. Only when the war ended did they husband through veterinary school. Once she was established in Israel, discover the extent of the Holocaust. In 1946, Henia, her mother, and David Henia made up for her own lost years of schooling by fulfilling her life-long went back to Lodz, only to learn that everyone else in their large family had dream of studying art and history. been murdered in Auschwitz. They were determined to reach Palestine, and with the help of the Zionist youth group Dror, they made it to Germany, where the mother lived in a refugee camp in Rosenheim, while Henia and David joined the Dror kibbutz group at Kloster Indersdorf. Later David was Activity sent to Bad Wörishofen to recuperate. In 1947, Henia’s family attempted passage to Palestine aboard the ill-fated ship Exodus. Look up the story of the Exodus on the Internet and write a brief summary of this refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. What parallels can you draw to the current crisis of refugees on boats adrift in the Mediterranean Sea?

12 Jakob Bulwa

Jakob Bulwa, was born in 1926 as the Because Jakob already knew that he eldest son of a Jewish horse-dealer had an aunt and an uncle living in in Piotrkow, Poland. He enjoyed his the U.S., he was able to immigrate to childhood with his mother Faigg, his St. Paul, Minnesota in 1946, where father Moisze, and his siblings Abram he took the name Jack. He went to and Rachel. After German troops high school, learned English, and invaded his country in September worked in his uncle’s automotive tire 1939, his family was forced to live repair business. He also served in the in the Starachowice ghetto. In the military as a cook in the U.S. Army. ghetto, Jakob bravely intervened to Afterward, he moved to California save his two cousins’ lives; however, where he ran his own tire repair he could not prevent his parents and business and regularly returned to siblings from being shipped to the Minnesota to celebrate holidays with death camp Treblinka. He would be his cousins, the only relatives that he forever haunted by the painful sight now had left. of the departing train taking them away. Jakob was used as slave labor in deplorable conditions at several munitions factories at Buna, Sachsenhausen, and Flossenbürg concentration camps. Now 70 years later, he still vividly remembers the day that he was liberated by American troops while on a death march toward Dachau. At the most critical moment, his liberators were there! The American soldiers were his heroes. He and his friend, Sacher Israeler, lived among the soldiers for some time before going to Kloster Indersdorf.

Activity In one picture you can see Jakob in the classroom reading from a book. Describe this scene, and explain the background: Why does Jakob have a numbered tattoo on his arm? How many years of schooling would Jakob need to make up? How are his classmates in the photo behaving?

13 Erwin Farkas

One of five children, Erwin was born In autumn 1945, Erwin and Lazar in 1929 to a middle-class Jewish waited at Kloster Indersdorf, while family in Transylvania, Romania. Lipot bravely journeyed back to Throughout the war, his family lived Romania to learn if anyone else from in relative safety. Erwin attended the Farkas and Kleinman families a Romanian school and was best had survived. He came back with the friends with his Hebrew teacher’s son, awful news that no one else had. It Lazar Kleinman, with whom he got was terrible for the brothers to sepa- into all sorts of mischief. In spring rate from Lazar when he was able 1944, when this part of Romania to immigrate to England, but Erwin belonged to Hungary, Hungarian and Lipot were prevented because fascists took away all of the Jewish they exceeded the age limit. In late family heads, among them, Erwin’s 1946, they ultimately immigrated to father. Some weeks later, Erwin and America, where each brother lived his older brother Lipot (Zoltan), their with a different aunt. During the day, mother, sisters, and grandfather were they earned their keep as laborers deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then went to school at night. where the brothers saw their family Erwin was drafted into the U.S. for the last time. After they had numbers tattooed onto their forearms, Army, and after his service he studied psychology and earned his Ph.D. Erwin and Lipot were transferred to nearby Buna subcamp, where they from the University of Minnesota. He enjoyed a long career as a psycholo- were forced to work in the IG Farben chemical factory. They were taken to gist in St. Paul, Minnesota and to this day remains in regular contact with Oranienburg and then to Flossenbürg concentration camp where they met his brother in California. their childhood friend Lazar again. Along with Lazar, they were forced on a death march toward Dachau. Weak and starving, the three boys supported In 2008, when Erwin attended the first reunion of survivors in Indersdorf, he each other until they were liberated by the American Army on April 23, saw his childhood friend Lazar Kleinman again for the first time in 63 years. 1945. Weeks later, at Kloster Indersdorf, the three were inseparable and insisted on sleeping in the same room and eating at the same table. Activity Can you find pictures of Erwin’s family, Lipot, and Lazar in the exhibit? Can you explain why these boys were so attached to each other? Name at least five reasons.

14 Zoltan (Lipot) Farkas

Lipot was one of five children born Lipot and Erwin both survived the to a middle-class Jewish family in Holocaust. Now known as Zoltan, he Transylvania, which then belonged and Erwin were taken in by rela- to Hungary, but is now located in tives in New York. During the day, Romania. Lipot was smart and intel- the brothers earned their keep as lectually curious. Much to his parents’ laborers and then went to school at and teachers’ delight, Lipot effortlessly night. Zoltan was also drafted into learned Hungarian, Romanian, and the U.S. Army. Ultimately he became Yiddish and diligently studied the a respected scientist at the Stanford Torah. Throughout the war, his family Linear Accelerator Center in Cali- lived in relative safety until the spring fornia, where he still enjoys working, of 1944, when Hungarian fascists took even now in his old age. away his father. Some weeks later, the rest of the family was deported However, only after several decades to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermina- had passed was Zoltan able to accept tion camp. Together with his brother that he would never again see his Erwin, Lipot survived the Auschwitz parents, his younger sisters, or his subcamp Buna and Oranienburg grandfather. concentration camp, before being transferred to the already-overcrowded Flossenbürg concentration camp just before the end of the war. He was liberated by the American Army on April 23, 1945, while on a death march toward Dachau. In autumn 1945, Lipot journeyed alone from Kloster Indersdorf across dangerous postwar borders to learn whether anyone else in his immediate family still survived. Unfortunately no one did.

Activity People like Zoltan would be called “resilient.” What does this mean? How does Zoltan’s story exemplify resilience?

15 Ella Fiks

Ella Fiks was born in 1931 into a At Kloster Indersdorf, Ella expe- Jewish family in the Polish village rienced a life-changing moment. Malynsk. Her father Mosche was From her sick room, she could hear a bookkeeper, and her mother Ita the noise of children playing in the cared for the seven children. When courtyard. Curious, she stuck her the Germans occupied Malynsk in head out the window and saw a good- 1941, Ella’s father and oldest brother looking young man in charge of the Yitzhak were taken away by the group. His name was Yitzhak, and for Russian Army. Ella was forced into both of them, it was love at first sight! the Beresne ghetto with the rest of However it was not until 1949 that her family, where she was put to hard the two were reunited on the kibbutz manual labor on a peat-cutting plan- Beit Hashita in Israel, where they tation. When the family was rounded got married. Today Ella Braun has a up for execution in the woods, Ella’s large family, enjoys the fine arts, and mother bribed the carriage driver creates jewelry. with her wedding ring so that she and her children could escape the bullets of the SS – this time. Exhausted, they hid in a bunker in the woods. Family friends helped Ella obtain false papers so that she could return to Malynsk and live with a family of strangers. Ella supplied her mothers and sisters in the hideaway with food, until the Activity Germans found them and murdered them. By the time the Russian Army Describe the different conflicts and dangers you can imagine Ella probably liberated Malynsk in 1944, Ella was weak and sick. In 1945, Ella went to the experienced when she took food and supplies to her family in the woods. Jewish Committee building in Krakow, where she was discovered by Lena Küchler-Silberman, a courageous woman who cared for over 100 Polish Jewish orphans and took them to a home in Zakopane to recover. There Ella was given medical treatment and met other children who had experienced similar fates. She eventually came in contact with the youth movement Dror, which got her to the U.S. Zone in Germany via Czechoslovakia. There she joined the Dror kibbutz group at Kloster Indersdorf.

16 Walter Hahn

Walter Hahn was born in Vienna Many years later, Walter learned in 1929. Because his mother was that his mother was murdered in Jewish, his family endured constant the Holocaust. Despite immigration reprisals after the 1938 German restrictions, Walter and Herbert were annexation of Austria. His gentile able to move to Philadelphia, Penn- father left the family before Walter, sylvania, where a Jewish organization his mother, and his brother Herbert housed them with a local family. were deported to the Theresienstadt Walter went to high school, and after ghetto. The brothers suffered for two graduation he met his future wife, miserable years in a children’s home Eva. Like him, she spoke German, but in the ghetto. After their liberation, she had survived the Holocaust as a they made their own way toward the Jewish refugee in Shanghai. Walter American Zone in Germany, along worked for 31 years as a manager for with Hans Neumann, a boy from Woolworth’s department stores, first Berlin. Ultimately the U.S. Army took in Seattle, Washington and then in the three teens to Kloster Indersdorf. San Francisco, California. His brother After Walter’s physical recovery there, Herbert became a plumber and he became a sports enthusiast. tragically died at age 27 when a wall collapsed on him at work. Walter was a loving father to his two sons, but for over 60 years he never spoke of his terrible experiences during the Nazi era. It was only after renewing his friendship with Hans Neumann at a Holo- Activity caust survivors’ reunion in Indersdorf that his old friend encouraged him to Can you find a documentary photo of Walter standing in the middle of a tell his story after years of repressing it. group as he tells his story? What reaction do you see from the adult in the photo? What do you imagine this man said?

17 Istvan Hajdu

Istvan was born into a Jewish From Indersdorf, Istvan was sent to family in 1929 near Lake Balaton the lung hospital in Gauting and then in Hungary. As a child, he learned to a sanatorium in Bad Wörishofen, photography from his father and where he received treatment to received his first camera when he was improve his mobility and to cure his 11 years old. In 1944, Istvan, along lungs. There he learned the photog- with his mother, father, grandparents, raphy trade and liked to participate and school friends, was deported to in excursions with other teens. the concentration camp Auschwitz- Istvan’s greatest personal victory Birkenau. There he saw his mother, was climbing the Branderschrofen grandparents, and friends for the mountain (6,165 ft.) in September last time. Istvan and his father were 1947. He was determined to triumph transported to Rehmsdorf, a satellite over his former oppressors, and it camp of Buchenwald, where they took him five days to hike to the were forced to work in an oil refinery. summit on crutches. There he wrote Istvan helplessly witnessed his father’s his name in a logbook, which can illness and death, resulting from the still be found in the local town inhumane conditions at this plant. archives. At Bad Wörishofen, Istvan In April 1945, American bombers attacked the train transporting Istvan learned that his brother and two aunts had survived the Holocaust and had and other prisoners in a coal car toward Flossenbürg concentration camp. returned to Hungary. In November 1947, he joined them in Budapest and Shrapnel struck Istvan and tore off his left leg at the knee. With no medical has lived there ever since. Istvan fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming treatment, he lay for days in inclement weather in the open coal car until a photographer and ultimately became the laboratory division manager of his leg was amputated at Flossenbürg concentration camp. Fifteen-year-old the Hungarian state film agency. On July 21, 2013 – Istvan’s 84th birthday Istvan was more dead than alive on April 23, 1945, when he was liberated – during the annual commemoration at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp by American soldiers. He weighed only 75 pounds and had a high tempera- Memorial Site, he delivered a thoughtful speech about the effects of the ture from pneunomina and from the amputation. Istvan spent months concentration camps on former inmates. recuperating at an UNRRA hospital in Weiden and then in Regensburg, where he received a prosthetic leg. Eager to learn a trade and support himself, he arrived at Kloster Indersdorf in August 1946 as a member of the kibbutz group “Mahapecha.” Activity Find two photos of Istvan next to each other in the exhibit. What meaning can you interpret from these pictures, especially from the discarded crutches in the background?

18 Martin Hecht

Martin was born in 1930 in Transyl- Martin and Jakob immigrated to vania, Romania. He was the youngest England where they at first lived in of eight children whose father was a Jewish hostel with other Holocaust a local Jewish landowner. In 1935, survivors. They called themselves Martin’s father prepared the entire “The Boys” and later formed the “’45 family to move to Palestine by taking Aid Society” to help each other in four of his older children to live times of need throughout their lives. there. He returned home with his In London, Martin attended an ORT son Samuel, who was too young to be school, a Jewish training and educa- left behind. However, in 1940 Tran- tion center, where he completed a sylvania was transferred to Hungary, technical program. After working and by 1944 the Hungarian police in a technical field for a couple of deported all the Jews from Martin’s years, Martin became a supermarket village to the ghetto in Viseu de manager before running his own Sus. After a few weeks there, they catering business for many years. were sent in cattle cars to Auschwitz Today Martin lives with his wife Aida concentration camp. Martin and in Israel. his three brothers were separated forever from their parents. The four brothers were transferred to Dörnau To this day, he still can’t comprehend why he, the youngest in the family, labor camp, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen, where they were forced to build a survived, while his older, much stronger brothers died on the death march. railroad through a mountain. They lived for months in horrible conditions with little to eat. As they were being grouped to march to the next camp, Martin and his brother Jakob, now separated from their older brothers’ group, heard shots in the woods, and Martin could only presume what they Activity meant. Martin and Jakob arrived at Flossenbürg concentration camp, where Watch the exhibit’s accompanying film and explain what is meant by they were forced on a death march toward Dachau. They were liberated by The Rage to Live. American troops on April 23, 1945 near Stamsried. Martin and Jakob spent some time in Neunburg vorm Wald before being sent to Kloster Indersdorf.

19 Sacher Israeler

Sacher was born in 1931 in Krakow, UNRRA personnel quickly received Poland. The son of a Jewish textile letters from Sacher’s relatives in company owner, he had four older North America, inquiring about sisters and one older brother. In his welfare and preparing for his 1939, the family moved to Tarnow departure from Germany. At that to avoid the Krakow ghetto, but they time, the Committee of Liberated were forced into a ghetto there, and Jews in Bavaria did not want young in June 1942, German soldiers killed Jews to immigrate anywhere other many Jews in a so-called “campaign,” than to Palestine; however, UNRRA among them Sacher’s mother and two workers felt that the children should of his sisters. Sacher and his brother decide their own futures, and Sacher’s escaped the shooting, but Sacher’s greatest wish was to go to America. father had been shot and bled to In 1946, Sacher went to Paris, where death in front of his two boys. In he lived with an aunt for several September, the Tarnow ghetto was months before he went to Canada liquidated, and Sacher was spared in September 1947. There, Sacher deportation to an extermination learned that his three siblings had camp by convincing the notorious been murdered in the Holocaust, and guard commander Amon Göth, “I’m a good worker!” Sacher was separated he was the only survivor from his family of eight. Ultimately, Sacher made from his brother and then shipped to concentration camps in Plaszow, it to the USA. He moved to New York where he changed his name to Steve Mielice, and Flossenbürg, where he had to do assembly work with his and ran a successful business with his cousin. Today he lives with his long- deft, small hands to ensure his survival. In April 1945, Sacher was forced time girlfriend in a beautiful apartment in Manhattan. on a death march from Flossenbürg toward Dachau and was liberated by the American Army near Neukirchen-Balbini. Together with his friends Jakob Bulwa and Moszek Sztajnkeler, Sacher walked to Neunburg vorm Wald, where he spent several days in the hospital. He and his friends later Activity lived among their heroes by working for the American soldiers in Nabburg Can you find Sacher in a photo with other teens? Which of his friends is before arriving together at Kloster Indersdorf in October 1945. with him in this picture? Sacher’s greatest wish was to go to America. How should the UNRRA workers have responded to this desire?

20 Stanislaw Janowski

Stanislaw was born in Warsaw in When Greta Fischer found Stanislaw 1930 as the youngest of four children. in the street camp at the German By the time he was nine years old, Museum in Munich, he was hungry the Germans had invaded Poland, and clothed in a tattered German and his father and older brother uniform. He remembers how kind were killed in an air raid. Stanislaw’s Greta Fischer was to him, like the brother-in-law was active in the mother he had been searching for. Polish resistance, and through their After living for months as a vaga- close relationship, Stanislaw became bond, Stanislaw was amazed to have a messenger boy for the insurgents his own bed at Kloster Indersdorf, during the Warsaw Uprising. In decent clothing, and even chocolates. summer 1944, the brother-in-law An American officer helped him and was killed, and Stanislaw became his friends to form a scout troop and separated from his mother. After took them on many excursions -- the uprising’s defeat, Stanislaw was even one to Italy! -- which he enjoyed among the hundreds of thousands very much. Like so many other boys who were sent to do slave labor in in the children’s center, he longed to Germany. He labored at a BMW go to America. However, in 1947, aircraft engine factory in Berlin. In May 1945, when the war was over, Stanislaw learned that his mother and sisters had survived the war, and he Stanislaw went back to Warsaw and found everything in ruins. He could was repatriated to Poland. He worked hard to make up for his lost years of not locate his mother and concluded that she too had been deported to schooling and became a geography teacher. To this day, Stan (as he likes to Germany. For this reason, Stanislaw went back to Germany and searched be called) travels as often as possible and wants to see the entire world. the camps of former forced laborers, but could not find her. In Munich, as Stanislaw was living on the streets for a short time, UNRRA worker Greta Fischer found him and brought him to Kloster Indersdorf. Activity Find the group picture of Polish gentile boys in Kloster Indersdorf. How was Stanislaw’s dormitory decorated? What does this say about these boys? You can see Stanislaw in the filmThe Rage to Live. List five adjectives that describe him.

21 Sofia and Janusz Karpuk

Sofia and her younger brother At Kloster Indersdorf, Sofia and Janusz were born in Pinsk, Poland Janusz were happy to be with (now in Belarus) in 1935 and 1939 other children, go to school respectively. Their father was a again, and learn something highway engineer, and their mother useful. Sofia especially enjoyed was a postal worker. Their father helping with the babies. One of was active in the Polish resistance, the unidentified babies was even when in 1943, the children and named after her! Their father their mother were abducted and had been killed during the war, forced to work on a farm in Urfar, so when they returned to Poland near Malching in Lower Bavaria. in 1946, they had no home. The Their mother did heavy work in siblings were raised in orphan- the fields while eight-year-old Sofia ages. Sofia became a chemist in did housework for the farmer’s wife the textile industry, and Janusz and four-year-old Janusz tended became a successful handball the cows. They were given little to player for the Polish national eat. When their mother became team. The teenage forced laborer gravely ill, Sofia walked six kilome- who cared for the siblings after ters to see her in the hospital. In their mother’s death never forgot them. After decades of searching for the February 1945, their mother died children, she found them, and they were reunited in 1980. Sofia and Janusz after instructing Sofia to care for still live in Poland, where they now have their own families. her brother. A 17-year-old Polish forced laborer living nearby looked after the children, but after the war, she was repatriated to Poland, Activity leaving the children all alone. Sofia Can you find a photo of Greta Fischer looking through the Karpuk chil- cared for Janusz until they arrived dren’s suitcase? What might she be looking for? at Kloster Indersdorf, where the two were relieved to finally have enough to eat, a good pair of shoes, and decent clothing.

22 Lazar Kleinman

The son of a Hasidic shochet, Lazar Lazar remembers UNRRA worker was born in 1929 in Romania near Greta Fischer taking him to Regens- Satu Mare. He was the second eldest burg for a new suit before he of eight children. Lazar’s father taught immigrated to England in October Hebrew and the Torah to the local 1945. In England Lazar learned that Jewish children, including Lazar’s he was the only one in his family of best friends, Zoltan and Erwin ten to survive the Holocaust. He kept Farkas. Hungarian fascists took away his promise to God and studied in a the head of the family – Lazar’s father yeshiva in Manchester for one year – in April 1944 to the Russian front. before he apprenticed as a furrier. He Lazar’s mother and his siblings were changed his name to Leslie, married a forced into the Satu Mare ghetto, German, and eventually ran his own and by the end of May, they were dress manufacturing company before deported to Auschwitz concentration moving to Canada for his wife’s sake camp, where 15-year-old Lazar was in 1979. Widowed in 2004, Leslie separated from the rest of his family. moved back to London to be near his He had to pass himself off as 17 to be daughter, and there he met his second declared “fit for labor.” On his first wife, Miriam, whom he married in night in the barracks, the other prisoners told him his loved ones had prob- 2011 at the age of 83. Each year Leslie celebrates April 23rd, the day of his ably already been gassed and cremated. Lazar was forced to do hard labor liberation, like a holiday, and he frequently speaks to schoolchildren about at the Buna subcamp, laying railroad tracks and unloading cement from his experiences during the Holocaust. His message is, “Hate is never right, boxcars. When he was transferred to Oranienburg concentration camp, and love can never be wrong.” Lazar made a pact with God that if he survived, he would spend one year in a yeshiva. Later he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp and then forced on a death march toward Dachau. When he felt too weak to go on, his friends Zoltan and Erwin Farkas held him up as they walked Activity together. On April 23,1945, U.S. soldiers found him lying exhausted and Can you explain how Lazar developed his personal motto: starving in a roadside ditch and took him to a military hospital, where he “Hate is never right, and love can never be wrong”? recovered. He arrived at Kloster Indersdorf in August of that year. (Please give several different explanations.)

23 Nina Krieger

Nina was born in January 1932 in In August 1946, Nina moved to the Lwów, Poland, in a region that now United States, where she was hosted belongs to Ukraine. She was the by a foster family in Cleveland, Ohio. youngest of five children born to a Later she moved to New York to textile trader in a comfortable home. pursue music, her life-long passion. At Nina’s mother died when Nina was a New Year’s Eve party she met Avito only two years old, but she was cared Monaci, a chemistry student from for by a nanny named Sarah. Nina’s Italy. Two years later, they got married older sister immigrated to Palestine in Italy, where Nina became an Italian just in time. When Nina’s father citizen and continued her singing was killed in 1941, Sarah remained career. Nina never spoke to anyone with the children when they were about her past, and none of her chil- deported to the Lwów ghetto in dren knew of her experiences during November of that year. One night, the Holocaust. Only after Nina shared Nina and her siblings were trans- her story with her granddaughter, was ported in trucks with other Jews from she reconnected with her oldest sister the ghetto to a forest for execution, Rachel in Israel, who had moved to but Nina managed to escape. She was Palestine before the war. never able to speak of the horrors she witnessed in the woods, the last place she ever saw her siblings. Nina got by on her own, partly because her blond hair and blue eyes allowed her to pass for a gentile. For a period of time, a group of nuns hid her in a Polish convent. After the war ended, she eventually came to Kloster Indersdorf.

Activity Can you spot Nina in the exhibit’s accompanying film, as well as in two photos? Can you explain why Nina never wanted to speak about her experiences during the Holocaust?

24 Tibor Munkácsi

Tibor was born in Budapest, Hungary Tibor initially immigrated to in 1925. His father, a house painter, Manchester, England, where he lived died when Tibor was only five years in a hostel with other Jewish teens. old. His mother could barely feed the Later he moved to London, where he family with the little money she made apprenticed as a photographer. Only selling used clothing. Tibor attended then did he learn that his mother and high school, but owing to increasing sister had survived the Holocaust. In anti-Semitism among the teachers, he 1948, Tibor’s brother Martin visited left and apprenticed as a tailor. When him in England, and in 1950, Tibor the German Army occupied Hungary finally immigrated to New York. in 1944, he was forced to become At first he could not find work as an SS servant and then join a work a photographer, so for a while he brigade, laying railroad tracks near helped Lillian Robbins, the former the Romanian border. He managed director of the Kloster Indersdorf to flee and narrowly escaped a firing Children’s Center, who now ran a squad. In December 1944, he was children’s home in New York City. deported to Buchenwald concentra- He changed his name to Tibor Sands tion camp where, as a tailor, he had and, after many years of hard work, to mend the prisoners’ striped uniforms. In the spring of 1945, Tibor was became a successful photographer and cameraman. He filmed John F. shipped to Flossenbürg concentration camp and was soon forced on a death Kennedy in the White House and worked with countless celebrities, such as march toward Dachau. Tibor knew he had three older half brothers already Jane Fonda, Johnny Depp, and Mick Jagger. He was also a cameraman for living in America, one of whom was the world-famous photographer, Francis Ford Coppola’s classic film,The Godfather. Martin Munkácsi. While Tibor was living at Kloster Indersdorf after his liberation, filmmaker Hanus Burger visited the orphanage, and Tibor asked him whether he knew his brother Martin. Amazingly the two men were very close friends.

Activity Watch the exhibit’s accompanying film,The Rage to Live. How do you imagine the decisive moment when Tibor asks Hanus Burger about his brother? How did this filmmaker possibly influence Tibor’s life?

25 Bernat Nasch

Bernat was born in 1930 in Slovakia From Indersdorf, Bernat immigrated (at that time Hungary), the second- to Manchester, England, where he youngest child of a Jewish family. spent two years in an orthodox In summer 1944, the family was Jewish children’s home. He wrote deported to Auschwitz, where to his uncle, who had immigrated Bernat’s mother and younger brother to Palestine before the Holocaust. Emil were immediately gassed. From him, Bernat learned that his Because he was too young, Bernat older siblings had all survived the was at first declared “unfit for labor.” Holocaust and had immigrated When Bernat was inspected by the to Palestine. In 1947, Bernat also notorious Dr. Mengele, he slyly moved to Palestine, and later leapt forward into the front row of he fought in the army. After the those declared “fit for labor” and was founding of Israel, he worked as a therefore spared death. Bernat was diamond cutter in a factory, where in transported to the Gleiwitz subcamp, 1961, he met Charlotte, the factory then to the concentration camps owner’s niece, who was visiting from at Oranienburg and Flossenbürg, Belgium. Charlotte had survived the where he was placed on a death Holocaust in Switzerland. Bernat march toward Dachau. On April 23, 1945, he was liberated by the American followed her back to Belgium, where Charlotte’s father hired him as a Army near the village of Stamsried. For some time afterward, he lived with diamond cutter. They married and had a daughter and a son. a German farming family in the village. An American soldier eventually took him to Kloster Indersdorf. During many car rides and long conver- sations with UNRRA worker André Marx, Bernat attempted to reconcile his disturbing experiences. He desperately hoped to hear some word of his family. It was only much later that he learned his father had been murdered at Mauthausen concentration camp.

Activity Can you find Bernat and André Marx in any of the exhibit photos? What do you think Bernat spoke to André about during their car rides?

26 Maier and Samuel Reinstein

Maier was born in Strzemieszyce, Soon Maier and Samuel were Poland in 1929, and his youngest both accepted for immigration brother Samuel two years later. Their to England. However, on a day locksmith father died young in 1934, trip to Munich, they ran into a after which the mother fed her eight Polish friend who told them that children by selling eggs and butter. In their two older sisters, Jadzia spring 1943, the Jewish population and Laia, had survived the Holo- was forced into a ghetto where Maier caust and were at a DP-camp worked in a wheelbarrow factory nearby. These sisters were too for the German Army, but Samuel old to qualify to immigrate to was too young for labor. During a England. Since they wanted to selection in June 1943, Samuel passed stay together, all four siblings himself off as older so that he and ultimately made the journey to Maier would be deported together to Palestine. They married, had the Blechhammer labor camp, where children, and that is why today they performed slave labor. After they there is an extended Reinstein further endured the Gross-Rosen and family in Israel. Buchenwald concentration camps, they were forced to march to Flos- Maier and Samuel’s mother and two brothers were murdered in the Holocaust. senbürg concentration camp. From there, they were sent on another death march toward Dachau, on which they were liberated near Activity Stamsried on April 23, 1945. Maier, Watch the exhibit’s film,The Rage to Live. Can you imagine why, to the who was sick with typhus, was sent Reinstein brothers, Kloster Indersdorf was “like a palace”? to a military hospital in Neunburg vorm Wald. Samuel searched for days before he found his brother again. The two were inseparable when they arrived at Kloster Indersdorf.

27 Yankele Rotem

Yankele Rotem was born Yaakov In Indersdorf, Yankele’s group Abaranok in Zdzieciol, Poland (today quickly fit in with the Polish Dror Belarus), a genuine Eastern Euro- kibbutz group: “We were normal pean “shtetl,” a predominantly Jewish teenagers. We had our hair cut at the village. As German troops invaded local barber, posed for photographs, this region, they murdered his and had as much fun as possible. parents and younger sister. Yankele’s We bought things from the local older sister Sara fled with him to Germans using our canned food, the woods, where they took shelter since no one apparently had money, with their aunt Yach’ka in a camp of and everyone desperately needed resistance fighters. They spent two food. We even had a beer from time years moving from one hideout to the to time, only because there was a pub next, suffering in the bitter cold from directly across from the Kloster. We diseases and hunger until all three did everything as a group of friends. were liberated in Nowogródek. When There was a Zionistic atmosphere they returned to their home village, and a corresponding social life with they found very few Jewish survi- the joyful expectation that we would vors, and strangers were now living soon go to Palestine.” in their houses. Yankele remained there for a year and even completed his fourth year of education at a Russian school. Seeing no future for them- From Kloster Indersdorf, the young people were sent to Palestine in selves in Belarus, 13-year-old Yankele, 17-year-old Sara, his aunt Yach’ka, age-appropriate groups. During Passover in 1947, Yankele set sail aboard and her only surviving son made their way to Lodz, where Sara and Yankele the Theodor Herzl in the Mediterranean Sea until the ship was rammed joined the Zionist youth movement Dror. The youth group ventured across apart by the British Navy. Only after a long stay in Cyprus, did the passen- multiple borders until they finally reached the DP-camp in Landsberg, gers finally reach Israel. Today Yankele lives with his wife Ora (nee Halina Germany. In the fortress there, they could live an orderly life, once again Wengrowska) and other former “Indersdorfers” on the kibbutz Netiv sleep peacefully, and attend school. Yankele even learned to ride a bicycle. Ha’Lamed-Hey near Jerusalem.

Activity Describe Yankele’s life among the partisans in the woods. What did he miss out on during his years there?

28 Witold Scibak

Witold Scibak was born in 1928 in When an UNRRA worker inter- Thorn, Poland. He had a sheltered viewed him at great length upon his childhood, living with his parents arrival at Kloster Indersdorf, Witold and an older sister. However, after feared that everyone in his family German troops occupied Poland in had been killed. However, the worker 1939, his family was forced to move encouraged him not to give up hope. several times, and his father was She told him to write a letter to his interned in a fortress. After the defeat aunt, who owned an estate in the of the Warsaw Uprising, Witold’s Pomeranian region of Germany. This entire family was forcibly transported letter was sent directly to his relatives, to Germany. His mother and sister and after only 14 days, Witold learned were sent to the Ravensbrück concen- that his sister and both of his parents tration camp, while Witold and his had survived, but were in poor father were imprisoned in Sachsen- medical condition. As he waited to hausen concentration camp. There, be repatriated, Witold made the best Witold became separated from his of his time by forming a Polish scout father and was transferred to Bergen- troop with the help of an American Belsen concentration camp and then officer. In the woods, they practiced finally to Horgau, near Augsburg, a satellite camp of Dachau concentration building lean-tos, and they made wonderful excursions, both near and far. camp, where he performed slave labor in a Messerschmitt factory. After his After Witold was reunited with his family in Poland in summer 1946, he liberation on April 28, 1945, he spent a couple of weeks in Schwabmünchen, was finally able to make up his lost years of schooling. In the course of his also near Augsburg, recovering from physical exhaustion. In October 1945, career, he worked as a lecturer at the Warsaw University of Technology, he was photographed sitting in bed since he was placed under quarantine in educating future civil engineers. In retrospect, he is thankful today for the Kloster Indersdorf so that he could be treated for the skin condition scabies. positive turnaround that UNRRA brought to his life.

Activity Look over the photos in the exhibit, and give five reasons why Witold Scibak was grateful to UNRRA. Which type of support do you think was most important to him?

29 Katalin Szász

Katalin was from a small village in Katalin lived in Israel for a few years, the wine-growing region of Hungary. where she took the Hebrew name She was only 14 years old, and Zahava and later married another her sister Erzsébet only 13, when Holocaust survivor. Now known their entire family was deported to as Zahava Stessel, she and her Auschwitz. This was the last time husband moved to New York, where that they saw their parents. The two Zahava worked as a librarian, had sisters were selected by the infa- a daughter, and ultimately earned mous Dr. Mengele because he at her Ph.D. in history from New York first mistook them for twins. They University. Her sister Erzsébet, were next sent to Bergen-Belsen and who now goes by Chava, started a then in December 1944, to Mark- family in Israel. Dr. Zahava Stessel kleeberg, a Buchenwald women’s wrote the book Snow Flowers about subcamp, where they were made to Hungarian Jewish women in the work grueling twelve-hour shifts in Buchenwald subcamp Markklee- a military production factory. They berg. As a tribute to Dr. Stessel’s managed to survive only through sensitive yet scholarly work, she has their mutual support of one another. been named an honorary citizen of After the liberation, the sisters returned to Hungary, where they learned modern-day Markkleeberg. She also wrote Wine and Thorns, a book about that everyone in their family had been killed in the Holocaust. Now all the Jewish community in her Hungarian home town. alone in the world, they joined the Zionist youth movement. As members of the kibbutz group “Mahapecha” (Hebrew for “revolution”), they came to Kloster Indersdorf, where they prepared themselves for an agrarian life in Palestine, later Israel.

Activity Can you find Katalin and Erzsébet in the picture of the Hungarian kibbutz group? Why do you think so many Holocaust survivors in the kibbutz movement chose new names for themselves? How do you envision life on a kibbutz?

30 Szlama Weichselblatt

Szlama was born in 1928, the eldest Szlama finally joined his father in child of a Jewish merchant and seam- New York in 1946; however, they stress in Bilcze Zlote, part of Polish had become complete strangers to Ukraine. He had a brother named Leo each other. He changed his name to and many relatives living close by. By Sol Wexler and finished high school. 1938, anti-Semitism in the area grew, He opened his own restaurant and so Szlama’s father went to Brooklyn, later became a stockbroker. Ulti- New York to prepare for the family’s mately, he worked for 20 years as a emigration. However, the outbreak clerk in the New York Surrogate’s of war prevented this, and in 1941, Court. The documentary film enti- Szlama, his mother, and Leo were tled No Place on Earth chronicles the made to register themselves as Jews amazing survival story of Sol and in Borszcsow. Szlama was deported the other Jews living in the caves. An to Kamianky concentration camp American cave explorer discovered until his mother managed to ransom many artifacts of their 17-month him. Together with 27 other Jews, stay, including young Szlama’s name they found shelter in a cave. When written on the wall with charcoal. the group was discovered, Szlama escaped, but his mother and brother were killed. All alone now, Szlama joined his uncle and 36 other Jews as they moved into an unexplored massive cave complex, where they barely evaded starvation for the next 17 Activity months. In April 1944, Russian troops liberated this region of Ukraine, and Szlama spent almost two years of his life in dark, damp caves. Describe the when the 38 emaciated survivors crept out of the cave in pitiful condition physical and psychological effect this had on him. and blinded by the sunlight, the soldiers considered shooting them out of mercy. Szlama made his way to Germany, hoping UNRRA would be able to reunite him with his father in Brooklyn. In Munich, he saw some well- dressed boys going to the movie theater. He joined them and experienced at Kloster Indersdorf what he called, “the best time of my life.”

31 Roman and Herman Weinstock

Roman was born in 1927 in Okocim After their stay at Kloster Indersdorf, Gorny, Poland, and his younger the brothers at first immigrated to brother Herman was born in 1933. England, where they remained until Their parents were Jewish cattle the nation of Israel was founded. farmers until the family of eight They immigrated there in 1949. was forced into the ghetto in nearby Roman joined the Israeli Air Force, Brzesko in 1942. Later that year, they and Herman joined the army. Since were deported to Mielece concen- they were both familiar with airplane tration camp, where the brothers mechanics from their time in the and their father did slave labor in an concentration camps, they ultimately airplane factory, but their mother and pursued careers in this field. Roman six siblings were sent to Belzec. They worked for El Al Israel airlines as a soon learned that this was an extermi- maintenance engineer, and Herman nation camp. Along with their father, worked for Israel Aircraft Industries Roman and Herman were transferred as an industrial technician. They to Wieliczka concentration camp, remained close throughout their lives, then to Flossenbürg concentration along with their extended family camp, where they were forced to work members in Israel. in the Messerschmitt airplane factory. After their father died, the two brothers had only each other. Roman Activity was always protective of his younger In the old newsreel footage found in brother and even hid Herman under the accompanying filmThe Rage to his coat during one of the selections, Live, you can see on Herman Wein- afraid that he would be sent to his stock’s arm the “KL” tattoo that he death because he was too young to received at the concentration camp in work. The brothers stayed together Mielece. Herman never spoke of his as they were forced on a death march terrible experiences in the concen- from Flossenbürg toward Dachau. On tration camps. Whenever anyone April 23, 1945, they were liberated asked about his tattoo, he always by American troops near Stamsried. said, “I used to work for KLM (Dutch Roman and Herman spent several airlines), but I lost the ‘M.’” How can months in Neunburg vorm Wald you explain this response? before they came to the children’s center at Kloster Indersdorf.

32 Halina Wengrowska

Halina Wengrowska was born In August 1946, Halina and Abram in 1931 in Warsaw, Poland. Her arrived at Kloster Indersdorf, just younger brother Abram was born as it was converted to an exclusively eight years later. Her father Hersz Jewish children’s center. At only 15 Wengrowski was an engineer in the years old, Halina already felt respon- same firm where Halina’s mother sible for her little brother Abram. Rowska worked as a secretary. The She attempted to recover some of children were cared for by a nanny. her lost school years and remembers, In 1940, the family was forced to “The Kloster was huge, with a central leave their roomy apartment for the courtyard. We were divided into three cramped conditions of the Warsaw age groups: children, teenagers, and ghetto, the largest collection point young adults. I was put in the adult for Polish Jews to be sent to the group, and my brother was in the Treblinka death camp. For three children’s group. We had good times. years Halina suffered unimaginable Although my brother was sick and atrocities there and repeat- spent several days in hospitals as well edly avoided selections into the as in a sanatorium, I made sure that concentration camps. Her parents he received proper care. And I was ultimately paid a huge sum to have both children housed with sepa- happy to be among my fellow Jews again. It felt as though I had returned rate gentile families outside of Warsaw. Halina went by the name Janina to my people. Although all of us had suffered, and no one had any family Snodowik, and Abram was called Janek Polich. Halina’s parents escaped left, everyone felt a warm sense of mutual affection.” After many detours, to Kauszin with false papers; however, the Germans discovered them including a dangerous journey aboard the ship Exodus, Halina finally made and murdered them. After a desperate three-year search for her brother, it to Israel. There she married Yankele Abaranok-Rotem, another young Halina and Abram were reunited at the Jewish Committee in Warsaw after survivor whom she already knew from Kloster Indersdorf. Today she is the war. They joined the Zionist youth movement Dror and entered the called Ora Rotem and lives with her husband and family on the kibbutz American Zone in Germany via Prague, Czechoslovakia. Netiv Ha’Lamed-Hey near Jerusalem.

Activity Can you find a photo in the exhibit of Halina and her brother Abram in Kloster Indersdorf circa 1946/47? Describe the scene as fifteen-year-old Halina saw her eight-year-old brother Abram again for the first time after the war.