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My name is David Bergman, and I am going to be your guide on a journey - a journey from
hell to freedom.
I am qualified to be your guide because I have taken this journey before. I was lucky
to have survived, but for millions of other people it was a one way journey because they
were murdered by the Nazis. The methods used for the killings were poisonous gas, starvation,
torture, and many other cruel methods.
You will see and hear how the Nazis in Germany and in many other countries in Europe murdered
millions of innocent Jewish children and adults simply because they were Jewish. It should
be remembered that the Nazis also murdered millions of Christians that were against Nazism
or were considered undesirable, such as gypsies and others considered unfit for work.
The sounds of the trains that you will hear are the sounds that brought terror and fear
into the hearts of millions of victims confronted by Nazi tyranny because the sound of a hissing
steam engine meant to be taken away from home and sent to a concentration camp or an extermination
camp.
I would like to emphasize at this time that this is not a made-up story of mine, nor of
someone else's imagination. What you will see and hear is what I saw and experienced.
It is the duty and obligation of everyone who believes in freedom and justice for all
people to make sure that the truth is passed on from generation to generation so that the
millions of Jewish and Christian lives destroyed under Nazi tyranny will never be forgotten,
and that their memory will serve as a reminder that tyranny will attempt to destroy anyone
or anything that opposes it. I saw it happen, and, if we allow it, it can happen again.
And now come along with me on this epic journey. It will be a short journey, but you will remember
it for a lifetime.
I was born in a small town in the Carpathian Mountains called Backow, a province of Czechoslovakia.
It was a happy place. We all respected each other's religions and way of life.
In 1944 when I was only 12 years old, we were taken from our homes by the vicious Nazis
from Hungary and Germany. Being so young, I had no idea what it was all about, but I
remember my parents telling me that the exile would be only for a short time and that soon
everything would be just like it was before.
The Hungarian Gestapo put a seal on our doors and told us that when we returned home the
house would be returned to us. I believe that most Jewish people in town really thought
we would return. We had never harmed anyone so why should anyone want to harm us? We were
strong believers in God and believed that what was happening was His will, and He would
see to it that we would soon return.
Shortly afterwards we were taken to a processing camp in Hungary called Mateszalka. The camp
was controlled by the Hungarian Gestapo who were displaying their viciousness for all
to see. A couple of men were caught trying to escape. Their punishment consisted of having
their hands tied behind their back until their feet were just a couple of inches off the
ground. They were held in that position until they passed out. They were revived by having
water poured over their heads and then lowered to the ground for a few minutes. As soon as
they revived, the rope was raised again and they were held like that until they passed
out again. This torture was repeated several times. We were forced to watch this so that
we would be aware of what would happen to anyone who tried to escape.
After a few weeks at Mateszalka, we were again put into cattle trains so crowded that we
could not even move. And then they locked the doors. We were not told where we were
going or how long the trip would last. Hungarian guards were replaced with German guards.
After a few days of traveling with no food or water, the train slowed down. I noticed
a huge barbed-wire enclosure with many barracks and buildings with large smoke stacks. I could
not understand why so many smoke stacks were needed. None of us knew what the smoke stacks
were used for, but we soon found out.
As the train proceeded deeper and deeper into the barbed-wire complex, we all began to suspect
that somethi ng was wrong. We were hoping to be taken to some city in Hungary, but this
did not look like a city. The train came to a stop, and suddenly it felt like lightening
had struck.
WE WERE IN AUSCHWITZ.
After we got off the train at Auschwitz, we were made aware of the brutality of the Nazi
guards. As soon as we were inside the gates of Auschwitz, the Nazis showed their viciousness.
We saw able-bodied men going in one direction, able-bodied women in another direction, and
children and older people in yet another direction. The suddenness of separation was a shock.
No one had any warning. Mothers and fathers who tried to go after their children were
severely beaten by the Nazis, and if they still resisted were immediately shot. Children
tried to run to their parents but were taken back forcibly by the brutal guards. It was
a scene that you need to see only once in a lifetime, and it remains engraved in your
mind and heart forever.
A few hundred feet from the train I saw a Nazi officer flanked by guards barking out
orders, directing people to their lines. With a flick of a hand a person's fate was sealed:
who shall live, and who shall die.
We did not know why we were separated. We were told that we would be kept together and
soon return home. The separation happened very fast. My mother went in one direction.
My brother and sister in another; I did not even have a chance to say good-bye to them.
Somehow I was put with an adult group and managed to stay together with my father. As
I stood awaiting the judgment of the Nazi officer, he asked me how old I was. I was
about to say that I was 12, but something held me back. Maybe it was fear. So I did
not say anything. My father, realizing what was happening, said that I was 14.
The Nazi officer paused for a moment, looked me over and motioned with his right arm ordering
me to go where the adults were going. Had I said that I was only 12 years old, I would
have gone with the other children.
The children and older people were put into a building and told to take a shower. Without
warning, a poisonous gas was turned on. There was a brief struggle for air. Then, death.
This was one of the many methods used to destroy the Jewish people. This was what millions
of Jewish people faced day in and day out from 1941 to
1945--five of the most unbelievable years in the history of human cruelty.
After the separation, we were stripped of all our clothing and belongings. We were warned
that if any valuables were found on us we would be put to death. Shock and fear came
over me. A while ago I had been playing with other children, discussing school, preparing
for my Bar Mitzva. And now, here I was, struggling for survival in Auschwitz.
As we moved deeper and deeper into the huge camp, we were confronted with high barbed-wire
fences and towers. Looking up at the guards, I kept asking myself, "Why are they doing
this to us? We never harmed anyone. What will become of our family? Will I ever see my mother,
my sister, and my brother again?"
We were not allowed near the gas chambers. I used to ask my father, "What is that terrible
smell?" But he wouldn't tell me. People who had been imprisoned for some time told us
what the Nazis had done with the children and elderly people.
From Auschwitz my father and I were put on a cattle train and taken to a concentration
camp in Poland called Plaszow. Fortunately, I was able to stay with my father again. He
worked at his profession as a tailor, and I worked as a bricklayer. I had never laid
a brick or stone on a wall before, but I learned fast that the secret for survival was hard
work. If you could not produce, you were sent to the gas chamber.
Each of us had to build a five foot by four foot wall every day. If we did not complete
the wall on time, we did not get any food. Many people died from starvation and torture
because they could not complete the wall on time.
When I got back from work one evening and without any warning, I was suddenly dragged
into a wire fence enclosure with other men. We were told that we would be shipped out
that evening. I did not see my father, but somehow my father found me, and we were able
to say good-bye through the fence. That evening we were put into cattle trains and sent to
another concentration camp called "Gross Rozen."
In Gross Rozen the screening and selecting process was controlled by the camp doctor
who looked us over like cattle. If he decided that you were fit for work, you were sent
to a work camp. If not, you were sent to another camp for extermination.
I was finally sent to a work camp called Reichenbach. The working conditions were very difficult.
We had to march about eight miles to work. When we finally got to work, we were already
half dead. I had to work in a city nearby building air raid shelters.
Many times American bombers would fly overhead and the civilians would run for shelter. We
had to stand, exposed, because if anyone was caught running for shelter he was immediately
shot.
After work we had the long march back to camp. We were about 12 people in a group and had
two guards with submachine guns behind us. Often I had to help someone by putting his
arms around my shoulders so that he would be able to make the last mile. If a person
could not walk anymore and passed out, he was shot.
The food given by the Nazis was so meager. One meal consisted of bread only, and the
other was some type of watered down soup mixed with some vegetables.
Many times my hunger pains were so great that I even tried to eat some sawdust in order
to have something in my stomach.
After a few months of working in the city near Reichenbach, I was transferred to another
job in the camp. One day, as I was working near a women's compound, a woman
called me over and handed me a piece of bread through the barbed wire fence. Somehow the
guard caught me taking the bread and went to get a stick. It was a known fact that once
you were beaten by a guard, the chances for survival were very
slim. The guard took me aside, and I thought that the end had come for me. Just as he was
about to raise the stick, he asked me how old I was. I told him I was 13 years old.
He looked at me and told me to get back to work. It was indeed a lucky day for me.
One day the camp commandant found out about my age and decided that I was too young to
be in a work group so I was put into a separate camp with people considered unfit to work.
We all realized that something was going to happen to us because as soon as you were put
on the disabled list, it was only a matter of time before they shipped you to an extermination
camp. Shortly afterwards, we were told that we would be shipped out of Reichenbach.
We were put into half-open cattle trains. They kept filling up the train with more and
more people. We wondered when it would stop. We were packed in so tightly that there was
not room to move. We had to lean against each other standing up. Then the train started
moving and we were off to an unknown destination.
Soon a struggle started. Some people got weak and passed out. As soon as they did, they
were trampled on and before they could get up, they died. It was the first time I experienced
such a struggle. It was everyone for himself. We were given one loaf of bread and no water.
The first day about 15 people died. The Germans did not remove the dead. On the third day
the worst pain I experienced was from lack of water. The thirst was so great that I used
the urine from my body just to wet my lips. The torture of the journey seemed endless.
Why were they doing this to us? Why didn't they just shoot us and end it quickly?
After the fifth day I got weak and passed out. When I came to, I felt someone sitting
on me, and it felt like the life was oozing out of me. I could not move anywhere. It was
not a painful feeling, but I did not want to give up and die, so with the last ounce
of strength I had left, I pushed aside the man who was sitting on top of me and in a
bitter life and death struggle I managed to stand up and hang on for life. Because the
man who was sitting on top of me did not have the strength to stand up, he was trampled
on and shortly afterwards died. After I was liberated, I had many nightmares about this
bitter and gruesome experience.
When we traveled through a city, the German civilians stared at us as if we were some
kind of animals. No one made an attempt to bring food or water. They just stared. I was
so weak that I could not stand up anymore. Fortunately, it rained a little and this saved
my life. I had given up all hope of ever living through this ordeal.
It was now the sixth day, and out of about 150 people who had started the trip, only
30 were still alive. It was a strange feeling, seeing a person die. One minute you are talking
to him and all of a sudden he stops talking and just stares at you. No pain. No emotional
expression. You begin to accept death as a way of life. No one told us where we were
going or how long the trip would last. Although I gave up the belief of being able to survive
the ordeal, the will to live was very strong.
It was now the seventh day and only about 1O persons were alive. I was so weak I did
not care anymore about what happened. I knew that wherever I was being sent I would not
be able to work, so my fate seemed certain.
After the eighth day, we finally arrived at a camp unknown to me. Out of 150 people put
on that train, only three people were still alive--barely. I was one of the three.
The Nazis assumed that everyone on the train was dead, so I was put onto a wooden stretcher
and carried to the crematorium for certain death. Just as I was about to be dumped into
the crematorium, the inmates that were carrying the stretcher noticed that I was still alive.
At the risk of their own lives, they hid me in a bathroom. Had the Gestapo caught them
hiding me, they would have been put to death. From the bathroom I was then smuggled into
the barracks where I mixed with the other inmates. After a couple of days, I was on
my feet again and able to walk around a little. I found out that I was in Dachau.
We could not figure out why we were being kept alive. We did no work. We were given
little food. Many died daily from malnutrition. Every morning a wagon would
come and pick up the people who died during the night. It was a routine chore for those
people on that detail. One day you would talk to a person about being liberated, and the
next day you saw him being dumped on that wagon like a piece of garbage.
I was again picked out of a group of people and again put on a train.
After two days, we disembarked somewhere in the Tyrolian Mountains of Austria. Altogether
we were about 700 people. Heavily guarded we were told to start marching. We marched
until dark. Then suddenly the Germans opened up the machine guns. Those who could, ran
in every direction. I found a deep hole and jumped into it. The rattling of machine guns
stopped, but I lay silently in the hole.
It was now March of 1945, and it was snowing in the Tyrolian Mountains. I slept all night
in the hole. When I awoke in the morning, I was covered with snow. My nose and legs
were frostbitten. After I could straighten up, I started looking around to see
where I was. I saw others wandering about. We were lost. We saw neither our guards nor
our liberators. Those who were massacred the night before lay on the side of the road.
We started walking towards the town hoping that it was liberated.
Just before we got into town, we found ourselves again surrounded by German guards. They marched
us into the mountains and after dark again disappeared. We were forced to march towards
the front lines while the German army was retreating from the advancing American army.
Then we understood why we had been forced to march into the mountains. The Germans were
hoping that we would be killed by American fire power, and then they could say that the
Americans did it.
When morning came, I found myself in a small barn high up in the mountains with a group
of about 15 people. On a road far below us we saw vehicles moving. But we did not know
whose they were.
We were all hungry. Some of the men got together and told me if I went down the mountain and
found out whose vehicles they were, they would share their food with me.
I did not have much choice since without food I would not be able to hold out much longer.
It was quite a suspenseful walk down the mountain. If those vehicles were German, I would go
back to imprisonment. If not, I would finally be free.
As I got closer, I could see that the vehicles were indeed American. I motioned for the others
to come down the mountain. The Nazi terror machine was finally destroyed and I was free
again. It is hard for me to describe how it felt
to be free again, to walk down the street without a machine gun behind my back.
The road From Hell to Freedom was for me an eternity. Somehow, I survived.
This journey is over.
May you and your loved ones never have to make a journey like this.
Only can prevent it from happening again.