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Originally published as Youth in Chains in 1958 and Guns & Barbed Wire in 1987

This updated illustrated edition first published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

FIRST EDITION

Text and drawings © Thomas Geve 2021

All original artworks by Thomas Geve, holder of the copyrights thereof, are part of Yad Vashem Art Museum collection. Photographs of the drawings © Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Maps by Lovell Johns © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021 Photographs courtesy of the author with the following exceptions: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Ilona Penner Blech; Bildarchiv Pisarek/akg-images; © Paul Bodot / AFBDK Paris; Ardean R. Miller, National Archives, Washington; Walter Chichersky, National Archives, Washington; Charles W. Herr, Jr., National Archives, Washington.

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2021 Cover photographs: Courtesy the author (author as a child); all original artworks by Thomas Geve, holder of the copyrights thereof, are part of Yad Vashem Art Museum Collection. Photo: © Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem; Galerie Bilderwelt/Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Auschwitz survivors, front).

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Thomas Geve asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008406387

Ebook Edition © Jan 2021 ISBN: 9780008406400

Version: 2020-12-16

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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008406387

In memory of:

Eva-Ruth

Sally

Jonathan

‘Little Kurt’

‘Long Kurt’

‘Blond Gert’

‘Saucy Gert’

Ello, a lad from Slovakia

Mendel, a lad from Bialystok

Jendroe, a lad from Bohemia

Maurice, a lad from Salonika

Leo, a Dutchman

Poldi, a Swiss

Mr Pollack, a Czech

Block doctor 7a, a Belgian

Sigi, room-elder 7a, a German

Block-elder 7a, a German

Camp hairdresser, a German

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

NOTE TO READERS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE – AN UNKNOWN FUTURE, Berlin 1939

PART 1

Chapter 1 Stettin and Beuthen 1929–39

Chapter 2 Berlin 1939–40

Chapter 3 Berlin 1941–2

Chapter 4 Liquidation 1943

PART 2

Chapter 5 Auschwitz-Birkenau

Chapter 6 Quarantine

Chapter 7 Bricklaying school

Chapter 8 Surviving

Chapter 9 Exhaustion

Chapter 10 Desperation

PART 3

Chapter 11 Kindness among chaos

Chapter 12 A veteran now

Chapter 13 The wind of change

PART 4

Chapter 14 Retreat from liberty

Chapter 15 Gross-Rosen camp

Chapter 16 Evacuation

Chapter 17 Buchenwald camp

Chapter 18 Free at last

EPILOGUE

NOTE FROM CHARLES INGLEFIELD

FOOTNOTES

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

FOREWORD

It was often said that survivors of the Holocaust were silent after the Second World War. True, for many it was a suffering too painful to recount, and for some it remains so to this very day. But many did want to speak. They had promised their fellow inmates, most of whom did not survive, that they would bear witness and tell the world. And so they tried, only to encounter a world unable and often unwilling to hear. Survivors of the Holocaust were not silent. They were silenced.

Thomas Geve was among those who attempted immediately after the Holocaust to explain in detail what had just happened. At first, he simply wanted to tell his father, through an album of drawings. His father had been in England during the Second World War and could never imagine what his child had been through. Then Thomas wrote down his experiences for publication, only to be disappointed. But he did not give up. For over seventy-five years he has told the story you are about to read, a story that will take you deep into the terrifying world of the Nazi concentration camp system, where children, like him, were its prey.

Thomas Geve is a remarkable documentarian. His determination to detail what happened in the death and work camps in the Nazi concentration camp world reaches back into Auschwitz itself, where he found charcoal and scraps of cement sacks – he was in the bricklaying Commando – and sketched what happened there in real time. The original sketches did not survive, but the memory of what was on those scraps of paper remained in his mind, and immediately after the war, he began to draw again. He saw that other former inmates were documenting what had happened. He had his own facts to share. Somehow, the 13-year-old in Auschwitz had the presence of mind to pay attention to the details – to check, measure, count and memorise. He had remembered the daily routine by the hour, the ration portions to the gram. Even the colours of the badges the prisoners wore were committed to his mind’s eye.

It seems that Geve perceived something at his tender age that adults many years his senior took much longer to realise: the minute detail of how the concentration camp system worked is key to understanding the nature of the crime itself. Through his innate curiosity, he understood that the malfeasance was so unbelievable that it may in fact not be believed, or that details could one day be erased. He was right of course: the role of Auschwitz-Birkenau at the heart of industrialised state-sanctioned genocide resulted in over a million Jews being gassed in carefully designed facilities. It was and remains unprecedented, and deserves our attention, but it was not all that happened there. Wrapped around those killing facilities was an entire machinery of sadistic daily torture and depravation. The Nazis not only murdered their victims; they created an entire system to make them suffer. That is what Geve documented first in his drawings, then in his text.

I have observed that there is a stickiness to testimony. The facts that survivors recount in their testimonies do not drift as much as one might imagine over time. I have also observed that the sooner after events accounts were documented, the more likely they are to reveal the precise nuances of the individual’s own direct experience, without the overlay of later tropes and reader expectations. Geve’s testimony is a case in point. His first drawings were sketched in Auschwitz in 1944, followed in 1945 by the full set of more than eighty, many of which you will encounter in this book. He then wrote an accompanying narrative in 1947, when the memories were still vivid and not interpolated with later reflection, published in 1958 as Youth in Chains. Through the immediacy of Geve’s account, we get close and personal details of other inmates’ characters, including the friends he made and lost. We learn about the moral ambiguity within the inmate hierarchy, and the pervasiveness of sexual violence among the prisoner population, both of which are often muted in accounts that survivors gave later. We also learn of the power of friendship and the sacrifices made to help each other survive. Though it is well known that some prisoners cooperated for survival, especially in the women’s sections, I have never heard testimony of a four-way food pact such as he and three of his friends created. Aspects of his story are positive in ways that are new and insightful.

Geve’s arrival at Auschwitz is chillingly and correctly recounted. ‘For miles, I could see no trees, just empty fields. A mist rose in the distance, doubtless hiding whatever was lurking there and waiting for us.’ Geve accurately describes his arrival at Auschwitz at the little-known Alte-Juden Rampe – the old Jewish platform, a siding in a barren landscape out of view of the camp structures. Over 600,000 Jews arrived there, but it is rarely described in later accounts, because the image of the trains pulling directly into Birkenau surrounded by barracks, with the white-gloved Josef Mengele standing by, has become the authoritative version of arrival at Auschwitz. But Geve did not know that then. And so he told the only version he knew – the one he experienced.

Seventy-five years later there is a raw and authentic ring to Geve’s descriptions only possible in the immediate aftermath. He talks about victims’ groups such as the Roma and political prisoners with disarming clarity. His description of the Death March, and helping the most needy while walking with blistered and aching feet, shows his sense of community and generosity even in the direst of circumstances. Most importantly, Geve’s account provides an insight into just how much inmates really did know about what was happening around them, and precisely how it happened. It also shows that the inmates themselves could not comprehend the magnitude of what was unfolding before their eyes. On one drawing, Geve estimates the total death toll in the gas chambers to be hundreds of thousands. It is not that he was being inaccurate; at the time he was there, the tally was not calculated for the benefit of the prisoners. How could he possibly have guessed the number of Jews, gypsies and others would be so much higher?

I am grateful to Charles Inglefield for retaining much of the original testimony. While this edition of Geve’s testimony is now layered with nearly eight decades of revisions and additions, the central spine of the text is faithful to his 1947 manuscript, his 1958 publication Youth in Chains and his 1987 edition of Guns and Barbed Wire (both of which I have reviewed). Testimony does not provide the kind of evidentiary document that, say, an original photograph or transport list provides. But it is its own kind of historical document; one that provides the human story. Testimony is an extension of the author’s lived experiences, seen through the ever-changing prism of life, over time. What marks Geve out is that he has consistently chosen to be faithful to his original text and reflect his testimony through the impressions he documented at the time. To this day, he takes us back to when he first told his story; that is what makes this book so unique, so authentic.

While reading this book I would urge you to take time to linger on Geve’s drawings. Rarely does testimony come in both words and pictures. These two are his testament. The simple child-like stylisation belies the complex truths they tell. I imagine him as a 15-year-old furiously drawing on tiny index cards with swastikas on the back, the war not yet over, as he set to work. Even then, he knew he was the eyes and ears of the world.

He still is.

Stephen D. Smith PhD

Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Chair USC Shoah Foundation UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education

INTRODUCTION

In November 1945, I arrived in London, carrying in my suitcase an album of drawings, my silent witness to 22 months of life and survival in three concentration camps. The album was for my dear father, Erich, whom I hadn’t seen for six long years of war.

A year later an enthusiastic young journalist contacted me. He got to know me and my drawings and believed in the importance of revealing them to the world. He then urged me to put my drawings into words, and so I did. Writing allowed me to add another layer of expression to the facts and scenes that I had drawn. The words brought back memories, experiences, thoughts, fears, consolations and victories, all of which had been part of life during those harsh years of war. They also allowed me to talk about the many different people I had come across. The variety of human interaction and reaction – from despair to hope, from defeatism to bravery, from cruelty to kindness – all was there and everyone was affected. Most of all, these stories gave voice to my comrades who did not get to see the day of liberation. My world was their world as well. My words would give their personalities and dreams, which had perished so unfairly and too soon, eternal life.

Back in 1946, the world wasn’t ready to hear. Although the London publishers shared the journalist’s interest in my story, they did not have the enthusiasm to print it. ‘The boy is not a Picasso,’ they said. ‘And audiences are looking for more cheerful topics nowadays.’ Coloured printing was also beyond most publishing budgets in Europe in those post-war years.

However, my inner calling to tell the world what had really happened in Europe during the Second World War did not vanish. Years later, in 1958, a small pocket version of my word-testimony was published for the first time. My wish to protect my privacy as well as my belief that this story was not just my own but that of my camp comrades and our whole generation brought about my decision to choose a pseudonym. Thomas Geve became my testimonial name and has remained a part of my identity to this present day.

Over the years, my written and drawn testimony has been published in different versions and languages, as well as through various media. I became an active witness, giving talks to students and adults across Europe.

In summer 2019, yet another journalist contacted me. It was Charles Inglefield. He was gripped by the testimony and believed it should be re-published in a wider and updated version. This young man’s interest and dedication more than 70 years later warmed my heart. This time, not only did London share the interest but HarperCollins also had the enthusiasm. We are honoured they became our publisher.

Seventy-five years ago, I set out merely to record the truth. It became my life’s mission to pass on these facts, details and stories so that they will forever be believed and remembered. I am privileged to share with you, dear reader, this new edition of my written and drawn testimony. I truly hope that it will be an eternal reminder of our human calling to make our world a kinder place for all.

This grim chapter of our past was created by people and it is people who can create a brighter future …

Thomas Geve, 2020

PROLOGUE – AN UNKNOWN FUTURE BERLIN 1939

It was a hot, stifling summer’s day. Shoppers, travellers and sightseers descended upon Potsdamer Platz. Delicatessens displayed delicious luxuries, neatly wrapped and labelled. Florists showcased roses in full bloom while people admired the latest noise-free trams making their way through the heart of the city. Berlin was abuzz with activity and invention. There was much to admire, with a new subway station, a triumph of modern engineering, and queues forming outside the government’s experimental television studio.

At the big glass- and steel-topped railway terminal, a semaphore arm was raised. The green light was given and yet another train puffed westwards. It was taking one of the last transports of men, who, threatened with imprisonment, had no place in this new Germany: Jews, freethinkers, democrats and socialists. Their destination was England. But it was already crowded. Others were knocking at her door, too: Austrians, Czechs, Italians and Spaniards were all seeking refuge. Among those men on the train was a Jewish doctor. He was one of the lucky few to be admitted.

A neatly dressed boy of nine, tall for his age and with meticulously combed hair soaked in brilliantine, was standing in front of a florist’s window. He was bored with waiting and passed the time watching droplets of water trickling down the inside of the shop’s windowpane. Through the condensation, he recognised roses, tulips and orchids. How well they were looked after.

A young and attractive dark-haired woman wearing her Sunday-best emerged from the throng of passers-by. She stopped in front of the florist’s. She was crying. The boy was abruptly jerked away from his dreamy paradise of dew-dropped flowers. He thought, Why must people be nervous and crying? After all, it is a beautiful day.

The boy was me, the woman my mother, Berta,* and the Jewish doctor on the train was my father, Erich.*

Potsdamer Platz was busy, but now we felt alone. We returned to my grandparents’ place, our temporary home. My grandfather, Julius, and my grandmother, Hulda,* lived at 19 Winterfeld Strasse, a quiet middle-class street in Schöneberg, Berlin’s seventh district.

‘I’ll be busy making arrangements for joining Dad,’ sighed Mother, ‘and grandparents have their own worries, so you’ll have to be a good boy from now on without someone there to discipline you.’

That day I thought for the first time about what people called ‘the future’. I grappled with my thoughts and tried to imagine what was to follow. It had all happened so abruptly, so unexpectedly, and far too quickly for me to understand.

Part 1

CHAPTER 1 STETTIN AND BEUTHEN 1929–39

I was born in the autumn of 1929, in Stettin on the Baltic, near the Oder in Germany.1 Mother, too, had been born there, while Father hailed from Beuthen in Upper Silesia. My father had studied medicine and had served briefly in the First World War before taking over the practice of Dr Julius Goetze in Stettin. Now established as a General Practitioner with his own practice, he fell in love and married my mother, Berta, the doctor’s daughter.

As a toddler, strange faces seemed to have frightened me. Like most babies, my pastime was crying. The nightly wail of the siren that called out the voluntary fire brigade terrified me. For it sounded like the howling of a monster lurking in the dark, eager to snatch me away at the first opportunity.

Picking the best tomatoes – Stettin, 1933.

Time passed and my early childhood became more cheerful. Auntie Ruth,* my mother’s sister, took me on rowing trips across the Oder to our garden plot. Being in nature and sitting in a boat in the middle of the wide stream made great impressions on me. Even more so than being allowed to pick and devour the best tomatoes. There were also fun excursions to seaside resorts. I loved being around animals and plants and being surrounded by nature. But my favourite occupation was that of snail hunting: catching and collecting slimy little rolls that climbed up park walls.

This map shows the position of the German-Polish border in the 1930s.

My happy early childhood – Stettin 1933

When, in 1933, Hitler came to power, these leisurely and carefree times disappeared.

My father had been a doctor and surgeon in Stettin, but lost his practice due to the discriminatory laws, and we had to return to his hometown of Beuthen, about three hundred kilometres southeast of Berlin. Mother’s family, including Auntie Ruth and my grandparents, had moved to Berlin. And although I was only three then, I felt that I was constantly being left in the care of others, including my Aunt Irma* and our housekeeper, Magda.*

Beuthen was a mining town of some hundred thousand inhabitants with a strong Polish community. The German/Poland borders crossed suburbs, parks and even mining tunnels. Some of Beuthen’s streets had both German and Polish tramways running through them. People there spoke Polish in what was Germany, and German in what was Poland. When I returned from walks to the suburbs to Krakauer Strasse 1, a large four-storey building where we lived, I was never quite certain which of the two countries I had actually been through.

The town’s main square was even more confusing. To simple folk, it was ‘The Boulevard’. To more pedantic people, it was ‘Kaiser Franz Joseph Square’. But now, the new power in Beuthen decided it would become ‘Adolf Hitler Square’. And it was on that square that pure and loyal Germans swore allegiance to their new god.

If I had not been told off, I might have cheerfully joined them. For I rather liked this new cult. It meant flags, shiny police horses, colourful uniforms, torchlights and music. It was also free and easily accessible, meaning that I did not have to pester Dad to take me to a Punch and Judy show or be treated to an hour beside my auntie’s radio set. But I was chided for my improper enthusiasm towards this new presence in town. Instead I was given more pocket money, and, to avoid any further embarrassment to the family, an instruction to toe the family’s anti-Nazi line – whatever that meant to a four-year-old boy.

So, I obeyed. While the other youngsters on the square learned of their superior origin and destiny, my role would be that of the underdog.

Enjoying the beauty of nature – Beuthen, 1936.

Quickly, my life became a more secluded one. In the morning I was escorted to the nearby Jewish kindergarten. The afternoons were filled with solitary play or piano lessons under the tutelage of Father’s sister, Irma, a music teacher, who now lived with us.

I was supposed to have inherited much of Auntie Irma’s musical ability, but my rebellious temperament soon ruled out the chance of my becoming a slave to the giant, black ‘Bechstein’ piano. Instead, my talents were limited to gobbling up the fragrant apples that served as props to help me learn how the musical notes split into fractions. My interest in playing a musical instrument vanished, but my love of music, songs and remembering lyrics had just been ignited.

In 1936, aged six, I started at Beuthen’s Jewish school. Father, too, had once felt its cane, the punishment cellar and its strict Prussian discipline. He, likewise, had retaliated by scribbling and etching on the school’s benches.

Father’s teachers, already above retirement age, still taught there, and still could not afford anything more than white cheese sandwiches, which made them the subject of general ridicule. Aware of my family traditions, I tried to be a pleasant pupil, but never did more than was absolutely necessary.

We used both old textbooks and new Nazi textbooks. I remember Hitler’s birthday, 20 April, being a holiday. On this day, in accordance with some paragraph in the new educational laws, we gathered to hear recitations to the glory of the fatherland. The more insightful of our teachers, however, hinted that we would have no share in that glory.

My first day at school – Beuthen, 1936.

We learned that there was to be no equality. Our only weapon was pride. We wanted to compete with the new youth movements springing up across Germany. School outings turned into occasions to show off our disciplined marching, impressive singing and sporting prowess. But, one by one, these demonstrations were forbidden. Soon, we could not even retaliate to the stones being thrown at us in our schoolyard by the ‘Aryan’ boys outside. That would be a crime. Now we had become despised ‘Jew boys’. The only playground that remained safe for us was the park at the Jewish cemetery on Piekarska Strasse. We were actually glad to have a safe place to play in.

At my father’s urging, I joined a Zionist sports club, ‘Bar Kochba’.2 The training was strictly indoors, but the self-confidence it gave us was not so confined. There we learned about the principles of strength and heroism. Our newly acquired courage accompanied us everywhere.

One evening, a friend and I were making our way to the club and passed by the wintry synagogue square. We were greeted by a hail of snowballs. Then came the abusive insults. Behind the columns of the synagogue’s arcade, we caught glimpses of black Hitler Youth3 uniforms sported by lads who seemed to be about our age.

Pride momentarily gained the better of our obligation to be docile underlings, and we gave chase. Our perplexed opponents had not reckoned on the sudden fury that overtook us. I grabbed one of them, threw him onto the snow and hit him repeatedly. When he started yelling, I had to retreat. His friends were nowhere to be seen, and darkness shrouded our little adventure in secrecy. That was to be my first and last chance to hit back openly.

Soon I grew more inquisitive about the world I lived in. We boys sneaked away to visit nearby coalmines, factories and railway installations. Our young minds were thirsty for knowledge.

The glaring white blast furnaces, the endless turning wheels of the pitheads, the enormous slag dumps, the ore-filled trolleys gliding along via sagging overhead steel cables – everything was teeming with activity. Trains in particular fascinated me. The squeaking industrial rail lines and the big black locomotives that came in from afar and relieved their exhaustion by blowing off clouds of smelly steam. It was all waiting to be analysed by our young minds, inspiring us with a desire to understand life. The world was still to be discovered by us.

There was so much for us to explore, despite the restrictions that were enforced on us.

While we roamed the town, curious to discover, Beuthen’s Hitler Youth were drilled, marched and taught to sing praises to the glory of their Führer. Not all of them possessed the required mental strength for this training. Some, seeing their future predestined by authoritarian rules, retreated into a state of misery. Others, with less delicate minds, worried about flat feet, corns and blisters, for these were much more realistic obstacles for inclusion in the ‘master race’.

A few times a year, Beuthen’s streets would come alive with processions. On Ascension Day and Easter, Catholic clerics – masters of pomp and ceremony – would swing incense on elaborately decorated floats, and carry their main attraction, the bishop, under a gold embroidered canopy. And on May Day, Hitler’s substitute for the 1 May holiday, fairs and bandstands would decorate Beuthen, and festive national costumes celebrating industrial and agricultural achievements would be on full display.

In contrast to the joyful sounds and bright colours of celebratory street scenes, increasingly, black jackboots could be heard marching to the tune of sober martial music. The Brownshirts4 contrived a new kind of procession: the night-time torchlight parade. Some ended with non-believers, Jews or similarly oppressed people, being beaten up.

Playing with my Meccano.

My freedom was curtailed. I was ordered to stay home. There I watched these ‘shows’ from behind drawn curtains, with Mother explaining that these events were ‘not for our benefit’ and that I was to ‘avoid the streets and concentrate on indoor games’.

Unable to roam freely, I became more friendly with my school mates, inviting the more interesting ones home to play with my Meccano miniature railway set. Quickly, the family objected to my choice of friends.

‘Why must you bring these ill-mannered unkempt boys home?’ I was admonished. ‘Aren’t there enough respectable acquaintances of ours – doctors, lawyers, businessmen – whose children you could play with?’

But I was unconcerned with suitability or influence. My idea of having a good time demanded only new ideas, alertness, mutual respect and freedom. Thus, playmates chosen for me from good families never became good friends. Their knowledge of ‘the street’ was poor, their temperament was affected by their parents’ moods, and for every little thing they had to get permission from their maids.

Each year the festival of ‘Rejoicing with the Torah’5 was celebrated at our synagogue. Accompanied on the organ, children (dressed in their best suits and waving colourful flags) slowly followed the scrolls as they were carried around the temple. We were rewarded with the traditional handing out of sweets and chocolates.

Afterwards, we compared our treasures. My pockets were full, but I could see the disappointed faces of the other children. I was upset, as we should have all been rewarded.

Later, I asked my father about this, and his hesitant reply brought an unpleasant insight into my young mind that spoiled my fun. While most people gave generously to all the children, some people would single you out to take home their ‘visiting cards’ if your family had influence or social standing. Sweets. It seemed that Father was quite aware of who was distributing the chocolate bars or lollipops. Therefore, if you came from a family of have-nots, even a synagogue ceremony could make you aware of the fact.

One morning, the street underneath my window was humming with the noise of breaking glass, urgent footsteps and excited voices. It woke me up. Aware that it was time to get dressed for school, I got up and tugged at the belt of the roller shutter curtain. But to my surprise, it was only dawn. I peered over towards the pavement opposite our house.

One of the black Daimler cars that boys were so fond of was parked in front of the shoe shop. Our street was littered with shiny, black, brown and white boots, sandals and high-heeled women’s shoes and glass splinters. A team of uniformed Brownshirts were busy loading the car with all kinds of treasure. It was obviously a robbery.

Feeling rather like a successful detective, I ran to my parents’ room to tell them of this news. Visibly less glad about my discovery, Father phoned the neighbours. There seemed to be general confusion, with only one thing being certain: there would be no school that day.

I looked at my wall calendar. It was 9 November 19386 – and the world as our community knew it was about to change dramatically.

More reports came in throughout the day. Beuthen’s synagogue was burning. The town’s fire brigades refused to help as they were ‘busy guarding adjacent buildings’. Heaps of books were being thrown into bonfires on the streets. Jewish shops were being looted all over town. And hundreds of Beuthen’s Jews were being arrested.

Dismay and anxiety filled our building. We all assembled into one room, fully dressed and ready for an emergency, dreading the knock on the front door. Finally, the knock came. We opened the door and were face to face with a Brownshirt. His face was harsh and his staring eyes were narrow, hard and cold. His finger glided ominously down a lengthy, typewritten Gestapo list. When his finger stopped, he snarled out the name of an elderly Jew, a former tenant who had since moved elsewhere. Luckily, the Brownshirt was not interested in taking any of us along as a replacement.

Later, we learned that the synagogue had burned down completely and our school was closed for good.

Parents who could afford to do so sent their children away to the countryside, a temporary safe haven. I was sent to a Jewish children’s home at Obernick near Breslau, 220 kilometres north-west of Beuthen, for a month. Among its gardens and woods, we had the chance to explore nature. That was wonderful for me and it felt like paradise.

Most of the Jews in Beuthen who could emigrate did so.7 My father, a veteran of the First World War and well-known Zionist, planned to get us to England. From there we could reach Palestine, the land of Israel. But progress was slow, despite our growing desperation. A decision was made for me to move to Berlin at the beginning of 1939 to stay with my grandparents.

The world was not kind to refugees. People talked a lot about Birobizhan8 as a potential sanctuary from the persecution for European Jews, but few ever took it seriously. Polish Jews in Germany were being deported by force back to Poland. The Poles were no more eager to have them than the Germans were. ‘This can’t happen to us’ was the consensus among German Jews: ‘We are Germans.’

Rumours, an inevitable consequence of censorship in a totalitarian regime, abounded and kept circulating like some biased, hidden newspaper. We knew an ‘Aryan’9 who was a member of the Nazi Labour army, O.T.10 Unemployment had forced him to join this underpaid organisation to work on local road and canal construction projects.

Considering himself to be knowledgeable, he urged us to leave Germany as soon as possible. His predictions for the future – our future – seemed emphatically grim, possibly even uttered with a certain amount of malice.

The summer of 1939 saw my family leave Beuthen for good. Father left for England; Mother and I to my grandparents’ apartment in Berlin. We were planning to join him soon after. I tried to imagine what our new life would be like once we were reunited with him in England. But history had her own plan and in September of that year the Second World War broke out and all borders were shut. Mother and I stayed in Berlin.

CHAPTER 2 BERLIN 1939–40

Moving to Berlin, 1939.

Mother had been busy making arrangements for settling in Berlin, so I was once more left in the care of her sister Ruth, an art and English teacher. Auntie Ruth had all the qualities of a true friend. She was fun, interesting and always teeming with new ideas and progressive thinking. Ruth was an idol to her pupils.

Auntie Ruth took me along to the Jewish school on Ryke Strasse in north Berlin, where she taught. My classmates there were real city children, conversant with the local slang, swank and swagger. At first, I was looked down upon as a country yokel, but soon they came to like my down-to-earth character, and eventually I became a fully-fledged Berliner. As I did so, my initial frightening impression of Berlin’s city life gave way to an understanding of its make-up.

The city’s routine began with the baker, the milkman and the newspaper boy doing their rounds. Later in the morning, the hawkers of brushes, shoe polish, flowers and the ragpicker would come. They all worked the streets of closely packed apartment buildings, which hugged each other for metropolitan warmth. Behind them, smaller buildings crowded around backyards. Their dirty brick walls reverberated with the sounds of city life: blaring radio sets, the beating of dusty carpets, crying children, squeaking staircases, twittering canaries and quarrelling couples.

For a while, the rise and reach of Hitler and National Socialism did not seem to matter; Berlin-life moved to its own rhythm and rules. One could not expect an occupant of a working-class tenement house to concern himself deeply with questions of race. He did not care whether the bugs invading his house in search of new feeding grounds had previously sucked Aryan blood or that of supposedly lesser human beings like Jews.

When war came in 1939, the changeover from peacetime seemed almost a technicality. Those who had made nationalism their business were overjoyed – Hitler and his henchmen had prepared Germany well.

Pro-war propaganda had not been defeated in 1918. On the contrary, the fact that peace had become possible had given it a new impetus. Rationing had begun in 1938, so now a few more items became scarce. Food, especially meat and vegetables, was harder to get. Mock air raids and trial blackouts made themselves such a nuisance that the real thing, expected to be less frequent, was greeted with some relief.

But Mother Krause, an archetypical Berlin housewife, was not so certain.

‘It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good,’ she sighed. ‘My old instinct tells me.’

The occasional howling of the air-raid siren brought her down to the damp, improvised cellar. There she shared the company of the seventy-odd neighbours who had their blankets, emergency rations, heavy suitcases, dogs and canaries.

Mother Krause had known my grandparents for many years, and she would not offend them. ‘My old instinct,’ she would mumble, ‘does not like Jews, but these don’t seem so bad.’

Children at the Ryke Strasse school in 1939, which I attended for a few months only that same year.

Our food became ersatz (substitute). Berlin’s bigger department stores like KaDeWe, worried by a lack of provisions, were advised to attract custom with elaborate shows, exploiting all the spoils and ideas from a conquered Europe.

Large shop windows were filled with reconstructions of scenes from Nazi films, including ‘Jud Süss’, a twisted, violently anti-Semitic story of a rich courtier; ‘Ohm Krüger’, an anti-British account of the Boer War; and a biographical feature on ‘Robert Koch’ that glorified German medicine.

The experience was different for Jews. They were issued special ration cards with little Js scribbled all over them. These cards prevented us from buying vegetables, meat, milk, chocolate and any special holiday treats that might have previously been allowed. It also meant that we could not buy clothes. We were allowed to shop at ‘approved shops’ only during the prescribed ‘non-Aryan shopping hour’ between 4 and 5 p.m. Anti-Jewish laws kept on coming in every two weeks, including one that stipulated that Jews could not sit on trams. If one was rich, the food problem was eased by the black market. If one was both wealthy and Germanic, high-class restaurants could be counted upon to provide a fair diet. Being neither, we could only hope for some help from better-qualified friends.

I turned 11 in 1940 and the time came for me to enter senior school. We were now a poor family and unable to pay fees, so I had to rely on scholarships. A mixed school on Grosse Hamburger Strasse was chosen for me.

The school had troubles of its own. First it was transferred to Kaiser Strasse, and then later to Linden Strasse. The authorities could not care less about a Jew’s place of learning, and still less about their feelings. Even the synagogue on Linden Strasse was now a grain store filled with hungry rats.

A classmate of mine, a half-Jew, had a sister at an Aryan school nearby. Some ridiculous court decision declared him a Jew but his sister a Christian. When they met in the street, they had to ignore each other in case someone saw them.

My friends and I amused ourselves with a number of hobbies.

We collected the figures sold to help finance the war. These included carved wooden dolls, and replicas of aeroplanes, guns and shells, which were sold and pinned on people’s lapels. They made for quite attractive toys. Every other month there were new models to choose from. To get them, my friends and I followed the example set by the street children of north Berlin. Whoever still wore these adornments on his lapel after collection week was asked politely to surrender them to us. This sport became so popular that passers-by even thought themselves subject to a new kind of recycling scheme.

We also collected children’s magazines. They were surprisingly free from the Nazi propaganda and given away at big confectionery stores. We got them by making a favourable impression on the salesgirl or, as a last resort, by buying a packet of pins.

My strangest delight, though, was compiling lists. Bombed-out buildings greatly fascinated me. All their intimate interiors could be seen, and each house had its own characteristic detail. My passion was to jot down in a book, the place, the date and the extent of the destruction.

When Mother found out about this, her stern rebuke made quite an impression on me. ‘What if you were caught? How would you prove that you are not a spy for the Allies?’

With an exciting war on, school seemed dull and pointless. Accordingly, I took to exploring Berlin’s streets. The school was an hour’s journey away, so at home my absence could easily be blamed on heavy traffic, air raids or extra lessons. Plus, the family allowed me ample freedom, so few questions were ever asked. I was now a street boy and blacked-out Berlin became familiar to me.

Books, cinemas and shows were not supposed to be enjoyed by non-Aryans, so it was useless asking for pocket money to pay for them. Instead, I visited exhibitions of captured spoils of war – a must for technically minded youngsters like me. I studied aeroplanes, inspected pilots’ seats and propellers, and ignored the notices warning non-Aryans to keep out.

Nor did I miss morale-boosting fairs during the summer of 1940, where Churchill’s dummy head could be shot off, and clockwork puppets, dollies and soldier boys danced to the tune of ‘Lily Marlene’ or ‘Wir fahren gegen Engelland’ (‘We’re going to take on England’). And I passed unnoticed along Friedrich Strasse, where the company of fleshy life-sized ‘dolls’, dressed in fur coats and the latest fashion from Paris, could be enjoyed for five marks.

My extensive explorations were made possible by the monthly subway tickets provided by the school, and a Hitler Youth uniform, without insignia, as a disguise. It was clearly dangerous for me as a Jew to wear this uniform, but I had little choice. Growing quickly out of my clothes and with no money to buy new ones, the only items of clothing I had were those given to me by a non-Jewish friend.

Once, I emerged from the subway station at Unter den Linden and was pushed straight into a huge parade. Had I backed out, it would have attracted attention, so I played along as an enthusiastic admirer. Peeping through the ranks of closely aligned guards, I had a good view.

Rolling slowly down the broad thoroughfare, accompanied by the noisy jubilation of the crowd, came open-topped black Daimlers. The leading car passed barely 10 yards ahead of me. Hundreds of hands shot up on cue to give the Nazi salute.

The adulation was for a dark-featured, rigid-looking man, with a strange moustache, who gazed ahead without emotion. This man was Adolf Hitler. Behind him followed the large form of Göring and other senior members from the German High Command, all of whom seemed equally unappreciative of the grand applause.

The traditional haunts of the German army and headquarters were in the area between Tiergarten, Potsdamer Platz and the Shell-Haus. I had the most unexpected access to this Nazi labyrinth thanks to a friend, whose mother was the mistress to a high-ranking officer. I was considered to be a well-bred and well-mannered companion, so he picked me out as the only classmate that could be honoured with an invitation to visit.

This was a dangerous world for me to walk into, but I was fascinated. There were field-grey cars lined up neatly between the numerous villas. Inside these buildings, teleprinters ticked relentlessly away, typewriters rattled and Prussians clicked their heels. Mobile radio stations hummed out words of war and there I was – a ‘Jew boy’ – walking freely and unimpeded.

Here I had my first proper glimpse of Hitler’s army, and it was undeniably intimidating and impressive. Pairs of jackbooted military police, with Roman-style polished metal plates on their breasts, stamped through the street. They didn’t bother with children like me. And neither did the colonel, who watched us playing chess in his garden.

I lived in Berlin from 1939 until 1943.

CHAPTER 3 BERLIN 1941–42

Towards the end of 1941, the Nazi government put up a formidable show of force. That September, Jews had been ordered to wear the six-pointed yellow Star of David.

The stars had to be stitched over the left breast on every piece of clothing. They had to be freely visible whenever and wherever Jews might encounter a non-Jew. Well-bred ladies assured us over cups of ersatz coffee that ‘Germany’s honour will never allow such an outrage. We are a civilised nation and can’t go back to the Middle Ages. People will protest in the street!’ But sadly, that prophecy did not come true.

When the first Stars of David appeared, some ridiculed the notion, while others mocked the wearers. There followed a period of indifference that gave way to feelings of annoyance at being constantly reminded by the yellow rag of shame. We went without it whenever there was a likelihood of not being recognised by informers.1 Under the light of the violet neon lamps that lit Berlin’s streets, the yellow stars looked blue. Even better for hiding them were the blacked-out side streets, and, as a last resort, one could carry a newspaper or a satchel pressed underneath the left arm and over one’s heart. An evening curfew for Jews was also sanctioned, but its enforcement seemed practically impossible. We generally ignored it despite the risks.

Soon, other labels joined the Star of David. There was P for Poles, and OST for Ukrainians. The decade-old signs forbidding entry to ‘Jews’ alone had to be taken down and revised. Corrected ones appeared. All public places, from a lone bench to spacious parks, from the telephone booth to the cinema, now displayed notices warning ‘non-Aryans’ to keep out. Some establishments striving to adhere strictly to Nazi law showcased signs that were more direct: ‘Entrance to dogs, Poles, Russians and Jews strictly forbidden!’

In 1942, Jewish schools closed. Each day fewer students had been attending school anyway. They were not necessarily playing truant; they may have been arrested or gone into hiding. The decree to close the schools came as a bit of a relief for me. Now, there was no more fear of being beaten up on the way home for being a ‘Jew boy’. Moreover, I did not believe in textbooks; I believed in technology and what I could see around me. I was able freely to explore Berlin and it opened my eyes and my mind to the wonders of technology and industrial invention.

There were four options open to us Jewish youngsters: nursing at the hospital, cooking in the soup kitchens, sorting files in the community’s offices or gardening at the cemetery. I decided to devote a year to the upkeep of Jewish graves at Weissensee cemetery. There was no pay, just the privilege of holding a special travel permit and breathing in fresh air. The vast, walled city of the dead with its marbled mausoleums and crumbling tombstones was peaceful. Only the soothing noise of rustling trees interrupted what we considered to be our haven.

We were organised into working gangs. In spring and summer, we cleaned the weed-ridden footpaths, planted ivy and looked after the flowers. Come autumn, we swept the leaves. And in winter we would remove the snow. The cemetery was the ideal place for playing ‘hide and seek’ and ‘cops and robbers’. Wolfgang* and Werner* were fellow diggers. The riotous moments of chasing each other over the vast expanses of the graveyard were among my happiest days.

Besides the gardening, that year I was also initiated into the various pleasures of driving a tractor, playing cards and teasing girls. I smoked my first cigarette, and for the first time, a girl, Eva-Ruth,* fell in love with me.

Mother had taken a course as a seamstress, and found a job mending army uniforms. On occasion, letters would be found sewn into the linings of blood-stained Wehrmacht-issued trousers.2 Their messages, the unheeded warnings of Germany’s sons, told of desperate conditions on the Eastern Front. They would say that Leningrad and Moscow were out of reach and only death awaited them in the unforgiving snow-covered Russian fields.

I moved out of my grandparents’ apartment, and Mother and I went to Speyerer Strasse near Bayrischer Platz, a once-prominent Jewish quarter. It was a fashionable district, and the rent for one and a half rooms was so high that making ends meet was difficult. Our neighbours, fellow Jews, often invited me to see their valuable stamp collections and paintings – sometimes even for tea. None of them, however, showed an understanding of or cared about our financial troubles.

Around this time, the last letter we ever received from Father arrived from England via the Red Cross. He urged us to be brave. We really had to be.

Hitler’s cruel laws penetrated everywhere, having only one aim: victory. Confiscation orders were extended to warm clothes, radio sets and pets of non-Aryans. Our aquarium and parakeets had already been abandoned, so Hitler’s attention now turned to Grandfather’s cherished crystal set.

Grandpa Julius had been blinded while serving as an officer in the Kaiser’s army in the First World War. When in a jovial mood he would sing to me a sentimental song called ‘Ich hatt’einen Kameraden’ (‘I once had a comrade’) about fallen comrades. I had once read him the newspapers, but now his only pleasure was listening through earphones to the 15-year-old cat whisker radio set.

We sent a letter to the War Veterans Federation begging their intervention to let Grandpa keep it. The reply was sympathetic but to no avail. Jews were not allowed to have a radio. There could be no appeals against the orders of the new Reich.

Grandpa died on 19 March 1942, at the age of 71, unable to understand the new ways of his fatherland.

Real anti-Semites avoided all contact with Jews. Although they caused us much suffering, they personally remained unknown to us. However, it was the many helpful, courageous Germans that impressed me. Their sympathy for us did not come from any admiration for our Jewishness, but from adherence to a system of ideals and values that was now being ruthlessly outlawed.

Mother and I, unable to buy any influence, contacted everyone we knew who might be able to help us, but Nazi authorities would come down hard on anyone harbouring Jews. Any helper would be taking a potential risk not only to themselves but also to their own families.

Once, when hiding from yet another wave of arrests, we visited the home of a protestant clergyman from West Berlin’s Apostel-Paulus-Kirche on Akazien Strasse. But we had overlooked the fact that his new son-in-law was a devout Nazi. The cleric’s help dwindled to no more than keeping our plea for help a secret.

Desperate, we were finally given refuge by a widowed seamstress Clara Bernhard, a workmate of Mother’s. Clara put us up on a field-bed in the narrow kitchen of her apartment on Belziger Strasse. Many years before, when Fate had taken her Jewish husband, she had no inkling that someday she would have to reaffirm her loyalty.

Left-wing friends from Auntie Ruth’s student days – who had their own reasons to fear arrest – could be counted upon for radio evenings, and I, too, was sometimes taken along to learn of a world I had never seen.

These sessions were a special treat, for we were not allowed radios. To begin with, Radio London would talk of Allied actions and successful air raids. Then came the secret rite our left-wing friends had practised for nearly a decade: the crowding of ears to catch the muffled transmission, ‘Hier spricht Moskau’ (‘Moscow speaking’). With exhilaration written all over their faces, they listened to the long lists of recaptured Russian positions. Their radiant hope was contagious.

Another act of defiance came through the traditional Red Wedding district in north Berlin chalking its bombed-out buildings with anti-Nazi slogans. Much of the lettering had been done by disillusioned Hitler youths who saw no other way of expressing their grudges. Friends of mine from north Berlin had already contacted some of this new brand of rebel. Their slogans seemed universally appropriate: ‘Down with the teachers – they teach ruin.’

Among the highlights of defiance was a bomb planted at a much-heralded anti-Soviet exhibition. Arrests following this incident were so widespread, however, that rumours suggested it was an inside job, like the 1933 Reichstag fire, which the Nazis used to justify their harsh crackdowns.

By the end of 1942, the deportation of Berlin’s Jews was escalating on an intensified scale. The rumours at the time said it was mostly to Lublin in Poland. Friends and neighbours became fewer and fewer, with Mother and I in constant fear of the dreaded knock on the door.

Occasionally, I helped out at the bakery on Grenadier Strasse. So, every time it received instructions to provide loaves of bread in large quantities, we were alerted to the fact that another deportation was about to happen.

While working at the bakery I got to know the slums of Alexanderplatz. Gypsy and Jewish tenants seemed to live together in harmony, despite the drunken brawls that typified the district. They lived in abject poverty and overcrowding, but nevertheless the grown-up sons of the Gypsies were conscripted to the Wehrmacht to defend the fatherland.

We were now living alone in the Speyerer Strasse flat. The other tenants’ rooms had been sealed up by the Gestapo. All of the valuable paintings and stamp collections that belonged to our neighbours had fallen into Nazi hands. An elderly couple from another floor tried to negotiate their overseas properties for an exemption to be deported. They failed.

Instructions were given to empty the apartments of food before they were sealed off. On one of the backyard staircases a huge chunk of black-market cheese had been abandoned. Its owner had clung to all that was his to the very last.

Mother had been drafted into a factory that assembled miniature coils for speedometers. Only night shifts were available, so I had to get used to spending the evenings alone in an empty flat. Heavy and almost daily air raids exacerbated the situation even further. But I had nowhere else to go. Jews were no longer allowed into bomb shelters. Even when an incendiary bomb whizzed down and smashed onto our backyard, I stayed where I was, trembling and terrified.

There were many less eventful moments, however, that characterised my confinement. Reading, preparing my frugal supper and cleaning up. Often, I toyed with the idea of breaking into the now-deserted neighbours’ flats. A sale of a picture or a rug from a sealed-off apartment could have eased our financial problems considerably. It would have meant less overtime for Mother, a square meal and, perhaps, some kind of entertainment.

CHAPTER 4 LIQUIDATION 1943

The last dawn in February 1943 saw the beginning of the total liquidation of Berlin’s remaining Jewish communities. As all the other urban and rural districts had already been concentrated in the capital or deported, this represented the end of German Jewry.

Every other Jew was already listed officially as having changed his or her place of residence to Lublin, Riga or Theresienstadt.

Now the final mop-up operation meant cordoning off the streets. Special SS reinforcements and lorries converged on Berlin for the final big round-up. Overseeing the planning and supervision were the infamous Austrian SS Command, whose officers had already rehearsed a similar action on Vienna’s Jews.

We were ordered to stay in our apartments, while soldiers went door to door to tick off the last names written on the Gestapo lists. Only a skeleton staff was left for the Jewish hospital, the provisions centre and the cemetery in order to wind up all operations.

A sudden loud knock jerked us to attention. There was no doubting its ominous intentions. We waited for the knocking to stop, silently pleading that it would. But it went on and was now accompanied by nasty abuse. An escape by the back stairs would have been futile. While I noisily clanged the dustbin lids in order to lend support to our charade of having been down to empty the rubbish, Mother finally opened the door.

A man’s fists came flying through the door and punched my jaw. The following minutes were agony. I could not see his face, but I could hear him grunting and snarling as he laid into me. For not obeying the order to close all the windows, I was beaten repeatedly by the SS officer. This was my first close encounter with the SS and I emerged with my ears and face boxed more thoroughly than I had ever experienced before.

With our keys handed over and the rooms sealed, Mother and I stumbled towards the waiting lorry, each of us carrying a single cumbersome suitcase.

‘Heraus, schnell, schnell!’ (‘Out, quickly, quickly!’) echoed fiercely behind us.

A long, stressful and tiring tour, in quest of new victims, awaited us. Elderly people hardly able to carry themselves, let alone their suitcases, were dragged along the pavement and pushed roughly into the truck. Children in the streets spat at them. Other spectators, silenced by a mixture of surprise, shame and malice, just stared at us.

Through a slit in the truck’s tarpaulin, I peeped at our passing surroundings. There were reminders from the air raid the night before, with roadblocks isolating the destroyed Prager Platz. Demolished quarters were still smouldering. The bombing had finally reached a stage where it had to be taken seriously. Despite this, there were no delays in our arrests. The Fascist Beast was still strong and intact. Only its eastern fangs were bleeding.

Towards dusk, our lorry joined the others queuing up in front of an improvised detention camp.

Ours was one of six on Grosse Hamburger Strasse.1 Ironically, I was being taken back to the site of my former school, which, together with a home for the elderly and the ancient cemetery, had been demolished to make way for our arrival. Once inside, we were now caged prisoners. We were processed according to numerous lists that we knew nothing about. All of us were being prepared for final transports to the East. There were perhaps five hundred to a thousand people in the camp, the last remnants of Berlin’s Jewish community.

The guards were impervious Berlin policemen. There was nothing for us to do but spend the time wandering around the cemetery grounds racking our brains for ways of an escape. Climbing the wall seemed possible to me, but not for Mother. I could not imagine leaving her. And anyway, the repercussions for her, let alone for me if I were caught, would have been unthinkably severe. Plus, as a declared ‘enemy of the state’ and the ‘worst kind of being’, a Jew, how would I have made it on the outside?

One remaining tomb in the cemetery, imprisoned by a little wire-cage of its own, attracted many a contemplating glance. It was the resting place of Moses Mendelssohn, the famous Jewish philosopher. Many drew inspiration from this reminder of past glory; perhaps the great man’s teachings would prevail?

A committee within the camp had been set up to hear the pleas of family members trying to reunite with each other. Few reports ever went through to the commanding police officer, and of these most were rejected, but the imprisoned were aware that this was their last hope.

Half-Jews and nationals from neutral countries had the best chance of getting released. Any other attempt to cheat the sadistic talents of the police and Gestapo was pointless and dangerous. A crowded cellar prison provided the necessary intimidation.

Trying to fake evidence bore harsh punishments. I looked at my cards: I had no ‘Aryan’ blood in the family, no chance of a foreign government intervention and no money for bribes. I clutched desperately at one last trump card. I could bury the dead. First, I had to convince Mother. She agreed with me, so I approached the only Jew left on the Appeals Committee, Rabbi Martin Riesenburger, who had occasionally officiated at burials.

‘Yes,’ he exclaimed tiredly, ‘I have seen your face before. You are one of those flower boys. Don’t kid yourself that you are essential; you can’t even dig a pit.’

Mustering all of my determination and courage, I promised to do whatever I would be called upon to do. I never knew what made him change his mind. Perhaps it was my healthy and tanned appearance – I was not like the Jewish boys immersed in books that the rabbi used to see on his daily trips to the synagogue. But the rabbi changed his tone.

‘I’ll check up on the number of cemetery workers still left. There may be a need for replacements. What about your family?’

‘Only Mother,’ I replied.

His searching glance fixed itself on me. His stare met my stare. They were long seconds. ‘All right, if it’s only two of you I’ll try.’

The hours that followed were mental torture. Imagination’s hopeful light struggled with the more obvious darkness of our common fate.

Despair was winning over hope. Finally, the commandant granted me a hearing.

I clicked my heels, trying to replicate the German military salute, and stood upright to suggest that I was older than my age. An adjutant recited my usefulness to the Third Reich, which was then vouched for by the pudgy, bespectacled rabbi.

‘Cemetery worker essential for the upkeep of burials.’

‘Yes, yes,’ grinned one of the German officers present. ‘This brat will have plenty of work.’

A casual motion of the commandant’s hand was my sign to do a neat about-turn and march hurriedly away.

Mother and I seized our suitcases, grabbed the release papers and quickly made for the front gates before the Gestapo changed their minds. Before we could leave the camp, the police guard compared our faces to the photos on our identity cards. He remarked apologetically, ‘Some slip; we didn’t realise you were brother and sister.’

The grey street was tantalisingly close, freedom beckoned. We dared not delay. ‘Never mind,’ I replied, ‘we’ll manage without corrections.’

The steel gates swung open and we quickened our steps towards the next street corner. We had escaped certain deportation, so to be free again was an incredible feeling. However, it did not mean that we were safe, far from it. We had a form stating that we had been released, but this by itself did not protect us from being rearrested. My job was to seek real exemption papers.

Calling at the only remaining office for the Jewish community on Oranienburger Strasse, I pleaded for my rights. Initially, they would not certify my credentials as being an essential worker, as I was not on their list. After heated discussions with the staff, they finally agreed to register me as a common labourer employed at the Weissensee cemetery.

With this status came all the privileges originally intended for the informers who helped the Gestapo to make arrests. In return for a solemn promise to attend work regularly regardless of air raids or any private problems, I was handed a special badge together with numerous stamped and signed certificates. Alongside the yellow Star of David on my breast, I now donned a red armband lettered with Ordner (steward) and a number. All I cared about, however, was that I had outwitted the Gestapo.

Weissensee cemetery.

Ignoring all the rules, we plodded through a blacked-out Berlin to our distant home back on Speyerer Strasse. We arrived in the early morning and woke the porter. His face was a picture of surprise and disappointment, having been certain of seeing the last of any Jews.

‘What? You – free? And at this hour? Are they all coming back?’

After carefully checking our paperwork, he grudgingly handed back our keys. It was clear that he would have preferred rich, tip-giving Jews, and not destitute ones like Mother and me.

Tearing off the Gestapo seals from our door, we could finally lie down for a deeply deserved and peaceful sleep. Our new adage was to be totally inconspicuous.

Next morning, awakened by the five o’clock ring of the alarm clock, I discarded all my badges then boarded the tram to the far-off cemetery. When I first worked at the Weissensee cemetery there were 400 teenagers. Now, there were only six workers who had been spared deportation. My duty was to give all of my strength to the job.

Later, some half-Jews2 joined us; among them a few other youngsters. Though by no means the smallest, I remained the youngest. The work was hard, but we could not let the others down by being absent.

Digging graves 6 feet deep became our daily routine, normally up to three a day. Occasionally, the steep piles of earth would collapse, half burying one of us. We would then extract the victim, completely covered in grimy black soil. It was the fun part of our day.

I had big wooden clogs, a pick and shovel, a fixed minimum output and a weekly pay packet. And more often than not, there was overtime for this kind of job.

Suicides came in at a rate of up to 10 bodies a day. We had to be thankful for the law that forbade people under the age of 21 to attend to the dead. This limited our sporadic help to hearse pushing and taking the place of the mourners. Almost all of the bereaved were now absent and had more than likely followed the path of their recently buried loved ones.

When time allowed, we helped bury the scrolls of the Torah as required by religious law. These scrolls were sent to the Weissensee cemetery by synagogues from all over Germany. No one was left to care for these richly ornamented scrolls, however sacred they may have been. Hundreds of them were carried to a mass grave to be given a suitably appropriate burial. It marked the end of an epoch.

Other unpleasant visitors to the cemetery came in the form of bombs dropped by night-time raiders, who had missed nearby Weissensee industrial targets, onto what seemed to us the most pointless target possible – the city of the dead.

A few girls, mostly half-Jews, returned to revive the cemetery’s gardens and flowers. This, in turn, supplied the market for those who could afford the luxury of flowers and helped ease the financial burden on the cemetery’s management. Working with them was a Polish prisoner-of-war who quickly became our friend. We taught him German and fed him with whatever little we could muster between us. He was a simple but sincere soul and returned our favours with daring accounts about his native land.

Away from the daily grind of cemetery work, keeping occupied during the evening hours while alone was quite a task. I might have been a child, but I knew how desperate our situation was. We had no idea of the whereabouts of relatives and friends. We feared the worst. I could not travel to see friends as they lived too far away and it was not safe to visit. Meanwhile, Mother was busy peddling our last linens for much-needed margarine.

My loneliness was partially offset by a self-assembled wireless set. Working without electricity, its parts – headphones, crystal, condenser and coils – had been acquired stealthily, bit by bit. A wire that I had stretched across the room acted as an aerial. I was so proud when I first heard the crackling noise of words coming through.

Lying in bed with earphones on, scanning the airwaves on my new wireless set, became my favourite pastime. One evening I was startled to hear an English-speaking station, but though I mustered my best school English, I soon felt disappointed, for it was only Nazi phrases that I could make out. It must have been Berlin.

Slowly I came to realise that Nazism was not just a German monopoly, as I had been led to believe, but an exportable ideal that had gathered pace. To my shock, I found out that the Nazis had many sympathisers in the very countries they were waging war with.

Just living on a daily basis became increasingly difficult. Our special ration cards needed renewing, a procedure most Jews avoided as it meant reminding the authorities of their presence.

Unable to exist on black-market food alone, we made the dreaded journey to the food office on Wartburg Platz. The Nazis were efficient, and every rubber-stamped swastika meant the law. Therefore, we had to take along an ample selection of documents for close analysis.

‘We thought that there were no more Jews in the district and accordingly no cards were taken out for them,’ squeaked the unfriendly voice of a minor female official.

However, after much begging, the management finally relented and telephoned the central head office to ask whether non-Aryans whose presence seemed to have the approval of the Third Reich should be issued new ration cards.

More calls followed to check the accuracy of our claim. It was early in the morning, with Nazi bureaucracy still yawning away yesterday’s monotony. Not wanting to obstruct official orders, they handed over the precious booklets of coloured ration cards. It meant a few more months of vital supplies such as bread, flour, potatoes, jam, sugar and margarine.

We learned later that, soon after our departure, instructions came through to completely stop the issuing of Jewish ration cards and to arrest their applicants. Fate was shining down on us. Now Mother and I had valuable supplies and it bought us time.

Despite this reprieve, trouble was never far away from us. This time it was about our one and a half rooms in the apartment.

‘Why,’ said the landlord, ‘I am not to blame for the Gestapo deporting all the other residents and sealing the doors. It’s you two who live here now, so you have to pay the rent for the whole five-room flat.’

We could barely afford the rent anyway, so we had no choice but to move out. Eva-Ruth, a fellow workmate, and her mother, Lotte,* offered Mother and me a room at their home on Konstanzer Strasse. We took along two suitcases each and moved in.

The new district, near the fashionable Kurfürstendamm, was full of well-nourished, elegant snobs. It was the rendezvous of well-to-do Germans and foreign fascists. Polished luxury cars shuttled in between ice-cream parlours, exclusive restaurants, connoisseurs’ tobacconists, beauty salons and vendors of rare flowers. Berlin’s West End, early on in the summer of 1943, nearly made one forget that there was a war on.

One day at the cemetery, something moved from deep within a rubbish heap. It seemed to be bigger than a dog. The girls from the cemetery’s flower shop begged us to investigate further.

Equipped with sticks, we advanced in a military-style formation towards the tall brick wall, the spot where the kitchen refuse was deposited. A ragged olive-green uniform bent itself up from the smelly, rotting heap. It contained a human being. His unshaven head was covered by a forage cap, his bare feet housed in wooden clogs. A mouldy turnip was gripped tightly in his shaking hands.

In response to our barked commands, he hastily turned back to the shelter of the refuse pile from where he had come. Suddenly one of our group shouted, ‘Look at his back; there’s a big black SU printed on it. What does that mean?’

‘Yes, it means the Soviet Union,’ we were told by a bright boy, known for being able to distinguish between all the latest makes of cars and aeroplanes. ‘It’s the place where the sub-humans come from.’

But Russia was an ally of the British against Hitler, so we decided to call the rummager back for a more friendly interrogation.

With the aid of a hurriedly summoned work colleague who knew some basic Polish we somewhat hesitatingly accepted this intruder’s explanation. He was a Russian soldier. In broken English, he explained as much as he could.

‘Soldier kaput – he work hard, eat little – he escapes – escaped Russians shot – German bad – Jew friend – he not eaten in two days – he hungry.’

We could quite imagine this robust figure, his uniform shining in all of its old glory, marching on parade somewhere in far-off Russia and about to enter the battlefield against our common foe. The soldier deserved our sympathy. He ate raw turnips and we fetched him some more. We wished him good luck and then he scurried away.

Our desperate circumstances could not change the fact that I was a boy. And it was Eva-Ruth, the girl I worked and lived with, who first aroused my interest in sex.

A buxom, strawberry-blonde lass of 14, she took a liking to me. ‘Don’t come in now,’ she would cry, ‘I am only dressed in my kimono. There is only me and you in the flat, so don’t be nasty.’

After a few minutes, she would continue flirting with me by announcing that she was only scantily clothed. I would naïvely continue to wait outside her room. Too young to understand her hints, my sole reward was her rebukes for my clumsiness. We teased each other and lay on the same sofa side by side, but could not make ourselves go any further.

The more I adored her body, the more I hated her mind. Her arrogance and prejudices were foul. Liking workmates of a non-German heritage was below her dignity. Occasionally, when I was the object of her heated quarrels, even I would be denounced as a ‘dirty Eastern Jew’.

Her education, like that of many a German Jew, had been one of ‘Deutschland über alles’ (‘Germany above all’). Conforming to the accepted social pattern was all that mattered to Eva-Ruth. An educated person’s superior attitude may have suited more secure and comfortable surroundings, but now it was hopelessly out of place. The orderly German way of life was collapsing. There was no point in clinging to its memories.

One Sunday afternoon in June 1943, a guest arrived at Eva-Ruth’s place for tea. He was a friendly character, smartly dressed, and he politely made himself at home.

This mysterious gentleman told us that he was a Jew who had been recruited by the Gestapo to seek out candidates for deportation. Strangely, he gave no reason why the Gestapo had persuaded him to do this traitorous task. He told Lotte that the few remaining Jews in Berlin had become more elusive and did not merit any large-scale action from the Gestapo. So a new scheme had been decided upon, ‘arrests by persuasion’, to be carried out by Jews like himself over a cup of tea.

Having come down with influenza, I had not been to the cemetery for a few days. I then heard through our seductive but treacherous visitor of a round-up that had been carried out there. Only a few workmates managed to escape via the cemetery’s back gate.

Eva-Ruth and Lotte’s arrest orders already lay on the table. My name was not on the visitor’s pencil-marked list, but he assured us that it soon would be. A final rounding up of the few remaining Jews and half-Jews in Berlin, whether they were in hiding or not, had already been decided upon. ‘To come voluntarily would be better than facing nerve-racking days, waiting for the inevitable knock on the door,’ he said.

Not convinced, we decided to let events take their turn.

Lotte and her daughter, Eva-Ruth, were arrested soon after. Mother and I spent two more days in the deserted flat pondering our future.

We deliberated on our increasingly desperate situation. It seemed that the war would continue for many more years, and we could not find a reliable hiding place. Our resources and possessions could barely finance a month’s illegal living. The terrifying realisation that our options were reduced to nothing meant that we had to make a decision. I reasoned that I was used to hard work and that the Eastern working camps that we had heard about might not be that bad. A good worker might even make a fair living. Finally, there was the insatiable hope that I might effect another release for me and Mother. We decided to hand ourselves in.

Once again, we set out across Berlin weighted with the inevitable four suitcases. Three months before on that street corner in north Berlin, we had taken off our yellow Stars of David. We now had to reattach them. Hungry, exhausted and scared, we re-entered the Grosse Hamburger Strasse detention centre.

This time around, there were different types of inmates packed into the transit camp – the last of its kind in Berlin. The motley but high-spirited prison crowd was made up of half-Jews, caught ‘illegals’, foreigners, community workers and the elderly. Jammed in though we were, a dozen to a room, with food and water mostly nonexistent, somehow an atmosphere of defiant hope prevailed.

A group of young Zionists had arrived from a German farm that had been turned into a prison. Every evening they organised discussion groups, sang sentimental tunes and even danced the Horah.3 Where their enthusiasm sprang from was beyond me; so was the technique of their happy dancing steps.

Eva-Ruth, too, had finally found her mate there. He was someone less naïve than me, and to the general disgust of the camp, she had gone to live in his cell. I was jealous and felt lost.

The few Polish Jews who escaped from the so-called ‘concentration camps’ attracted everyone’s compassion. These Easterners told their stories with such repetitious fervour that only a few of us thought that they were exaggerating.

One man stood out from the crowd. A depressed, nervous and pitiful young man who claimed to have fled from a camp called ‘Auschwitz’. This was one of the supposed Silesian working camps. His constant fidgeting and lack of self-control when talking made his accounts difficult to comprehend. From what little we could gather, they were also far-fetched. He deliriously shouted about the horrors of Western civilisation, offering no proof in the process. We had never heard of Auschwitz. Our shredded nerves about what lay ahead of us were already stretched far enough, which only added to our anger towards him.

Sorting out for the impending transports had started in earnest. Old people and owners of war medals would be sent to Theresienstadt, the rest to the East. Where? We did not know. Lectures on how to behave during the journey were followed by the distribution of identification numbers and basic rations. Next morning, we mounted the lorries that took us to Berlin’s Stettiner Bahnhof goods station.

Mother and I, doing our best to keep together, were hustled into a wagon alongside twenty or so fellow passengers. Mother had told me to bring my winter coat as it would get cold in the East. We left Berlin in one of a dozen closed wagons waiting for departure.4

Laid out with straw, our wagon had four small barricaded ventilation slits, no windows and a solitary sanitation bucket that was to be shared by all of us on our journey to the East. We did our best to find some space in among each other and all the suitcases. My eager eyes had just about managed to catch sight of an inscription that was left over from our carriage’s pre-war days in France. I asked one of my neighbours to translate the sign that was nailed to the inside of our wagon. It stated: ‘40 soldiers or 8 horses’.5 At least we had a semblance of room in our wagon.

Then the train pulled out. As a defiant gesture towards their native Berlin, the worried souls in our carriage, which were all of us, summoned the energy to sing a final tune of farewell. Tall factory chimneys, signposts to the city’s eastern suburbs, silhouetted against the falling dusk, receded along either side of the track as we made our last journey out of the city. There was an eerie silence as we pulled out, the blackout seemingly unable to sense her last few departing children. In that cramped, smelly carriage, who could say how many of us would ever see Berlin again? Perhaps now she was ashamed of herself and our plight?

As we rolled away from Germany, the regular rhythm of the wheels counting off rail by rail lulled us into uncomfortable thoughts. We were leaving a world that was lost for us – the very world that had lost itself.

Part 2

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