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Edward Gruzin
living room, my brothers sleeping area and my mother's dress making shop. There was
an outhouse inside the horse stable and water well in the yard. I attended an all-
I recall my mother having a little book that she took with her to the grocers who entered the amount of the purchase She then paid him whatever she had available at that time. This was the way of life for our family in Kovno. Although there were some Jewish families who were more affluent than we were, most of my friends lived the same kind of life as our family. There was no middle class; you were either rich or very poor. We fell in the second category. I can still smell the kerosene lamp, which was hanging on the wall and smoking up the ceiling.
RUSSIAN OCCUPATION
Before 1940, Kovno was the hub of culture for the Jewish people in Lithuania. There were many synagogues, Jewish newspapers, and learning institutions. This all changed in June of 1940. With the Russian Army occupation in July of that year, Lithuania was annexed as a Republic of the Soviet Union. The Russians confiscated all private industry, created a new Communist Government, and held "free elections" with 1 candidate on the ballot. They deported many people to the Gulag camps in Siberia to cleanse the country of all capitalists. The owner of the factory where my father was employed, Bernard Snyder and his family, perished in one of those camps. The Russian government outlawed all Hebrew teachings in our schools and transformed all textbooks into Russian. We were required to join the Young Pioneers, an organization similar to the American Boys Scouts, only we were to be groomed into loyal Communists. We had to wear red scarves and swore to be ready to defend the Great Motherland of the Soviet Union. In May 1941, at the age of 13, I was sent to a Pioneer summer camp in Palanga, a small resort town by the Baltic Sea, just south of the Latvian border. I experienced antisemitism even at that young age. One morning at breakfast, we were served cereal and milk. When the pitcher of milk was supposed to be given to me, the young man passed it over to the next person and said that Jews do not drink milk. They drink the blood of Christian children. This incident upset me very much. When the same pitcher came back to me empty, the same young man handed it to me. I stood up and hit him over the head with the pitcher. I was called to the office and reprimanded for my action. The other kid was not even questioned.
THE ONSLAUGHT BEGINS
I was supposed to stay there for 4 weeks. However, on 6/22/1941, loud explosions
awakened us. Our Russian commander assured us that they were only maneuvers performed
by the "Heroic Soviet Army" and that there was nothing to be concerned about. A short
time later when we saw some buildings on fire, we knew that the war between Germany
and the Soviet Union had started. We were assembled, approximately 3,000 children,
and told to march by the seashore into Latvia where we would be picked up by the
Russian Army and taken to Russia for the duration of the war. We walked all night.
Upon arriving in Latvia the next morning, we saw German soldiers with their heavy
tanks and artillery resting by the sea. Many Russian soldiers were lying dead on
their backs, all with the same wounds; their throats were ripped open. I do not know
how they were killed. It seemed to me that German soldiers had executed them. This
was the first time that I had seen death so close, but it would not be the last.
I knew then, that my life would never be the same. A German officer approached us
and told us to go back to Palanga. When we arrived, German soldiers occupied our
homes. Lithuanian vigilante volunteers, who sided with the Germans against the Russian
Army and hated the Jews immensely, immediately separated the Jews from the Christians.
Buses were waiting to take the non-
We were kept on a large farm for approximately 3 weeks. We slept on haystacks with no sanitary facilities and very little food. During our stay, we were taken into town and paraded like some sort of criminals. One day we were taken to the synagogue and forced us to remove the Holy Torahs and prayer books and burn them in a bonfire, as the town's people stood by with joy on their faces, yelling "death to the Jews" to them. It was such a big joke and fun to watch the destruction of our holy scriptures!
In July 1941, The Red Cross finally intervened. We were put on a train to Kovno. I saw people walking in the gutter with a yellow Star of David sewn on their clothing. A man approached me and asked if I was a Jew. He was shocked to see me without the yellow star on my clothes. He said that a decree has been issued by the German occupying Government that all Jews must wear the Star of David on their clothes identifying them as Jews and that Jews were no longer allowed to walk on the sidewalk. My first thought was to seek safety at the apartment of my father's youngest brother, my Uncle Moshe Nisin. I had to cross a bridge that was heavily guarded by the Germans. I was questioned several times and eventually made it to their apartment. My uncle and his wife Henna gave me some food, attached a Star of David on my chest, assured me that my parents and brothers were all right, wished me good luck and sent me home. I recall how different the streets looked, with Nazi Swastika flags flying from government buildings, stores shut tight, and Jews walking in the gutter. I felt so degraded. Just a few weeks ago I felt like a normal teenager. Suddenly I felt totally humiliated.
My family was very happy to see me alive. They told me that they had no idea what had happened to me They had tried to escape on foot, but were overrun by the German Army and forced to return to Kovno. On their way back they encountered some Lithuanian Vigilantes who took them to the infamous Ninth Fort* and questioned them. Luckily, my father had his Lithuanian Passport on him and a document showing that he was a veteran of WW I. They were finally released. Upon their arrival to our apartment, they found that the Lithuanian Volunteers slaughtered all the Jews who had remained in our neighborhood included our landlord, Zalman Fin, his family and some of my classmates. This massacre (Pogrom), one of many across Lithuania, was carried out by Lithuanians as the Russian army was leaving in total disarray and prior of the German Army entering. We later found out that the Lithuanians murdered hundreds of Kovno Jews with axes and clubs in a large garage.
*The Russians built the concrete enclosed Ninth Fort during the 19th Century to protect their Northern border. During the Nazi Occupation, it became the killing fields for over 75,000 Jews, men women and children from all over Occupied Europe who were tortured and shot by the Nazis and their Lithuanian helpers.
LIFE IN THE KOVNO GHETTO
In August 1941, The German High Commissioner of Kovno issued an order that our 27.000 Jews must move into a small section of town called Vilijampole. We were allowed to bring only items that we could carry. Without a pushcart, my family's only possessions were a few blankets, pillows and some food. We left our furniture, books and household items. Before vacating our apartment, knowing that we would never return to this place, I took a knife and sliced our sofa and mattresses. We were placed in an apartment, consisting of 2 rooms and a kitchen and no sanitary facilities, where we found 2 additional families sharing this awful place with us. Some Jews were forced to build a barbed wire fence and an entrance gate. Anyone trying to escape was shot on the spot.
Life in the Ghetto was terrible. People were shot for no reason. When a Jew walked past a German guard, he had to remove his cap and walk in military manner or get a beating. Our rations were very meager: some horsemeat, margarine, flour, and potato peals. All men and women over the age of 14 were forced to perform slave labor at the military airfield in Kovno. Being only 13, I was ineligible, but would go to work at the airfield as an Angel to perform the work of someone else. I received 2 slices of bread and some margarine and he got his work card stamped. We both were winners. I got something to eat and the other person had a day off from salve labor.
In late 1941, we heard loud banging on our apartment door. Several German SS soldiers and Lithuanians asked for me by name. I was taken to the Ghetto prison. The next day I was sent to Marijampole, a small town. Other young men of my age were also rounded up at the same time. We had to dig trenches for an underground telephone cable. I was unable to communicate with my family to let them know that I was alive. They kept us there for approximately 4 months. Each prisoner was ordered to dig 100 meters (300 feet) a day. Anyone failing to complete the required order was beaten severely. I remember a German SS guard no older than 19 or 20. He was the most vicious person I have ever met. We called him the snake because he was always yelling and foaming at the mouth. If he did not like someone, he just pulled him of the trench and shot him dead. One day I befriended a Lithuanian laborer, also working at the site, who told me that we were going back to the Ghetto. He and gave me a little duck which was already killed and cleaned. I brought it back to my family and my dear Mother cooked us a delicious meal. Upon returning to the Ghetto, I was assigned to work in the laundry. My job was to hand scrub and wash German uniforms that were brought back from Russian front with bullet holes and dried blood on them. I did not feel bad working there. In fact my friends and I used to compare how many bullet holes there were. A few months later, I was assigned to a clothing warehouse to sort out clothing removed from Jews shot at the 9th Fort. The Germans were very precise in keeping books and tabulating their accomplishments in the extermination of the Jewish people. I found a pair of shoes my mother's size. I will never forget the look on her face when I gave her those shoes. She was happy to have new shoes and also very sad knowing that they belonged to some unfortunate murdered woman. I would like to state that I risked my life in taking those shoes; if caught, I would have been shot on the spot.
I recall a tragic incident. The German guards captured a man trying to escape from the ghetto by digging a hole under the barbed wire fence. They accused him of having a revolver and gold. The Nazis forced the Jewish Ghetto Police to build gallows and hang that man. He was left dangling like a rag in the wind for 48 hours as a reminder that no one else should try to escape. Before being hung, he asked the policemen to give his love to this mother and sister. His mother and sister were shot the following day. The man's last name was Mek. Some people did escape from the Ghetto and joined the Partisans in the forests to fight against the Nazis.
On 8/16/1941, The German Governor ordered the Jewish Ghetto Administration to supply 500 intellectuals to work in the Kovno archives outside the Ghetto. My uncle Moshe volunteered to go, thinking that he may get some additional food rations for his family. They were all taken to the 9th Fort and shot., leaving my aunt Henna alone with 4 small children. Without my uncle, they would be unable to survive.
On 9/26/1941, the Nazis and their Lithuanian helpers rounded up several thousand people, took them to the Ninth Fort and shot them. Among them were my dear grandparents, Joshua Yakov and Genesa Gruzin. They were the kindest people. They never hurt anyone or spoke a harsh word against other people. Before the war they lived in a storefront, which consisted of one large room without any facilities. My grandfather used to buy and sell empty vinegar and soda bottles. That one room served as a living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom and my grandfather's bottle warehouse. Talking of been poor, they had absolutely nothing. Why did they have to be murdered by those barbarians?
10/28/1941 was the most horrifying day in the Ghetto. An order was issued that all Ghetto inhabitants must assemble on Demokratu Square at 6:00 AM. We were lined up in columns by work brigades. My father, being a World War 1 veteran, was assigned to be a Ghetto policeman. Of course the Jewish Ghetto Police we unarmed and just there to keep order. We stood in the column with Police and Fire Brigade families. Several hours passed and than the selections began. Each family had to pass SS Master Sergeant Helmut Raucke, as he stood on a wood platform with a riding stick in his hand, motioning, some people to the right side and some to the left, separating families and creating total chaos. We were sent to let left. My uncle Chaim, my father's younger brother his wife Chiene and their two sons, Icik and Israel, were sent to the right side. When my father realized that they were to be taken out of the Ghetto to the 9th Fort, he ran over to a SS guard and told him that this were his family. Although the guard slugged my father over the head with his rifle, causing him to bleed profusely, my father did not give up. He grabbed uncle Chaim and his family and placed them with us, saving their lives by his action. My father told us later that he tried to find my aunt Henna and her 4 children to no avail. They were already on the other side and were taken to the Ninth Fort and shot. On that horrendous day, the murderers killed over 9,000 men, women, and children. I can still see those poor souls walking up the hill to the Ninth Fort with SS and Lithuanian guards at their sides.
In July 1942, the Germans told us the lie that the Ghetto Hospital had infectious patients. The SS guards surrounded the Hospital, forced some Ghetto prisoners to dig a wide ditch around the hospital so that no one could escape, and set the hospital on fire that burned them all alive, doctors, nurses, patients and small infants. After that tragedy there were just a few physicians without medical supplies left in the Ghetto to care for entire population. People died by the hundreds from sickness, hunger, and diseases.
9/12/1942, my brother Charles got close to the Ghetto fence. A German guard beat him severely. He somehow managed to get back to our apartment before he collapsed. I will never forget the look in his eyes as he lay there begging us to help him. He kept on saying in Yiddish, Ratevet mir, meaning save, save me. 3 days later on September 15, 1942 my dear brother died at the age of 17. No one can comprehend the pain I felt for him, seeing him gasp his last breath and not being able to help him as I sat by his bedside. Had there been medicine in the Ghetto, maybe he could have been saved. We buried him in the Kovno Ghetto Cemetery and placed a wooden marker on his grave. After the war, I was planning to travel to Kovno in order to place a permanent monument stone on his grave. I was informed that after the war was over, the Russians destroyed the cemetery and built apartment houses on the site. This is an unforgivable inhumane act. They did not even have respect for the dead, even though the Russians have lost 20 million people during the war with Germany.
In early 1943, The Nazis ordered all inhabitants to remain in their apartments with the doors wide open. The Ghetto was aghast with fear. We had no idea what was going to happen. The German SS and their Lithuanian helpers searched each apartment for children under the age 13. They dragged them from their parents' arms, and took them to be murdered . I never found out where those unfortunate children were taken to their death. All I know is that none of them returned alive, including 2 children from our apartment. Being a youngster of 15, I could not imagine the despair the parents must have felt to lose their children in such a brutal and tragic way. After that horrendous day, a decree was issued that any pregnant women would be shot. Most women who were already pregnant had to go into hiding in order to avoid being discovered.
Life in the ghetto worsened by the day. Our rations were reduced and people were rounded up for deportation. Of the 27,000 Jews who entered the ghetto in 1941, only 2,500 remained. 95% of Lithuanian Jews did not survive the Holocaust.
As the tide of the war turned against the Germans and the Russian Army approached Kovno in July 1944, the Nazis began to liquidate Jews from the Ghetto. Many attempted to find refuge in underground hideouts, but the Nazis flushed them out with killer dogs, grenades, and dynamite. The ghetto was set on fire and burned it to the ground. No one could have survived such an inferno.
The remaining Jews including my family were put into cattle cars, approximately 50 to a car, with no sanitary facilities. There was one bucket in each car for people to relieve themselves, which was filled very quickly. The stench from urine and human excrement was almost unbearable. We traveled for 2 days without food or water, not knowing where we were being taken. My older brother Zachary, having worked as an electrician in the Ghetto had a pair of wire cutters on him. He managed to cut away the barbed wire on the small window of the cattle car and attempted to crawl through. My dear mother pulled him back stating that we should all stay together, no matter what our future would bring. Some other young men managed to jump from the moving train. The SS guards were on top of the cars. We heard shooting. I do not know if any of the escapees made it to freedom.
The train stopped at Tigenhoff, near Danzig which was occupied Poland. They opened the cattle car doors and shouted through bullhorns that all women should come out to be fed first and all the men would follow. They always used deceptive tactics to not arouse suspicion. My mother hugged and kissed us and said that she would never see us again. She was right. She was murdered in Concentration Camp Stuthoff in late 1944. (After the war I tried to find out how and when she died. I wrote to The International Red Cross and the Stutthof Concentration camp Museum Poland. Survivors of that camp informed me that there were gas chambers and crematories for prisoners who could no longer work. Also, Germans had placed several thousand prisoners on barges and sunk them in Baltic Sea. The only information that I found about my mother was the date she arrived at the camp and her prisoner number.. This is so painful for me. I do not know when to observe her Yahrzeit, (Day of her death) and say Kaddish to sanctify her name in the Synagogue. Again I ask why? All my dear mother wanted was to be a devoted wife and a loving mother.)
The women were chased out , the cars locked without feeding us. We traveled for 2 more days in that filth, not knowing where we were being taken. It seemed so eerie. Everything had suddenly changed, one minute we were a family; the next torn apart. The inhumane cruelty is indescribable. All of the unspeakable atrocities were done without blinking an eye. It was just a job to them , the destruction of the Jewish people. We had heard of concentration camps and gas chambers in Germany, and we all prayed that none of those places would be our final destination. Some prisoners got very sick from hunger and thirst. I recall one elderly man just lying there and begging for water; a few hours later he was dead. Had we traveled another day most of us would have not survived. A human being can take just take so much hunger and abuse.
CONCENTRTATION CAMP KAUFERING
The train finally stopped at a small railroad station near the concentration camp, Kaufering I, one of eleven sub camps of Dachau in the Landsberg area. As we marched in columns for an hour through the small town with the townspeople lined up on the sidewalk staring at us. They did not speak or made any gestures. When we finally arrived, we were crowded into filthy huts. SS guards pointed to the barbed wire fence, which had a sign reading high voltage. We were greeted by Kirsch, a Nazi officer, who called us filthy swine Jews and lectured us how to behave in our new home, warning us, if the clock should strike 12 for Germany it would be past 12 for us. We knew than that no one could ever escape that horrible place. They ordered us to strip naked and turn over our valuables. My father would never part with his wedding band and I managed to bury it for safekeeping. Some people with German money threw it into the latrine that consisted of a long ditch with a wooden plank. When the Germans saw the money floating,, they ordered some prisoner to undress, crawl down into that filth full human excrement and white worms to retrieve the money.
We were issued a blanket, striped prisoner uniforms consisting of trousers, jacket,
cap, wooden clogs and no socks or underwear. We used empty cement sacks under our
thin jackets for warmth in that brutal winter of 1944. If a prisoner was caught,
he was beaten severely. A number was our identity. They took away our name, pride
and dignity. We became sub human. We felt so degraded. Life as we knew it did not
exist in that place. If a prisoner had to be located, his number was announced over
the loud speakers and he better show up immediately or face a terrible beating or
worse. We were housed in filthy huts,, 40 crammed in to each, with no mattresses
or bedding. We used our wooden as pillows. There was only one door in the front
and a potbelly stove in the center which we used to kill lice from our clothing.
Bathing facilities were none existent. There were a few cold-
Each morning at 6:00 AM, a guard by the door chased us with a whip to make us run like cattle to the courtyard for a head count that done with precision. First came an order to snap to attention, than caps off. If a prisoner did not perform quickly enough or was out of unison, he would be placed in a kneeling position on a large 'punishment' stool. Then another prisoner was selected to beat him with a wooden board until he stopped screaming from pain. If that beating was not to the satisfaction of the Commandant, the 'beater' was beaten as an example of how to do it correctly. Another type of punishment was to force the prisoner to stand at attention with a potato in his mouth near the electrified barbed wire fence. If fell against the fence, he was electrocuted.
Daily we went on a death march, during which prisoners fell and died by the hundreds, to perform slave labor for 12 hours building Messerschmidt , an underground aircraft facility. Our daily rations consisted of one slice of moldy bread, a little watery soup, and a potato. There were no gas chambers or crematoriums in that camp. They were not needed. Prisoners died by the hundreds from beatings, lice, typhoid fever and other diseases. One day I would be talking to a fellow prisoner in the barracks and the next day that person was carried off in a pushcart to the burial pit. The dead were lying all over the place as they could not be buried bury fast enough. We became numb to this was the way of life in that Hellhole.
I was assigned to operate a crane that unloaded gravel from railroad cars. A German worker was inside the car guiding the crane. Being inexperienced with such large machinery, I accidentally hit him with the crane shovel, injuring him slightly. The guards took me into the construction shack and began beating me. They accused me of trying to kill a German worker. I thought that my life was over. When they were done, I was pushed out the door. Of course I could no longer work and was assigned to unload cement sacks from railroad cars.
My brother Zachary was transferred to another camp. One day I saw him in a column of prisoners. As we passed each other, I managed to give him my slice of bread from that morning. He looked so emaciated. I did not realized that I looked as bad or even worse than he. Upon returning to camp I started crying like a child, as I had nothing to eat. My father shared his rations with me. (It would take another 28 years before I would see my brother again.) When I was worked the night shift, I would sneak past the guards and dig up some potatoes in the fields, bring them to camp, and boiling them on the potbelly stove. Again I was risking my life. My father was swollen from hunger, infested with lice, barely able to walk, and was getting weaker by the day. His body was so full of fluids that when I touched him hand; it left an indentation like raw dough. I did not expect him to live much longer.
LIBERATION FROM HELL
4/26/1945 as the U.S. Army advanced, the SS assembled the entire camp and forced us on a death march. My father and I and other prisoners too weak to walk were left behind. The next morning we saw that there we no guards in the watchtowers. It seems so odd. Since I was one of the stronger ones , I started walking around the camp. I came across the SS guards' kitchen. I stepped inside and saw bread stacked in neatly rows. I immediately grabbed some loaves, stuffed them into a flower sack, and took them to my father telling him to guard it. When I returned to the kitchen for a second time, I found that some other prisoners had taken everything except for some crumbs on the floor which I gathered and again took back to my father. I feared that we would not have enough for the future. During the entire 4 years of my incarceration I had two wishes: to be free and have enough bread to eat. My wishes came true on that miraculous day.
4/27/1945 we heard some artillery and small arms fire. We knew that our suffering was over. Either the Nazis would kill us or we would be liberated by the oncoming U.S. Army. As the shooting stopped, we saw American troops enter the camp. Our joy was overwhelming. At first we could not believe that we were really free. More and more U.S. soldiers with their tanks entered the camp. I will never forget the white stars painted on their trucks and tanks.
My father asked me to get the ring that I had buried upon arrival. I found it and returned it to him. This ring was our only possession at the time of our liberation.
I noticed a captured SS officer wearing shiny boots, I walked over to him and ordered him to remove his them in exchange for my father's wooden clogs. When he refused, an American soldier pointed his rifle at him and fulfilled my request. My father looked so odd, a man worn down to skin and bone, wearing those shiny boots with a sack full of bread on his shoulder. When the American Army began to distribute slices of bread. I ran to get some. 2 prisoners jumped me and took my slice from my hand. Although we already had a sack full of bread, I wanted more. After all those years of hunger and starvation, I could not have enough bread.
American military ambulances started to evacuate the most severely ill prisoners. My father, being close to death, was put on a stretcher and carried to an ambulance. There I saw 2 prisoners with pink spots on their bodies. Having seen other prisoners with those spots die, I tried to stop the medics from putting my father into the ambulance. They kept pushing me away. Unable to speak English, I climbed on the hood of the ambulance and would not allow the driver to move. I kept on pointing at the prisoners inside the ambulance. They finally put my father and me into another ambulance and took us to Bad Woersihoffen near the Swiss border. We were deloused with DDT and placed in a Villa that was converted into a convalescent home. What a change in lifestyle from a lice infested dirt hut to a luxurious place with a dining hall, nurses, doctors, private bath and clean sheets. Concerned that some of the liberated prisoners may have typhus, typhoid fever or other communicable diseases, the American Military quarantined the Villa. I would sneak out after dark and go the farmers in the area to beg for food. I just could not get enough food into my stomach. Some of them were very kind, gave me some eggs, which I used put under the hot water faucet to soft boil them for my father, and of course, more bread. Other Germans kept on telling me that they knew nothing of any concentration camps and that they were forced to join the Nazi party. The American medical staff was very careful not to give us too much food, fearing that we may get sick from overeating. Some prisoners did die after the liberation; they were too far undernourished to be able to recuperate. Among them were 2 brothers, friends of mine from Lithuania, David and Ruven Greenstein. How sad an event to survive the Holocaust just to die before they could enjoy freedom.
After several months in Bad Woershofen, as we began to regain our strength, we tried to find a way to go back to Lithuania to reunite with my mother and my brother Zachary. At that time we had no idea whether or not they survived the war. We found a transport organized by the Russian army to repatriate their citizens to Lithuania, which was then part of the Soviet Union. We boarded army military trucks and they took to an assembly point in Munich. There, a friend of my father hitched ride on our truck. He told us that he recently returned from Lithuania and for us not to go back, because the Russians were sending all the returnees to work in the calmness. We were considered traitors to the Soviet Motherland for spending the war in Germany. My father was not very strong yet, so he told the Russian officer that he was unable to undertake such a long journey. An ambulance was called to take him to a convalescing home. The Russians wanted me to go back home. I made it clear to them that I spent the entire war with my father and that I was not about to be separated from him. After a short confrontation and intervention by American Military Police, they let me go with my father in the ambulance.
The American Military government started placing Jewish refugees in Nazi homes as punishment for the Nazis. I was placed in one of those homes with a private bedroom and bath. Living there was u pleasant. The Nazi family did not speak to me. They would walk by and stare at me. I could see in the hatred in their eyes. I found out that their son was killed on the Russian front and that I now occupied his room.
After another 6 months in the convalescing home, my father was finally released and we obtained an apartment of our own. I attended ORT school: (Organization for Reconstruction and Training) learning to become an office machine repairman. My father became an inspector overseeing the tailoring workshops, which were established in the DP Camps all across the American occupying Zone. He became a Big Shot with a car and driver at his disposal. Here is a man who several months earlier was near death and was now a respected citizen. How things change when a person is alive, free and treated like a human being.
Two years later we fount out that my brother Zachary survived the war and had returned to Lithuania to search for us. The Russians put him in the coal mines in Ukraine. After spending 4 years in a Ghetto and concentration camps, he would be stuck behind the Iron Curtain for another 47 years. My father's older brother, Charles, had come to the United States in 1912 at the age of 19. He settled in Baltimore, Maryland, established himself as a businessman, and raised a family. It took us a while to find his address and we began corresponding. After 4 years of waiting, Charles finally was able to obtain visas for us to immigrate to the United States This was a very difficult decision for us going to a new life in a great county while leaving my brother Zachary behind the Iron curtain, not knowing if we would ever be reunited with him.
NEW LIFE IN AMERICA
My father and I arrived in Baltimore on 7/7/1949. My father and his brother Charles had not seen each other in 37 years. This was a very happy and emotional reunion. We than started to look for my mother's sister, Vite Malka, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1905. It took us about 6 months to locate her family. She had passed many years ago. However, her husband Jacob, daughters, Elsie, Muriel and Ann, as her son David were still living and we had the privilege to meet some of them. I established a very close relationship with my cousin Muriel and Muriel's daughter, Barbara, who resided with her family in New Jersey. We still correspond and see each other as often as possible.
In May of 1950, my father met Sarah Simkin in a clothing manufacturing plant where they both worked. She was a very lovely lady. They married a short while later. Sarah was very good to my father. They lived in a very special atmosphere, observing all the Jewish religious laws and holidays and were respected citizens in the community. They belonged to many organizations and had large amount of friends. My father became an officer in a synagogue in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1955, my father and I arranged visas for my cousin, Israel, his wife, Adela, and their infant daughter Jeannie to come to The United States. Israel established a custom cabinet business in Baltimore, Maryland where he manufactures furniture of the highest quality.
After reuniting with my aunt Chiene, who miraculously survived the war in Stutthof concentration camp, my father and I arranged visas for my uncle Chaim, Israel's father, his brother, Icik, his wife Frieda, their son Efroim. I am very saddened that my dear cousin, Icik, and his mother , Chiene, both died at a young age from complications of the war years. Icik left behind his wife Frieda and young son who returned to Germany after his death. I later learned that Efroim came back the to the United States. However, I was unable to make contact with him.
I worked for 47 years at an office machine company in Baltimore, Maryland. My starting salary was $40 a week. I had to disassemble and wash typewriters in chemicals. Eventually I was sent to school aand trained by IBM and other large companies to repair many makes and models of office equipment and became service manger of the company, overseeing a large group of technicians. I retired in 1996.
SERVING MY NEW COUNTY WITH HONOR AND PRIDE : U.S. Army 1951
In 1951, during the Korean War I was drafted in the United States Amy. It is impossible for me describe the honor and pride I felt in wearing the uniform of the Army that gave me new life and freedom. When off duty, we were allowed to wear civilian clothes. I, however, always wore my uniform. For me it was a great privilege.
When I met Lieutenant General Harry Collins, the Commanding General at Ft Jackson, S.C., he told me that he was in charge of liberating the concentration camp where I was incarcerated. How ironic to meet him under such different circumstances. Whenever there was need for the general's flag to be present at a parade, graduation or other function, I was always selected to have the honor of carrying that flag. Talking about pride, indescribable.
I was very much surprised that antisemitism existed even in the U.S. Army. When I was inducted and began basic training, we were sent on maneuvers. No one asked me what my religion was and I did not find it necessary to tell them.. A directive came from headquarters that all Jewish personnel were authorized to take leave to attend religious services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. After returning to my unit I, started hearing remarks like "Jew Babe" and where is your hook nose? I tried to ignore those remarks. Several soldiers approached me and said that I smelled like the rest of the Kikes and that they are going to give me a GI shower, to scrub me down with heavy brushes that were used to clean the latrine. Here I am, just 5 years out of Concentration Camps, 18 months in America, willing and able to fight in Korea for my new country and being degraded in such a disgusting manner. I fixed a bayonet on my rifle and dared them to come closer and of course those cowards backed off. I would have not hesitated to use my weapon in order to defend my honor as an American soldier and a Jew. I told those thugs that if we are sent to Korea, they should watch out from which direction the fire comes. After that incident, all harassment's stopped. After basic training I attended Combat Leadership School, mastered the English language, attained the rank of corporal and became an instructor at the Infantry school at Fort Jackson South Carolina teaching reserve offices the art of modern weaponry. The 2 years of my service to my new country were the most rewarding of my life. I became a US citizen after my honorable discharge from the Army.
STARTING MY NEW FAMILY AND REUNITING WITH THE OLD
In January 1954, I met Sonia Schlachman at a Synagogue dinner in Baltimore. She sat
across from me and I knew then that this was the young lady I am going to spend the
rest of life with. After a short romance, we were married. At our wedding ceremony
my father gave me his wedding ring that I had hidden during the war. Every time
I look at that ring,, which I have never taken off my finger, I see my dear mother
whose life was cut so short. We have a daughter, Debra, named after my dear mother,
a son Mark, named after my dear uncle Moshe Nisin, our daughter-
In 1972 my father, his second wife, Sarah, and I were able to visit my brother Zachary
in The Soviet Union. The Russian Government allowed us to stay only for four days.
At first, I did not recognize him. He had changed after all those years of separation.
When I saw him last, he was an emaciated prisoner of 19 in a concentration camp and
now, here he was, a 47 year-
CLOSING THOUGHTS, BUT NO CLOSURE
More than sixty years have passed since my liberation. I never spoke in detail to my family about the war years. This is the first time I have opened my inner thoughts and have written these pages, hoping that it would ease my pain. However, there is never any closure for me for that part of my life of incarceration, hunger, disease and the loss of my dear family members. The Holocaust stays with me day and night. When I see a group of children playing, it always brings back those unimaginable memories that one and a half million children were ripped from their parents arms and murdered. I ask why, but there is no answer. The world was silent. Those unfortunate children did not even begin to live; their future was ended by a bullet or in gas chamber. People often ask me how I survived. I have no answer. Maybe, God was with me to bear witness; to tell my story to others.
I hope that the civilized world will never forget the evil genocide done to the Jewish people of Europe during World War II and teach future generations that such atrocities could occur again unless they learn from the past. The last portion of this page, I left purposely blank as a symbol of the emptiness I feel to the loss of my dear mother, brother, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and the six million Jews who did not survive the Nazi onslaught.
Again I ask why?
In My heart they will live forever
EDWARD GRUZIN
Surviving the Holocaust and New Life in America
Owings Mills, Maryland, September, 2005
PRE WAR YEARS
My name is Edward (Ephraim) Gruzin, the youngest son of Solomon and Dora Gruzin,
grandson of Joshua Yakov and Genesa Gruzin. These were my paternal grandparents.
I was born 11/26/1927 in Kovno (Kaunas) Lithuania. I had 2 older twin brothers:
Zachary (Zecharia) was born on 2/22/1925, my brother Charles (Bezalel) was born on
2/25/1925 with a 3-
My father was a tailor in a raincoat factory. My mother was a seamstress. She created a small shop in our living room where she designed and made dresses for the rich ladies of Kovno. We lived a very primitive life compared to today's standards. We had no electricity, telephone, running water, and automobile. We used kerosene lamps for lighting and tiled wood burning ovens for heating the apartment. Without refrigeration, we kept our perishables in a dirt sub basement with a trap door. Our apartment consisted of a kitchen with a wood burning stove, one bedroom and a second room that was used as a dining room,