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REMEMBERING ANDREW

The Romanian authorities were giving my father a hard time. They wanted to take away his citizenship because he was born in Hungary. I recall that he kept bribing them with money to leave him alone. About this time, I remember an incident. I was vacationing at my uncle’s house in a small village and was walking with a non-Jewish friend. All of a sudden, my friend pointed to a house and said “Let’s cross the street – I don’t want to walk in front of that house”. I asked him why. He said that a Jew lives there and was afraid that the Jew might grab him and take his blood to make matzo. He probably heard that myth from his parents.

Except for incidents like this, life was pretty uneventful for me in the part of Romania where I lived. The turning point came when Germany divided the Romanian territory of Transylvania and gave part to Hungary as a reward for being a faithful ally of Hitler. This meant implementing the Nuremberg Laws according to the wishes of the fuehrer.

As soon as they (Hungarians) occupied this land, they started to put the pressure on the Jews, setting up quotas that limited Jewish enrollment in High Schools and Universities to 6%. My grandfather, who owned a bakery, was allotted only so much flour (less than a Christian) so he couldn’t compete with them. Citizenship was taken from all Jews who were not born in Hungary. If there was the slightest doubt that there was Jewish blood in someone’s family, he had to prove his bloodline all the way back to his great-grandparents. Things became harsher. For instance, if a Jew owned a good business, and a non Jew decided that he would like to have it, the non-Jew could go to City Hall and put a claim on the business. The Jew had to accept him as a partner whether he liked it or not. The government daily came out with a new rule or edict concerning the Jews. They were constantly propagandizing against the Jews on the state run radio.

When war broke out between Russia and Germany, there was another turning point, for the worse. All able bodied Jewish men, 21-40, were put into labor battalions because they were not allowed into the army or to carry arms. These men were sent to the Russian front to dig ditches, clear minefields, and in general, to do the dirty work like slaves. They were poorly dressed for the Russian winter. Most of them either were shot or captured by the Russians. Capture sometimes was better than the other alternatives. This is one reason why the Jews in Hungary couldn’t resist when the deportations came. The able bodied Jewish men were gone.

By March, 1944, the Nazi armies were retreating west, the Russians driving them relentlessly to the northeastern borders of Hungary. Everyone knew by this time that Germany was losing the war. Germany, fearing that Hungary would soon capitulate or settle for peace with the Russians, invaded full force against its last ally. The Hungarians Nazi puppet regime, the Arrow Cross, was made up of criminals and murderers. Wherever they went they mercilessly murdered the Jews. They took woman, children and old men, lined them up on the shores of the Danube and shot them into the river until the river was red with blood. In the meantime, the Germans immediately started implementing their usual method of persecuting the Jews. Knowing that time was running out for them, what they did in 4 years in Poland, they speeded up and carried out in a couple months in Hungary. Their propaganda paid off, because the Hungarians were more than willing helpers and accomplices.

My hometown, Oradea, a mid sized city with a Jewish population of 25,000, was occupied by Germany on March 19, 1944. As soon as they entered the town, they started issuing orders and edicts. Jewish property was requisitioned, especially things such as sheets, blankets, etc. A week later the orders came requiring all Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on the outer garment. By the end of April, 1944, all non-Jews were ordered to move out from the Jewish section of the city. The whole Jewish population was then forced to move into the small section of the city, crowding 5-6 families into one apartment. But they (dirty swines) knew what they were doing. They knew the ghetto was going to be temporary, and where we would end up!

By mid-May, 1944, the ghettoization process was complete. Then began the deportations and the lies.“We (Jews) had nothing to worry about; we were only going to be sent to the western part of Hungary to do farm labor; families would stay together; nothing bad would happen to us; and all of this would only last until the end of the war, when we would come back and start anew”. The worst part of was that we really swallowed the lies because otherwise there was no hope. There was despair and no leadership towards the end of May, 1944. The Germans, in collusion with the Hungarian, started to empty the ghetto. This was accomplished in the following manner:

First, the ghetto was divided into sections. Section by section, orders were issued that the entire population of that section must report to a designated area and bring only belongings that they could carry. The Nazis encouraged them to bring all valuables so later on they could be taken away from them. There were usually about 3,000 people in a group – old, young, sick, crippled, anybody who could walk, or if they couldn’t, they were taken on stretchers. When everyone was assembled, the Nazis again made a speech; ‘Nothing to worry about. We would be safe until the end of the war. Just obey orders.’ We were then driven like cattle to a railroad siding where about 50 freight cars were waiting with open doors and with a few loaves of bread and a bucket of water for about 70 people in each car. There was no provision for human waste or sanitation.

After all the people were herded into the cars, the doors were slammed shut. We sat there for hours until the locomotive was hooked up. All that time we were suffocating from heat. I recall the anxiety on the people’s faces. At 15, really did not or could not understand everything. Then the long trip to Auschwitz began, we thought to resettlement in Western Hungary. Of course, we did not know we were heading in the opposite direction to Auschwitz. – northeastern, crossing into Slovakia, then into Poland. I remember seeing a sign which said Krakow or Katowice. Then I knew we were in Poland. People finally realized that we had been betrayed, lied to, and sold out, but it was too late. While we were on Hungarian territory, the Hungarian gendarmerie were in charge. When we crossed the border, the Nazi SS took over and delivered us to Auschwitz.

It took about 3 days to get to Auschwitz. We pulled up to a siding. Then, in about ½ hour the SS opened the doors, yelling and screaming , dogs barking. It was complete pandemonium. Women, children and men were separated. I was holding onto my father’s hand. We had to step in front of a Nazi officer. I assume it was Mengele, I can’t recall his face. He motioned with his thumb or hand, let or right. He told me to go right, my father, left. When I started to run after my father, one of the soldiers stopped me and sent me the other way. That was the last time I saw my father and my mother. They never made it.

We were marched into the camp through the famous gate that had “ArbeithMacht Frei” over it to a building where we had to strip. They cut off all of our hair. There were about 500 people, mostly grown-ups. Everyone was very apprehensive because, by then, we had found out from other prisoners (mostly those who processed the incoming people) what kind of a place we were at and what was in store for us. We heard screams from torture and beatings. People were talking and murmuring until a SS came by and said, “If you people don’t shut up, I will have all of you executed.” We were standing there naked, waiting to go into the shower. We finally went through the shower and this time there was water coming out, not gas. After the shower, we were issued the notorious striped prison outfit and were taken into barracks that were packed with hundreds of people.

I remember the first night. My shoelaces were stolen. The next day they took all of the youngsters and put us into a separate barrack with children as young as 8 and 9 years old. When I heard the rumors that these children were all doomed, I realized that this place wasn’t for me. I took off and sneaked back with the grown-ups. I figured I might make it if I could work. It paid off because they took us into another section of Auschwitz where I stayed for 4 to 5 weeks. At the end of August, 1944, they put us on a freight train and shipped us to Germany. They needed slave labor. The interesting thing was that this time we were treated better than when we were shipped to Auschwitz from our homes. Car doors were left open; we were even fed better than before. The allied invasion was well on its way and the liberation of Europe was in progress, but it was a long way from the end for us.

On the way to Germany we had a young German guard who was in the regular army, the Wermacht. He looked like he was a little flakey, perhaps he had been shocked from the war. He kept asking us what we thought about the war, if Germany was going to win or lose. Naturally, we did not answer him. He kept saying we were crazy if we thought Germany was going to lose because of the Normandy invasion.

After about 3 to 4 days, we finally arrived at our destination, somewhere near Munich in Bavaris to a place called Kaufering. It was a little farm village, very quaint and very clean. On the outskirts of this village was the KZ Lager of camp, about 2 - 3 acres of land surrounded by a barbed wire fence, right in the middle of farm land. We could see the farmers coming and going with their horses, carts, etc., not worrying very much about what was going on the other side of the barbed wire. They did not even want to look at us.

We were used as slave laborers for various projects. One of these was the Leonhard Mol Construction Co. which was building an underground jet plane factory. The inmates worked 24 hours a day in several shifts carrying cement bags on their shoulders. When they couldn’t do this anymore or did not have the strength, they would be shipped to Dachau to be gassed. Autumn, 1944, and time was running out for the Germans. I must say there were instances of humanness, partly because our guards were mostly Wermacht or regular army or perhaps because they were rejects from the wounded who could not serve on the front lines. I had one guard who would bring a loaf of bread and divide it among the 10 to 12 prisoners on the work detail. Some of them would bring us newspapers and tell us that the war would not last much longer. Of course, they knew what was coming.

I was in Kaufering Camp #3 until February, 1945, when I was transferred to Camp #4 nearby, the so called “sick camp”. I had become sick and run down and was just hanging around there waiting to be shipped to Dachau to be gassed. The Germans did not keep Jews who were no longer able to work. But this time luck was with me because the U.S. Army was closing in on the murderers and they knew it. Towards the end of April, 1945, we could hear the big guns coming closer and closer. Then one morning we found out that all the guards left the camp; all mayhem broke lose. The first thing we did was to invade the kitchen and load up with potatoes and anything else we could find to eat. We ate potatoes till they were coming out of our ears.

Then, all of a sudden, an SS came in with a bullwhip screaming at us to go to a train. At first we said no, kill us here, but we did go and started our journey to the main camp, Dachau, about 30 miles away. It was a very slow ride. Every 15 minutes the train stopped. The allied planes were all over, flying tree top level. The Germans were scared. The minute they saw one of these planes, they ran into the woods and left us sitting on the train. On one of these occasions, I bolted out of the train and started walking across a meadow. About a half mile away, I could see a farm house. That became my main objective. Finally, I reached the house. It seemed like an eternity. By this time I was very weak and rundown because the Germans didn’t feed us. Their whole system had broken down, and they only gave us moldy bread, if that. Anyway, as I walked in this farm house, there was a German soldier sitting demoralized, he didn’t care about me, but I was scared. Finally, I asked the farmer for food and he was very nice. He gave me milk and some noodles. While I was sitting there, another German soldier came in and asked the farmer if there were any prisoners around. He answered yes, and I was picked up. Outside there were a bunch of others, caught the same way.

We were assembled and started to walk back to the rain, all the while saying that this was going to be our last meal. By the time we got to the train, there were about 50 escapees. The Germans took the whole group and an SS officer who was sitting on the rail with his head between his hands, depressed probably about the war. The German told him that he caught us, etc. He raised his head, looked at us, waved his hand and said, ‘let them go back to the train.’ I am sure just a few months earlier that the outcome would have been different. I went back to the train, still not sure about my fate. I figured it was now beyond my control. After a short ride, we finally stopped and were unloaded. Those of us who could walk were marched into Dachau. There were a lot of dead and dying left behind in or near the transport. These were the living dead and skeletons, ‘the Muselemen’ that the liberators found when they approached the outskirts of Dachau.

As we were marching toward the camp, there was a platoon of SS marching in the opposite direction. All of a sudden one of these SS goons stepped out of the ranks and slapped a prisoner on his face for no good reason. This was one of those ‘nice boys’ who Chancellor Kohl of W. Germany described as being in the SS against his will and victimized the same as the Jews. We were taken into the camp and given a shower, not knowing beforehand whether or not the showers were water or gas.

Surprisingly, the people in charge were very accommodating this time, no yelling or screaming. Of course, they knew that it would not be long now. We were assigned to our barracks, jammed with people, because they had brought in the prisoners from the satellite camps. From what I learned later, they wanted to blow up the whole camp (Dachau) before the U.S. Army reached it, but their plan failed because the U.S. Army got there quicker than the Germans expected.

And so it happened. .. After about 2 to 3 days we heard intense rifle and small arms fire. We looked out the window and there they were, G.I.’s crouching low with sub machine guns and rifles in their hands, flushing out and capturing the criminal SS murderers. Right in front of my barrack there was an SS guard tower with a machine gun pointing towards the camp. The G.I.’s stopped at this point, all the people ran out of the barracks yelling and screaming at the U.S. soldiers to kill the SS one by one. The SS walked down from the tower with their hands up. The G.I.’s made them take off their hats, belts, lined them up and executed them right on the spot. That was the happiest day in my life. Every time I think about it, it still stirs up almost uncontrollable emotions in me.

I heard later and also read in a book that another 120 SS criminals were given similar justice at Dachau. Soon after liberation within a day or so, U.S. Army Medics came and brought in the DDT delousing machines and finally got rid of the disease carrying lice. What a relief! The thing I remember most after liberation is that everyone was cooling on open fires. All the foods that we were dreaming about, favorite foods that we couldn’t have while we were captives, were cooked on these fires. The raw materials we obtained from the neighboring German farmers. To put it simply, if they didn’t want to give it to us, we took it from them. After a few weeks, we regained some of our strength. We were transferred to the other side of the camp (still at Dachau) where the SS lived before. This was a luxury hotel compared to our situation before.

And so ended my long and dangerous journey from that city in Hungary (now Romania) to Hitler’s hell hole near Munich,Germany called Dachau. My parents and my relatives were murdered. I have one sister in Israel who survived. One thing I can say for sure: I will never forget and I will never forgive the Germans for this crime. Maybe God will forgive them. I am not God.

The End.

Written May 15, 1986

*Deceased

MEMOIRS OF ANDREW GROSS*

I am a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. I was born on April 12, 1929 in Oradea-Mare Romania (Transylvania). My father, a tailor, and my mother, a housewife, were born in the Austria-Hungarian Empire before World War II. I was the only child from my father’s second marriage. I have an older half-sister who now lives in Israel. We were an average, middle class Jewish family.

I started first grade in 1935 and, by that time, fascism and antisemitism started to rear their ugly heads all over Europe. Being only six, I couldn’t understand their full meaning though I heard my parents and other grown-ups talking. I soon found out personally.

There were religious classes in school. Before they started every Jewish boy or girl was asked to leave the room. Of course this started the name calling and derogatory remarks. Antisemitism had become fashionable. Hitler was ranting and raving against the Jews over the radio and many people in both high and low places admired him. I remember getting into fist fights with gentile children over the teasing and name calling.