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What the Germans Knew
Recently published diaries present an unique and damning insider's view of Nazi Germany.
http://www.aish.com/ho/i/What_the_Germans_Knew.html
by Elke Schmitter
The penultimate year of the war began with a speech exhorting Germans to persevere. Italy was no longer Germany's ally, and the Soviet army was approaching the borders of Poland, Hungary and Romania. The Allied landing in France was imminent. After addressing soldiers and his fellow Germans, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the Lord himself in his speech to ring in the New Year of 1944. "He is aware of the goal of our struggle," he said. The Lord's "justice will continue to test us until he can pass judgment. Our duty is to ensure that we do not appear to be too weak in his eyes, but that we are given a merciful judgment that spells 'victory' and thus signifies life!"
Two very different men in the German Reich noted their thoughts about Hitler's expression of religious sentiments in their diaries. The first, Victor Klemperer, lived with his wife in a "Jew house" in Dresden, where he wrote about the dictator, using a false name: "New content: Karl becomes religious. (The new approach lies in his approximation of the ecclesiastical style.)."
The second, Friedrich Kellner, lived with his wife in an official apartment in a court building for the Hessian town of Laubach, where he hid his written account of the war in a living-room cabinet. In his commentary on the Hitler speech, Kellner wrote: "The Lord, who has been maligned by all National Socialists as part of their official policy, is now being implored by the Führer in his hour of need. What strange hypocrisy!"
The extensive diary written by Klemperer, a professor of Romance Literature who had been fired from his job in Dresden, was published in 1995 under the title "Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten" ("I Will Bear Witness 1942-1945: A Diary of the Nazi Years"). It is perhaps the most important private document about the Nazis, because it offers an extremely clear-sighted and detailed account of the 12 years of the "Thousand-year Reich" from the perspective of someone who was marginalized. The account details small annoyances and major crimes, daily life and the development of Nazi propaganda.
This document now has a counterpart, the diaries of judicial inspector Friedrich Kellner. The 900-page book begins in September 1938, told from the perspective of a German citizen who was not a Nazi. It also reveals what information Germans could have obtained about the Nazis if they had wanted to.
Related Article: I am No Nazi
An Ordinary Family
Kellner, born in 1885, a few years later than Klemperer, was not a privileged man. The son of a baker and a maid, he embarked on a judicial career after graduating from the Oberrealschule, a higher vocational school. At 22, Kellner completed his one year of compulsory military service as an infantryman in the western city of Mainz, and in 1913 he married Paulina Preuß, an office clerk. The couple's only son was born three years later, when Kellner returned from the French front after being wounded in the First World War.
Kellner was horrified, both by the gullibility and barbarism of the people around him.They were an ordinary, lower middle-class family, but they were also politically active. He distributed flyers, gave speeches and recruited new members for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Kellner had read Hitler's "Mein Kampf," and he took the book seriously, saying that it brought shame to Gutenberg. After the 1932 elections, in which the Nazi Party became the strongest faction in the parliament, the Reichstag, Kellner requested a transfer from Mainz. In 1933, two weeks before Hitler's appointment as Reich chancellor and the first wave of internal terror, he began working as a government employee in the Laubach District Court. He was an unknown entity in a town with strong Nazi sympathies. It was there that Kellner wrote his diary: a conversation he conducted with himself out of despair that was also an analysis of the present and a planned legacy.
"The purpose of my record," he began, on Sept. 26, 1938, "is to capture a picture of the current mood in my surroundings, so that a future generation is not tempted to construe a 'great event' from it (a 'heroic time' or the like)." In the same passage, on the same day, Kellner revealed a bitter clear-sightedness, when he summed up German postwar history in one sentence: "Those who wish to be acquainted with contemporary society, with the souls of the 'good Germans,' should read what I have written. But I fear that very few decent people will remain after events have taken their course, and that the guilty will have no interest in seeing their disgrace documented in writing."
Ten closely written volumes document the things Kellner experienced, observed and, most of all, what he read and heard. He cut out speeches and calls to action from newspapers and analyzed them, and he made notes about ordinances and decrees. He contrasted the information provided by the government with the facts, both in everyday life in Hesse and at the distant front. He listened to foreign radio stations when he could. But most of all, he analyzed the propaganda from a critical standpoint. Commenting on the 1939 "Treaty of Friendship" with the Soviet Union, he wrote: "We must resort to aligning ourselves with Russia to even have a 'friend.' Russia, of all countries. The National Socialists owe their existence entirely to the fight against Bolshevism (World Enemy No. 1, Anti-Comintern Pact). Where have you disappeared to, you warriors against Asian disgrace?"
Clippings as Evidence
Less than two years later, the warriors had returned, supposedly to preempt an attack by the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, Kellner wrote in his diary: "Once again, a country has become a victim of the non-aggression pact with Germany. No matter how our actions are justified, the truth will be found solely in the economy. Natural resources are the trump card. And if you are not compliant, I am prepared to use violence." But hardly anyone saw things the way he did. The women, over tea, liked to refer to the Germans "taking" a city, a region or even an entire country. Kellner was horrified, both by the gullibility and barbarism of the people around him.
Using military news, obituaries of those who died ("for Germany's greatness and freedom"), caricatures, newspaper articles and conversations with ordinary people, Kellner fashioned an image of Nazi Germany that has never existed before in such a vivid, concise and challenging form. Until now, the discussion over German guilt has fluctuated within the broad space between two positions. The one side emphasizes the deliberate disinformation of Nazi propaganda and the notion that ordinary citizens lived in fear and terror, concluding that they couldn't have known better. The other side takes the opposite position, namely that most were aware of what was happening.
In July 1941 he wrote: "The mental hospitals have become murder centers."
Kellner's writings offer a glimpse into what everyone could have known about the war of extermination in the East, the crimes against the Jews and the acts of terror committed by the Nazi Party. He wrote about the executions of "vermin" who made "defeatist" remarks, and about "racial hygiene." In July 1941 he wrote: "The mental hospitals have become murder centers." A family that had brought their son home from an institution later inadvertently received a notice that their child had died and that his ashes would soon be delivered. "The office had forgotten to remove the name from the death list. As a result, the deliberate killing was brought to light," he wrote.
Under Nazi Watch
By reading Kellner's diaries and recognizing what Germans could have known, it's tempting to rethink how the expression "We knew nothing about those things!" came into being. According to Kellner, people simply ignored the information available to them out of both laziness and enthusiasm for German war victories. When this denial of reality no longer worked, when too much had been revealed about what the Nazis were doing in Germany's name, there was no turning back for the majority of Germans. "'I did that,' says my memory," Nietzsche wrote. "'I could not have done that,' says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually, the memory yields."
Kellner himself wrote that "this pathetic German nation" had been held hostage by the perpetrators. "Everyone is convinced that we must triumph so that we are not completely lost." The Nazis themselves warned the population against the revenge of the perpetrators. For most Germans, the only conceivable end of the war was victory -- or total annihilation.
Kellner lived until 1970. Despite having been under surveillance by the party and questioned several times, he escaped the concentration camps. In a denunciation written in 1940, a Nazi official named Engst wrote: "If we want to apprehend people like Kellner, we will have to lure them out of their corners and allow them to make themselves guilty. The time is not ripe for an approach like the one that was used with the Jews. This can only happen after the war."
For most Germans, the only conceivable end of the war was victory -- or total annihilation.In the epilogue, the author's grandson describes how the publication of Kellner's diaries came about. German publishers were not interested at first. But then the diaries attracted attention when, in April 2005, SPIEGEL reported that former US President George Bush had looked at Kellner's original notebooks in the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University.
Now that they have finally been published, the volumes are likely to find a place next to the Klemperer diaries in German libraries and on private bookshelves too.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.
This article originally appeared in Der Spiegel.
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The Rescue of Bulgarian Jewry
How all 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved during the Holocaust.
by Marshall Roth
http://www.aish.com/ho/i/The_Rescue_of_Bulgarian_Jewry.html
(11) Aron Bally, November 21, 2011 11:20 AM
The truth!!
The article is just another attempt to use the fact of the saving of the jews for political purposes. The fact of the saving is investigated by historians , but always there was the political stamp on the studies. Immediatelly after the end of WWII the book of Nathan Grinberg was published with the protocol , where the government of King Boris had agreed to send to Germany for annihilation 20 000 Jews form Bulgaria- 11700 - from the " new territories" and the rest from Kingdom of Bulgaria.Subject of en exhibition in the Beth Aam and stayed there till end of 1990. . Faximiles the reaction of many organisations like the union of the Bulgarian lawers, writers etc , the Sinod, letters and telegrams from tradeunions and personal declarations objecting to the attempt to send us to the extermination camps
An international conference with participation of historians from USA, France etc took place 1987, as well a traveling exibition on this topic , which was sent to several European capitals. From 1990 there is a pressure from heirs of the former pro Nazi supporters of the government 1939- 1944 and king Boris to whitewash the efforts to implement the adoption and implementation of the copy of the Neurenberg laws, voted in Bulgarian Parliament in 1940 and signed by King Boris. They want the people to forget that Bulgarian police and army gethered the Jews from the ' New territories" of Bulgaria and sent them to Treblinka. So we have to pay tribute to the Bulgarian people, Dimitar Peshev , the bulgarian inteligencia and ordinary people , who stopped this action and always to remember that there were powers in the Bulgarian Government who wanted to send us to the camps.So - honour for those who saved us and shame for those who did all to follow the Nazi attempt to annihilate the Jews in Bulgaria , as they did to the 11700 jews from the ' New" territrories of Bulgaria .
(7) Abraham, October 24, 2011 12:26 AM
another (earlier?) account exists. I have in front of me "the Saving of the Jews in Bulgaria" by Albert Cohen and Anri Assa published by the State Publishing House of Bulgaria in 1977. This book credits, among others, with the saving of Jewish lives, Messrs Peshev, Michalev, Suichmezov, Momchilov (all members of the Peopl;e's Assembly), Metropolitan Kiril (Bishop Cyril), and Prof. Staynov and mentions also Rabbis Erenprais (sic) and Daniel Zion. Prof Staynov is stated to have protested to the Bulgarian Minister of Home Affairs against the deportation of Jews from Aegean Thrace and Macedonia. The book has many photographs including of the two rabbis and the Metropolitan and facsimiles of letters and documents (some of which I unfortunately cannot understand as they are in Bulgarian or German). Assuming the reproduced documents do in fact bear out what the authors say, it seems that your article’s statement that “all records were sealed by the Bulgarian Communists in an attempt to prevent glorification of the King, the Church, and the non-Communist parliamentarians who at great personal risk stood up to the Germans.“ may go too far. I acknowledge that almost certainly the book came out with State assistance as Communist propaganda (certainly the king’s role is not given much importance and the monarchical government of Filov is accused of being fascist and collaborating with the Germans), but the role of Bishop Cyril is not played down. I do not know whether Messrs Peshev, Michalev, Suichmezov, Momchilov and Prof. Staynov and others mentioned were communists or not.
Many know the story of how Denmark rescued 8,000 Jews from the Nazis by smuggling them to Sweden in fishing boats.
Few, however, know the story of how all 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved. For decades, all records were sealed by the Bulgarian Communists in an attempt to prevent glorification of the King, the Church, and the non-Communist parliamentarians who at great personal risk stood up to the Germans.
Until the Communist downfall in 1991, the story remained untold, the last great secret of the Holocaust era.
Bulgaria is a small country which, at the outset of World War II, had 7 million people. The Jewish community, having lived in Bulgaria since the 2nd century CE, numbered approximately 50,000.
During the war, Bulgaria aligned with Nazi Germany in hopes of recapturing Macedonia from Yugoslavia and Thrace from Greece, which had been stripped from Bulgaria following their defeat in World War I.
In 1940, Bulgaria instituted social and legal restrictions of its Jewish citizens, in the style of the infamous Nuremberg Laws. Bulgaria also deported non-Bulgarian Jews in those territories it had annexed from Yugoslavia and Greece. Then at the beginning of 1943,the Nazis informed the Bulgarian government that all Bulgarian Jews would be deported to Nazi-occupied Poland
The news of this inhumanity was a hot topic of conversation, and public opposition began to grow. This was due to the sense of close-knit community in the small Bulgarian population, and particularly the fact that Bulgaria consisted of minorities – Armenians, Turks, Greeks and Gypsies, as well as Jews.
As the date for the deportation drew closer, Parliamentary leader Dimitar Peshev led a coalition of 43 legislators who registered an official protest. Newspapers denounced the deportation. The Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Stefan, actively worked against the deportation and issued fake baptism certificates in an attempt to save Jews. Bishop Cyril, who headed the church in Plovdiv, threatened to lie down on the railroad tracks and promised the Jews, "Wherever you go, I'll go with you.”
Finally, under public pressure, King Boris III forbade the deportation.
Since Bulgaria was a German ally, the cost of open resistance could have been total annihilation at the hand of Nazi troops. Yet the Germans were stretched militarily, and had to wrestle with the problem of how much pressure they could afford to apply in the face of this subversion. In the end, the Nazis decided to avoid a confrontation.
Thus Bulgaria became the only nation in Europe to save its entire Jewish population from the Nazi death camps, and King Boris has the distinction of being the only world leader to defy Hitler face-to-face during the war. (King Boris died under mysterious circumstances in 1943.)
Of the 50,000 Bulgarian Jews, some 40,000 went to Israel after the War. Among those was Michael Bar Zohar, who later served in the Israeli Knesset and wrote the remarkable book, Beyond Hitler's Grasp, detailing the rescue of Bulgarian Jewry.
The book was translated into Bulgarian, and the ADL shipped 30,000 copies to Bulgaria, to ensure that the population could learn about this heroic facet of their history.
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http://www.aish.com/ho/i/Little-known_facts_about_The_Third_Reich.html
Little-known facts about The Third Reich
Some lesser-known facts, odd alliances, and daring rescues during the Third Reich.
by Marnie Winston-Macauley
There is testimony. There are libraries, institutions, memorials, dedications, films, documentaries. Thousands of historians, economists, film-makers, researchers, sociologists, and psychologists have spent lifetimes attempting to make sense of the singular, targeted inhumanity of the Holocaust. And the search for answers will continue. It must continue to not only remember and honor its victims, but through trying to grapple with the incomprehensible -- how a civilized culture fell into in the abyss of evil – there are critical lessons for the future of all who value justice, truth, and the value of a single human life.
Over the course of the last 20 years my own research has turned up some lesser-known facts, odd alliances, and daring rescues during the Third Reich, some you may know, and some may be new. I present them to you now.
The Mischlinge: Hitler’s "Jewish" Soldiers
“Mischlinge” was the Nazi term for people who did not have full Aryan ancestry according to the Nuremberg Laws. According to Bryan Mark Rigg’s, Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military, as Hitler was moving toward the extermination of Jews, approximately 150,000 mishchlinge, many of them with Jewish blood, served even in the upper echelons of the Germany military via exemptions in Aryan law. Former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, for example, was in the Luftwaffe. Another, was field marshal Erhard Milch.
The question of their knowledge of Hitler’s mission and helplessness is a prominent theme. For example, the mischling soldier who visited Jewish relatives before they were deported to a camp, not knowing then that "deportation" meant death. By 1944, racial purity laws were tightened and many mischlinge died in the camps. Survivors were often rejected by the Jewish community.
General Patton’s Myth?
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In late June, 1999, California’s Huntington Library revealed it had Hitler’s infamous Nuremburg Racial Laws. Yet where was the document for 54 years? In Bloodlines, author Tony Platt explodes the story of General Patton blazing into Nuremburg and finding the papers in a safe. Platt found it was Martin Dannenberg, a Jewish man, who actually unearthed the document.
At age 90, Dannenberg reported that his three-man counter-intelligence team found it in Eichstatt, not Nuremburg, then gave it to Patton’s intelligence chief with the understanding it would be sent to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. Instead, it wound up in Patton’s trophy case, then into Huntington’s vault. Platt believes it was not Patton’s anti-Semitism but his desire for glory and loot that led him to grab the document. Subsequently, it was sent to the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, where the photo of Patton has been replaced in their exhibition with one of a young Dannenberg.
Berlin’s Jewish Hospital Survived
Berlin’s Jewish Hospital remained opened in Nazi Germany, as horror poured down on Europe’s Jews. Staffed by Jews treating Jews, it survived Kristallnacht, the “Final Solution” and remains to this day. This remarkable story is told by Daniel Silver in Refuge in Hell, even as many don’t believe it. Silver himself was dumbstruck when he heard of the hospital’s existence, also known to Adolph Eichmann who overrode orders to close it down. In interviewing survivors, he alleges that under Dr. Walter Lustig (a Prussian Jew), the staff made the "best" of a worsening situation. Once a top Berlin facility, it became a clearinghouse for Jews facing transport to the camps. The Nazis wanted the Jews “healthy” before murdering them. Also, as many patients and staff came from mixed backgrounds the Nazis hesitated to anger “Aryan” relatives. Lustig, part villain, part hero, was shot at war’s end by the Russians.
Odd Alliances: The Fuhrer’s Doctor
Dr. Eduard Bloch treated Adolph Hitler’s family during Hitler’s childhood and figured prominently in Adolph’s mother, Klara Hitler’s battle with breast cancer. According to an interview with Dr. Bloch in 1941, at a Nazi party conference in 1937, Hitler inquired as to news of Bloch, referring to him as an “Edlejude” -- a noble Jew. He reportedly stated aloud, “If all Jews were like him, there would be no Jewish question.” In 1938, after Hitler annexed Austria, he assisted in the immigration of Bloch to the U.S.
The Strange Case of Abraham Reuel, a.k.a. Ex-Nazi, Karl Heinz Schneider
Trained as a member of the Hitler youth, German Karl Heinz Schneider joined the Nazi air force at age 18, intending to do his duty. Until he saw Nazi storm troopers killing a group of Jews, as a rabbi clutched a Torah tightly as while dying. The true horror of the Nazis revealed, he started to disobey orders and sabotage bombs. Deeply affected by the atrocities, after the war he worked for 20 years as a penance, giving two-thirds of his salary to groups that helped Jewish orphaned survivors. He also began attending synagogue services. After the 20 years, he sold everything and bought a farm in Israel.
Finally, he approached rabbinical authorities in Haifa and asked to be converted. Astonished by his claims, the rabbis investigated. When they verified his story, he was allowed to study and ultimately became Jewish and a citizen of Israel.
Himmler’s “Magician”
A most unusual story is that of Felix Kersten, a Finn of Baltic German origin, who became Heinrich Himmler’s medical “magician,” treating the Nazi’s abdominal problems – and manipulating him into saving thousands of Jewish lives. He not only talked Himmler into refraining from demanding the Finnish government turn Jews over to the Nazis, but arranged a meeting between Himmler and Swedish World Jewish Congress member Norbert Masur. This resulted in Himmler’s agreement to decline Hitler’s order to murder the 60,000 Jews remaining in camps, days before liberation. In 1953, Kersten was granted Swedish citizenship. The Dutch heaped honors upon him including a nomination for a Nobel Peace prize.
Lubavitcher rebbe Saved by German Officers
One of the most unusual rescues is that of Lubavitcher Rebbe, Joseph Isaac Schneersohn and his family who escaped from Warsaw to the U.S., thanks to German officers Ernest Bloch, a mischlinge, and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of Nazi intelligence. They were assigned the rescue task by Helmut Wohlthat (head of Goring's Four-Year Plan) upon urging of the American Lubavitcher community, and the intervention of the American consul general in Berlin. Despite close calls, the rebbe made it to New York. As for his rescuers, in 1944, Bloch, as all Mischlinges, was dismissed from duty, but stayed to defend Berlin, and was killed in April, 1945. Canaris continued his intelligence work, while helping Jews and opposing Hitler. After an assassination attempt on the Fuhrer, Canaris was convicted of treason and hanged by the SS in April, 1945.
The SS Man and The Jew
1944, St. Julien, France: A surviving victim of Himmler’s SS murderous rampage was Kurt Keiser-Blueth. He was hiding in a haystack. Walter Berndt, the SS man who woke him with his bayonet, was shocked to discover the identity of the hiding Jew.
In Walter's youth, he was Kurt’s best friend, protector and defender of democracy.
“What happened to your love of freedom?” asked Kurt.
“I had to choose between freedom and security. I chose security, for myself and for my nation.”
The voices of more SS men grew close.
Kurt turned pale. “Deliver me to the other murderers. This is your duty.”
“Yes ... my duty,” Walter repeated slowly.
He offered his hand to Kurt who refused to take it. Walter went outside and told his comrades, “There’s no one here. ... Let’s go.”
A country isn’t a rock, and it isn’t an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult. Before the people of the world, let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for: Justice, Truth. and the value of a single human being. Excerpted from Judgment at Nuremberg
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http://www.aish.com/ho/i/The_Eichmann_Trial_50_Years_Later.html
The Eichmann Trial: 50 Years Later
A prosecutor and key witness reflect back on the event that transformed Israel.
by Leah Abramowitz
In May 1960, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer in charge of orchestrating the Final Solution – the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps – was captured by Israeli agents near Buenos Aires. Eichmann was given a choice between instant death or trial in Israel. He chose to stand trial, which began in Jerusalem on April 11, 1961.
During the trial, the Israeli public was exposed to the details of the Holocaust nightmare for the first time, as well as to the heroism and ingenuity of those who survived.
In his defense, Eichmann insisted that he was only "following orders." Yet scores of witnesses contradicted that contention – testifying to Eichmann's "fanatical zeal and unquenchable blood thirst." Throughout, Eichmann listened impassively to a translation of the entire trial from a specially-designed glass cubicle in the crowded Jerusalem courtroom.
One year later, after all the evidence was in and all appeals exhausted, the cold-eyed Nazi monster was hanged at a prison in the Israeli town of Ramla.
Former Supreme Judge Gavriel Bach – at the time an up-and-coming lawyer and deputy state attorney – was asked to join the team of prosecutors. Fluent in German, he conducted most of the interrogations of Eichmann. At a recent talk in Jerusalem, with the 50th anniversary of the Eichmann Trial approaching, Bach described the unforgettable influence that the trial left on him.
"We were three prosecutors. We gathered millions of pages of documentation and read a great deal of background sources. I don't think I slept more than three hours every night throughout the trial," Bach recalls. “The German government was very cooperative and sent us a great deal of material.” Despite that, chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner preferred to call up as many witnesses as possible rather than presenting his case via historical documents, because "it would be more shocking and have more impetus."
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"Some of us thought that Eichmann may have experienced regret at the terrible things done to the Jews in Europe," says Bach. While in custody, Eichmann was shown part of a film that portrayed the horrible conditions of the camps and the crematoria. “We all waited to see how he would react to the emotional film,” says Bach. But when a German-speaking guard asked Eichmann for his reaction, he simply changed the subject and complained about not being allowed to appear at the trial in a Nazi uniform.
Instigator of the Crimes
Among the many documents that Bach found was an interview which Eichmann gave to a fascist Dutch journalist in 1956 while hiding in Argentina. Eichmann expressed satisfaction over the sight of continuous railroads cars arriving in Auschwitz. "It was a glorious sight," he said.
"Did you have any regrets at any time?" asked the journalist.
"Yes", answered Eichmann, "I'm sorry that I wasn't stricter in carrying out our goal. Look what happened," he declared angrily in 1956. "The State of Israel now exists and that cursed race continues."
A book written by the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoes, describes how up to a thousand Jewish children were gassed daily. "Occasionally a youngster would beg for his life on bended knees in front of me, and I have to admit, I sometimes felt weak myself. I have children of my own. But then I was embarrassed at my frailty. The Oberfuhrer (Eichmann) strengthened my resolve by explaining that we had to kill the accursed Jewish children above all; they represented the future, and the Jewish future had to be erased from the face of the world."
Prosecutors found several examples of Eichmann’s steadfast, even stubborn resistance to any show of lenience. One of the Nazi leaders in Poland sent a request to delay the deportation of a certain Dr. Weiss and his wife. Dr. Weiss was a world famous expert on radar, and the officer thought it would be useful for the Reich to obtain key information before annihilating him. Eichmann wouldn't hear of it "as a matter of principle," and the doctor and his family perished along with their entire community.
Eichmann claimed that he was merely carrying out orders.At one point during the war, Hitler himself, for political reasons, asked Eichmann not to touch 8,000 Jews left in Budapest. Yet despite his loyalty to the Fuhrer, Eichmann planned otherwise. (Only the war's progression prevented him from deporting this group.) These examples counter Eichmann's claim throughout the trial that he was merely a cog in the machine, carrying out orders.
"There were many dramatic incidents during the trial," says Bach, some which never came to the floor of the courtroom. "We received an important document from an anonymous source which detailed the number of arrivals at Auschwitz, the dates, and the numbers given to each Jew. We tried to verify the details and find the person who had sent us the valuable material, but couldn't make headway. We called in experts from the police department to examine the document and help us find its author. Then I had a brainstorm. Let's find survivors with the numbers mentioned in the document and ask them when they arrived at the camp. That will give us the proof we need to present the document at the trial.
"One of the policeman in the room, after some hesitation, rolled up his sleeve and showed us a number engraved on his arm. 'This number appears on the report; and indeed I arrived in Auschwitz on the date mentioned,' he said quietly. There was complete silence in the room. None of his police colleagues even knew that he'd been in the Holocaust. Like so many, he had hidden his past. We had our proof on the spot. But none of us could speak for several minutes."
Horror Stories
The Eichmann trial had the effect of creating huge public awareness about the Holocaust in Israel and worldwide.
"Nobody wanted to talk about their Holocaust experiences," says Yosef Kleinman, a survivor who arrived in Palestine in 1945 during the days when the tiny Jewish community was struggling to survive and prepare for statehood. There was neither energy, time nor patience to hear the newcomers out. “No one was interested in hearing our stories,” says Kleinman.
"They called us 'sabonim' (soapers),” he says. “They couldn't fathom why we hadn't stood up to the Nazis in the camps and fought back. In those days Israelis were taken up with the macho image of the ‘new Jew.’ They didn't understand what we were up against in Europe, and we ourselves didn't want to be reminded. We just wanted to get on with our lives and put that all behind us."
Indeed, the main drama of the Eichmann trial was the Holocaust survivors who appeared as witnesses. As first it was difficult to even locate witnesses, since they had gotten so used to not talking about that period in their lives. "I had a hard time convincing some people to come forth and tell their story," Bach recalls. “One man told me, ‘If I start talking, you won't be able to stop me for four or five days.’"
Bach insisted that at least one witness should appear from every country.The prosecution team argued among themselves how much time to give each witness. "I was adamant that at least one witness should appear from every country that had been under Nazi rule," says Bach.
Kleinman, one of the youngest witnesses, described the selection process he endured as a 14-year-old. "First we were put into a ghetto, and several weeks later we were sent in cattle cars to the camp. For three days we had nothing to drink or eat.”
At Auschwitz, there was a selection table where the infamous Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, sent the most able-bodied to the right for slave labor, and the weaker ones to the left for extermination. “My 13-year-old brother was held up for inspection,“ Kleinman recalls, “but in the end they told him to run along and join our parents to the left, which he did happily, not knowing what that meant. That was the last time I saw any of them.
”In the barracks, the old timers quickly filled us in and callously pointed to the smoking chimneys we could see through the window. 'That's where your parents are. They're all dead by now.' That's how we learned the terrible truth.”
At the Eichmann trial, Kleinman testified about an incident where Auschwitz guards called the prisoners out to see one young boy getting punished. Kleinman describes:
“Usually they'd give 25 lashes. This boy withstood the punishment and didn't let out a sound. That made the tormentor angry and he continued beating him – 30, 35, 40 lashes. And still the boy didn't cry out. We ourselves couldn't take it anymore. But the soldier continued hitting him all over – on his legs, face, stomach, wherever the whip landed.
“When he got to 50, and the boy was already on the ground, he threw away his whip and left in disgust. We ran over to the hero, picked him up and washed him off. 'What did you do to get this punishment?' we asked him. He could barely talk, but he said, “I brought siddurim (prayer books) to the barracks. It was worth it. I'm glad I did it.'"
This story had a deep influence in the courtroom. The court-appointed defense attorney wept openly, and the judges called for a break in the procedures.
Little Red Coat
At the trial, another witness who had been inside the gas chamber lived to tell about it. As a youngster, he arrived in Auschwitz together with 200 other children, after a horrendous three-day train trip. After the selection, he was pushed into a large dark room with shower piping, and the door was shut behind them. At first the children began to sing, to lift their spirits, but that soon gave way to wailing and screaming. Suddenly the heavy metal door swung open and a guard pulled out 20 of them into the bright sunlight. The Nazis needed workers to unload bags of potatoes and there weren't enough soldiers for the job. That's how this man was able to give a first-hand description of the insides of the crematorium.
At the trial, Dr. Martin Foldi, related how he and his family arrived at Auschwitz in the winter of 1944. As the bewildered Jews stumbled out of the cattle cars, they were hounded by dogs and Nazi soldiers with whips. He described being sent to the right with his 11-year-old son. His wife and two-year-old daughter were taken to the left. The little girl was wearing a little red coat. At the last minute, a guard sent Foldi's son with the crowd to the left. Dr. Foldi panicked thinking, how could this young boy find his mother and sister among the thousands there at the station. But then he knew... he could find his sister because she was wearing the red coat. It would be "like a beacon" for the boy. Then he states, "I never saw them again."
This testimony is likely to have formed the inspiration for the iconic red coat in Steve Spielberg’s classic film, Schindler’s List.
The horrible story shook the courtroom. But for prosecuting attorney Gavriel Bach, it was by far the most upsetting moment of the 16-week trial. Bach had just bought a red coat for his own daughter.
In the courtroom, Bach played with his papers and kept the whole court waiting for his next question while he conquered his emotions.
Historic Impact
The Eichmann trial made headlines all over the world, but in Israel the subject was the center of everyone's attention. The long-term effects of the trial were dramatic and many. The Israeli public understood at last what the survivors had undergone, and became much more empathetic. The enormity of the Holocaust was suddenly brought to the fore, through the witnesses who gave a personal voice and face to the 6 million victims.
Today, far from the days of Israelis “not wanting to acknowledge the tragedy,” there is a whole different attitude. Israeli universities have professors of Holocaust Studies; thousands of Hebrew books have been printed on the subject; government agencies grant special privileges to survivors; and every year on Yom HaShoah the media devotes an entire day to interviews with the nearly-extinct generation of survivors.
Half a century later, the Eichmann trial is not merely a historic event. It represents the turning point in Israel’s understanding of the Holocaust.
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http://www.aish.com/ho/i/God_Is_Not_a_Babysitter.html
God Is Not a Babysitter
Believing in God after the Holocaust.
by Sara Mayer
I grew up watching interviews with my Oma on national TV. She may not have been as big as Elie Wiesel, but to me she was larger than life. She was an author and was featured in an Emmy award-winning documentary. She was the most famous person I knew. And she was my Oma.
"Do you still believe in God after the Holocaust?" My Oma’s answer was engraved in my heart.Every lecture, every interview, every question and answer period included one question. I knew my Oma's answer well; it had been engraved in my mind and in my heart:
"Do you still believe in God after the Holocaust?"
For many the question seemed too controversial, too painful. For Oma, it was simple. I would mouth the words with her: "God is not a babysitter."
In my mind, the unasked questions of her listeners screamed for answers. "But where was God when Adolf Hitler (may his name be erased) put in motion the final solution?" "And where was God when your mother and father were taken to the gas chamber?" "And where was God when your brother was brutally shot on a death march just days before liberation?"
But the answer was there too, implanted by my Oma. "God was watching and crying. He was crying for all of his children. The ones that had done wrong and the ones that had been wronged. God runs the world, but He granted His children free will. It is up to them to decide what they choose to do with it. A babysitter is a placeholder for a parent. Their job is to make sure the child remains exactly as they were when the parents left. There's no room for growth because anything remotely dangerous must be stopped before it even begins. Should God have struck each Nazi down with lightning? No, because God is not a babysitter."
As her startled audience recovered from her answer, Oma would continue. "It was not God Who hurt me. People did these things to me. I saw many miracles. Let me read to you from my book..." I would smile as my Oma rifled through the pages of her dog-eared copy of One Who Came Back. I knew most of the book by heart and I knew what story was coming next.
"Another day when four of us were digging stones out of a narrow ditch with our bare hands, my patience was tested again. The stones had to be loaded into a cart, which was pulled by a horse. The German laborer who came with the horse took an instant dislike to me. He harassed and pestered me all day. I paid as little attention to him as possible, which seemed to provoke him even more. Finally he ordered the horse, which was standing above me, to kick me, knock me down and finish me off. I couldn't move, so I started to talk to the horse in a very low voice. I told the horse, in Dutch of course, that he was a nice animal, and I knew he wouldn't hurt me. I just kept talking and talking. Whatever threat the German made, the horse stubbornly stood his ground."
Oma raised her eyes and lowered her reading glasses. "Why would a horse listen to me speaking in a foreign language instead of its owner and master? I saw many miracles like this. God looks out for us. He allows both good and bad to happen. God is not a babysitter."
Visiting Treblinka
From the first time I learned about the program, I wanted to attend the March of the Living. My Oma's experiences were a part of me. I needed to understand, at least in part, what she went through. I don't know what I expected from the trip, but through Majdanek, Auschwitz and Birkenau I clutched my Oma's book hoping to gain strength by osmosis from her words. Even the religious members of our group cried out in pain, "How could God have let this happen?" My whispered mantra protected me from these thoughts. I knew that God was not a babysitter.
On one of our last days in Poland we visited Treblinka. The Nazis had destroyed the entire camp before the area was liberated. By the time the Allied forces had arrived, a farm surrounded by trees had been built on top of the square of land that had once held the gas chambers. The farm is no longer there and monuments demarcate the location of the train tracks, fence and buildings. Locals enjoy the "park." A family was having a barbeque when we arrived. From a distance, the smoke appeared to float and curl out of the crematorium monument.
Wildlife was everywhere. The sweet sound of birds chirping mingled with the fresh air and woodsy smell that tickled our noses. Butterflies flitted through the trees in search of nectar. "The butterflies are the souls of the children we lost here," my counselor said. I smiled as I thought of the poem I Never Saw Another Butterfly. As we prepared to enter the forest, a butterfly landed on my counselor’s cheek.
I laughed at her startled reaction. "And that one kissed you," I whispered.
I was completely empty. I had lost all faith, not in God – but in man.I stopped at the kiosk in the parking lot and picked up an Explanation Guidebook. As we entered I read the statistics "874,000 Jews were murdered in Treblinka and there were virtually no survivors." My mind reeled at the staggering numbers. Almost a million Jews and nothing to show for it? We reached the line of boulders that symbolized the fence and I stopped.
Paralyzed by the beauty that masked the horrors seeped into the soil, I fell to the ground. I curled up beside the nearest stone. I was completely empty. I had lost all faith, not in God – but in man.
How could they do this to us? How could this happen in a seemingly civilized world? How do 'innocent bystanders' watch the systematic murder of almost 900,000 people in cold blood and do or say nothing? Where was man when this happened? Where am I when others suffer?
My mind raced through the questions unable to come up with an answer. My Oma had given me one more legacy and I grabbed hold of it now when my mantra failed. I pulled out a pen and a paper and I began to write. I blended in with the scenery as I sat completely still with nothing but my pen moving as it scratched across the paper. My heart bled onto the paper like an open wound. Would I ever overcome these feelings of despair?
My pen paused as my numbed mind began to feel completely spent. I glanced up and away from the paper. I was startled by the delicate form of a butterfly slowly opening and closing its wings on my knee. The words of my counselor came back to me "The butterflies are the souls of the children we lost here." Yes, this child we lost, but there were many more children welcomed into the world every day. Were my sister, my cousins and I not proof that the Nazis had failed?
A new feeling more overwhelming than the last attempted to burst out of my chest. As I watched the gentle movements of the butterfly, I felt only one thing: hope.
Why do bad things happen to good people? I can't answer. Since Moses asked God in the desert, we have been asking why. But the answers remain unfathomable. All I can do is remember that everything happens for a reason whether I understand it or not, and hope that the children of the future will learn from the lessons of the past.
Surviving
Following our week in Poland, we went to Israel. Everyone set their feelings aside for one week to celebrate. We could think about what we went through when we got home. One of my friends could not handle the roller coaster ride of emotions. She had a major breakdown a couple days after our arrival in Israel.
"How can you expect me to just turn off all these feelings?" she demanded the counselor that had come to try to get her to participate in the activities. "After all we saw and experienced we should just turn around and be frivolous and carefree?"
His response had a profound affect on me although it left my friend unmoved.
"Did the survivors survive so that we could drown in sorrow or so that we could live?"
Surviving meant coming to terms with your experience and building a life.All my negative thoughts of the inconsistencies between the two legs of the trip vanished. I thought of the pictures of my Oma from after the war when she had returned to Holland to discover she was the only one that remained. She was smiling in all of them.
Was it easy for her to return? I'm sure it was not. Even after the war, there were difficulties to overcome. But being a survivor meant more than having a beating heart when the allies came to liberate you. It meant coming to terms with your experience and building a life.
I no longer count the six million Jews that we lost in the Holocaust; I count my six million Jewish neighbors living in Israel. I no longer dwell on what was in Europe; I live what is today in Israel. My husband and I, both grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, are commemorating the lost lives of the past by building our lives and the lives of the future, our children. I only pray I can instill in them the same faith my Oma instilled in me.
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(7) Abraham, October 24, 2011 12:26 AM
another (earlier?) account exists.
I have in front of me "the Saving of the Jews in Bulgaria" by Albert Cohen and Anri Assa published by the State Publishing House of Bulgaria in 1977. This book credits, among others, with the saving of Jewish lives, Messrs Peshev, Michalev, Suichmezov, Momchilov (all members of the Peopl;e's Assembly), Metropolitan Kiril (Bishop Cyril), and Prof. Staynov and mentions also Rabbis Erenprais (sic) and Daniel Zion. Prof Staynov is stated to have protested to the Bulgarian Minister of Home Affairs against the deportation of Jews from Aegean Thrace and Macedonia. The book has many photographs including of the two rabbis and the Metropolitan and facsimiles of letters and documents (some of which I unfortunately cannot understand as they are in Bulgarian or German). Assuming the reproduced documents do in fact bear out what the authors say, it seems that your article’s statement that “all records were sealed by the Bulgarian Communists in an attempt to prevent glorification of the King, the Church, and the non-Communist parliamentarians who at great personal risk stood up to the Germans.“ may go too far. I acknowledge that almost certainly the book came out with State assistance as Communist propaganda (certainly the king’s role is not given much importance and the monarchical government of Filov is accused of being fascist and collaborating with the Germans), but the role of Bishop Cyril is not played down. I do not know whether Messrs Peshev, Michalev, Suichmezov, Momchilov and Prof. Staynov and others mentioned were communists or not.
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http://www.aish.com/ho/p/Rabbi_Laus_Testimony_of_Faith.html
Rabbi Lau’s Testimony of Faith
“You cannot explain one moment of my survival without miracles.”
by Gavriel Horan
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, currently the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and Chairman of Yad Vashem, and the former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, is one of my personal heroes. I have long desired to meet him face to face ever since I first read about his life’s story. His tale of triumph and faith as a young boy during the Holocaust provides us with a model of personal greatness in the face of unimaginable hardship. Rabbi Lau’s bestselling autobiography has just been translated into English for the first time. “Out of the Depths” (Sterling Publishing) tells the story of his miraculous journey from an orphaned refugee to become one of the leaders of the Jewish people.
An Unbroken Chain
Rabbi Lau was born in 1937 in the Polish town of Piotrków where his father, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau Hy”d served as the Rabbi. At the tender age of five, his family was brutally torn apart when his father and brother were taken to the death camps. His father was the 37th in an uninterrupted chain of rabbis in the family. As such, his last instructions to his sixteen year old son Naftali were to protect his little brother, Lulek, as he was called, to ensure that the Rabbinical chain remain unbroken. A few years later Rabbi Lau’s mother’s dying wish was the same. For some reason, they both felt that their youngest son was destined to carry on the thousand year old family tradition.At age seven, he was separated from his mother when she thrust him over to the men’s side during deportation. “Tulek, take Lulek,” she said, entrusting him to Naftali in the hope that the men were more likely to survive. Naftali smuggled him into the Buchenwald labor camp since a child his age would have been exterminated on the spot if discovered. Rabbi Lau thus became the youngest and smallest inmate in the camp. His survival over the next year was largely due to Naftali’s constant self sacrifice and protection
Realizing that the end of their life was near, little Lulek stood up tall and made the first speech in his long oratorical career.A short time after entering a labor camp in Czestochowa, the Gestapo Commander noticed that there were a large number of children in the camp. He rounded them up, explaining that they were unnecessary for the German war effort and therefore expendable. Realizing that the end of their life was near, little Lulek stood up tall and made the first speech in his long oratorical career. “It is a mistake to think that we are useless,” he said in Polish. He went on to describe how he had worked 12 hour shifts delivering water to the glass factory workers when he was only six years old. “Therefore, you cannot say that we lack working potential,” he concluded. Together with a bribe, the speech saved his life and the lives of the other children—at least for the moment.
Old before His Time
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In 1945, at the age eight, Rabbi Lau became the youngest survivor of Buchenwald to be liberated by the Americans. He recounted one of the most powerful stories in his book—the moment of liberation. When the young Lulek saw the American soldiers entering the gates of the camp, he hid behind a pile of corpses, unsure if they were friend or foe. Rabbi Herschel Schacter, the chaplain of the U.S. Third Army, climbed off his jeep to examine the carnage and destruction that the Nazis left behind with their last remaining bullets. Suddenly he caught sight of the boy hiding behind the dead. Shocked to see a sign of life there, let alone a Jewish child, he picked Lulek up and hugged him tightly in a warm embrace, while tears of sadness and joy poured from his eyes.
“How old are you my son,” he asked in Yiddish, from behind his tears.
“What difference does it make how old I am?” Lau responded suspiciously. “Anyway, I’m older than you.”
“Why do you think that you’re older than I am?” Rabbi Schacter asked, now smiling.
“Because you laugh and cry like a child,” Lau replied. “I haven’t laughed for longer than I can remember and I can’t even cry anymore. So which one of us is older?”
Bound by Miracles
After having witnessed more death and destruction in his few short years than most of us can ever imagine, the most poignant question is what gave this young orphan boy the strength to survive throughout six years of hell. Furthermore, how did he manage to pick himself up and rebuild his life in Eretz Yisrael from nothing? The answer comes from the strong sense of responsibility he felt. But it wasn’t just a sense of responsibility to his family heritage that allowed Rabbi Lau to persevere and go on to accomplish so much in his life—it was a sense of responsibility to God for having saved his life, when so many others were not so fortunate.
For three years I was surrounded by corpses. When I say Thank You, I really mean it.“You cannot explain one moment of my survival without miracles,” Rabbi Lau recalled passionately. “When I get up in the morning and say Modeh Ani, Thank You to God for restoring my soul, I also have an additional intention—that God did return my soul. For three years I was surrounded by corpses. Every morning in the block many people did not wake up. I carried the wagon of dead to the crematorium each day. Even after liberation, 60% of the survivors of Buchenwald died of typhus and other diseases before they could even begin to start their lives again. I was in the valley of dry bones. When I say Thank You, I really mean it. God performed countless miracles for me. This gives me an extra motivation not to waste my life and to do something to justify all the miracles that happened to me. I could have ended up on the street amongst the criminals but God trusted me. I am forbidden to disappoint Him.”
The Cup Half Full
But how can the rest of us, who have not experienced such open miracles, take inspiration from his story? “A Jew has to believe that everything is a miracle from God. Go to the hospital to see what types of suffering a person can go through to live for one day. People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and go through countless operations just to save a small percent of their eye sight. Yet here, we receive two working eyes as a gift from the Master of the Universe, without suffering, without operations, and without paying money. Is it possible to waste that, to not see the value of it? Doesn’t it give you a simcha, a satisfaction that you have these tremendous gifts? How can you not feel obligated to thank the One who gave you these tools? It’s a simple calculation. The hospital is right nearby. Come with me and look. How can you say that you’re worth nothing? There are people out there who would do anything for the gifts you have. And you got it for free!”
Rabbi Lau shared with me a wise insight that has helped shape his life. An optimist sees the cup as half full. Someone once asked him how he can always talk about the full half and deny the fact that the other 50% of the cup is empty. “The answer I gave him is that you can’t drink from the empty half,” Rabbi Lau explained. “If you are thirsty and want to satisfy your thirst you have to pay attention to the 50% that’s full. From emptiness, you have nothing. Therefore in my life, I always try to pay attention to the full part because from it you can derive benefit and hope.”
Defeating the Nazis
Rabbi Lau’s story stayed within him for over 60 years until eight years ago. In 2003, after completing his tenure as Chief Rabbi of Israel, he had two years free before returning to his position as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. During that time, he wrote a book on Jewish law as well as a six volume series on Pirkei Avot which has since been translated into English by Artscroll (entitled “Rav Lau on Avos”). During this period, he also finally had time to write his memoirs. “Al Tishlach Yadcha Al Hanaar,” sold over 200,000 copies—the bestselling book ever produced by the prestigious Yediot Sefarim publishing house. “I realized that this time was given to me from the Almighty,” he recalled. Shortly afterwards, Rabbi Lau had it translated into English but it took him almost three years to find a publisher who would accept it without making any changes. “How could I allow them to cut it? How can I decide who deserves to be mentioned and who doesn’t? I said, ‘take it as is, or leave it.’”
At last, Sterling Publishing accepted it without any changes. The great uncle of the editor, Barbara Berger, was a survivor of Buchenwald. “I adopted it,” she said. “This will be my baby—just as it is.”
They attacked our soul before our body. If we abandon the Torah, we are helping them win the battle.Rabbi Lau’s motivation for writing his memoir was twofold. Firstly, he sees it as part of the mitzvah of remembering what Amalek did to us. “There are two aspects to this mitzvah,” he explained. “’Don’t forget,’ and ‘remember.’ ‘Don’t forget’ is in the heart; ‘remember’ is an action. Lighting yartzeit candles, saying kaddish and learning mishna for the departed is an act of remembrance. This book is also an act of remembrance in order that it shouldn’t be forgotten from the heart. This is a ner neshama, a yartzeit candle that I lit for them.”
His second motivation is to teach people what he believes is the true lesson of the Holocaust. “Many people abandoned Judaism because of the Holocaust. I did just the opposite,” he said. “We have no alternative but to attach ourselves to Torah and mitzvot. Why? Because we want to defeat the Nazis. The Nazis didn’t only attack the Jews physically, but also spiritually. What’s the proof? The very first thing they did before the war even started was Kristallnacht. They destroyed over 1000 shuls in a single night. Ten months before the war began, they were already fighting against synagogues and sifrei kodesh, our holy books. This shows what their real intention was. They attacked our soul before our body. If we abandon the Torah, we are helping them win the battle. We must be victorious by clinging to the Torah. Our eternity, our continuity depends on it.”
This article originally appeared in Hamodia and is reprinted with their permission.
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http://www.aish.com/ho/p/The_Bakers_Tale.html
The Baker's Tale
The remarkable story of a Jewish boy in the Holocaust and the non-Jewish family that saved him.
by Richard Rabkin
They could have shut their eyes and minded their own business, as so many people did in 1940s Poland. But when a three-year-old Jewish boy landed on their doorstep, so to speak, the Bulik family — bakers by profession — opened their hearts and gave the child a home. Michael Bulik, proprietor of Canada’s Bulik Bakery, tells the tale.
At 4 a.m. on a Monday morning on the outskirts of Toronto, Canada, Michael Bulik opens the doors of his family business — the Bulik Bakery — and walks straight to the refrigerator where a nondescript plastic container hides his establishment’s most prized possession. It has traveled across continents, and it has lived through wars. It has witnessed both acts of human depravity and triumph. It has also sustained his family for a hundred years. Michael reaches for the container — his family’s unique sourdough starter — and begins the painstaking process of creating sourdough.
Unlike most other breads, sourdough breads don’t use yeast to rise; instead, a bacterial culture called “starter” grows the dough and leavens the bread. This starter can only be produced by a master baker, and in the Bulik family’s case, their starter has been passed down from generation to generation.
But the starter isn’t the only thing that has been passed down in this family. Just as the Buliks’ sourdough contains within it the remnant of previous “generations,” so too do Michael Bulik and his family retain and cultivate a very different kind of prized possession — a possession that explains why this non-Jewish bakery has a hechsher from Canada’s largest kosher certifier, COR (Kashruth Council of Canada) — their still ongoing relationship with a Jewish child that their family hid during World War II.
Who was this child, and why did the Buliks risk their lives to save him? To answer these questions we must leave the present bakery behind and travel back to 1940s Poland, where 18-year-old Wanda Bulik is about to encounter a three-year-old boy who is traveling alone on a train and crying.
“Can You Care for this Child?”
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When World War II broke out in 1939, the Buliks’ bakery, which was founded by Ignacy Bulik in 1912, was already a well-known Warsaw institution. Despite the war, the Buliks, along with Warsaw’s other non-Jewish residents, could go about their daily routines and even enjoy themselves — as long as they didn’t openly rebel against their German occupiers. The situation was very different for Warsaw’s more than 400,000 Jews, who were crammed into an area just over one square mile in size, which became the Warsaw Ghetto.
The conductor pointed to a three-year-old boy who was sitting by himself on the train, crying. "Why don’t you take care of this child?”Ignacy Bulik’s 18-year-old daughter Wanda therefore was able to continue with her private dance lessons at a music and language school on 25 Common Street in downtown Warsaw. One morning, during her regular commute from the suburban area where her family lived to her school, Wanda was stopped by the train conductor, who thought she worked for the Red Cross. The conductor pointed to a three-year-old boy who was sitting by himself on the train, crying, and said, “This is the third time I’ve seen this boy taking the train on this route from Minsk to Warsaw. We need to help him. Why don’t you take care of this child?”
In a 2008 interview with Polish magazine Wysokie Obcasy, Wanda Bulik recalled that she had a feeling that the little boy was Jewish, but, “I didn’t care. He was nicely dressed with a full head of blond hair. I liked him.”
But when she took the boy home, her father saw things differently.
The Bulik family opened a package that the boy was carrying with him. It contained some clothes and a note. Wanda had been right. The boy, whose name, according to the note, was Tolek Weinstein, was Jewish. And it was no accident that the boy had been traveling alone on the train. The note ended with an anguished plea from the boy’s family: would whoever found the boy please take care of him.
Ignacy, the patriarch of the Bulik family, was terrified. He had personally witnessed the Nazis drag his neighbor into the street and, in broad daylight, execute the man and his entire family. The man’s crime: hiding a Jewish child. Ignacy Bulik desperately wanted to avoid a similar fate for his family. But his daughter persisted. As the Talmud explains, one can "acquire one’s share of the World to Come in just one moment." This was the Bulik family’s moment — and Wanda won the argument. Ignacy gave his permission to hide Tolek Weinstein.
Life for the Buliks and their new “son” was at times surprisingly normal. He went to a Polish school and played with the other children in the neighborhood. He went on family trips with the Buliks in the winter, tobogganing in the special winter clothes that Wanda had sewn for him. He was part of the family. He even called Wanda “Mommy.”
Other times, things weren’t as normal. The Buliks had a friend named Henrik who was a police officer. Henrik knew their secret, and he would warn the Buliks about any movements of German soldiers in the area. When the danger of discovery seemed imminent, Henrik would take Tolek to stay with another police officer and his wife, who had no children of their own. Such was the effort required to protect one Jewish child, but it was effort well spent. Tolek and his rescuers were never discovered, nor were they ever betrayed.
After the war’s end, there was a massive humanitarian relief undertaking that helped young and old alike. Those responsible for assisting Jewish children came to learn that Tolek’s story was not unique. There were a number of Jewish children hidden by non-Jewish Polish families. The question was how to find the children and either return them to their parents or find them an adopted Jewish home.
Yeshayahu Drucker made it his personal mission to uncover these Jewish hidden children.Yeshayahu Drucker, who later became a colonel in the Israeli army, was then a captain in the Polish army’s Chief Rabbinate. He made it his personal mission to uncover these Jewish hidden children. He had heard about Tolek and in 1946 he approached the Buliks and asked if they would release him. At first they didn’t want to. “We loved Tolek,” Wanda recalled. “He was part of our family.” Even Ignacy Bulik, who hadn’t been sure if he wanted to take in Tolek four years earlier, now didn’t want to let the boy go.
But Drucker persisted. Then he was contacted by a Jewish couple who had lost their son during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Their family name was Greenberg, but they had received forged papers with the last name Rajscy and therefore were able to live out the war outside of the Ghetto by posing as non-Jews. The Rajscys, as they still called themselves, wanted to adopt Tolek. They had been friendly with his biological parents before the war and as a result felt an attachment to the child.
The Buliks agonized over what to do. They knew that if Tolek remained with them, he would likely become a baker. If he went with the Rajscys, he could go to university and have a better life. Their desire for Tolek to have a better life won the day.
“We all cried hysterically as they took him away,” Wanda recalled, adding that Tolek also cried. “He screamed out, ‘Don’t let them take me! I don’t want to go!’”
The Rajscys, who told Tolek that they were his parents, moved to France. They sent the Buliks a postcard with a picture of Tolek and an inscription written in the boy’s hand, which said, “For Mommy.” The Rajscys added their own note, writing that they would be moving to another country. They didn’t specify where. With that, the Bulik family lost touch with Tolek Weinstein. Wanda tried many times to locate him, but the trail went cold. For 49 years.
“You’re Not Going to Believe the News”
When their ship neared the shore of Eretz Yisrael in 1947, the Greenbergs/Rajscys were full of hope. After the horrors of the war, they wanted just one thing: a safe harbor where young Mati (aka Tolek) could thrive and grow. He didn’t disappoint them. The European-born survivor forged a new identity in a country of determined fighters, rising through the ranks of the Israeli army and eventually becoming a colonel. He married a woman born in Krakow who also had been hidden by a non-Jewish family. In time Mati and his wife had children of their own — two daughters.
But in the corridor leading from his dark European past to a bright Israeli future, one door remained locked tightly. Mati’s adopted mother passed away when he was a young man. During her last remaining days she revealed to him that the story she and her husband had told him after the war wasn’t true. They were not his real parents. Mati was adopted. The pain and confusion caused by this revelation forced Mati to suppress the story of his childhood, never to be spoken about again.
Or so he thought.
One day, his 12-year-old daughter Noa received a school assignment: write an essay on any topic. Anything. For some reason, Mati’s daughter chose to write about children of the Holocaust. “Of all of the topics, she had to choose this one?” Mati recalled feeling. “I tried to convince her to choose another subject but she was stubborn. So I had no choice. For the very first time, I told my daughter my story.”
Mati assumed that it would end there. Instead, his daughter’s essay won top prize and she was invited to read it to an assembly of school principals. “While watching my daughter present her paper, I felt something in my soul stirring. This was the first crack in my wall of silence.”
Later, Mati heard that the Israel Broadcasting Authority was producing a documentary about children of the Holocaust who were looking for information. Mati volunteered to take part in the documentary, something that would have been unthinkable only a few years before.
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During the making of the documentary, called Wanda's List, Mati was reunited with Yeshayahu Drucker.
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"The Buliks were the first family who didn’t want any money. They really loved you.”“I remember your story well,” Drucker told Mati. “The Buliks were the first family who didn’t want any money. In fact, they refused to take money. The only condition they made was that you couldn’t be sent to an orphanage. They only agreed to a family.” Drucker added, “They really loved you.”
The documentary was broadcast in both Israel and Poland. After it aired Mati received a few phone calls from people in Israel who thought they had useful information, but nothing panned out. Then a letter arrived from Poland, from a woman named Antonina Liro. As he read the letter, something inside of him said, “This is it.” He got on a plane and departed immediately for Warsaw.
The story that Mrs. Liro had to tell could have been the basis for a best-selling suspense novel, but every word of it was true. She had been friends with Mati/Tolek’s biological parents, Cyla and Mieczyslaw Weinstein, Mrs. Liro explained. When the war broke out, Tolek’s parents were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. Every few days at a designated time Mrs. Liro would come to the wall dividing the Ghetto from the rest of the city and throw food over the wall.
At some point, the Weinsteins were able to smuggle their son out of the Ghetto and place him with their former neighbors. But this was only a temporary solution. Therefore, one night in 1943, the Weinsteins managed to arrange a clandestine face-to-face visit with Mrs. Liro. Mrs. Weinstein explained that her husband had been badly injured and was dying. Mrs. Weinstein was also unwell. They feared for Tolek’s safety and begged Mrs. Liro to please locate their son and take care of him. She agreed.
Mrs. Liro found Tolek — and not a moment too soon. While the woman of the house had agreed to hide Tolek, her husband was adamantly against the idea. He yelled at his wife for “hiding Jews.” He even threatened to turn her over to the police — his own wife. Mrs. Liro quickly volunteered to turn young Tolek into the police for him. Instead, of course, she intended to take the boy to a safer hiding place.
Her first plan was to take Tolek to her parents’ house. But when they arrived, she was horrified to see that German soldiers were removing her parents from their home. Panicking, she ran into a nearby forest where she and Tolek were forced to spend the night. The next morning Mrs. Liro took Tolek to the train station.
“I am sorry. I couldn’t keep you. With me, you had no chance to survive."When she came to this point in her story, she told the grown-up Mati, “I am sorry. I couldn’t keep you. With me, you had no chance to survive. Neither of us did. But I thought if I left you on the train, then maybe someone would have pity on you and take you in.”
Fortunately, the young Antonina Liro was right. Wanda Bulik was able to provide the blond little boy with the refuge that she could not. But even though Mrs. Liro wasn’t able to give little Tolek shelter, she was about to give the adult Mati something else. In that short conversation, Mrs. Liro gave Mati closure, putting to rest the many years of questions about what had happened to his biological parents.
Mrs. Liro was not the only Pole to view the documentary. One of the Bulik sisters had also seen it, and when a photograph of the young Tolek was flashed on the screen she knew at once that this was the same picture as the one on the postcard that Wanda had received from France — the postcard upon which Tolek had inscribed “For Mommy.” She called Wanda immediately.
“She told me, ‘Sit down because you’re not going to believe the news. Tolek is alive. He is living in Israel and he’s looking for you,’” Wanda remembered. “I went straight to the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland and they got in touch with some Israeli officials. That’s how I learned that Tolek was in Warsaw at that very moment!”
Mati rushed over to see Wanda. He presented her with a big bouquet of flowers. “He was so happy to see me,” Wanda recalled. Mati added, “I couldn’t believe it. I was finally able to close the circle.”
The Circle Widens Back in Israel
Mati’s eldest daughter Yael was volunteering at a conference that was hosting a number of foreign dignitaries, including Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski. Yael asked for a photograph with Mr. Kwasniewski. When he asked her why she wanted the picture, she responded cryptically, “It’s a long story, but I think some friends in Poland would enjoy seeing the photograph.”
Something about Yael’s response didn’t sit right with President Kwasniewski. At the farewell banquet he instructed his aides to approach Yael and find out the rest of the story. When President Kwasniewski heard all the details, he wrote the Bulik family immediately, telling them how proud he was of their heroic action.
The Bulik family was later honored by Yad Vashem with the special designation “Righteous Among the Nations.” In addition, a New York–based group called Foundation for the Righteous honored Wanda Bulik and 60 other Poles at a luncheon in Warsaw; the organization voluntarily supplements their meager monthly pensions. The Israeli government has also honored the Bulik family, bestowing upon them honorary Israeli citizenship should they ever wish to move to the Jewish state.
"There must have been a guardian angel looking out for me who said, ‘No matter what happens, this child will live.’"With his story now in the public purview, Mati Greenberg no longer feels a need to suppress it. Rather, he reflects on it, seeing the hand of God watching over him and protecting him. “There’s no other possibility except that my survival was Divinely predestined. For me to be smuggled out of the Ghetto, for Antonina to rescue me just before I was going to be turned in, for her to evade the police, for me to sit on the train with the conductor allowing me to ride back and forth, for Wanda to board exactly that train at exactly that moment, for her to agree to take me, for her family to allow me to stay, for the police officer to help hide me … it has to be more than just chance. There must have been a guardian angel looking out for me who said, ‘No matter what happens, this child will live.’”
Mati Greenberg has continued to keep in close contact with the Bulik family. He has visited Poland a number of times, and they have even visited him in Israel. On one of Mati’s visits to Poland, Antonina Lira hosted a get-together in his honor, inviting friends and neighbors. One of them asked him, “So when are you going to come back to the homeland?” Mati replied, “With all of my appreciation for the people of Poland, my only homeland is Israel, the homeland of the Jewish People.”
During another one of these “family reunions,” a chance exchange put the wheels in motion for Canada’s Bulik Bakery to go kosher. One of Ignacy Bulik’s grandsons, Urek, was living in Canada, where Urek and his son Michael were continuing the family profession.
“Tolek said to my father, ‘How about becoming kosher?’ Immediately, it all made sense,” Michael recalled. “In 2000 we became kosher-certified by the COR. It’s been 11 years and we have a great relationship with the COR. But it’s more than just a business relationship, because of the connection that we have with the Jewish People.”
The COR agrees. On a recent inspection visit one of COR’s rabbis was exchanging pictures of his children with Michael Bulik. He confided to Michael that his daughter was sick. She had begun limping inexplicably, and an MRI had revealed a lesion on her leg. They were still waiting for the results of a biopsy. The rabbi admitted to Michael that he and his wife were afraid. Michael Bulik put his hands on the rabbi’s shoulders and said, “Whatever happens, you will be able to deal with it. If Tolek made it, I am sure your daughter will too.”
A few days later the rabbi received the fantastic news that the lesion was benign. His first phone call was to his family. The second one was to Michael Bulik, who is, indeed, now part of the COR family.
“If my great-grandfather Ignacy knew that our breads are kosher-certified, I’m sure it would put a big smile on his face,” Michael Bulik mused. “Just as our family and the bakery have been interconnected for almost a century, the fact that we are today kosher-certified also brings our family’s story full circle.”
This article originally appeared Mishpacha, The premier weekly magazine for the Jewish Family. Click Here to receive Mishpacha’s free weekly newsletter. Click Here here for subscription information
