An Unusual Case of the Runs
I recently had an opportunity to speak person to person with an Auschwitz
survivor....allow me to relate the circumstances: I was sitting with my son at
a table in a patio which is surrounded by various shops and restaurants in Los
Angeles. There are also two escalators ascending and descending to and from the
second floor, which sports a Target and cosmetics store. Anyway, we were
casually sitting there enjoying a cool coca cola on a very warm July afternoon,
when I suddenly happen to look up and see an elderly, white haired lady
descending the escalator in the company of a younger man, who I correctly
assumed was her son. I immediately noticed that the lady had a number tattooed
on her forearm.
What a coincidence that this lady and her son decided to sit down at the table
directly adjacent to me. When her son arose and headed for a Starbucks, I
thought to myself, "Well, this is now or never, because such opportunities
rarely present themselves." I turned and struck up a conversation with the
lady, and was very courteous, sympathetic and considerate of her feelings. As
she lit up a cigarette, I said to her, "I couldn't help but notice the tattoo on
your arm. Were you in a concentration camp?" She turned and looked in my
direction and nodded. I then asked, "May I ask which camp you were in?" She
immediately replied: "Auschwitz." Just one word. Auschwitz. I then said,
"How did you manage to survive?" And she looked at me and said, "God saved
me."
I asked her if she left with the German staff when they evacuated the camp in
February 1945, but she didn't respond.
I continued to ask questions as gently as I could, and inquired as to which
country she had been originally deported from, and she answered,
"Czechoslovakia." Her answers thus far were consistently terse, but friendly.
I then prodded a bit more and asked whether she had been deported from
Theresienstadt, but she declined to reply, so I sought to redirect the
questioning by asking if she had ever encountered any of the infamous female
overseers in the camp. She looked at me quizzically, as if she did not know
what or whom I was talking about, so I asked, "Where were you housed in
Auschwitz? Were you in the Familienlager or were you in Birkenau? " This
question again met with no response, so I then asked, "Did you ever have
occasion to run into Irma Grese while you were in the camp?" The name appeared
to mean nothing to her, so I asked if she remembered Maria Mandel, who was one
of the head female overseers in the camp. Again, no sign of recognition and not
a word in response. So then I said, "Die Aufseherinnen."
At that word, she raised an eyebrow and glanced over at me. The unusual
expression on her face seemed to acknowledge recognition of the word, so I asked
again if she had any memory of either of them, as both were very notorious in
the press and both had been tried, convicted and executed after the war. When I
mentioned that Ms. Grese had been judged at the Belsen Trial, the lady simply
nodded and smiled.
I was about to give up on any further questions when her son suddenly walked up
with two beverages in his hands. When he sat down, the lady politely introduced
me to her son. Her English was refined and excellent although with a
distinctive Jewish accent. I mentioned to the son that she and I had been
talking about her experiences during the war, and he glanced up at me and then
at his mother. I then casually and sincerely remarked, "It is truly a miracle
that your mother managed to survive." Naturally, he agreed, and then I asked
how she happened to be saved and he shot back, "She was liberated by the
Americans."
I let that statement register for a moment and looked to the mother, and she did
not dispute it. Thereafter I said, "But I was under the impression that the
Americans did not liberate Auschwitz. Wasn't it the Soviets who liberated the
camp?" The son looked up at me, rather astonished, as did the mother, and then
she nodded her head in agreement with me that she was liberated by the
Russians. However, the question prompted an immediate case of the 'runs' for,
within the span of three seconds, the son suddenly blurted out, "Mother, it's
time to get going now."
And that is exactly what they did. In fact, they left so fast I didn't even get
a chance to mutter a good-bye or 'next year in Jerusalem.'