Chapter Five: Elek’s Odyssey

Elek, my younger brother, was smuggled into the camp the last day before the liquidation of the big Ghetto.

He was assigned to work in the produce warehouse handling fruit and vegetables. The S.S. officer in charge of this section was Gumpinger, he was an alcoholic. The permanent labour force of our unit consisted of 86 inmates. We were separated from the ghetto and the main camp because we handled food supplies for the S.S. and the Gestapo, and they feared typhus which was rampant in the ghetto and later in the camps.

Each morning, before being assigned to a work commando, we lined up five in a row for roll call, and again in the evening when we returned from work.

One particular day the total group of inmates returned from work and lined up as usual for roll call. The officer on duty, Pitasch, after counting several times, found one person missing. Who the missing inmate was nobody knew. After waiting several minutes, we noticed Elek running towards the fenced-in quarters where we were lined up for roll call, bleeding profusely from the head down, and officer Gumpinger running behind him with a leather whip in his hand. As soon as Elek reached the ranks of our group the duty officer stopped officer Gumpinger and told him to leave the inmate quarters. He reluctantly agreed and left.

As soon as we were dismissed and entered the barracks, Elek told us this story: - after finishing the work in the warehouse, Gumpinger asked him to go to his quarters and polish his boots. While cleaning and polishing the boots, Gumpinger who was drinking alcohol went out on the balcony with a glass in his hand and with a package of cigarettes.

After a while he returned to the room asking Elek where he hid the cigarettes. Elek replied that he did not touch the cigarettes and asked to be searched to prove his innocence. Instead Gumpinger started to molest him, first kicking him in the shins and then whipping him with the leather whip.

Elek soon realized that he could be killed if he did not escape. He then opened the door, ran down the stairs and kept running towards the inmates quarters, while Gumpinger kept running after him, but being drunk he could not catch up to him. We then realized that this was not the end of the episode, since the following morning Elek had to return to work under Gumpinger's command. But as it happened we did not have to wait until the following morning. At 7:30 p.m. the same day we heard the bell ringing. This was an indication of another roll call.

We were trained like Pavlov's dogs, everybody immediately lined up with the exception of Elek and myself. Elek saw through the window that officer Gumpinger was the one who initiated this roll call, and he refused to leave the barracks.

The camp regulation was that any one found hiding at the time of a roll call, could be shot on the spot. I pleaded with my brother to come out with me, I assured him that I would protect him. When we reached the group of inmates already lined up and being counted by officer Gumpinger who was drunk to a point that he could hardly keep his eyes open. In his drunken stupor he did not realize if he had counted correctly, thus allowing us to join the group unnoticed.

He then called for Elek to step forward. After repeating this three times I stepped forward instead. He barely opened his eyes and said "I do not want you, but Elek." I then requested to know what he needed Elek for at this late hour, Gumpinger then pulled the whip from his sleeve and whipped me three times over the face commanding me to step back in line.

He called for Elek again to step forward and after three calls I again faced him. He became furious and as soon as he lifted his arm to whip me, my older brother Chaim, came up from the back, grabbed his arm twisted it, and retrieved the whip and threw it over the barbed wire fence.

This spectacle was closely watched by the guard in the tower and he immediately rang the alarm. Within seconds the duty officer with two guards were in front of us commanding everyone to freeze.

Gumpinger approached the duty officer asking to help him kill all the Jews. The duty officer soon realized that he was dealing with an officer who was drunk so he turned to his two guards requesting them to escort Gumpinger to the guard house. Gumpinger could not understand how this was possible, and started to shout and rave like a madman.

Eventually they got hold of him and physically escorted him out of the inmates quarters. The guard in the tower had been given an order not to permit anyone to enter the gate without the permission of the duty officer.

Needless to say, none of us inmates slept that night. My mind was racing, searching for ideas how to protect Elek from going to work under Gumpinger's supervision. The following morning I knew full well that I was helpless.

My older brother Chaim and I were working in the carpenter shop, constructing and erecting the shelving in the different warehouse buildings. The following morning Chaim, on his way to fetch a pail of water to mix the glue, was stopped by Gumpinger in the court yard.

I was watching this encounter through the windows and noticed Chaim leaving the pail with water and following Gumpinger towards the garage. The garage was known as the "slaughter house" or "Butcher Shop" because any inmate who walked in there came out crippled and eventually died.

I opened the carpentry shop door where I was working and shouted out loud for my brother to return immediately to the shop with the pail of water. He turned around as I commanded and walked back toward the shop. Gumpinger did not notice this and reaching the garage door, he opened it wide waiting for Chaim to walk in.

He was surprised when he noticed Chaim entering the carpentry shop instead. Soon enough Gumpinger came into the shop and after a brief exchange of words between him and Chaim, Gumpinger pulled out the whip from under his coat and started whipping him. At that moment, I ran out of the shop and into the Head Office of the administration. I told the receptionist that I wanted to speak to the Captain Lorenzen (S.S.Obersturmfuhrer).

When I was admitted to his office, I was speechless and breathless. I broke down and cried and could not control myself for several minutes. Then in broken disjointed sentences, I related to him what had transpired. He then told me to go back to the shop, do my work, and he would look into the matter.

Gumpinger in the meantime was hiding behind the office building waiting for me to return. As soon as I appeared he raised his whip but I managed to run back into the office, Gumpinger kept running after me and all of a sudden the Captain was in front of me, seeing Gumpinger with the whip. The captain asked Gumpinger to follow him into his office. This was the last we saw of Gumpinger. We found out that Gumpinger had strict orders from the Captain not to use the whip and for disobeying the order he was dispatched to the Russian Front.

The following day the S.S. Officer Pitasch who was in charge of the carpentry shop, threatened me that should I be guilty of any infraction, he would shoot me like a dog for causing a friend of his having been dispatched to the Russian front. Three weeks after this incident, our group was transferred to the "Szkolna" concentration camp, under different supervision.

In our camp on "Kalejowa 18" a system was established to leave our soup dishes (a metal container, called a "menashke") in the kitchen, so that when we arrived for the half hour lunch period the soup was ready to be eaten.

One day in July 1944, as we were eating the soup, it was noticed that six containers with soup were not touched. Among the inmates there was a stool pigeon who immediately notified the S.S. guards. Within minutes the guards arrived with a German shepherd dog, they discovered who the containers belonged to and set out to search the warehouse.

Entering the warehouse they saw a manhole cover that had been removed, leading to the underground city sewers. The guards were afraid to enter the sewers for fear of the inmates being armed so they prodded the dog to get into the hole, but the dog resisted. The guards jumped into a jeep and drove outside the camp.

When they reached the first manhole, the cover had been removed, but there was no sign of the prisoners. The escaped prisoners mingled with the noon crowd walking the streets and by evening they reached a forest on the outskirts of the city.

Several weeks after this escape, one of the six escapees appeared in camp. On his jacket front and back were white and black circles to denote an escapee. This is the story he told us: as soon as they entered the forest, they met soldiers from the Polish underground (Armja Krajowa), and as soon as they found out they were Jews, they opened fire on them.

He was the only one that escaped alive. As he could not find a secure place among the local Polish population, he had no choice but voluntarily returned to camp for "safety." The Gestapo kept him in the cellar for interrogation, where he was severely beaten, until they were convinced that he was telling them the truth. Only then was he permitted to enter the camp. He died in October 1944 in Vahingen concentration camp in Germany.

The same day the six inmates escaped, the S.S. gathered the remaining inmates, not giving us permission to enter the barracks and transported us to "Szkolna" camp.

As the Russian army was threatening to overrun our area by the end of July 1944, the "Szkolna" camp consisting of close to 3,000 people (men, women and some hidden children) was evacuated. We marched several days until we reached the city of Tomaszow. The women and children were forcibly separated from the men and were taken to the local jail.

The 2,400 men were kept in a factory hall, normally with a maximum capacity of 300. The stay in Tomaszow was the lowest point of degradation we ever experienced. The fact that we survived the suffocating seven days, bears witness to the unusual stamina and will to live.

We all sighed with relief when we were finally loaded into cattle cars for the journey to Auschwitz.

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