Europa, Europa , livre ebook

E UROPA , E UROPA
E UROPA , E UROPA
Solomon Perel
Translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo
Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum





J OHN W ILEY S ONS , I NC.
New York Chichester Weinheim Brisbane Singapore Toronto
English language translation copyright 1997 by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Originally published in French in 1990 as Europa, Europa copyright 1990 by Editions Ramsay
German edition published in 1992 as Ich war Hitlerjunge Salomon copyright 1992 by Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann GmbH and Autorenagentur lansk mehr, both Berlin
Epilogue originally published in 1993 copyright 1993 by Wilhelm Heyne Verlag GmbH Co. KG, M nchen
This text is printed on acid-free paper.
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published simultaneously in Canada.
Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without the permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Requests for permission or further information should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perel, Shlomo
[Kor im li Shelomoh Perel. English]
Europa, Europa / Solomon Perel; translated from the German by
Margot Bettauer Dembo.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-471-17218-9 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Personal narratives. 2. Perel, Shlomo, 1925- 3. Hitler-Jugend-Biography. I. Dembo, Margot Bettauer. II. Title.
D804.3.P46513 1997
940.53 18-dc2I
96-46844
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated
to the memory of my mother, Rebecca,
my father, Azriel,
and my sister, Bertha,
who were victims of the Holocaust.
And to the memory of my brother, Isaac,
who died while I was writing this account.
C ONTENTS
Preface
Prologue

1
F LIGHT TO THE E AST

2
W ITH THE W EHRMACHT

3
T o B RUNSWICK

4
H ITLER Y OUTH P ERJELL

5
L ENI

6
O TTO

7
T o L ODZ

8
I NTO THE G HETTO

9
R IDING THE S TREETCAR

10
W AR S E ND

11
L IBERATION

12
F ROM B RUNSWICK TO I SRAEL
Epilogue
P REFACE
My Holocaust experiences reported here are true. These events actually happened to me. This story recounts the feelings and thoughts that have refused to leave me since my youth, spent in fear and persecution in the middle of beleaguered and tragic Europe under the terror of German occupation.
Just as one single faithfully recounted testimony of the horror of the Holocaust is the most convincing way to make people remember the past, so too is it a warning for the future. Therefore, I am especially pleased with the initiative of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and John Wiley and Sons in bringing out this particular edition, making available in the English language this unique examination of a life lived in the Nazi state. At the same time my thanks and acknowledgements go to the sponsoring editor, Ms. Hana Lane, and to the translator, Margot Dembo. I offer, too, my especial appreciation to my literary agent, Edwin D. Rosenberger; to Benton Arnovitz, Director of Academic Publications at the Museum; and to Henry Wimpfheimer, Esq.
With this English-language edition goes my wish that readers will find it interesting, that it will reach the depths of the souls of young people, and that it will register as a call for tolerance and human dignity.
Solomon Perel
Givatayim, Israel
P ROLOGUE
I have often been asked why I never published my story. Unfortunately, until now I have found it impossible to provide a clear and satisfying answer. Probably I didn t want to be reminded of the past and the tragic events connected with it. In fact, for many years I tried hard to suppress and forget what happened. My daily routine forced me to put the subject aside and only rarely was there opportunity to seriously reflect. The time was just not ripe.
Sometimes I felt the urge to describe my adventures, but always there were questions that virtually paralyzed me: Did I really have the right to compare myself with survivors of the Holocaust? To consider myself part of their story? To place my memories on the same level as theirs? Did I have the right to compare myself with the resistance fighters, the inmates of concentration camps and ghettos, and with those who hid in forests, bunkers, and monasteries? They were heroes and heroines. Their suffering had brought them to the edge of human endurance. And yet with their last ounce of strength they had succeeded in retaining their Jewish identity, their humanity.
I, on the other hand, had gone about among the Nazis at this same time, unmolested, had worn their uniform that included a swastika on my cap, and had yelled Heil Hitler! as though I really identified with their criminal ideology and their barbaric goals.
What message did I have to pass on? Would people even believe my story? Would they try to understand it? And if I did put it all down on paper, would I be prepared to endure the loneliness and the isolation that accompany the writing of such a long account, as well as all the nightmares, pangs of conscience, and self-doubts that would emerge to torment me?
I thought about these questions for more than forty years-until I came to the conclusion that I had no other choice. Because as time went by I realized that I could no longer suppress the trauma, could no longer live with this spiritual incubus. To free myself of it I had to write it all down-to get it off my chest.
I promised myself, and I promise you, the reader, to stick to the truth from beginning to end. The barriers are down . . . and I m ready to awaken painful memories, the memories of my Shoah.
You may well recall the famous director Elia Kazan s renowned 1960s book and film entitled America, America. In them he recounts Voltaire s classic story of Candide, a sailor who finds himself cast ashore among cannibals in South America. After many dangerous adventures he survives healthy and intact.
In my book you will see that I also perceived myself as having been cast among cannibals for whom I would have been an easy victim. Agnieska Holland, the director of the film based upon my experiences, viewed me as the Candide of the twentieth century. But my adventures had been in Europe, not America; hence the title Europa, Europa.
1
F LIGHT TO THE E AST
I was born on April 21, 1925, in Peine, a town near Brunswick in Germany.
My parents had moved to Germany in 1918 shortly after the October Revolution broke out in Russia. In those days the Weimar Republic was quite willing to admit Jews. There were four children in our family. My oldest brother, Isaac, was sixteen years old when I was born, David was twelve, and my sister, Bertha, nine.
To support the family, my parents opened a shoe store on the main street, Breite Strasse, shortly after their arrival in Peine. Our German neighbors at that time were not hostile to us, but the old established Jews, who had been in Germany for generations, gave us a cool reception.
They looked down on us East European Jews. Occasionally someone in my family would complain about this at home, but it didn t bother me much. How was I, who never could understand the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew, supposed to grasp the difference between one Jew and another Jew?
Peine was not a modern city, but gradually technological progress was felt there too. I remember how delighted we children were to see the first automobiles. They looked like carriages without horses, and each had a huge horn next to the steering wheel. We would run after them, eager to squeeze the black pear to make it honk and honk. . . .
Not a cloud marred the happiness of my childhood. We had no forebodings of the fateful events to come. And yet, in the dark years ahead, fifty million people of many lands were to lose their lives, and the Shoah , the systematically planned murder of the European Jews, would profoundly convulse our history.
On January 30, 1933, the National Socialist party under its leader Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany.
This marked the beginning of a black-brown dance of death: black and brown like the Nazi party uniforms, blood-red like that associated with various emblems and regalia of the SS, SA, and Hitler Youth.
As early as 1921, in order to protect the National Socialist party, which he was in the process of expanding, Hitler had created the SA, the Sturmabteilung, or Storm Troopers. Those who joined the SA were mainly former soldiers, men who could no longer fit into society. Germany s defeat in the First World War had embittered them. The SA was supposed to create unrest, break up meetings of opposition parties, and at the same time make sure that Nazi party meetings went off smoothly. They spread fear and terror and thus helped give the appearance that the Weimar Republic, which they were trying to undermine, was powerless. With Hitler and his friends firmly in the saddle, the dirty work was left to the SA: the persecution and liquidation of the Jews and all opponents of the regime.
The SS, Schutzstaffel , Protective Squad or Guard Detachment, was created in 1923. In disarray after the failed Munich putsch, it was reestablished in 1925. Although subordinate to the SA, the SS, acting as bodyguards for Hitler, considered themselves independent. In 1934 they were given that status officially, and reported directly to the F hrer. Heinrich Himmler was chief of the SS. His fiefdom also included the Gestapo , the Secret State Police; the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the