"My own, my dear, don't be angry and don't feel bad: I am writing to you my last letter," begins one written in April 1944. "On Shabbat [Saturday] afternoon they announced that Jewish are not allowed to leave their homes. All day there were rumours that the ghetto will be established... we hoped that these were false rumours, but at 6:30 on Sunday morning, police and soldiers knocked on our door. They stole the silver, and our last bit of money... My dear son, what awaits us in the ghetto? To starve to death? They have condemned us to death!... Dear Otto, we are all in the bedroom, Mother and your two sisters, screaming, crying. I am writing this letter with tears in my eyes. I hope that even if we will be killed you will manage to stay alive. Surely there will be a new world and you will live happily. Forget us. May God help you on the path to happiness, from which we must leave. My dear son, I have one request, also in the name of Mother and your sisters: Never forget that you were born Jewish. Remain Jewish, and in 100 years, die Jewish." Received by Otto Hershtick from his father.
Tarnopol 26 April 1943.
I am still alive and I want to describe to you what happened from the 7th to this day. Now then, it is told that everyone’s turn comes up next. Galicia should be totally rid of Jews. After all, the ghetto is to be liquidated by the 1st of May. During the last days thousands have been shot. Meeting point was in our camp. Here the human victims are selected. In Petrikow it looks like this: before the grave one is stripped naked, then forced to kneel down and wait for the shot. The victims stand in line and await their turn. Moreover, they have to sort the first, the executed, in their graves so that the space is used well and order prevails. The entire procedure does not take long. In half an hour the clothes of the executed return to the camp. After the actions the Jewish council received a bill for 30,000 Zloty to pay for used bullets… Why can we not cry, why can we not defend ourselves? How can one see so much innocent blood flow and say nothing, do nothing and await the same death oneself? We are compelled to go under so miserably, so pitilessly… Do you think we want to end this way, die this way? No! No! Despite all these experiences. The urge for self-preservation has now often become greater, the will to live stronger, the closer death is. It is beyond comprehension.
"To the S.S. officer, former commander of the Auschwitz death camp It is finally time for you to hear these things from me, the former inmate, number 17724 of Auschwitz. It is I who was led with my family like cattle, in a train cart made for cattle, in suffocating-crowdedness, for two nights and days to your camp, without given any water or the possibility of relieving myself for the duration of the trip. There was no room to sit down so we had to take turns doing so. It is I, who was brutally dragged out of the cart when we arrived at that dreadful place, immediately separated from my family, most of whom I never saw again, stripped down and led naked, while bitten, in a herd of other animalized human-beings for selection. I was chosen to live for now, and suffer, until the last drop of marrow is drained and used out, from inside of me. It was I who was made to wear a slim striped pajama and two left handed wooden shoes, had a number tattooed into my flesh and thrown together with countless others to a giant pen called "the Gipsy camp". It was I who was humiliated in every possible way, starved beyond recognition and given porridge made out of unwashed cattle beet in a chamber pot taken from the belongings of Jews. I had to feed myself together with nine other inmates, to sip without a fork or spoon, while staring at my friends' hands making sure they are not eating more then their share. It was I who was given fifteen lashes with a heavy electrical wire for trying to take a potato peel from the waste of the S.S. kitchen. It was I who was slaved for sixteen hours in a salt mine for 160 grams of bread and half a litter of liquids a day. It was I who ran, ducked and jumped at the whim of the duty officer who occasionally made life-and-death selections. The testing scale for life was how far you could jump and how fast you could run. And I survived, although many times the thought of putting an end to the struggle has crossed my mind. Here is a segment for you, from a newspaper published this week in Israel: “a delegation of 50 youths, from the united kibbutz movement made a memorial ceremony, laid a flower-bouquet and raised the Israeli flag. At the end of the ceremony one of the boys chanted the mourners kaddish and they all sang together the Israeli national anthem, ha-tikva, the hope. Can you guess where the ceremony took place? It was in Auschwitz! I wanted you to know that one of the girls in the delegation is my granddaughter, the granddaughter of an ex-prisoner of Auschwitz." Signed Tzvi Ha-Meiri
Dearest Mother,
How are you? It feels like forever since I have seen you. I hope to see you again, and so does Miriam. I know that it is wishful to think you are still alive, but I can still believe it. As you can see, the Russians made it to Auschwitz. You should have seen the Nazis before they arrived; it was as if they were chickens without heads! They weren’t paying attention to us for the most part; it allowed me to escape for a few moments. I returned because I couldn’t leave Miriam alone, but what I saw outside shocked me. I went all the way to where there was a river, and on the other side there was a girl. I was so jealous of that girl, with her hair and her nice dresses. She was cleaner than I could remember being for years. She didn’t know how lucky she was. Miriam and I were left behind from the march. It was good that we hid, because they were probably going to another camp; the officers saving themselves. I wonder if the Russians found them too. When they came, we were all so excited. Miriam and I ran over to them, half in disbelief. They gave us food, chocolates even! When was the last time you can remember eating chocolate? It was like heaven. The best part, though, was not when the Russians actually got to the camp, but it was when somebody came running in to our barrack, shouting that we were free. And now Mama, we are free. Your daughters are free.
Love, Eva
My Darling
Hi Darling, golly it has been too or three days since I have written……………….Darling have seen so much suffering the past couple of days. It is sights that shall always stay with me it is the most pittyful sight anyone could ever see. we came into a town that had a concentration camp most of them were Jews. They came swarming out of that camp as soon as the American army took it over, they swarmed past our house all night, they raded everything we had looking for something to eat. They were all skin and bones just a mass of bones with a piece of yellow skin stretched over them. Their eyes all sunk back into their heads sores all over them all diseased up dirty and unshaven lice on them. They would mob the American soldiers asking for something to eat. We gave them all we had but there was thousands of them. They wanted cigarettes. They would leave the camp not knowing where they were going some of them were not able to start lots of them were so weak their buddies would help them and after a while one of them would pass out, there he would be left to die. In the camp there was starving babies feeding from their Mothers breast the mother would be lying on the ground dying. They were so hungry they would dig the potatoes that had been planted out of the ground with their bare hands. We would throw some of them a can of C ration one would get it and they would all start fighting for it just like a bunch of beasts. Many of them had blood streaks on them where they had been beaten. It was a sorry mess I had read and heard so much about what the Germans have done had thought it was propaganda but now I know it is true, I guess you have to really see that to believe it. Thank God for a place like America. Golly Darling need a shave bad have not had one for a week no bath for more than too weeks dirty clothes it will be swell if we ever stop and get a chance to clean up and rest a couple of days……………..Chas
Tarnopol 26 April 1943.
I am still alive and I want to describe to you what happened from the 7th to this day. Now then, it is told that everyone’s turn comes up next. Galicia should be totally rid of Jews. After all, the ghetto is to be liquidated by the 1st of May. During the last days thousands have been shot. Meeting point was in our camp. Here the human victims are selected. In Petrikow it looks like this: before the grave one is stripped naked, then forced to kneel down and wait for the shot. The victims stand in line and await their turn. Moreover, they have to sort the first, the executed, in their graves so that the space is used well and order prevails. The entire procedure does not take long. In half an hour the clothes of the executed return to the camp. After the actions the Jewish council received a bill for 30,000 Zloty to pay for used bullets… Why can we not cry, why can we not defend ourselves? How can one see so much innocent blood flow and say nothing, do nothing and await the same death oneself? We are compelled to go under so miserably, so pitilessly… Do you think we want to end this way, die this way? No! No! Despite all these experiences. The urge for self-preservation has now often become greater, the will to live stronger, the closer death is. It is beyond comprehension.
"To the S.S. officer, former commander of the Auschwitz death camp It is finally time for you to hear these things from me, the former inmate, number 17724 of Auschwitz. It is I who was led with my family like cattle, in a train cart made for cattle, in suffocating-crowdedness, for two nights and days to your camp, without given any water or the possibility of relieving myself for the duration of the trip. There was no room to sit down so we had to take turns doing so. It is I, who was brutally dragged out of the cart when we arrived at that dreadful place, immediately separated from my family, most of whom I never saw again, stripped down and led naked, while bitten, in a herd of other animalized human-beings for selection. I was chosen to live for now, and suffer, until the last drop of marrow is drained and used out, from inside of me. It was I who was made to wear a slim striped pajama and two left handed wooden shoes, had a number tattooed into my flesh and thrown together with countless others to a giant pen called "the Gipsy camp". It was I who was humiliated in every possible way, starved beyond recognition and given porridge made out of unwashed cattle beet in a chamber pot taken from the belongings of Jews. I had to feed myself together with nine other inmates, to sip without a fork or spoon, while staring at my friends' hands making sure they are not eating more then their share. It was I who was given fifteen lashes with a heavy electrical wire for trying to take a potato peel from the waste of the S.S. kitchen. It was I who was slaved for sixteen hours in a salt mine for 160 grams of bread and half a litter of liquids a day. It was I who ran, ducked and jumped at the whim of the duty officer who occasionally made life-and-death selections. The testing scale for life was how far you could jump and how fast you could run. And I survived, although many times the thought of putting an end to the struggle has crossed my mind. Here is a segment for you, from a newspaper published this week in Israel: “a delegation of 50 youths, from the united kibbutz movement made a memorial ceremony, laid a flower-bouquet and raised the Israeli flag. At the end of the ceremony one of the boys chanted the mourners kaddish and they all sang together the Israeli national anthem, ha-tikva, the hope. Can you guess where the ceremony took place? It was in Auschwitz! I wanted you to know that one of the girls in the delegation is my granddaughter, the granddaughter of an ex-prisoner of Auschwitz." Signed Tzvi Ha-Meiri
Dearest Mother,
How are you? It feels like forever since I have seen you. I hope to see you again, and so does Miriam. I know that it is wishful to think you are still alive, but I can still believe it. As you can see, the Russians made it to Auschwitz. You should have seen the Nazis before they arrived; it was as if they were chickens without heads! They weren’t paying attention to us for the most part; it allowed me to escape for a few moments. I returned because I couldn’t leave Miriam alone, but what I saw outside shocked me. I went all the way to where there was a river, and on the other side there was a girl. I was so jealous of that girl, with her hair and her nice dresses. She was cleaner than I could remember being for years. She didn’t know how lucky she was. Miriam and I were left behind from the march. It was good that we hid, because they were probably going to another camp; the officers saving themselves. I wonder if the Russians found them too. When they came, we were all so excited. Miriam and I ran over to them, half in disbelief. They gave us food, chocolates even! When was the last time you can remember eating chocolate? It was like heaven. The best part, though, was not when the Russians actually got to the camp, but it was when somebody came running in to our barrack, shouting that we were free. And now Mama, we are free. Your daughters are free.
Love, Eva
My Darling
Hi Darling, golly it has been too or three days since I have written……………….Darling have seen so much suffering the past couple of days. It is sights that shall always stay with me it is the most pittyful sight anyone could ever see. we came into a town that had a concentration camp most of them were Jews. They came swarming out of that camp as soon as the American army took it over, they swarmed past our house all night, they raded everything we had looking for something to eat. They were all skin and bones just a mass of bones with a piece of yellow skin stretched over them. Their eyes all sunk back into their heads sores all over them all diseased up dirty and unshaven lice on them. They would mob the American soldiers asking for something to eat. We gave them all we had but there was thousands of them. They wanted cigarettes. They would leave the camp not knowing where they were going some of them were not able to start lots of them were so weak their buddies would help them and after a while one of them would pass out, there he would be left to die. In the camp there was starving babies feeding from their Mothers breast the mother would be lying on the ground dying. They were so hungry they would dig the potatoes that had been planted out of the ground with their bare hands. We would throw some of them a can of C ration one would get it and they would all start fighting for it just like a bunch of beasts. Many of them had blood streaks on them where they had been beaten. It was a sorry mess I had read and heard so much about what the Germans have done had thought it was propaganda but now I know it is true, I guess you have to really see that to believe it. Thank God for a place like America. Golly Darling need a shave bad have not had one for a week no bath for more than too weeks dirty clothes it will be swell if we ever stop and get a chance to clean up and rest a couple of days……………..Chas