Liberation and Beyond from "Testimony of the Human Spirit"
Transcript
Speaker 1
For five years, I didn't know whether my parents were alive or dead. I had no idea. Always looking at newspapers or at newsreels, and they showed camps being liberated. Looking for that face, looking for any trace. Any news, ever finding any.
Speaker 3
It was January 20th the death March continued at night. We finally found the farm. The German soldiers, they overheard their meeting once said, “What can we do with these women, these women?” They said, one said, “Well, let's burn them.” “There's enough straw”, another said. “Why don't we shoot them?” This is when the guy said “No, I'm not going to spoil my bullets for them.” In the middle of the night, they left and, in the morning, we didn't know what to do. Liberated in the middle of nowhere, we don't know where we were, where to go. We only knew that we are free.
Speaker 4
One morning we hear shooting, my father said, “I think the Russians are here to liberate us”, and he said, “If we don't leave here, we're gonna be buried alive because the roof is gonna collapse.” We gather whatever he had; we carried my mother out of there. And I'll never forget sunny winter morning with snow on the ground. Crisp under my feet. I didn't have winter shoes or anything. I had summer shoes. And the light first time in nine months that I saw daylight was an incredible thing.
Speaker 5
My father, my father and my two brothers, and a little summer cottage. Canadians came. With a three-day artillery bombardment to wipe out the Germans around us and we stayed in an underground shelter that we had dug. The moment shells were exploding all around us.
Speaker 4
We started to move towards where we heard this the shooting because we figured that's what the Russians were all of a sudden, we're in the middle of the front, father said. “Run, run”. And I'm running and there are bullets left and right to me. And I remember thinking. My God, I survived Hitler. I'm going to be killed by bullets at this time by a bullet. We all ended up in the middle of the front, but in trenches of the Russian soldiers. I remember looking at these Russian soldiers like they're my saviors. They are, they've saved me and they did, of course.
Speaker 5
Firing stopped. We crawled out and we heard noises coming out of the fields and we ran to see and there's this huge column of army material with white stars on it coming towards us. That dust swirl around the tanks would go by and throw up dust all over us and guys in little cute little cars. You know, kitchens with guys cooking as they went. We waved. We shouted. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 5
It can't be described the feeling. We were liberated. We were free.
Speaker 2
We saw Americans, they arrested us, they didn't know who we are. And they took us. To an American officer was sitting in a big room and a big, beautiful chair. And he said any of you speak German. Then he started speaking to us in plain Yiddish, and I said to him, “Sure”. In German I said to him, “You don't speak. German. You speak Yiddish? Now I'm going to fall apart. We are Jews who were just liberated from the Germans.” He dropped the cigarette slumped in the chair and he said something to the two MP's. They took us to a big villa. Occupied by several women, their husband was in SS officer. The American officer he asked us in Yiddish plain Yiddish. “How much time did they give you to leave your house?” So I say “About 15 minutes, half an hour or we better than this.” And he told the Germans they have 45 minutes to get out of this house. He said this is yours. An hour later, same group with another 20 soldiers came in. We thought. Whole hams they brought in with it and Pilsner beer made in United States made in America. And then we knew we were free. I'll never forget his face.
Speaker 6
The Allied armies finally arrived to liberate the Nazi death camps. Of the 8 to 10 million people who entered the camps. Only half a million survived. All across Europe, German troops surrendered to allied forces. On May 8th, 1945, VE Day, the Allies declared victory in Europe.
Speaker 4
All of a sudden, I hear a tremendous amount of noise and cheering and crying and cheering and all the Russian soldiers are raising banners. The war is over. The war is over. They were waving to me. I was waving to them; we’re kissing each other and hugging each other.
Speaker 7
The idea was in Oxford and there was jubilation all over and I was dancing on the roofs of the colleges. There was cheering. There was hugging.
Speaker 1
I wanted to go downtown New York. There was a euphoria like I had never experienced before. I went to Temple Emmanuel, A magnificent synagogue, and I will never forget that tears were streaming down my face like everyone else.
Speaker 2
I remember the moment, but the happiness wasn't with me because by then. I knew. I lost my mother. I lost my cousins. I lost my aunts. I lost my uncles. I lost my best friends. I lost everybody. How happy can you be? There were about 130 people in our family, of which about a dozen lived through the war.
Speaker 1
One day I received a letter from the Red Cross. And the letter said, dear Mr. Hubert, we're sorry to inform you that your parents perished in the concentration camp, called Piaski in Poland.
Speaker 5
My father heard that in a nearby town called Barneveld. There was a Red Cross with lists where you could find everybody, and he went there on his rapidly bike. And he found a couple of Jewish men and the and they said, “Can we help you?” And he said “My wife was arrested, you know, by the Germans. And I would like to know where she is.” They told stories about gas chambers.
About places where people were murdered. Where children were beaten to death or burned alive. The man said “We're sorry, Mr. Lessing”, my pop said, “Could you still look on the list? They looked on the list. And a man said, “But she's here, your wife. She's a place called Philippeville. It's in North Africa”, Paul said. No, that's impossible, he said. We never had anything to do with Africa, very huffy, said Mr. Leslie. The Red Cross never makes a mistake. Please go home. Tell your children your wife is alive.
Speaker 3
From January 21st, when we were freed, we came home at the end of April. We work most of the time. I was 18 years old and three months still a child, but very mature child. In an empty house. Everything was taken out by the Germans. They couldn't take my piano because it was too heavy. Next day, one of my friends. Came to visit and see us. She brought me my Sweet 16 velvet dress with a white lace color. And she said I knew what you would come home. I pulled this dress.