Willy Lermer - Holocaust Survivor Testimony

my name is willie lermer and i'm born in krakow poland and then in 1929 and 1930 there was a worldwide depression where people lost their jobs lost their belongings it was a very very poor situation unemployment extremely high although i have been a kid or five six years old at the time i didn't know much about it didn't understood it but i just really knew that my parents lost everything who had to get out from our apartment where we lived which was quite comfortable and we had to get squeezed in into one room and also at the same time in 1929 i gained a sister my parents rented a shop which they converted into a kosher coffee lounge so i was with him and of course my mother was the chef and my father was in front of the shop and we worked on later after a couple years later things improved and we have been lucky to obtain an apartment above our shop my parents worked very hard you know they used to get up six in the morning and they didn't close the coffee lunch until about 11 because they served breakfast lunch dinners and suppers when people came out from theaters or movies coming for a bite to eat or have a cup of coffee now the only really happy times were friday nights and saturdays where we all sat down and we had a meal together it was wonderful being religious we sang songs on friday evenings as usual and saturday lunch when you came back from the synagogue they were very happy they happy times for now life has changed completely for us first of all there was a mobilization and my father had to report to the polish army camp to join the army and i was at the time about 15 16 but i was a big boy so i could get away as 18. i know because i used to go to movies which were only for 18 year olds and nobody questioned me because i looked older so i wanted to join the army with my father together to go with him of course my mother didn't want it she knew more about the war than i did to me it was fun till i found out just a few days later that it's not such a fun and of course the tragedy of humiliation degradation torture started it went slowly slowly the noose got tighter tighter around our necks the jews were persecuted we had to queue up to get a kilo bread per person so i my father my mother went out just around the corner to a bakery which was known turkish bakery but they baked a normal bread and we queue up at two in the morning it was extremely cold the nights already in autumn and poland are very cold it was extremely cold and we stood there from two o'clock in the morning till nine when they opened the shop shortly before nine one poll whom i happened to know because he used to come to our place to have some gefilte fish and have a glass of wine or meat to drink or a glass of beer he enjoyed food even with his son i used to play soccer you know in the park and he comes in here and on the left arm arm he has got a swastika you know a red armband with a white circle underneath a black swastika i couldn't believe it i really couldn't believe it and he comes and kicks all the jews out from the queue we have been probably the 10 or 15 there and my father spoke to him and he said you better go before i kill you if you want go at the end of the queue and if there is bread left you're welcome to it of course there was no hope because the queue was so long another answer then i was at the french place and i could see through the window the germans didn't recognize a jew very well but the orthodox jews who were wearing the long birds with the side locks and black coats they knew so sometimes one took out a bayonet and cut off the bird of the of the jew of the orthodox jew and another one put a match to another ones and apparent one went in and put a match to his birth and they were all dancing and laughing and of course there were some of the civilian population there who were just laughing and screaming you there you there you know juju and that put really a fear onto me then in the 15th of december 1939 an addict was issued that all the jews from age i think of 12 if i remember correctly have to wear an a right on a right forearm an armband which was a white one about 12 centimeters wide and in the middle a blue star of david now no compliance with this order the penalty is dead i was taken for a whole day's work and i tell you we had to cut ropes desks also that on the fourth floor high up we carted it all up third floor second floor fourth floor and the germans standing on every floor with their whip and helped us out to get quicker and then came lunch time and that that's the ironic part of it they said lunchtime so we all assembled and then they came over and he said now you're going to get a kosher pork stew there were a few orthodox jews well i was religious i have never eaten unkosher food until then and then when from six o'clock in the morning i didn't need nothing it was about twelve half past twelve so they gave everybody a sort of a plate and they put that stew in it and a piece of bread and go and eat so i sat down and i ate it and i ate it up and it was okay now the orthodox they ate the bread but didn't touch the stew the german police they were watching who eats who doesn't eat now they come up and they took those few people probably there were eight or ten of them who didn't eat and they said what you for goodness of our heart we try to feed you that you are strong that you can work and you don't want to eat our food you pig we'll show you we're going to have a little bit sport that's what they called it so they made the people run and then drop you know fall fall down get up and run then squat jump in the squatting position and then they made him squat and stretch the hands out and if any and of course everybody got beaten because they weren't so flexible after half an hour or more they let them go and put them to work around five o'clock i was released they told me oh you were good you can go home now i came home and i can tell you for three days i couldn't move i got beaten a few times but not as savagely as the others but i found out that i got muscles that i never knew existed for three days i couldn't move around now i met some of those fellows who were under sport some ended up in hospital with broken ribs another had a broken nose and battered spent in hospital some three weeks four weeks and so on in 1940 could have been springtime or autumn i i don't remember but it was in 1940 and i had a girlfriend and i made somehow arrangement with her to meet to go to the park and there was a small portion of the big park which surrounded the old city of krakow which surrounds actually still known as planti a small part of it was permitted for jews to go and we made arrangements to go to that park maybe we be able to grab a bench somewhere to sit down and you know spend the time and when we came in there were a few entrances there at through one entrance i have seen the following incident there was one assessment walking and from the other side came a jewish boy probably was 20 21. and the assessment called him and he said to him why don't you take off the cap to show respect to a german or something to th this and so he said there was no order or an addict that we should do that he hit him once and twice he fall down he made him get up and hit him again gave him a kick and says now you know when you see a german you take off your cap and get lost he walks and then another assessment goes behind so he beaten up takes off the cap doesn't say nothing and the assessment calls him and he says what are you my comrade you are my friend my house how dare you even to talk to me how dare you even to lift your heads to me and he beat him up again so we got both frightened she went home and i went home what i was hoping have a pleasant afternoon and it did nothing so there were small things but being a young person a teenager to me at that time it was very frustrating in my 1942 we were taking third of us and my uncle was included my father wasn't and were taken to the you to plush off to camp plush of ulac one yulak means unlager it's a jewish labor camp quite simple and the ghetto was still existing and they started to build that big camp pleasure which is known just across the road on up on the hill on top of a jewish cemetery that was the new jerry cemetery in krakow and so who was sent there worked for a german construction firm joseph clook from regenspoke in germany bavaria and were building railroads now there broke out the epidemic of typhus and i got caught in it we didn't get any medication or anything were put in one separate barrack and they were double banks and on every bank two slept head to feet two on one and the doctors she came around and lifted the eyelid to have a look whether you were alive or not if you have been dead so they took you out and they buried you and i remember i had fever about 42 celsius degrees all the time once i you had to queue up to go to the toilet and i couldn't hold on because the queue was reasonably long and i fainted and i dirtied myself and i got beaten up and had to clean myself up and i hardly could stand on my feet my i was dizzy and and how somehow i survived after two weeks i the fever dropped and they dropped me up back to my barrack all my things which i had were stolen were gone i had nothing just a pair of pants and a kind of a working shirt and that was it no underwear no shoes nothing everything go on and then they gave me one week convertations now in the middle of the week the rumor was flying around the camp that anybody who is in the camp sick they're going to be shot so i barefoot got up and went to work after that what i was sick i was taken to 104 of us were sent to the real camp up on the hill there and there when we came up there was a kind of a selection and they picked out 12 people who were taken to the place of execution and they were executed twelve people who they taught their unfit for work among get was a vicious sadist you know to call him an animal that would be an insult to the animal because you couldn't even call him an animal he for him to kill somebody it was like for you to have a cup of tea when you tourist for instance he had a habit that he sneak up on people and somebody had the rest or whatever he could either ordered him to receive lashings or he could kill him he could order to give him lashings and he killed them later right afterwards he could do that too he used to go up on a balcony pick up a rifle i remember many times we could see him he was always in a white shirt he didn't wear he hasn't been wearing his full uniform he had on the trousers and the boots from his uniform could see his braces he was wearing with the trousers and white shirt and they picked up a rifle with a telescopic lens and was eyeing the people down there pulled the trigger and somebody dropped that he he apparently he was an excellent shot they went once to hang one engineer who something he done the wrong and when they went to hang him he had hidden a razor blade and he cut his veins and he was bleeding profusely so he came and he ordered three doctors there he said you save his life if he dies you die too and they work and eventually they stop them bleeding and put them onto the gallows so when i arrived i thought well that's the end of it i'm going to be dead and then when we got unloaded from the train we could smell something but you didn't think about it you know you you're getting a little bit selfish you think about yourself how are you going to survive how you're going to live whether you're going to live or not we didn't go through a selection process at all like all the transports did taken straight to the camp who have been i believe about 1500 or so when they were including about two or three hundred women and they were the women of course were separated from mass taken to the women's camp and we were marched straight into inside the camp now we came in front of a building and they were taking seven to eighty people at one time inside went in and what i saw first was heaps of clothes on my right hand side when i walked in and the asses there with whips hitting screaming get undressed quick quick quick get undressed well we had no option then we had been ordered to go to barbers who have shown our hair from the head under the arms everywhere and then we came in front of another door which said brosenberg which means bathhouse showers and before we went in we have been disinfected and the disinfection looked like that that they had there were two inmates there who had two buckets with some fluid with that disinfectant some wrecks or mitties and they dipped it in and once over the head under the arms between the legs go in i even recall that some of the stuff went into my eye and i stopped for a second you know to rub my eye because it was hurting i got a wack from somewhere from the back i don't know who did it and of course i moved in when i came in into the bath house i saw water pipes and shower heads and so i thought to myself i will go right underneath the shower head because i thought that the gas comes through the shower head when i will be close underneath the the gas will hit me and i take a couple deep breaths so i go quick if i'll be further away by the time the guest comes to me i will cough i will choke i'll suffer and once you know the room was full they closed the door and water came down you know thinking back because those are things which they are so engraved in my brain i forget a lot of things but i can't forget any of those i was touching myself to make sure this is water i even took stick my hand out you know make it sort of like a cup and put it to my lips to drink and then i realized it is water and before i realized all that they switched it over and out we didn't get any soap or towels to dry we came out of the other door and there were tables and on the tables there was clothes and they threw us a shirt a jacket and a pair of pants didn't matter whether it fits or not fit that was not the fitting room what you got that's it you got it small it's bad luck you got it bigger well it's good luck you see bigger you can wear a small little bit harder well now and get dressed quickly getting dressed and once i was going out through the exit door there the smell of burning hit me and i had a look for a fraction of a second and i could see smoke i could see flames of fire i didn't know what it was to be quite honest at that time now i know of course but then i didn't know and then dear says straight away line up in fives and we're surrounded by the guards with dogs guns on the ready and we're ordered to keep our heads down don't look right don't look left don't look up i found out later on when i when we got to the camp that we were about a couple hundred meters from the gas chambers in the crematoria not far very close once everybody came in we marched in uh to a compound known as the gypsy camp next day i have been tattooed with a number on my left forearm and my number is b 5068 and then they came and they asked what's your profession your trade and i knew already by experience you got to have a trade so i said that i'm an assistant bricklayer i have learned but now i'm an assistant bricklayer oh it's okay we need somebody like that so i was put to work and we worked on the women's transit camps for about three four weeks i worked there one day i was working there in the women's camp and women were bringing bricks from somewhere probably probably from a box car somewhere and they were carrying two or three bricks everyone was carrying now the women were very poorly dressed they only had a frog not underwear not nothing and then working and somebody calls my name and i was looking at the room and maybe i meet somebody i know auntie a casino i look and i don't see anybody and they call me again and again and again and then i had a look and then she says to me don't you recognize me um i'm dolly your cousin i said oh my god she had a mini frog and here was open so her breast came out and he had she still had some of her shyness so she lifted the bricks up you know a bit higher to cover i didn't recognize her but she was about three or four years older than myself that means when i knew her you know home or even during the war i met met her many times she was always impeccably dressed her hair beautiful gum and she was a very good looking girl and i couldn't believe it hair shone walking no shoes barefoot you know it really although i was already hardened with camp life being already two years incarcerated over two years it really hit me and the next day i know that she went on a transport to stutthof and i don't think she survived because i have never heard from her that's at the feet of the hills the alps and being november december it was extremely cold snow already we haven't been too well dressed and as far as food is concerned there was the worst from all the other camps that i was there there was practically no food what i recall we used to get in the morning so-called coffee which was brown water and we queued up for the coffee and if you have been in the middle of the cure towards the end by the time you got that it was cold water called brown water then we went to work and we got a soup there which very hard you could find some potatoes or some other vegetables like carrots turnip anything like that you could find there and in the evening we got again a soup like that and a loaf of bread at first we had we divided that into eight portions and then ten portions of course that was about 150 grams of bread a day sometimes we did get a small very small piece of horse sausage or a small piece of cheese you know spreading cheese and that was it and so of course working under those conditions they didn't execute any people people just dropped that from hunger and i used to dig deep into the snow in the snow to find some blades of grass or some weeds pull them out put them in my pocket and when i got the soup i put it in we i have once i don't know what i should even mention that have eaten a piece of a dog see the germans had the dog who was limping and so they shot him and then they ordered a couple people to bring the dog and bury him inside the camp they said dogs have to be with dogs so they buried him and then somebody came up to me said look you stand and watch if somebody comes and will give you a piece so i did that of course i was hungry they took the dog out cut them up in pieces they share it between themselves i got a small bone and i had a pot about two liters big to which i collected my soup my thing i washed it with snow because the water pipes have frozen so we didn't have any water and you could only wash with snow and i took that into the barrack and i made some water from snow and the oven will happen to be burning and i had some salt because they were spreading pink salt onto the concrete that it doesn't freezes the concrete doesn't freeze so i put some salt in it i put my portion of bread in it and that day we got a piece of cheese and i put the cheese in it as well with the bone with two liters of water and i cooked it and cooked it and when it was well cooked i took it and i started to eat and i tell you that was the best soup i have eaten for a long long time i would need one today like that but at that time it was something special i got friendly with one chip because he happened to be a brother of my teacher he was at the time about 35 or so old and we marched one day from work he looked well you know he used to go peel potatoes he got for that soup and he stole some potatoes and he looked pretty good and one day were marching back to the barrack and suddenly his d started to battle on the knee tried to grab him and yelled out to the fellow next week from the other side but we couldn't hold him was too heavy he was dead luckily they were carrying their leather we put them on the ladder and took him to the camp so that the numbers are correct and then they buried them there somewhere wherever they did and that was that then about three or four days before liberation and they took us from camp 11 in it which announced there were 13 camps to camp one and from there they said those who can march we're going to they're going on the march which was usually at that march and i couldn't i was already too weak i just sat down and that was the first time where i gave in to myself otherwise i was all the time my mind was always pushing me get up get up and eventually they became a train they put us on the train and i got in a carriage which was ruthless and we traveled one and a half days to dachau i was very sick suffered terribly from diarrhea apart from other bits which i didn't know and when we came to dhaka we didn't get a shower there was just a huge barrel with water so i put my finger in and washed my face and a better hands and that was it and then i was ordered to a barrack there and next day next day in the evening the american troops arrived and were liberated that was the 29th of april 1945. i didn't believe at that stage that i'm liberated and when they wanted to take me to hospital i didn't want to go i was hiding but eventually they found me of course and they took me on a stretcher straight to an ambulance and they drove me up to a tent and in this tent there were already three stretches with sick there and i i was the fourth one at the time i think they brought with me four people so i must have been the seventh and we were waiting there was a canvas curtain there and i thought what's going to happen to us eventually my turn came in and they took the stretches and brought me behind its carrot that canvas and there they put me on a table and from the top was a pink hose with a pink kind of a shower head must have been rubber and i got very scared because the two men who were there they were wearing surgical gowns and surgical masks so you couldn't see who they are and i said they're going to kill me here or make some experiments on me that's what was in my mind then they undressed me they didn't have much i had a piece of blanket and a shirt and i didn't have any underwear or any trousers because having diarrhea i dirty at all and people were screaming it stinks so i had to throw it out so i was already naked and then they came and they wanted to take my pot away and my spoon and i didn't want to let it go but of course they were stronger than me they took it out and i started to cry i remember i was crying i said this is the end of my life but then warm water lukewarm water came on the body i had a lot of lies like the rest of us because lack of sanitation and my body was itching bitten by the lies so the the feeling of that warm water was unbelievable i still after 50 odd years 60 years i still can't find a proper expression how wonderful it felt you know it's undescribable then they dried me with a beautiful white towel you know i haven't sown one i haven't seen one for about three years or so then they spread me with ddt i gave me a brand new flannel pajama i still remember the stripes were pink blue and gray light gray or off-white beautiful narrow stripes and then they put me on a stretcher and took me to the barrack i was in hospital then i realized i'm liberated and i spent about seven weeks in hospital i recuperated physically i gained weight from 40 kilos to about 70-72 there one day came an american general he wanted to see the camp and i took him around the the camp i showed him the crematoria there there were guest chambers and the place where they shoot people there was special area a shooting range and then there was a thick branch on a tree where they hung people and then they were the solitary confinements and were going around uh ilse was there you know the one who used to make lamp shades from human skins from the tattoos and many other criminals and then i come out to one gate and i see among get and i tell you what i i started to shake out i don't know whether i was angry whether i was scared i don't know i just started to shake and after a while i took hold of myself and i asked the general he said to him he asked me you know this fellow i said yes i do said general could you order them to open the door and i can go in there for five ten minutes and the general had a look at me and he said yes i can do that but before i do that i want you to consider something now if you go in there i have a very good idea what you intend doing but if you go in there and do that what you want to do you will become exactly like him isn't it better to leave it for the court to deal with this case instead that you behave yourself like he did and i thought for a second and i said no general i think you are right thank you very much for giving me this advice and that was the end he was taken among was taken he was extradited actually to poland to krakow he was tried he had a solicitor because i read and polished the book about his trial and he was sentenced to that and he was executed in poland there is one cousin of mine who survived the camp uh he was when he went he was in pleasure and somehow he got on shinto's list and he survived with him his mother was also he had his mother and his younger brother in placo they were sent to auschwitz and they were destroyed there they were killed there and then i had one family who escaped to the soviet union and they survived on russia they are living down in america and in canada apart from that nobody survived i have a final message to the people to next generations the we have a wonderful country here australia wonderful country beautiful government system democracy we can we have the right to complain we know the government is not perfect none of them is doesn't matter what side of politics they are they are not perfect and we're complaining but the most important thing is that we have the right to complain and also we have here in australia 120 whatever ethnic groups and it looks to me that we living living in peace with each other which is wonderful i mean there might be the odd incident but in general we're getting on with each other so hatred is a terrible disease like cancer please don't hate don't hate a fellow human being i can understand you can't like everybody you can't love everybody but what you have to do is those who you don't like you don't love you have to tolerate him don't incite others to hate him let's keep the motto do not hate but tolerate you

Channel: Melbourne Holocaust Museum

Views: 43,949

Keywords: Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne, Australia, Survivor Testimony, the Holocaust, Eyewitness

Id: xPoH2QB25ZA

Length: 41min 36sec (2496 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2011