We Survived by Eric H. Boehm

Author:Eric H. Boehm [ERIC H. BOEHM]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2012-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

ALFRED JOSEPH

ARTHUR FORDANSKI and I were together all the years we lived illegally. We had known each other since childhood and had always been inseparable friends. Both of us were born in 1921. He was the only one of his family who was determined to submerge, and the only one who survived. He and his brothers and sister-in-law lived with their parents. A Jewish orderly who rented a furnished room from them always told them when deportations were planned.

In February, 1942, they were notified to be at home on a certain day, allegedly so that their property could be inventoried. No one believed this, and the orderly confirmed their suspicions, telling them that the Nazis wanted strong young men for railroad work in Poland and they would all be deported. Arthur left at once, but the rest of his family did not dare to. They were so intimidated that they observed all regulations.

A few days later Arthur risked visiting the apartment at night and found it sealed. His family had been taken away. He learned later that his parents had met ours in Theresienstadt, the Jewish ghetto town in Czechoslovakia, but neither his parents nor ours ever returned. We suppose they were all gassed. Arthur’s brother and sister-in-law were taken to Monowitz, one of the branches of the Auschwitz death camp. One brother is said to have been alive in Buchenwald till 1945. After that all trace of him was lost.

From that February day when he left home Arthur and I lived a vagabond existence. Our headquarters was Mieze’s cellar. She was always going to let us into the cellar in the evening, but unfortunately she had no sense of time. Often we made a definite agreement to be in front of the house at eight o’clock, glad to be getting into a warm place after being out all day in the cold. But good Mieze was visiting friends and did not return until twelve or one o’clock at night, and was surprised that we were not there waiting for her.

During the first three weeks of our illegal life, until he was arrested, my brother Rolf lived with us in the cellar. It was much harder for him to adjust to this new life as he was more sensitive and more disheartened than we. He found Mieze’s unreliability harassing, especially when we had to find another place to spend the night because she did not show up. And he worried about endangering and burdening Mieze and anyone who helped us through our illegal life. But what else could we do?

Sometimes our legs would carry us no farther and we could barely wait till evening. Inadequate food and the constant hunt for food and shelter had greatly weakened us, but we would not let that get us down. Occasionally we even enjoyed our life, and acted a part which we thought would camouflage us as harmless foreigners. We wore berets and sometimes talked a strange mixture of syllables when we were eating in a restaurant.

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