Valley Chabad's Eternal Flame lecture series featured Bella Miller, a Holocaust survivor yesterday. She spoke to a small gathering at Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey last evening. My son and I went together, taking advantage of the increasingly rarer opportunity to hear from one of the remaining survivors of this grim chapter in history.
Miller was born in Eastern Poland, relatively near Ukraine. She was a child during the years of the Holocaust, and remembers her family having to go into hiding several times Ultimately, she survived Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp where well over one million Jews met their end.
She said that in that region of Poland, people were either Polish, Ukrainian, or Jewish. When the Germans came, the Ukrainians showed a very dark side. There was a clear hatred and venom towards the Jews which these Ukrainians felt. She stated that they were as bad, if not even worse, than the Germans themselves. Soon, her town built a sort of ghetto, which was not like the larger ghettoes in the cities. It was just a section of town for the Jews to go to, mostly so that all of the Jews could be placed - and watched - in one area. The writing was on the wall, things were clearly growing worse.
Mrs. Miller stated and her family were forced to go into hiding. At first, her family hid behind shelves stored with wine and other alcohol. But it became clear after Germans came looking for Jews - and took the booze instead - that this was not a long term solution. This woman lived a little outside of town, and she took in more than 10 Jews in hiding. However, this itself came to be a problem. Eventually, some towns people grew suspicious of this woman, who only lived with her parents, yet who bought and apparently consumed far more food than three people could possible eat. That woman unfortunately had to tell the Jews she was hiding that it was time to move on, and so they did.
Her family had to go and find another place for hiding. Mrs. Miller explained that her family had some money stored away, although she never knew where it was hidden, or how much they still had. But her brother would go off on his own once a month, and then would come back with money, which allowed them to go into hiding (and pay the expenses for such necessities as food). They found another place in town, closer to the forest. But while this man who took them in readily took their money, he quickly sent them on their way, forcing them to find yet another place. This continued until, eventually, they had to seek shelter in the forests themselves, in little bunkers hidden underground. These bunkers were difficult to find. Indeed, she said that some people might pass over them without knowing that there were people living under the ground they walked on. By and large, they had to be relatively close to some source of water, since food and water were not in abundance in the middle of the woods. The women would come out and cook in the middle of the night, since that was the safest time to do so, with little chance that they would be seen, or traced of the cooking would be detected.
Still eventually, they were caught. They were brought back to town and, eventually, forced to march to a train station in one of the surrounding towns. These were the infamous cattle cars which brought Bella and her family to Auschwitz. By then, however, the Russian advance was approaching, to the point where they could even hear the explosive sounds of the war going on. So the train had to make a detour, and go around through Slovakia and Austria before circling back around to Auschwitz. The trip took two weeks, but she and her arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau in August of 1944.
This was the last time that Bella ever saw her father or her brother. Women and men were immediately separated. Right away, she saw Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who made the feared selections. Bella was tall for her age, and so when Mengele barked out a question about her age, her mother answered that Bella was 15, even though, in actuality, she was younger. This was one of many times when her mother's actions saved her life. Bella stated that, if not for her mother, she surely would not have survived the Holocaust.
She and her mother were fortunately able to stick together during their time at Auschwitz. Sometimes, the Germans would give them menial but extremely difficult jobs to do, such as lifting heavy rocks or boulders from one side of a small hill to another, and then back again. Mostly, this was done just to make the lives of the Jews in the camp a living hell. Eventually, her mother grew sick due to malnutrition, and her legs suddenly swelled until, Bella said, they looked like the legs of an elephant. Her mother was taken to the infirmary, and Bella, fortunately, was given permission to stay with her. During their brief time there, Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians. This was in late January of 1945. The Germans had marched most of the Jews in the camp out into the infamous Death Marches, back towards Germany and other camps. Many Jews never made it, dying along the way, either of severe malnutrition, or often simply being murdered. But the Russians had come so quickly, that the Germans did not have time to destroy everything in the camp, and that included the infirmary. That was how she and her mother managed to survive.
After the Russians had liberated them, they stayed in the camp for a little while. She walked through the camp and, at one point, went inside of one of the German stations and found a stack of blueprints of the infamous death camp. She took a copy, which she still has to this day, although she said that she will soon give it to the New York Holocaust Museum, although she once showed it to them, and they do already have pictures of it. She also saw artwork there of a very disturbing nature, showing people being tortured and hanged. Also, she lifted her sleeves to show everyone her tattoo. It may have been the first time that I saw one of these tattoos (although I may have seen one as a child, I cannot specifically remember). Certainly, it was the first time that my son saw one in person.
There were options for them after the war and the Holocaust ended. Bella thought about possibly emigrating to Israel/Palestine, in the years before Israel became a country. But her mother decided against it. Also, some friends had succeeded in moving to Australia, and tried to get her mother and her permission. But her mother insisted that they should come to the United States. It took years, but they eventually did get the permission, although it came almost at the same time as the paperwork to go to Australia. Still, they stuck with the United States, and eventually left the East Coast, winding up in Omaha, Nebraska. There were a number of Jewish-owned business in the United States at the time, and this helped them to get their footing and start a new life here. Eventually, she moved back to the East Coast, where she met her eventual husband.
She now resides with her husband Edward in Wanaque, New Jersey. She shared her story with the Holocaust Museum in Washington, where there are still tapes of her story available. Also, she still does these kinds of talks about her experience, trying to make sure that people remember the Holocaust, that this chapter in history is not forgotten. It was indeed a very illuminating experience. At the end, I was very glad to have taken my son and gone to this talk.
Below are some pictures from this event:
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