The Holocaust Survivor - from Hell to Paradise

Another Monday morning
at my busy bustling school
scraping chairs, organised chaos
we all shuffle into the hall

Three hundred teens,
lively and well pleased
that our planned lesson is off:
for we have a Visitor.....
and his story we must hear
(well, anything’s better than double maths)

Our babbling voices are soon hushed
and our babbling minds are hushed too
as our visitor began his talk....
with authentic voice and modest tones

His Polish name was long
but to us he was just  ‘Bob’ -
he told his story plain and clear
no frills, no chills, just as it came
(his mind recalling pictured details....)
no trace of bitterness

In quiet, rural Orzorkow
Invasion came.  
Hunters came, hunting....
sniffing out their prey,
hunting the Jews.

Hunting meant selection.
Selection meant segregation.
Segregation meant separation.

In an upper room, all packed together
one simple stamp – “A” or “B”
“A” meant Life
“B” meant Death

Bob was “A”
his sister was “A”
(his family were “B” - 
like lambs to the slaughter,
despised and rejected
- forever gone)

chaos ensued from the upper room
babies wrenched from mothers
thrown into lorries below
(his voice never wavered)

mothers screaming......weeping -
Madonnas without a child:
Rachel MiVakoh Al BaNehar
- Rachel weeping for her children (again).

Devoted young siblings
were marched, and marched, and marched
.....marched to  Lodz
to Lodz ghetto

Not yet of thirteen summers
his Bar mitzvah frozen in time
the ghetto has no simcha
even though musicians played...

Bob called the ghetto
“The Killing Factory”
and named it Hell on earth

Bob's young eyes -
which matched mine in years -
saw Death and Cruelty

The searing pains of Starvation,
bodies strewn in the street,
women fighting over dried crusts

...then illness seized Bob
six days of darkness – unconscious he lay
with life hanging on a thread...

Disease invaded his body
no comforter, no help, just a bed -
and a scar of flesh on his hip

Sisterly love was powerless
....for she had to work....
(and hope and pray)
ghetto life offered no compassion

but Bob lived (a born survivor) -
what perspective to bestow?
This was his First Miracle.

Strength regained, ghetto-work called
- twelve hundred days held them captive
in ghetto-limbo
until the Trains.....

the Trains came and took them
to Birkenau.
More selections.
(Goodbye sister – forever Good Bye)

with two dozen boys
Bob was Selected to Live.
Unclothed, stripped, and exposed
for bodily audit:
there was nothing to shroud
their circumcised nakedness
....or that gaping hole in Bob’s flesh

yet  naked cruelty exposes
kindness and humanity
(and a Second Miracle)
as the boys encircle to hide
Bob’s meningital cicatrix.

Unnoticed, he got by – Bob lived
but became a Number:
he was alive - but robbed

......robbed of his Identity -
B7650 he became
as self-identity diluted
into a Tattoo

weeks turned into months
and months into years
another displacement ensued -
a death march to Rhemsdorf
(worse than Hell)

....and sense of being

ceased.

Death-drive 
was desiring, yearning, craving, lusting
for allied bombs  to fall and kill him.

But none came.
Sick, he lay down to die -
Firmly.  Resolutely.  Finally.

Yet a comrade would not agree
to Bob's “laziness” -
“Get up!  Get up!”
was his fellow-prisoner’s plea -
this was Miracle number Three

So Bob got up....
up they got together
to work – again
(“Arbeit Macht Frei”
the Lie)

and at the end of slave’s day
they return to find
death in the camp
of those unable to work

Bob’s comrade
had saved his life
but Bob never did find out why.....

Political tables were turning -
Hitler’s destruction
imploded and destroyed him

.....forcing another march
- where to now?
(do you smell that gas?)

nearly three thousands souls
went marching,
marching to Thereisendstadt.
Cold. Ice. Snow. Food?
(they ate the snow)

less than a hundred survived -
Bob did.  Miracle number Four:
plus the Russians.....and the end of War.

And fair England was the nurse
who suckled these sickly boys
with life-giving milk -
the milk of kindness, nurture
and patience....
.....for The Boys were wild
war-wild and weary,
but English kindness tamed them
and returned to them their gift of identity

for Bob it was Windermere
that Lake District gem -
though wild itself with wind and moor
it brought wild Bob back to life:
Bob named it as his Paradise

Bob spoke of his faith
(which many had lost)
he longed for spiritual direction
to Gateshead he headed -
a Schul was there,
to learn his Torah and Jewish education

Bob learnt a trade
working with his hands -
upholstery he chose:
making new the old
restoring and rebuilding.

Yet kindness itself was not enough
for tears would not come -
Time itself was needed
to tease out the bitter-salt waters
to grieve and mourn
for family he would never see again.

Bob’s heart was parched
it thirsted and pined for belonging -
so a Fifth Miracle was birthed:
a Bride he soon found
(she too a  Survivor -
a jewel preserved
by nuns in a Convent)

Bob and Marie wed
united as One under the Chuppah -
their love for each other
rebuilt Family -
with children
and grandchildren
and great grandchildren.....

and now: joy of joys –
simcha of simchas -
a Bar mitzvah Bob too did have:
on reaching three score years and ten
- plus thirteen more -
at 83, Bob became a Son of the Law....

At the end of his talk
Bob asked for questions
he encouraged us:
oh, there were so many
(too many to list)....
yet one from a Muslim girl
was pertinent:
she was in minority
but brave and bold with hijab
she asked a Question with integrity:
"Don't you think it is ironic"
she asked modestly
"after all you have been through
that there is such unrest and distress
in the Middle East?"

we were all ears to hear
how Bob our friend would respond
but his gentleness shone through
and his answer came quick and strong:

"all a man wants" he said
"is to provide for his family
a job, some money, to go to work every day
everyone has a right to that
whether Israeli or Palestinian -
No-one should be a pawn"

his soft answer turned away confusion
later evidenced by the Questioner
signing her autograph
on Bob's "Thank You" card
"with love from Yasmin xxx"

But everyone asked to see
the tattoo
.....he willingly rolled up his sleeve
(a closer look many of us later took)

we wondered why he kept it -
did he not want it erased?
“It’s evidence!” Bob said -
a  keepsake of atrocities
a reminder
which no Denier can deny

.....yet humour is there too
as Bob recounted deadpan:
the tattoo number matched the PIN
of his wife’s credit card.....

“If you ever forget your PIN"
Bob told her
"just look up my arm” 
(we all laughed.....)

After the epic recounting,
and an Olive Tree planted in our school grounds
it was plain to see
that  Hitler’s megalith extermination plan
could never exterminate
the life force of the human spirit -
or the secret of Miracles......

©  Sonya Katasheva  2012

Images:  © Sonya Katasheva  2012 

Author’s Notes:  This freewrite is based on the true story of Holocaust Survivor Berek ‘Bob’ Obuchowski.  I am very grateful to Marthe de Ferrer for her excellent summary of Bob’s story on her Blog which can be viewed here:  http://marthemuses.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/lessons-from-auschwitz-part-1-berek.html    I have also added my own recollections of Bob’s story.  I have met Bob and his wife Marie several times and have heard their stories which they have told in several schools local to where I live.

Some notes about Jewish terminology:

Bar mitzvah – when a Jewish boy reaches 13 he becomes a “son of the law” (Bob could not have his Bar mitzvah due to the extremities of ghetto life, but when a Jewish man reaches 83 (70 plus the “13”) he is entitled to a “second Bar mitzvah” and joyfully Bob reached 83 in 2012 and enjoyed his Bar mitzvah at last.

simcha  - a Hebrew word meaning “gladness” or “joy”

shul – synagogue

Chuppah – a canopy under which a Jewish couple get married

Other notes:  “Rachel weeping for her children” – a reference to Jeremiah 31:15 sung often in synagogues even today “Rachel MiVakoh Al BaNehah” (and quoted in the New Testament when the baby boys under two years of age were slaughtered at the birth of Christ)

“Arbeit Macht Frei”  - German words meaning “work makes you free”  and these words were placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the World War II, including Auschwitz.