Inge Auerbacher Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1 - Beginnings

  CHAPTER 2 - The Roots of Hatred

  CHAPTER 3 - Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power

  CHAPTER 4 - The Stages of Destruction

  CHAPTER 5 - My Story

  CHAPTER 6 - A Place of Darkness

  CHAPTER 7 - Liberation

  CHAPTER 8 - Afterthoughts

  Suggested Further Readings

  Acknowledgements

  Nightmare

  I remember as a little girl waiting impatiently for my birthday to arrive. My childhood birthdays were always very happy and typical. That is, until my eighth birthday. I was seven years old in 1942, when I was sent with my parents to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. My next three birthdays marked the years of a nightmare.

  Of fifteen thousand children imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp between 1941 and 1945, about one hundred survived. I am one of them. At least one and a half million children were killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

  The reason most of those children died is that they were Jewish.

  OTHER PUFFIN BOOKS ABOUT

  WORLD WAR II

  I AM A STAR

  Only “special” children wear a star,

  I am noticed from near and far.

  They have placed a mark over my heart,

  I’ll wear it proudly from the start.

  A star’s a reward, so I’ve been told,

  This custom passed on from days of old.

  I know all that the star is revealing,

  But, I’ll try to have a better feeling.

  I am a star!

  Papa told me to avoid trouble,

  Come home from school on the double.

  To me the star’s yellow is gold,

  I’ll try not to act so bold.

  I stand tall and proud,

  My voice shouts in silence loud:

  “I am a real person still,

  No one can break my spirit or will!”

  I am a star!

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group,

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 90 Eglincon Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  First published in the United States of America by Prentice-Hall Books for Young Readers,

  a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1986

  Published by Puffin Books, 1993, 2006

  Copyright © Inge Auerbacher, 1986

  Illustrations copyright © Israel Bernbaum, 1986

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Auerbacher, Inge, 1934-

  I am a star: child of the Holocaust / Inge Auerbacher, with illustrations by Israel Bernbaum.

  p. cm.

  Summary: The author’s reminiscences about her childhood in Germany,

  years of which were spent in a Nazi concentration camp.

  Includes several of her original poems.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-12800-8

  1. Jews—Germany—Kippenheim—Persecutions—Juvenile literature.

  2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939—1945)—Germany—Kippenheim—Personal narratives—Juvenile literature.

  3. Terezin (Czechoslovakia: Concentration camp)—Juvenile literature.

  4 Auerbacher, Inge, 1934-—Juvenile literature. 5. Kippenheim (Germany)—Ethnic relations—

  Juvenile literature, [1. Auerbacher, Inge, 1934- 2. Jews—Germany—Biography.

  3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)—Germany—Kippenheim—Personal narratives.

  4. Terezin (Czechoslovakia: Concentration camp). 5. Concentration camps—Czechoslovakia.]

  I. Bernbaum, Israel, ill. II Title.

  [DS135.G4K553 1993] 940.53’18’094371-dc20 92-31444

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any

  responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  I dedicate this book to

  My parents, the guardian angels, who in the presence of great odds tried to shelter me from the blows, ease my pain, and still my hunger and fears.

  Ruth and Tommy and the more than one and a half million Jewish children of the Holocaust, who now are stars of the night.

  All the children of the universe, who are the new stars that shine brightly today and illuminate the world with their love.

  CHAPTER 1

  Beginnings

  I remember as a little girl waiting impatiently for my birthday to arrive. My childhood birthdays were always very happy and special. That is, until my eighth birthday. I was seven years old in 1942 when I was sent with my parents to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. My next three birthdays marked the years of a nightmare.

  Of fifteen thousand children imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia between 1941 and 1945, about one hundred survived. I am one of them. At least one and a half million children were killed in the Nazi Holocaust. The reason most of those children died is that they were Jewish.

  Why should one remember these dreadful events? The death of one innocent child is a catastrophe; the loss of such numbers is unimaginable. Their silent voices must be heard today. This is why I feel compelled to trace the historical events that made this great evil possible and to tell my own story.

  The fortress walls of Quebec City.

  The fortress walls at Terezin.

  My hometown—Kippenheim.

  Many years have passed since these events. Sometimes particular things such as a uniform, high black boots, or the sound of a whistle and train, shock me into the past. On a vacation in Quebec City, Canada, the sight of the old fortification brought the memories flooding back. The high red brick walls seemed to close in on me. I felt frightened. It was as if I were back there in Czechoslovakia. Yesterday became today. This was not Quebec City anymore; it became Terezin. It brought back to me the time when the nightmare began.

  I was born on December 31, 1934, in Kippenheim, a village in southern Germany. Kippenheim is situated at the foot of the Black Forest, close to the borders of France and Switzerland. The population of around two thousand was composed of about sixty Jewish families and approximately four hundred and fifty Catholic and Protestant families. My family belonged to the middle class. Papa had his own textile business. Jews had lived in Kippenheim for at least two hundred years. I was the last Jewish child born there. The synagogue was the center of our lives. I remember well the interior of our beautiful synagogue. The bright chandeliers always caught my eye. It was very strange and special for me to hear Cantor Schwab chant our Hebrew prayers. Most of the Jewish people of Kippenheim attended the Sabbath service on Saturday morning. There was always a special festive spirit during our holidays, and the worshipers came dressed in their best clothes. It was common practice to visit one another after the synagogue service and to invite a stranger into one’s home for dinner.

  The synagogue in Kippenheim before its destruction.

  The interior of the synagogue with cantor Schwab.

  There was a very strong bond among the Jewish people of Kippenheim. We felt as if we were all members of an extended family. Many of the Christians of Kippenheim were farmers, while the Jews owned small shops and sold textiles or cattle. We were a frie
ndly community, and both Christians and Jews assumed responsibility for their German citizenship, in peace and in war. Papa was a soldier in the German army in World War I. He was only eighteen years old when an enemy bullet tore through his right shoulder and wounded him badly. He was decorated with the Iron Cross for his bravery in the service of his country.

  I was the only child of Berthold and Regina Auerbacher. Papa’s family had settled in Kippenheim some two hundred years earlier.

  Papa as a German soldier in World War I.

  Inge, grandparents and parents in Kippenheim, 1938.

  Our house in Kippenheim (middle).

  Most of his family made their living by buying and selling cattle, an occupation practiced by many Jews in southern Germany. Papa’s grandfather bought the large house in which Papa and I were born. Many Auerbachers lived in Kippenheim, and all of us were related. Mama was born in Jebenhausen, an even smaller village some two hundred miles away. Her father was also a cattle dealer. Papa’s parents had died a few years before his marriage to Mama. Three of Papa’s married sisters lived in different parts of Germany, and the fourth lived in France. Two sisters had two children each. They were my older cousins Hella, Werner, Heinz, and Lore. Mama’s only brother was married and lived a few hours away.

  NOVEMBER 9, 1938

  It was a cold morning in November,

  A day that I will always remember.

  We were awakened from a peaceful sleep,

  The flames of terror had begun to leap.

  “Open the door, police, let us in;

  Don’t run or hide, you cannot win!”

  We had avoided the truth and closed our eyes,

  The knock on our door had caught us by surprise.

  “All Jewish men are now under arrest,

  Report to City Hall and join the rest!”

  Grandpa attended services each day,

  Now, from his prayers he was torn away.

  The train rolled on toward incarceration,

  Dachau, barrack number sixteen, their destination.

  ARBEIT MACHT FREI1 was their only greeting,

  To hide the reality they would be meeting.

  They wore blue and white striped uniform,

  Beaten and hungry they faced the storm.

  In the village only women and children were left,

  Followed by rampage of tremendous ruin and theft.

  Our temple became the prime target of hate,

  Mama saw tablets ripped from their normal state.

  The Commandments lay broken on the ground,

  Heralding darkness with their crushing sound.

  Broken glass crashing, echoed all day,

  Our house was no place for us to stay.

  In our living room, a stone grazed my head,

  We ran for shelter in a backyard shed.

  The volcano had exploded and begun to spew,

  In its path lay the destiny of every Jew.

  Berthold Auerbach (Moses Baruch Auerbacher), a member of my family, was one of Germany’s most beloved folk writers. He lived from 1812 to 1882, and his stories of the Black Forest made him world famous. Berthold Auerbach was born and lived in Nordstetten in southern Germany, which was where my family came from.

  We were a happy community in Kippenheim until the sound of marching boots shattered the peace of our tranquil village. A massive riot took place on November 9, 1938. That event is called Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass. It marked the beginning of terror that would continue for seven years. I was then only three years old.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Roots of Hatred

  Anti-Semitism, or hatred of the Jews, has existed throughout the history of the Jewish religion. Many people disliked Jews because they had different customs and because they refused to become Christians. During the second half of the nineteenth century, however, a new type of anti-Semitism began to emerge. Some people began to say that Jews belonged to a different race and that Jews were racially inferior to Christians.

  But who are the Jews and why did they inspire such feelings? Their origins can be traced to the patriarch Abraham, the father of a Semitic tribe of shepherds and farmers, whose revolutionary belief in the existence of one supreme God became the foundation of three great religions. The history of the Jews goes back almost four thousand years to their arrival in the biblical land of Canaan that was later called Palestine and today is called Israel. The Ten Commandments given by God to Moses serve as the basis for their religion, Judaism. Today there are people who follow this religion in almost every country in the world.

  The Jews arrived in Germany about sixteen hundred years ago, around A.D. 400. They came from the Mediterranean region as traders following the Roman armies. From about A.D. 1096, during the time of the Crusades, which were Christian military expeditions that set out to recover the Holy Land from the Moslems, life became very difficult for the Jews living in Germany and other parts of Central Europe. The Crusaders offered the Jews the choice of baptism or death. “To sanctify the Name of God,” they slaughtered thousands of Jews who refused to betray their religion. The church branded the Jews “Christ-killers,” and Jews were thought of as evil people.

  During most of the Middle Ages, the only occupations open to Jews were small trade and moneylending. The church regarded moneylending as sinful and did not permit Christians to charge interest. In this way, Jews were also associated with an evil practice.

  In the Middle Ages, the Jews in Germany and other parts of Europe were sometimes forced to live in a restricted part of the city called a ghetto. In some places the Jews were isolated from other people behind walls. In the ghetto the streets were narrow and dark. Many people were poor and lived in overcrowded, crumbling houses, although some people became successful merchants. Everyone in the ghetto was forced to pay high taxes. No Jew was allowed to leave the ghetto from nightfall to daybreak and on Christian holidays. A locked gate sealed them off from the outside world. Harsh penalties were enforced if Jews were found outside of the walls during the curfew.

  Conditions grew even worse when the Black Death struck. History records several outbreaks of this widespread plague and there was a particular epidemic that killed thousands of people in Europe between 1348 and 1351. The terrible sickness was blamed on the Jews, whom the Christians accused of practicing black magic and of poisoning the wells from which the Christians drew their water. Many Jews were expelled and fled eastward from Germany to Poland, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Russia, where they established thriving Jewish communities. They were always a small minority in the total population in any country, however, and were regarded as outsiders because of their different religion and customs.

  For those Jews who remained in Germany, conditions finally improved. In the early 1800s they were permitted to leave the ghetto, and they were gradually accepted by some of the Christian community. During the 1870s, they became full and equal citizens under the law throughout the country. They felt part of the German family, differing from other Germans only in religion.

  A large number of Germans, however, never fully accepted their Jewish fellow citizens because of their different traditions. Jews were still not permitted to reach the highest ranks in law, government, the armed forces, or the universities. At the same time, a new wave of hostility based on a racist theory emerged in many parts of Europe. People began to believe that the Jews were a separate, inferior race. Jews tried hard to become accepted by society, some of them proudly proclaiming that their religion was secondary to their nationality.

  At first, in Germany as elsewhere, most people did not believe this racist anti-Semitism. This attitude changed however as Germans looked for a scapegoat after their disastrous defeat at the end of World War I in 1918. During the war both Jews and non-Jews had fought side by side and died together for their fatherland, but with Germany’s spiritual and economic defeat, this period of unity and patriotism ended. Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and t
o admit that she had started the war. She had to accept the severe measures that the Allies imposed, and to drastically reduce the army. She also had to pay large amounts of money to compensate for the suffering caused during the war, and to reduce the German Empire. A new democratic government was elected and the Weimar Republic was formed.

  The Weimar government was troubled from the start. The postwar years saw inflation, unemployment and finally, in 1929, a world depression. Jewish people were blamed for the ailing economy and extremists called for them to be pushed out of German society. Racist anti-Semitism gathered support. In this climate of hostility and depression the stage was set for Hitler’s Nazi party to emerge.

  CHAPTER 3

  Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power

  Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau, a village in Austria near the German border. He was not a gifted student, and he failed as an artist. In 1907, he moved to Vienna where his political aspirations were born. At the age of twenty-four he arrived in Munich, Germany, and soon was in the midst of World War I. He volunteered for service in the German army, fought in many battles and reached the rank of corporal.

  In 1919 in Munich, Hitler joined a small nationalist group called the German Workers’ Party, which changed its name a year later to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. This group later became known as the Nazi Party.