Avner's Story
We were citizens of Germany for a long time. We lived in a small town – Gilenburg – in a rural area. The nearest city in our region was Alenstein.My mother's name was Vera and my father, Girmand. My father owned quite a large store that sold mainly building and agricultural equipment. Both my parents worked in the store.
My father died when I was a one-month-old baby. My mother went back to live with her brothers and ran the house; her brothers were unmarried, and worked in their store during the day. There were not many Jews in our town. Life was quite normal; news of events in the big cities took a long time to get to the smaller towns.
Signs of anti-Semitism began with people shouting "Jew" at us, and the posting up of an anti-Semitic wall newspaper (called "That Which Goes Forward"). The Gestapo, the secret police, visited our store several times, and my uncle had to report to them every week.
We had a non-Jewish nanny. When the Nurenburg Laws were passed, Christians were no longer allowed to work for Jews, and our nanny had to leave.
People used to call out things like: "If Jewish blood is spilt with our knives, we rejoice" or "When a Jew dies, Germany is revived." I was jealous of the Christian children and their lives. Sometimes they played with me, but they often hit me.
At age 6, I had to go to school, but it was dangerous. My mother asked for a postponement and we got one for a year. At age 7, I went to a children's home in the big city of Kleingart (Klinsburg). When I was there, the events of Kristallnaght took place – in 1938 – and this was very traumatic for me. One night, we woke up to shouts of "Fire" and discovered that the children's home, the school and the synagogue (which were all in the same complex) had been set on fire. We were all told to get out without any personal belongings. Nobody called the fire brigade, and people shouted anti-Semitic remarks at us. It was cold and very frightening.
Leaders of the Youth Party took the children immediately to their homes, where they slept that night. The next day, they took us to a rich Jewish woman who lived in the suburbs near Klinsburg. The woman called my mother, who came to fetch me. All my possessions were burnt in the fire on Kristalnaght. It was difficult to buy new clothes because Jews were not allowed into most stores; however, with my mother's looks – she had blond hair – we managed.
We moved to another city together with my mother's brothers, after they were forced to sell the store for very little money. The family's wealth had disappeared. Jews were left without anything; even the money in their bank accounts was taken.
My uncles were taken to Buchenwald concentration camp, and my mother and I were left in a rented apartment. We didn't even have free access to food – we had special coupons and only got 10 percent of what Christians would get.
Because of the situation, my mother decided to send me to a place in Holland, together with other children (the children's transport). There I met up with some of the children who were with me in the children's home. We were treated well there: we had good food, and they tried to give us what children need, but it was very hard without one's family.
After a month in the concentration camp, my uncles were released because they had been officers in the German army during World War I. They planned to get out of Germany. They heard that countries in South America – Bolivia and Paraguay – were accepting Jews. They managed to get a visa and took with them 10 Marks (3 dollars) and a few personal belongings because they were not allowed to bring valuable things and money. When they arrived in South America, they began working and tried to get a visa for my mother and her sister. When the visa came through, my mother refused to travel without me. She went to the Gestapo to get them to allow me to come back to Germany; they let me come back for 15 days.
The nun at the children's home traveled with me to the border; from there I continued on my own. My mother waited for me in Breslau, and from there we went to Munich on an army train together with other Jews. The journey took several days. Some officers invited my mother and me to their carriage, instead of being with the other Jewish travelers, because she knew how to sing well and had Aryan looks. She agreed because they had a lot of food.
Later, we traveled to Italy and then went by ship to Chile. There we reunited with my mother's brothers, and stayed with them for four months, until my mother died. (She died during a gall bladder operation from a blocked artery.) My uncle sent me to a children's home in Bolivia, where I stayed from aged 9 to 14. It was important for me to study; I studied at high school and got a scholarship as I was a good student. I belonged to the Scouts (not Jewish youth movement) and felt very proud. Life was quite good in South America. There, they hardly taunted us; if they did, we fought back. There we didn't feel that different, but we still kept our Jewish traditions (festivals, synagogue).
We had no contact with my father's family. We understand that they were sent to Theresienstadt, and from there to Auschwitz. My mother's sister was also sent there or to Birkenau.
In 1949, after the war, I decided to go to Israel. My uncle advised me not to, but at this time I was a member of Maccabi and we were Zionistic. I and a small group of friends wanted to immigrate to Israel.
I arrived in Israel in August 1949, and stayed a few days in immigrant housing. Shortly after, I was taken into the army; it took me quite a while to get used to army life. I was stationed in Zerifin, and worked with another three new immigrants from Morocco and other places in north Africa. We had difficulty understanding each other because of the language and cultural differences. I did an officers' course in the Carmel and signed on in the permanent force.
After finishing the army, I lived for some time on Kibbutz Dovrat, but I was not suited to kibbutz life. I then worked as a replacement for moshavniks, and went from moshav to moshav, earning very little money. Life was not easy.
One day, I was invited to a party in Tel Aviv. There, I saw a girl I liked, and we went for a walk, all the way to Rehovot. It was late and we didn't have any money, so we slept in a forest. The following day, we ate oranges in the orchard. We got to know each other, became close and got married. My wife Ruti was a laboratory assistant, and we didn't have much money. We moved to a moshav and settled down. We then moved to Bnei Brak where we rented a small apartment, and there my daughter was born. I found work as a porter. Gradually we made money; I got compensation money from Germany. We moved to a house in Rishon. Ruti, my wife, got breast cancer and died. This was after six years of marriage. I never met up with any of the people I had known before and during the war and I don't know whatever happened to them.
I have never returned to Germany and don't plan to go back. I now live with my partner, Haya, near my daughter and her family.
posted by Avner Levin @ 6:48 AM
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