Check It Out: ’Never again’ is more than a slogan
By Joan Janzen
“Never again” was a slogan derived after the Holocaust. This year marks the 80th anniversary of that tragic event, and April 23 marked Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Despite the slogan, the Anti-Defamation League has been actively tracking a rise in anti-Semitic cases around the globe. There’s been a rising worldwide trend of vandalism, harassment and assault during the last four years.
This resurgence echoes the painful past of survivors who often didn’t share their memories with their children. The next generation never knew why they didn’t have grandparents, aunts or uncles.
A documentary entitled ‘The Littlest Heroes from the Warsaw Ghetto’ tells the story of eighteen children aged six to fifteen, who managed to survive without their families in the heart of the German quarter near an SS barracks. A boy named Jack was one of the surviving children who chose to live in Canada after the war was over.
On September 27, 1939, the Germans invaded Warsaw. The persecution of Jews began, including arrests, extortion, violence, and an obligation for those 12 and older to wear an armband. The Reich decided to isolate the population into three zones: Polish, German and the Jewish zone, which became the site of the ghetto.
On October 20, 1940, Jews were ordered to move behind newly constructed walls, where German workshops were set up for free labour. The population consisted of 360,000 adults and 100,000 children who became the breadwinners in their families.
There were openings in the walls for water and sewer, just big enough for children to escape in order to sell or barter on the street and bring back bread. However they had to return before the designated curfew.
Jack recalled, “I was eight years old, wearing wooden shoes in -20 degree temperatures, selling 100 cigarettes. I earned a small loaf of bread and I was so proud to take it home.”
In April 1943, it was decided to liquidate the ghetto; there were no Jews left in Warsaw. However, a few children managed to escape, hiding in town or in the forest. Jack was one of those who managed to escape.
“The resistance youth movement built a bunker hidden underground; I stayed with them,” he explained. Ninety people lived in three rooms until it was discovered, and everybody decided to move out. Jack had decided to stay since he thought he would die anyway.
“But then a friend said maybe on the outside we have a chance. I owe my life to him,” he said. “We got out, and I took a run; nobody shot me. I lay down between two bodies and played dead. It’s hard to talk about,” he said. When everyone was gone he went back to the bunker, sat down and cried. He was just 12 years old and all alone.
But one of the young resistance fighters tapped him on the shoulder and helped him out. They hid in the sewers until that too was no longer a safe hiding place.
The children banded together, surviving in plain sight, sleeping in ruins, and earning bread by singing and selling cigarettes.
“A cigarette was more important to the soldiers than bread,” he said. And there were plenty of soldiers in the square where they lived - German, Polish and Hungarian soldiers. “You couldn’t show fear,” he said. “If you got caught, they would shoot you.”
The boys also sold fake cigarettes made from all kinds of leaves. The leaves were dried, ironed flat, rolled and put in artificial boxes. “But you made sure you sold the cigarettes and moved on quickly before they caught you,” he said.
To avoid being captured, the children adopted a strategy. They changed locations as often as possible, scattering all across town. They decided to forget their Jewish identity. Their extraordinary instincts resulted in the use of nicknames, invented last names, and imaginary families. They spoke Polish instead of Yiddish and invented reasons to justify their presence on the streets.
They spent the winter of 1943 sleeping in ruined buildings and bushes, on the lookout at all times. It was a climate of terror.
“One day, somebody told me my little brother was picked up by two policemen. Somebody sold him out for a reward of three kilos of sugar. He was the only one in my family who was left,” he recalled tearfully.
Despite the heartache, he had to continue to survive. The band of kids realized they could make money by selling newspapers.
The Polish people had their radios confiscated, and the Germans broadcast their news on loudspeakers, so people read newspapers. It was good for the children. Papers came out at a precise time, and trade was brisk. “I would sell them in no time,” Jack recalled.
On October 6, 1943 the order was given to exterminate all the Jewish children. They were hunted mercilessly and a number of the boys they knew were caught.
In 1944 someone from the resistance movement discovered the band of boys and couldn’t believe they had survived. He gave them a will to live and helped them obtain fake papers and school cards. “I still have my identity cards,” Jack said. At that time, Berlin was bombed, and by January 1945, the liberation was underway.
The Red Cross took charge of the children, who realized they had a future and the world was open to them at last. “After I was liberated, it was my best day and my worst day,” he said. “I’m free, but where do I go? I’ve got nobody to go to.”
Jack had escaped from the ghetto when he was 12 years old and lived on the streets until he was liberated when he was 14. He chose to move to Canada where he eventually became a furrier.
The words “never again” are more than a slogan for survivors like Jack and his children and grandchildren. It’s a promise for a future, a hope and freedom.