Walking through the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel, a few months ago I could barely contain my tears, looking at the images of one of the biggest human tragedies, but to talk to Holocaust survivor Werner Reich a couple of weeks ago and see his positive energy and humour, moved and inspired me beyond words.
I did this profile on him and in doing so realised, that the human will to overcome, is more powerful than we could ever imagine
Werner Reich was born in Germany, but moved to Yugoslavia with his family in 1933 at the age of six when his father, an engineer lost his job.
“Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941. I was thirteen then and my father had already died. My mother was an American citizen and had also won the Iron Cross from Germany for saving a bunch of German soldiers from being killed and had a citation which said that the gratitude of the fatherland will be with her forever. So she felt safe. However just as an extra precaution, she placed me with one family and my sister with another.” Werner move from one family to another, while his mother lived separately. People would start throwing garbage at him when they saw the Jewish star he wore, so Werner stayed in hiding for a year and a half. His sister was kicked out by the family she lived with because they felt it was unsafe to keep her with them. She managed to escape to Italy where she was captured and put in a concentration camp.
“I felt insecure though I did not know at that time that Croatia had opened its own concentration camp called Jasenovac. The numbers varied from 100 to 200,000 people in captivity and I have to this day never met anyone who went to that camp and came back alive.( “A report made by the new government under Tito, the National Committee of Croatia for the investigation of the crimes of the occupation forces and their collaborators, dated November 15, 1945 stated that 500,000-600,000 people were killed at the Jasenovac complex. These numbers were officially supported while Yugoslavia existed”- quoted information from Wikipedia).”
Werner says that the names of the Jews were changed in their passports-the men were given the last name Israel and women’s’ names were changed to Sarah and the letter, ”J” was added in capital letters. Meanwhile, Werner lived with the host family and his movements were very restricted. He worked with the family helping them develop films for the Partisans (The Yugoslav Partisans went under the official name of People’s Liberation Army, and were considered by many as their only hope for survival – wikipedia).
“Then one morning there was a knock at the door. The Gestapo came and arrested the family, and beat the daylights out of me.” Werner says he had no concept about the Holocaust. “I had heard the phrase “concentration camp” but did not understand what it meant. I grew up in times when children were seen and not heard and these kinds of things were never discussed before us.”
Werner was beaten and placed in a basement for a few days, then transferred to a jail on the border of Croatia and Slovenia. “The place was overflowing with fleas and soon my body was completely swollen from bites. There were three other kids there with me-two were there for robbery and another had murdered his mother.” One day as he looked out of the window, Werner saw his mother in the prison yard sweeping. “I didn’t get to speak with her and that was the last time I saw her.”
After six weeks in that prison, Werner was moved to Vienna, spending a night in a burnt synagogue and then transferred to the famous Terezin concentration camp, where many Jews lived for a couple of years before being moved to other camps. According to Werner this camp was the one used by the Nazis to fool the International Red cross as well as the Swiss and Swedish authorities whenever they came to check if the Jews were being ill-treated. “It was a show case by the Germans when they were forced by the world to prove the Jews were doing okay. So sometimes whenever the authorities came around we were given decent meals. I worked there for 9 months making baskets and brooms or working on the large railway tracks. In four years about 60,000 Jews were shipped to Terezin and from there to the feared Auschwitz concentration camp where they were put in gas chambers and killed.”
Then came a day when Werner’s name was mentioned and he was loaded into a railroad cable car with others and sent to Auschwitz Berkenau one of the three main Auschwitz camps (there were almost 40 other sub camps). “We had to constantly stand in mud and were beaten very brutally by the German criminals delegated to supervise us. We could smell the hair and human flesh burning. There were about 5000 men from ages 15-16 till 40. One day Dr Mengle came in the camp. We had to strip and run past him. If he nodded the person was singled out. He started by selecting 300 men and then narrowed it down to 95. I was among them. All the other men were sent to the gas chambers.”
Werner was then sent to Auschwitz 1-a camp for murderers and hard core criminals but he was made to work in the stables tending the horses. “I remember how horribly cold it was. We were to report for work at 4 a.m. The Nazi criminals were given uniforms and sent to the Russian front to fight, the Jews remained behind. We were given a piece of bread and put on what was the death march. We would walk for two hours, stop and then start again. If any one fell they were shot. Soon there were people dying around us rapidly. The bread they gave us was frozen. This would go on all day and at night we slept in the stables and the next morning we would start marching again. When I was in the stables I used to eat some of the sugar beet they would give the horses, to keep my strength up.”
After 2 and a half days of marching, the Jews that remained were put in open railroad cars and shipped to Austria. There was nothing to eat for five days, and people were dying of cold and hunger. Werner and others were dropped off at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria and put in showers, where they collapsed. Werner’s frostbitten toes were amputated by a doctor who covered the stubs with pieces of paper as there were no bandages. There was no food; the prisoners were surrounded by Russians on one side and the Americans on the other.
“Eventually we were given pieces of moldy bread. I once stayed next to a dead man for three days so I could get his share of food. There were times we lay near dead people and cracked jokes in different languages which I translated. It seems bizarre but we had to keep our spirits up and our faith that we will live.” Finally the Americans came and freed the prisoners. They were not expecting to see anyone alive and fed the prisoners from the military ration.” I got a can of chewing tobacco and ate it all not knowing what it was.” Werner got the dreaded diarrhea that had killed so many Jews earlier and was very ill. He was given a certificate and told he was free to leave the camp. “There was no fan fare, no feeling of ah I’m free at last. I was sick. I hitchhiked my way to Yugoslavia. No body said oh let me give you a soft bed; in fact I couldn’t sleep on the mattress they gave me. It was too soft. I ended up sleeping on the carpet for a week.” Werner ended up living in a communist state for 2 years before migrating to Great Britain where he had an uncle. His sister was liberated by the British army a year after her capture and imprisonment in the detention camp.She moved to America and they did meet again.
For Werner freedom came but with it the realization that he had to transition to adulthood very quickly. “I had absolutely no teenage years. From 13 to 15 I was in hiding, from 15 to 17 I was in concentration camps and from 17 to 19 in a communist state. At 19 I come to England and am told essentially-welcome to the world, you are now an adult and you better know how to make a living otherwise you are going to starve to death. I had had no education and I had to learn a trade to survive.” For ten years Werner worked during the day and went to school at night and eventually became an industrial engineer working for the food industry.
When asked what it that kept him optimistic was, he says “When you are young you have an extremely positive and optimistic attitude. You never think at 15 or 16 or even at 20 that you are not going to make it. You feel pretty invincible. That is why we have so many young people stupid enough to drive their cars at such high speeds. Not every one was like me though and many people threw themselves against the electric wires and died. There really was no way to escape with dogs, guns, barbed electric wires surrounding us and even if you managed how far would you go in a prison uniform and a number and no money?”
There were attempted escapes but people were eventually found out, tortured and killed. “Along with them the rest of us were punished to deter us. While the search was going on the rest of us had to do non stop push ups in the mud. One guy on being found, was put in a barrel, nailed from outside and then thrown down a hill.”
Werner move to America in 1955 and has been a popular speaker in schools and colleges. He says initially he would get questions like “What did you do over a weekend in the camp. Did you have an exercise room? “It was my wife who reminded me that young children of today, have no understanding of a concentration camp and were confusing it with a summer camp. I started using about 40 overheads but instead of showing them gory pictures of bodies, I would show them pictures of the inside of a toilet, a picture of a box of wedding rings or pictures of women with their heads shorn off. That made a greater impact I think without horrifying them.”
Werner also ended up meeting some people who were in the camps at the same time as him and read of a magician who had passed away. “I realized he was the same man who had taught me magic tricks in Auschwitz.”
What is that has kept him so cheerful and not scarred by his past?
“I think Jews, because they have been persecuted for thousands of years, have developed a strong sense of optimism and humor in the way they look at life. I also think we have a certain degree of forgiveness as well. I have always believed that you have to remain optimistic to be healthy and productive.”