Excerpt
Part I
Chapter One
From Darkness into Light
Hannah was three years old when everything that was hers in her short life was taken from her. Even her identity. For many years she didn't know her real name. Only the number 3445 tattooed on her tiny left arm distinguished her from #3444 and #3446. She couldn't read those peculiar markings nor could she understand the strange (German) words barked at her by grown-up bullies, dressed alike and carrying guns.
Hannah was the name given to her at birth. It sounded to Jewish in Germany of the 1930s, and so it was exchanged by her family for a more acceptable, safer, Teutonic name. That accommodation did not spare her or her family from the fate that awaited them delivered by their own countrymen determined to exterminate every Hannah, Aaron, and Rebecca from the face of the earth.
Our Hannah was born in Mainz-on-the-Rhine in 1938 while her parents were attending a medical conference there. Both parents were physicians in Berlin, prosperous and respected members of their community. They each had emigrated from St. Petersburg as children in 1914 when the situation for Jews in Russia had become "uncomfortable". From 1933-38 Jews were leaving Germany for the same reasons and were officially urged to do so. Hannah's family, however, did not want to go through resettlement again. It was a move not to be taken lightly - finding a country that would give them refuge, leaving their property and livelihood behind, and essentially starting over. Although the situation for Jews in Germany was becoming increasingly dangerous, Hannah's parents counted on their usefulness as physicians to exempt them from serious persecution. Logic would suggest that to be a reasonable conclusion. But these were not reasonable times. By the time the situation became obviously critical, it was too late.
Hannah's paternal grandparents, also physicians, lived close by; the two families' houses were separated by a common garden. Both sets of grandparents had been friends in St. Petersburg, had emigrated to Germany together, and originally lived next door to each other. Hannah's maternal grandparents died with Hannah's mother was about eighteen years old.
I don't know what they died of or if they are buried in Berlin. I never could find out. Then my dad married my mother. That was probably the easiest way, as they grew up together.
This information was acquired after the war from civil records and from later visits to Hannah's old neighborhood in Berlin. It is the extent of genealogical affirmation about her family. Holocaust memoirs often begin with pages of identification and descriptions of family members, relationships, occupations, and accomplishments - portraying an idyllic pre-war family life and often illustrated with photographs. Hannah has none of that.
She describes the night in 1971 when her world changed.
I heard something very hard and loud banging on the door. It sounded like someone kicking the door in. They were soldiers with guns, shouting and screaming. I was crying. I wanted to take my teddy bear along, but they wouldn't allow that. The next thing I know is we were in the box car (presumably going to Dachau, about seven hours from Berlin). I remember that is smelled terrible, people all over, some lying down. At the time I didn't know they were dead. I had to throw up all the time, no bathroom and terrible smell.
Descriptions by other Holocaust survivors who were transported to the camps in this way reveal these same conditions. The cars were jam-packed, standing room only, cold or suffocatingly hot, no food or water, no privacy or facilities for natural elimination processes - for hours and hours, even days. The anxiety from uncertainty must have been as excruciating as the physical discomfort.
I don't remember if it was my mother who held me those seven hours; I suppose it was. When we got to the camp we were separated, and there was no one to hold on to anymore.
