Conversations with Jacob Czerniak, 102 year old survivor of Auschwitz-Chelmno-Bergen Belsen concentration camps, Part I:
This conversation took place on Sunday, April 21st, 2013 with me in The Bronx, New York. Words in [ ] brackets indicate my additions/notes. I've attempted to quote Jacob as much as possible, in his direct words. Please read future updates with more of Jacob's tragic but, ultimately, triumphant story...
Jacob, as he prefers to be called, served in the Polish army from 1935-1937. He was drafted into service. One of his four brothers, two years younger, served in Jacob's regiment and battalion. However, Jacob served in company two, while his brother served in company three. His brother was later killed in war.
"I saw him the night before he was killed. They went to push out German invaders. The next night I was wounded." Jacob took shrapnel behind his ear, in his left thumb, and in his arm.
"Hitler invaded Poland September 1st, 1939."
[I wanted to quote that to illustrate the impeccability of Jacob's memory.]
"I didn't know how bad I was injured. I took the shovel," put it by my head, for cover.
"In '33 when Hitler came to power 'till '39, he was five times stronger than America. I was taken as a prisoner of war (POW), to a POW camp: Stalag, in Germany. [I need to confirm name of camp.]
I was writing letters home...I think it (camp) was in East Germany. After half a year since we came to the camp, they took the Jew soldiers, separated from the Christian soldiers...the war was still going on...
They (Nazis) took France, Belgium, Holland. They took the whole of Europe. After half a year in the camp, they released Jewish POW's, because soldiers have some right according to convention of...[war].
They released Jew soldiers. I went to Debien--my town [in Poland]--it was a ghetto. You know ghetto? Ghetto? I was, I was, a short time home. Then they took us to a slave camp. They took out young people from 16-50 and they was building a new railroad--Reichsautobahn, a new road from Frankfurt to Poland (not Frankfurt am Mein--the other Frankfurt). They think Hitler building the country for a thousand years."
[I need to find out if it was a road for automobiles or a railroad for trains.]
"We got two meals a day, in the morning to wake us up. 6:00-7:00, we was marching and work 'till 5:00-6:00, we left the work. We went home, back to the barracks, the camp. We got a soup--a bowl of soup. From there we was marching 5-6 kilometers [approx. 3-4 miles] back and forth to work. So many people died there. Terrible. From hunger, starvation, beating. They punished... very, very bad with beating. A dog had more right than we had...no right at all. They could kill you, okay. They hanged so many people."
[I need to confirm the name of this concentration camp.]
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