The personal story of Eitan Porat
1928 - 1999: from the Carpathian Mountains via Auschwitz and Bergen-Belzen to Israel.
Chapters from the book "Voice of the dead children" :
Short childhood in the Carpathians
.....Page 19:From my father I learnt to love pigeons and chickens, for which reason he often brought me birds. This was my life: I got to know all the plants, trees and birds in a radius of two or three kilometres of home.That was my childhood: I grew up more in the out doors than in school.......
Ghettoization and persecution
.....Page 21:The order came that on the 21st (or 23rd) of May 1944 we were to assemble at the train station with only a small bag of personal belonging. As we went we saw that people were already storming the ghetto and plundering every thing that we had had to leave behind (p.69/70).
At the train station we were told to hand over our gold, silver and diamonds. My father and another thirty men were stood up against a wall; my mother began to howl and weep, and her cries have accompanied me all the rest of my life:" Jews if you have anything, turn it over, otherwise they will shoot my husband!" Then, everyone there took the rings, gold and money they had on them, gave everything they had at the last moment, a few things were collected and the men were temporarily saved.
Then 90, 100 and more than 100 people were jammed into each wagon; inside there was a bit of straw and a tub for relieving ourselves(p.70). It was very hot. The doors were closed and sealed by Hungarian gendarmes; the gendarmes laughed and shouted anti-Semitic slogans.
The train pulled away from the station. After a few hours my father peeped through a small window , saw that we are not being taken to Hungary, but rather to Slovakia, and said:" that was a lie, then! We are going to Poland!". Poland, we had a foreboding, was horrible! We all become very bitter and expected the worst.
The transport lasted about two days. In our wagon there was a young woman of about twenty years, who was nine months pregnant. Her husband was not there. Unfortunately we could make no room free for her, because this was simply impossible. As a result she died in the wagon; she was the first dead person that I ever seen. Later I saw so many that I could not count them all.
The train was taking us to Auschwitz, but we didn't know that. We had never heard of this place. Later someone said:" That is another planet!" But because no one had told us about it we had no idea of what went on there.
As a young boy in Auschwitz
......page 22:Suddenly a young man ran to me and cried out:" You are eighteen years old!" I said :No I am only fifteen!" - " You are eighteen years old !" He said the same thing to other boys " You are eighteen, you are eighteen" - "No I am fifteen!" Then he gave me a powerful blow with his fist and cried out again:" You are eighteen!" Naturally I did not understand why he did that;later I could understand why - and even at the risk of his life.
I sprang out of the wagon and saw many SS men with great sheep hounds. They were all shouting, and the hounds strained on their leashes, trying to lunge at us. Everything happened very rapidly, so rapidly that I cannot describe it! We were totally shocked.
Suddenly I caught sight of my mother in a wagon with many strangers, old and sick. I saw her and immediately wanted to go to her; for I was still very attached to her. I was after all only fifteen. I cried as I saw that her wagon was rolling away . That was the last time I ever saw her. I was never to see my mother again.
.......Page 24: Then the command: " Disrobe! Disrobe!" We all took off our clothes, all our hair was shaved off, and finally we were given numbers. My number was A 7924 (cf. Czech 1989, p. 788). From this moment on I was no longer a human being, but only just a number, nothing more........The first thing I heard in the camp was:" You dirty Jew! You lousy Jew! - We will make you into soap! - You will go up the chimney!" Those were the first words which I heard in German. The Kapos cried out over and over, and among the Kapos there were also a few Jews. They cried out again and again: "You will go up in the air, you will go up in smoke!".......
Then we were issued "pyjamas", the striped inmate uniforms: a shirt, striped pants, a striped jacket and wooden shoes. I didn't receive any wooden shoes, because I wanted to keep the new shoes my father had given me at Pesach, which I was wearing when I arrived in Auschwitz. But the Kapos soon stole my new shoes, and for a time I had to go barefoot.
A slave laborer at I.G Farben
.....Page 26: ....I.G Farben was Auschwitz III, a huge chemical factory a few kilometers from Auschwitz.....where many thousands of people worked. ..... There I was assigned to the "concrete detachment", which meant twelve to sixteen hours of work a day! the Kapos with their whips were always hounding us:"Faster, faster!" They shouted continually. SO I slaved away for twelve to sixteen hours and dragged bags of cement from the wagons. Anyone who dragged his feet was immediately put to death.... ,
......Page 28: Thus we worked for a few months. Selection were, however, being made constantly, which was horrible. I only saw my father in the latrine. Every morning we all went to the latrines, simply to see one another......One day my father took his gold teeth out, in order to pay a Kapo that he would not be sent to selection. At this very moment, however, he was taken to the selection anyway. I also watched as they stripped him and loaded him onto a truck with others. We all knew that this truck went to the gas chambers and crematoria. It was the last time I ever saw my father, in the fall of 1944......The Americans bombarded Poland, and we prayed to God that they would hit Auschwitz, the gas chambers and crematoria, but unfortunately that never happened.....
Nordhausen and Bergen-Belsen
We survived in that way until the 18th of January 1945. Then the Russians neared Auschwitz! The camp was emptied, and the great death march commenced....My two brothers and I were marched off. The Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Slovakians, Bosnians and Croatians, who guarded us, made a game of it; they marched alongside us with hounds and shouted over and over :"Faster faster faster!.... There was a lot of snow on the ground and it was very hard to march....After ten days we reached Nordhausen.....I worked on an assembly line and had to screw in bolts.......
Thus I came to Bergen-Belsen. It was a very large concentration camp, but not a death camp, and also not a work camp......In Bergen-Belsen there was almost nothing more to eat, almost nothing. As well the water could not be drunk...... Three weeks long I held out, but soon I reduced to a "Muselmann", almost a skeleton. I was sixteen years old and weight less than thirty kilograms. After three weeks I was completley at the end of my strength and was only waiting for death, like all the others.
Liberation and internments on Cyprus
.....Page 37:When the British came, I felt no emotions, not even sense of joy about the liberation. We were completely passive and expected to die.......After a few days a shout rang out:"Soldiers from Palestine are here!"......That was my liberation. I survived but have asked myself thousands of times: Why did I survive? Was it worth it to survive. I have no answer and ask myself over and over: Why did I survive? Why not my brothers ? Why did I live and others not? Am I better than they? I have no answer, or yes: that I had to stay alive in order to tell about it! I cannot explain it otherwise. Why, why......
A new life in the state of Israel
My arrival in Erez Israel was something special. Our ship landed under British guard in Haifa. There we were immediately loaded into wagons, similar to what the Nazis had done. From Haifa they moved us to concentration camp Atlit near Haifa...... We were kept in concentration camp Atlit for a few months. After we were finally liberated for the last time I began to study agriculture here where I still live today.
Now I must tell anecdote about the first day on which I had money in my pocket. The "sochnut", the Jewish immigration authorities, had sent us to village near Tel-Aviv to study agriculture......At the start each received a half British pound, not much money , with which we were supposed to buy bread and milk at the nearest store. It was the first day of my life on which I had a little money in my pocket. Shortly after I started off to go shopping I came across a small Arab boy holding two pigeons in his hands. I saw the pigeons and my heart began to pound! I could not communicate with him properly, but attempted to ask him:"Maybe you would sell me your pigeons?!" I held out all my money and he looked at it. It was a lot for him.....Without hesitating I gave him the money, took the two pigeons from his hands, ran back to the camp, found my wife in our tend (at that time she was still my girlfriend)......"Are you crazy! Where is the bread and milk ?" "Tomorrow, tommorow! today I had to buy the pigeons!"......Since that day I was never again without pigeons or other birds!.......
Message of a survivor
......Page 49: I built up an aviary in memory of my father, a remnant of which still exist today. It was a very beautiful aviary, thousands of children came from all over Israel, not just Jewish, but also Arab children. I never made any distinction, never. They came from villages and schools, I collected many, many signatures.......At this point another story comes to mind which I cannot forget. In Auschwitz we had a half day free on Sundays. I met my father, we shared our bread and food on this day. Once I cried because I was so hungry; then my father gave me his portion of bread, which I wolfed down at once. Since my liberation and until today I can never forgive myself for this and many nights I have not been able to sleep. My whole life long, up until today, I have been ashamed to tell this story, which I can never forget......
Page 51: Today I do not bear a grudge against anyone. People often ask me: Aren't angry at the Germans? Why should I be? The Germans should be ashamed of themselves if they did anything wrong. Anyone who did something has to live with it, and whether someone does or does not regret it will not affect me either way. To be angry at unrepentant old Nazis will not help me at all. Anyone who is anti-Semitic will stay anti-Semitic. There is nothing we can do about it.
I was once at a large Israeli army base on Yom Hashoa, the Holocaust Memorial day; I was in Hazarim and spoke before a thousand soldiers. I told my story just as I am telling it now. I can tell it in Hebrew better than in German. I thus told my story, I told everything I had suffered. In the first row sat a young female officer, Captain Dorit, my grand daughter, who bears my mother's name. Then I told to myself:
Because of her it was worth living! It was worth staying alive for this moment!
