Biography of Avraham Levy

Before the war:

Avraham was born in 1929 in Krosniewice, Poland. When he was older his family and him moved to Zychlin, where his parents owned a textile trade house. Avraham and his family lived there until 1939 , when the Germans invaded Poland.

Krosniewice at older times.

The Zychlin Ghetto

As told by Avraham:"When the Polish people saw the airplanes they yelled like they were their planes, then got bombed by them. The Polish people didn’t understand that their untechnological weapons were worthless against the German tanks. A year later the Germans began moving people from the ghettos to work."

- How did you get to the ghetto?

Each city had a ghetto.The Germans asked all of the jewish people to move to one street then closed it. That was the ghetto. We took what ever we could carry. Food, eggs, blankets, coal. Anything we could. After 24 hours we were in the ghetto and there was nothing we could do to get out.

Avraham looked as if he were a Polish boy. He had blue eyes and blue hair. Sometimes, when he left the ghetto to buy bread and other supplies, Polish children who used to be his friends shouted at him:"Jew!" . Fortunately, the German soldiers did not believe them, because they thought they only wanted prize for it (at that time it was bread).

Working in labor camps:

After one year of living at the Zychlin Ghetto, all the men were sent off to work in labor camps. Avraham was 11 years old. His brother was also sent to work, and his married sister stayed at the ghetto with her husband.

The Germans went from house to house, checking who was left, and they were very violent as they did so. I was with my mother on the bed and she held me- then they took me away from her, outside, where everyone else was. Outside there were about a hundred, a hundred and fifty children already, and they all began crying… So I cried too – "mother…" (La Mama, La Mama!). All the other children were eventually sent back inside, but I was left there. The man that decided who would be sent where, directed me to the left side. Everyone was crying there, and the man slapped me and said: "From now on, you don’t cry. Things will be good for you in Germany." At that moment I realized- I have to be a man from now on. I won't cry anymore… I won't cry anymore. The man kept saying to me:"It will be good for you, but you can't know what's going to happen to the others" – he knew that the ghetto was about to be demolished and that the people were going to be slaughtered… He said:"You look like my son, with your eyes, you go there with the grown-ups."

Avraham was put on a train, originally used to transport animals, and was taken to a labor camp.

The train still had frozen animal droppings inside it, and when we sat them, they became soft and sticky… I wasn't disgusted and I didn't vomit. After a day or two on the road many people died, so the train stopped and I helped move the corpses to another train. We sat on bodies and ate snow since there was no food or water.. we had nothing. The snow saved our lives that winter.

During the long journey to the labor camp, in the area of Warsaw, many died. Eventually, the train stopped at the workplace. The Jewish prisoner's job was to pave the freeway between Mosבow and Berlin. Fortunatly for Avraham, the officer in charge of the Jewish prisoners there reduced Avraham's duties (perhaps because the SS officer from the Zychlin Ghetto talked to him). Avraham's job was to feed the animals, and he used to sneak apples and other food to the Jewish prisoners, including the rabbis, who did the hard labor. Finally the animals became ill and Avraham had to stop sneaking food.

A year later, when Avrham was 12 years old, he was transported in trains to a different work place where the labor was harder. Finally, he arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau and stayed there for two weeks. In Auschwitz, Avraham was tattood with an identifying number and sent to work making methanol for the German Airforce.

We walked from the camp to the workplace by foot, it was 6 km every day. We had to wake up at 5 am, and by 6 am we already began walking.

Avraham also worked in a "cable commando"- a unit that put the basis for phone lines and in a "painters camando"- a unit that cleaned and painted walls.

While the Jewish prisoners were working in block number 20, they were supervised by "cappos" (=officers). Those officers were criminals, released from German prisons. The officers were divided into two groups- political prisoners, whose uniform carried a symbol that was a combination of a cross and a star of david, colored red; the second group were "heftling" (=criminals), their uniform carried a green symbol. In Auschwitz there was a total of 28 buildings, "blocks", which were ordered in three rows.

One day, a supervisor brought food for the workers of the garage - the mechanics. Obviously, the workers excitedly ran to the food and began gorging it. The superviser was interested in why Avraham didn't join the others, and when he asked Avraham he simply replied "let them eat first". The supervisor was imperessed with Avraham's answer and wrote down his number (the Jewish prisoners had numbers on their arm, chest and pants). Therefore, Avraham was transferred to the "machanics commando"- a unit that were responsible of the motorcycles and trucks maintenance.

At the machanics commando, the conditions were a lot better- the SS officeres that came to get their motorcycles fixed broght the workers sausages and other food. At the new workplace, there were SS officers who filled in reports regarding the ewish prisoners' work. They used to count them every morning at 6, and if one was missing the rest of the workers had to wait (sometimes all day) until the missing employee was found. One time two of the Jewish prisoners tried to escape, and they were captures and excuted in front of all the other jews, to intimidate them.

Once, I washed the camp's deputy's motorcycle, and I put water inside it's carburettor.The carburettor had frozen just when the deputy had to travel from Auschwitz to Birkenau - 3.5 km. He drove and just like that, at the middle of the road, he suddenly stopped. There was no one to come get him. Eventually, a truck picked him up. He came back to the garage two hours later. He came inside and asked, "Who sabotaged my motorcycle?" So the ones who saw me do it said "the child, the child Avraham". He began shouting at me "How dare you do that to an SS commander you dirty Jew?!" and I just there stood and looked into his eyes. He asked me: "How old are you?" soI told him:"I'm fourteen" (I was already two years in the camp). He took out his gun and loaded it, and I thought he was going to pull the trigger, but he did not press it. He just shouted and shouted, "Coal commando! Coal commando" – it wad the unit of the coal miners, all men died there. He took his gun down and said: "Tomorrow you're going to the coal commando". It was a death sentence.

Avraham was dressed in striped red pants, so he will stand out when he left the camp. The supervisor of the coal commando was a criminal. He knew what Avraham did to the deputy and was ordered to kill him. When Avrhaham first arrived at the workplace the supervisor asked him why he was sent there. Avraham did not reply, but the supervisor looked at him and said: "Well done". For that reason, Avraham didn't work hard at the coal mines and stayed there for one year- he was already fifteen at that time.

At that time, because the Russian army was heading towards Auschwitz, the Germans decided to leave the camp with prisoners. Each one of the Jewish prisoners received one half of a bread and so about a hundred thousand prisoners began walking together toward the center of Germany- the Death marches.

Everybody lined up in groups of five. I wanted to stay at the camp but I wasn't sure, and I heard that those who remained at the camp, the SS officers would shoot them immediately. So I went too, and one day later the Russians arrived. It was difficult, to just walk… and walk and walk… There was a long row of SS officers at the end of the group, and if someone fell down or just began crying, immediately he got shot in the head and we moved on. We walked a lot without food or water.

After the death march, the Jewish prisoners were transported in to a new workplace. Out of the camp's one hundred thousand prisoners, only about thirty thousand survived the death march.

At the labor camp, when the Jewish prisoners were asked who knows how to compose, Avraham knew that in order to survive he had to lie. So, he was brought with a number of other professionals to an underground camp, where missiles were built to be sent to England. Jewish prisoners who were suspected of planning to escape or not working were executed.

Immediatley, if the SS officers thought someone was doing something suspicious, or not doing anything at all, they excuted him. And I always watched. The officers beat me up, but they never killed me, even though they could.

In 1945, the U.S. military arrived to the camp. This period was particularly difficult for the Jewish prisoners - they had nothing to eat, and they received only three rotten potatoes and one liter of water per day. The Jewish prisoners were sent in trains to Bergen - Belsen. While the Jewish prisoners were on their way to the camp, the SS began firing at them and eventually the train was bombed. About a half of the people were killed.

I was covered with blood, so I checked if I was injured but the blood wasn't mine. I sat at the corner, under a window. I knew I had to sit there vecause at that position I was protected, no one pushed me or lied on me. I beacme the elder of the heftling (=prisoners).

After the dead were taken out of the train, the journey to Bergen-Belsen continued. At Bergen-Belsen the Germans tried, again, to kill the Jewish prisoners.

One of the SS officers told me that. His name was Oscar, he was that criminal, my friend that I worked with in Auschwitz as a mechanic in the garage. And even though he was a criminal I was his friend, he took me under his charge but later we parted. We met again in Bergen-Belsen, where he was the officer. He came with a weapon to kill people, and people were told to take the bread from outside but I could not go… tens of thousands of people tried to make their way outside and I couldn't walk, they would have knocked me over, and because I was very weak I layed down on the bed ... I Lay down and did not want to go outside. Suddenly Oscar came in, he was about to hit me in the head but then he began yelling "Avraham? Avraham!" I answered: "yes" and he lifted me and stopped hitting the people. He took me to the SS officers' room and explained me: "Tonight I'll tell you if you should run away or not, if I'll hear that the camp is about to be bombed I'll rescue you. We will both run away from here."

The British army was moving toward Germany, and the German army retreated – no artillery was left for the bombing they planned. The Jewish prisoners stayed at the camp until the British army arrived to rescue them.

Oscar brought me food and I ate, but I did it slowly so I'll have some left for other days, I ate bit by bit, and I was lucky because the people that ate quickly became ill and died. I ate little by little, I just looked at the food and watched it so It won’t be stolen… and that's how "summer camp" ended.

After the war:

The day the English freed the camp and burned it, thousands of jewish prisoners died of Tiphoid and other diseases. An acquaintance Avraham had met in Auschwitz had arrived there. The acquaintance, Gershon, Had arrived at Bergen-Belzen inorder to seach for relatives, but found Avraham instead. He offered Avaraham to go to Frankfurt, Germany with him, to the Americans. When they arrived at Frankfurt Avraham and Gershon received a weapons license from the American army so they could find SS soldiers and turn them in. A few months later their license was taken by the Americans, but they continued to work for them.

While working, Avraham met a Captain of the American army who was incharge of communication with the American General, Eisenhower. He offered him to immigrate to the United States of America. Avraham turned down the offer because he wanted to immigrate to Israel. The General assisted Avraham with communicating with his relative who lived in Switzerland.

He (The American captain) said “Where do you want to go? Come with me to America” I told him- “No I want to go to Israel”. “You have no one” he said so I told him about my uncle in Switzerland. He said “No problem- I am calling in name of the American army inorder to get his address”. After a few times he called, they finally let him speak. He said he was from General Eisenhower’s headquarters and that he wanted Lisak’s (the uncle’s) address. A week later I received my relative’s address in Switzerland.

Avraham's family agreed for him to come live with them but due to some delays in receiving permission to enter Switzerland he arrived there only a half a year later. Although Avraham received permission to immigrate to Israel, his uncle prevented him from immigrating, therefore he immigrated only in 1949.

Avraham joined the IDF and participated in “Mivtza kadesh”, Sinai war near the Suez Canal while serving in Division 9, afterwards in the 6 day war (1967) where he helped reoccupy Jenin, Tulkarem and Schem (Nablus).

Today, Avraham is married to Shoshana, he has three boys and eight grandchildren. He currently lives in Kfar Sava, Israel.