Anton Mason was born April 21, 1927 in present day Romania. His last name at birth was actually Meisner. He was from a very close – knit family. He lived with his parents Maxmillion and Sarah and his brother Samuel and saw his maternal grandparents almost daily. His father was from what is now known as the Ukraine and his mother was from present day Romania. Anton also had a lot of extended family that lived nearby. Anton’s dad was a fur merchant and his grandparents owned a store where they made soap and candles. He came from what he called an upper – middle class family. When it was made illegal for Jews to own businesses Anton’s family started to struggle. They were made to leave home to go to a ghetto in March of 1944. They were forced to live in a house with twelve people in one room. The conditions they lived in were very primitive. The ghetto had about 20,000 people living in it where normally there was around 3,000 – 4,000 people. At this time his family hoped the Russians or the Allies would free them soon. Many Jews including Anton’s family were very surprised at how their Christian friends did not offer to help them while they were in the ghetto. In May of 1944, they were taken from the ghetto to Auschwitz in Poland in cattle cars. They were in the cattle cars for two days and one night. When Anton got there he was separated from his mother and brother. This was the last time he saw them because they were killed within a week. He saw live people put into fire pits at Auschwitz. The allies started bombing Auschwitz Jan 18, 1945. The Germans then took the Jews on a death march. They wanted to get the Jews out of Poland and in to Germany. They marched them to Glybitz which was about 70 miles. Anton estimated that the Germans shot between 1,500 and 2000 people on the death march just because they couldn’t march anymore. They were taken from Glybitz on cattle cars into Germany. This was the first time he was separated from his father. Anton said that about two – thirds of the people sent on the cattle cars died on the way there. His father was one of those people. While Anton was in Germany he was helped by doctors at the concentration camp. The camp used to be a political concentration camp, so there were doctors present. While he was at this camp all the Jews were asked to come forward, but he didn’t because he knew he would be killed. He hid from the Germans in order to survive. He also partly owes his survival to a Frenchman that helped to hide him. On April, 11 1945 the Americans freed Anton and the rest of the concentration camp. The first week for Anton was bittersweet; he was finally free, but he had lost all of his family members.
Quotations
Anton said “My father and my mother never hit me, never, no matter what I did and the one thing that was most important…was my family and I loved my family.”
Anton said “In one instance…I hid in a mountain of dead bodies…I have no place else to go…”
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