Bruno Zwass was born April 27, 1923 in Breslough, Germany and survived by going deeper and deeper into Poland, staying on the move when necessary in order to keep getting captured. His family wasn’t poor, but it wasn’t rich either, though his parents made sure to send their children to private school to give them the opportunity of the highest education possible, regardless of cost. Zwass mentions that his grandfather was something of a dominant figure in the Jewish community, keeping peace and sorting out quarrels when need be. Zwass explains that he was the black sheep of the family and was frequently punished, often labeled as a disruptive student in class. His father punished by spanking with his hand only; Zwass actually jokes that there weren’t any killings, though I feel as though this could be a subconscious reference to the severity of the Germans’ attacks on the Jews.
Zwass states that he actually began to notice anti-Semitism in 1932 in its earliest stages. Nazis and Communists would clash in the streets on the weekends, and even Jews in the streets were suddenly assaulted without warning. Businesses and office buildings owned by Jews would be covered in graffiti. Zwass and his family did not leave Germany until 1934, a year and a half after the Nazis took over, joining family in a border town in Poland, though it was still considered to be German territory. As the Jews were beginning to be restricted by unjust laws, there were horrifying scenes everywhere on the streets. Germans would force Jewish people in the streets and made to clean the cobblestone or shine the German soldiers’ boots, and they were spit on and laughed at to demean them. If any of the Jews were traditional with long beards, the Germans would cut their beards disrespect and demean them further.
Bruno Zwass seemed to have a more optimistic view on his childhood, though his “wildest ideas” and different thinking may have helped to rescue him when he began to be exposed to anti-Semitism on the early rise and any events as a result. His family eventually had to move deeper into Poland and wound up living with his very optimistic, kind, ever smiling uncle in Tarnuff, who was a very generous man with which he grew a special bond. His uncle may have also given him the emotional strength to survive the holocaust.
“I had the wildest ideas as a child.” “Our world was made to be smaller and smaller.” (when the Jewish restriction laws came into affect)
Fela Gipsman born in Benjing, Poland September 5, 1926. Gipsman has a very contrasting beginning experience during the holocaust. She didn’t notice anti-Semitism as she went to school every day. Her family was very fortunate, capable of sending her to a private kindergarten, and then moving her on to a public school before she wound up in Hebrew school. Her father traveled quite a bit, and she had three brothers. The family owned an olfactory meant for painting. She had no complaints about her simple life, and her family was very closely knit.
During the very first takeover by Hitler in 1939, Gipsman recalls Jews having to wear armbands illustrated with the Star of David to signify that they were Jewish. As it turned out, she did not own an armband, and was therefore taken off the streets by the Germans and brought to an old Polish soldier headquarters where others in a similar bind had to sit on their knees all night before the Germans released them unharmed by morning. However, it was a terrifying experience for Gipsman because no one knew what the Germans would do to them at the time. When the Jewish restriction laws came into action, Gipsman couldn’t go to school anymore, and no one could leave the house; food even became tight despite their financial situation.
In December of 1942, Germans wound up knocking down her door, claiming that they had to have a certain number of girls to bring to the camps. Though her father tried to bribe them to leave her, they took her anyway. Though she started at Blechamme, she was eventually taken to a smaller camp known as Shatslow, where they first took her diamond ring that her parents had given her. The camp consisted only of girls and women, and they all had to work in a factory building barefoot (though they were eventually able to wear wooden shoes). Meals only consisted of either a strange radish-like object or a thin soup with hard bread. Gipsman soon crocheted a pair of slippers for a Czech woman, who gave her sandwiches and information on the war in return. Her parents were even able to send her sandwiches for the first year before being sent to the Ghetto. Despite the sandwiches, the other food made her very sick; none of the women could even have a menstrual cycle because of something in the food that the Germans prepared.
Before liberation, the girls had to dig trenches for the German soldiers to shoot from, army dogs running wild all the while, which kept the girls terrified and unable to stand or even sit up straight. Gipsman and the rest of the women were actually meant to be shipped to Auschwitz six months before the war was to end, but invading Russians had halted it. Gipsman wound up working in the smaller camp for two and a half years before being liberated.
“…we were Jews observing the holidays, not orthodox Jews.” (describing how religious her family was) “…who’s going to come first, the Russians or the Americans?…” (upon being released through the camp gates on day of liberation)
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