Sally Dauman recalls surviving Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen
In January, I attended the “Violins of Hope” grand opening at the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center and Museum in Dania Beach. Holocaust survivor Sally Dauman and Moran Alfasi, Founder and Executive Director of Holocaust Heroes Worldwide (www.holocaustheroes.org) were among the invited guests. Following the program, Sally invited me to her home where she shared her story with Moran present.
“I was born December 22, 1926 in Lodz, Poland. My father’s name was Itzhak Jachimowicz and my mother was Miriam Tabatchnick. I was the second youngest of 10 children (six brothers and four sisters). Three of my brothers and two sisters survived the Holocaust. I came from an Orthodox family and my father went to synagogue every day. He worked as a bookkeeper in his brother’s lumber business, while my mother kept a kosher home. Prior to the war I didn’t personally experience any antisemitism. This was likely due to me being the only member of my family who had blonde hair and blue eyes and easily passed for German or Polish. The Polish children would beat up one of my brothers and tell him, ‘Jew, you don’t belong here. Get out of here and go to Palestine’. I couldn’t understand why we were so hated. I’m still asking myself this question.”
Sally recalled the start of World War II.
“I attended public school until the age of 12 and was just preparing to begin the school year when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 which triggered the start of World War II. German troops occupied Lodz on September 8, 1939. The Jews of Lodz formed the second largest Jewish community in prewar Poland, after Warsaw. Shortly after the Nazi invasion I remember walking with my brother to pick up food for Shabbat. I was shocked to see a Jewish man bleeding after being stabbed as a German soldier walked behind him with a bayonet. I remember my brother saying, ‘The war has started but this is not the worst that we will witness’. We lived in an apartment building that would soon be housed in the ghetto that the Germans established in February 1940. My family was among 160,000 Lodz Jews forced into the small area. Until May 1940, we were able to venture out and spend what little money we had left. The Germans isolated the ghetto from the rest of Lodz with barbed-wire fencing and a bridge constructed above the ghetto which served as a lookout for soldiers that were prepared to shoot Jews at a moment’s notice. We were living in a prison with guards watching us. Living conditions in the ghetto were horrendous with most of the quarter lacking running water or a sewer system. More than 20 percent of the ghetto’s population died as a direct result of the harsh living conditions with people dying in the streets from hunger. Lodz was the center of the textile industry in prewar Poland, thus the ghetto became a major production center under the German occupation. Jewish residents were used for forced labor and anyone not able to work was killed. I worked making boots for soldiers while my father was tasked with sorting the clothing of Jews that had been murdered. The worst day I can recall was when my married older sister was commanded to bring her two small children outside of our building to be taken away by the Germans. These beautiful babies were placed on a truck that served as a mobile gas chamber loaded with gas-filled containers intended for murdering the children. When my sister refused to turn over her son and daughter, she was shot right in the street and thrown on the truck next to her children. I did not witness the murders because I was hiding behind a curtain in the apartment. I had such hunger pains that I wished I had been shot like my sister. I figured what’s the point of living. Intent on getting some food to eat for me and my family, I braided my hair since I could pass for being gentile and approached a German soldier on the bridge who was aiming his gun and ready to shoot me. I told him, ‘Don’t kill me, I’m German’. Skeptical, he wanted to know what I was doing there. I made up a story that I had gotten in a fight with some boys and they were chasing me. I told him that I had jumped on a truck that was delivering vegetables to the ghetto and that’s how I ended up inside. My resourcefulness worked and the guard was convinced I was telling the truth. After that encounter, I ran to a bakery in town to get some bread and was astonished to see that life was continuing like normal for the Poles, but not for the Jews. I thought of escaping but my father was sick from lung disease and I couldn’t bear to leave my parents. When it got dark I walked back to the ghetto, put the bread on the ground (to free my hands) and used my boots to dig a hole in the ground near the fence and went back into the ghetto. My father was too sick to swallow the bread and said the bread was for me. My father’s last words to me spoken in Yiddish were, ‘Be as good to your mother as you have been to me’. In early 1944, the Nazis decided to liquidate the Lodz ghetto and deport the residents to concentration camps. The Nazis lied to us and said we were being transferred to work camps in Germany. Shortly after my mother and sister, Hannah were transported out of the ghetto by train, my sister, Esther and I followed.”
Sally recalled being deported to Auschwitz.
“After arriving at Auschwitz, I was stripped of my clothing, my hair was shaved off and I was assigned to a barrack where I slept in a bunk with at least 10 other women. Hannah was able to join me and Esther in the same barracks. It was then that I discovered that my mother did not survive. Hannah said, ‘We are living in Hell. They burn people here’. A Polish woman told me, ‘See the smoke coming out of the chimney? That’s your mother’. After two weeks at Auschwitz, my sisters and I were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany where we stayed for three months. From Bergen-Belsen we were sent to work in an ammunition factory located in Salzwedel, Germany. I was tasked with making bullets for the Germans. Aside from Jewish women, I worked alongside political prisoners that were helping the American army get information. On April 14, 1945, the Americans liberated our camp. Following liberation, my surviving siblings and I moved into a DP camp in Frankfurt, Germany. I was trained to be a dental technician while living in the camp and through my brother, I met my future husband, Samuel, who was also a survivor. We were married in Germany on October 25, 1946.”
Sally reflected on her move to America.
“My husband had cousins living in Manhattan, so in 1949, we left Germany and moved to New York. At the same time, my siblings chose to immigrate to Israel. After living with my husband’s cousin for a short time, we decided to establish ourselves and moved to Cincinnati. We lived in Ohio for 15 years, adopted my daughter, Janet, and opened a packaging and shipping business. We later moved back to New York where we lived for several years before moving to South Florida.”
Sally shared her words of wisdom.
“Enjoy every day of freedom. My dream is a society in which there is no antisemitism and separation of people due to differences. Let’s live together in peace.”