OF THE HORROR
would not have been born.
“I owe Ian life, the life of my father and my own.”
Having met Holocaust survivor Julien and his son Leszek several times now and become firm friends, Ian learned all about how the Polish man was captured by the Nazis and then imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen.
“Julien was aged 16 and part of the Polish underground army,” explained Ian.
“In 1943, they attacked a police barracks and released some political prisoners.
“But Julien knew that the
Gestapo would be hunting for those who had taken part in the raid. He buried himself in hay in a barn — but deep because he knew the Gestapo would poke their bayonets into the straw to find anyone who was hiding.
“The next morning he was wakened by dogs barking and heard voice he thought were Russian.
“He thought he’d better give himself up to the Russians rather than the Germans.
“But he walked straight into the arms of the Gestapo because the Russian voices were Ukranians who were actually fighting for the Germans.”
Julien was taken prisoner and eventually transported to BergenBelsen, the death camp where 11-year Jacques Szwarcberg, his mother, younger brother and little sister had also ended up.
The French Jewish family had been lying low in Paris to evade capture by the Germans, but a neighbour arrested for crimes gave the family up to the Nazis in exchange for being released for his crimes.
“At 2am there was a hammering on their door by a
French policeman and Gestapo agent,” said Ian. “They were told to come as they were in their night clothes immediately, touching nothing and taking nothing.
“They were taken to a holding camp first of all, and then eventually transferred to Belsen. Jacques was separated from his mother and put in with the men because he was 11 years old, and his mum and younger brother and sister stayed together.”
Put in alongside the men in wooden huts lined with bunk beds, Jacques was directed to a top bunk which he shared with a stranger.
They slept top to toe and Jacques cuddled into the man’s legs for warmth at night.
Ian said: “Jacques woke up one night and the man he was cuddling into to get warm was dead.
“The next night a new person had taken that man’s place in the bed. For an 11-year-old boy that must have been a terrible, terrible experience.
“Jacques described the pains of hunger that he felt and that’s something I often talk to the pupils about when I’m visiting schools.
“I’ll ask them how many of them have said to their mum ‘I’m starving’? Then I’ll explain Jacques’ story and why they don’t know what starving really means.”
Jacques survived BergenBelsen and is now in his late 80s, living in Paris. Meanwhile, Julien is aged 93 and still living in Poland.
Living in Lanarkshire aged 96 is their friend for life Ian Forsyth, who is the proud recipient of numerous British, Polish and French war medals.