ACROSS THE BARBED WIRE
Holocaust survivor, liberator speak at remembrance program
They witnessed the genocidal horrors committed against Jewish people in Europe during World War II, but from opposite sides of the fence. Ernie Gross, 87, born in Romania, survived the Auschwitz death camp, the Dachau concentration camp and the loss of many of his family members. Don Greenbaum, 92, a Philadelphia native, served in the U.S. Army and helped to liberate survivors like Gross at Dachau.
On Tuesday, the two men shared their stories before a crowd of about 200 inside the Lenfest Theater at Ursinus College, during a special Holocaust remembrance program. The event was sponsored by the Ursinus College Department of History, Ursinus College Hillel, and Jewish studies at Ursinus.
“You’ll hear two stories,” Greenbaum said. “One is of an 18-year-old standing outside looking in. The other is of a 15-year-old on the inside looking out.”
The liberator
Greenbaum’s story began as he joined the Army in 1943 fresh out of high school, excited to serve his country. It was considered a patriotic duty to be shipped overseas and fight the war.
“If you were turned down you’d be heartsick,” he said.
At basic training he learned to march, dig fox holes and the important lesson of kill or be killed. He soon landed on Utah Beach shortly after the D-Day invasion and faced constant combat throughout Europe, he said. The American troops were seen as heroes to those living in newly liberated cities, often receiving flowers or kisses along their way. That is until they hit the German border and met citizens who no longer wanted to be liberated.
Greenbaum fought in the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive campaign of World War II, which ran from Dec. 16, 1944 - Jan. 25, 1945. After the battle, he was sent on a mission to destroy a German supply depot in Munich.
Before then, he’d never heard the terms concentration or death camp.
“We were about a mile outside the camp when I came across an odor,” he said, “which to this day, 70 years later, still sticks in my mind. The odor will never go away.”
The Americans discovered about 20 box cars filled with dead bodies. Then they came upon the Dachau concentration camp. When they arrived they faced no resistance. The guards laid down their weapons and left. The troops saw the prisoners inside but had no idea who they were.
“Luckily one of our guys was Jewish, and he spoke Yiddish,” Greenbaum said. “He said, ‘We’re American Jews. We’re the American Army.’ They thought the whole American Army was
Jewish.”
Each prisoner was starving and weighed about 90 pounds. If the soldiers tried to feed them, the prisoners would die. They radioed back for food, blankets and medicine.
“What we found was horrific,” Greenbaum said.
A week later, the war was over in Europe, and Greenbaum, a Purple Heart recipient, was sent home. Thanks to the GI Bill, he got an education, married and raised a family. For 50 years he didn’t say a word about what he saw. Yet he decided it was time to speak up after seeing Holocaust deniers on the news.
“They say it didn’t happen,” he said. “It happened.”
In total, over 6 million people were killed during the Holocaust. To put that into perspective, Greenbaum said to multiply the 100,000 fans who attend a Penn State/Ohio State football game by 60.
The survivor
It was the last night of Passover, April 15, 1944, and the Gross family had run out of matzo bread. His mother needed help in baking more to feed their poor family of nine the next morning. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door — it was two Hungarian police officers. Their orders were to take any money or jewelry and leave it on the table. Within an hour, the family was to go to the synagogue. If anyone attempted to go anywhere
else, police had orders to shoot them. Also, when they left, they could not leave the door locked behind them.
The Gross family had no idea what was going on. They didn’t know there was a war going on, and hadn’t heard about the 1938 Kristallnacht attacks against Jewish people throughout Nazi Germany.
“But when someone has a weapon, you have to follow what they tell you,” said Gross, in his thick Eastern European accent.
Once the Jewish townspeople were rounded up inside the synagogue, the doors locked behind them. There was no running water, plumbing or fresh air. On the third day the doors were reopened with horses and wagons waiting to take them to the trains to Auschwitz. The train cars had a single bucket for the men and women to share as a toilet. Once they arrived at the camp, Gross got separated from his mother, father and younger siblings.
A German officer decided who would be sent to die and who would be sent to the work camps. A person ahead of him said to say he was 17 or else he would go with the families with young children. Those families were sent to a building, stripped down and told they’d be given a shower. Then they were gassed to death and their bodies cremated.
Gross, and the others sent to work, were told to shave
the hair off of their bodies. You couldn’t tell the difference between the men and women. Gross said he was only in the camp for a short time and did not receive a tattoo on his arm, but his uniform read “71366.”
“I had a bad feeling in my stomach,” he said. “It looked like I was exiled from a place where people have fun and condemned to a place in this camp.”
Prisoners were given very little to eat. Each was given a small cup for soup and coffee, while a loaf of bread was split between eight people in a barracks. As they began to starve, prisoners lost any will to share their food. Gross saw a father and son argue over a slice of bread. His own cousin, Yeda, wouldn’t even peel a potato he’d found and share the skin with him.
Guards in the camp were meaner the younger they were. One night, Gross couldn’t sleep and decided to run to the kitchen to get some food. Anyone caught outside after 9 p.m. would be shot. He got to the kitchen with no problem. Coming back was a different story. He was jumped by prisoners also heading to the kitchen who stole his
food. Gross also lost a shoe in the process.
The next day was raining and he was forced to cut a piece of blanket and wrap it around his foot before going to work. A German soldier gave him a slip to get new shoes. The guard behind the warehouse counter wasn’t older than 19, Gross said. When he asked for a pair of shoes, he was given a size too small. When he asked for a larger size, the guard hit him so hard he saw stars.
The next day it snowed, and Gross couldn’t keep up his work with the other prisoners. A German soldier in his 50s told him he had two options: walk back barefoot or be shot. When he got back to the barracks, he found a prisoner whose shoes were too big and they traded.
“Mine were good for him,” he said. “His were good for me.”
Toward the end of his time in the camp, Gross said he was too weak to continue working and was sent to Barracks 7 and was no longer fed. He was told he’d stay there for three days and then be sent to Dachau. It was the middle of April 1945 and Gross, his brother Joseph and Yeda were sent on a train. At one point the train stopped and they were told to go into the woods. Joseph was too weak to walk and Yeda and Gross were too weak to carry him, so they left him behind. An hour later, when they came back, Joseph was gone. It took 50 years for Gross to tell the story of what happened to his brother, he said.
At Dachau, Gross said he began to no longer care whether he lived or died.
“We were marching in a very long line and we knew we were going to the crematorium,” he said. “But you didn’t care no more because you were so skinny and you were hungry.”
He was close enough to see the building when all of the sudden something unusual happened. The German soldier near him threw down his weapon and ran away. He turned around an American Jeep carrying four soldiers had arrived. They were saved.
Epilogue
After the liberation, Gross was reunited with his older brother Abraham.
“This was the only time in my life that I was happy and not happy,” he said. “Happy to see him. But if he came alone, I knew the other (brother) didn’t survive. His name was David and he was my favorite brother.” David died of starvation.
Gross said he began telling his story five years ago. Meeting Greenbaum and touring the area together has brought a new joy to his life. “Don (Greenbaum) is older than me by three years,” he said. “And David was older than me by three years. So now it feels like I found my older brother.”
The two men told the crowd they were sharing their two stories because it was important that they not be forgotten by time. People could never forget what happened.
“Tell what you heard,” Greenbaum said.