Abe Pollack

My name is Abe Pollack. I was born January 12, 1920 in Romania to Liba and Mortheim Pollack. I had four brothers – Ike, Issac, Shimon and a sister- Pearl. My father and mother were living in one little room with the five boys and one girl. My great grandfather lived next door to us and I was his pet and I slept in same room with him. When I was about seven, my great grandfather passed away. It was my greatest loss. After that I moved back to my parents house and lived with them.

My father was a bricklayer and he and his brothers had a business of contracting work. All of our family worked together. I started working at age 12. All the family shared the profits and worked together. My father built the Yeshiva for the Rabbi in our town. Our biggest concern was making enough money for food at our table. Often we did not have enough food.

We were a very religious family. I was called to the torah as a bar mitzvah. My town was very religious. Anyone who wasn’t religious was an outcast in the town. Our town had about 5000 families of Jews and made up about 50% of the population in the town. The Jewish people lived in the center of town and we were the merchants. We got along with all the people in town no matter the religion. Our life centered around the Rabbi. We had a Yeshiva and we went to be with the Rabbi on Friday night. I remember as a young child, people were going to Israel. Once my father asked the Rabbi if we should go to Israel. The Rabbi discouraged my father from going to Israel and listened to him and decided not to go. My father’s partner did go Israel and survived the war.

Anti-semitism started in our town when Hitler came to power. We didn’t know a lot about what was going in the world as we didn’t have television and didn’t have newspapers and were more concerned about our next meal. People came to our town from Vienna and told us about how their properties were taken away. My family didn’t have opportunity to get away from our town.

When the German’s gave back Transylvania to Hungry and Romanian border moved over, the Jews tried to run away to Russia. My brother wanted to go to Russian but my father didn’t let him. Several people ran away to Russia and Russia wouldn’t let them in but rather sent them back. Around this time in 1939, our town had typhus outbreak. My friend and I organized and raised money from the Jewish people. We collected money and went to the Rabbi and told him about the money we raised and we bought the medicine and hired a doctor to help. Several years ago one of the typhus survivors from my town who was living in Jerusalem acknowledged that I saved his life by doing this tzedaka. We tried to help each other.

In 1941, after the war broke out, the Hungarian authorities took me and the other people because we were the leaders – or as they said- communists, and put us in the camp. They took us to Goran, then to another camp and then eventually to Auschwitz. Between 1941-1944 I was imprisoned in two concentration camps We were detained in Goran and we were able to get some books in this camp. We were able to receive packages in this camp. One of my friends taught me how to read and write and some arithmetic. Thanks to this camp, I am what I am. In this camp, it was only me. My family was still at home. We worked in the camp and lived in barracks. My feet were frozen from not having shoes. However, this was not a death camp. The camp had a lot of Hungarians and Jews. Misery likes company. The relationship between the prisoners of all faiths was good.

After Goran, they took me to a camp near Budapest. When I was in this camp, I was a good worker and was friendly with someone in charge and I found out my father and brother were in another camp and I asked him if he could bring my father and brother to my camp. They actually agreed to bring my father to our camp. The camp commander put my father and brother by the wall and they called me in and asked me if I recognized them. I say hello to them and kissed them. My father’s words were “Now that I see you alive, I can die.” The German said to me, bring him to your barrack and we did. We were in camp together for about a year. After that they separated us and sent my brother and father to another camp. In this camp where I remained, I had friends who worked in the kitchen who gave me extra food. If I had gone to the other camp, I wouldn’t have been able to get food. I would send food to my father and brother at their camp with a friend who worked in both.

Then I was sent to Auschwitz. I was not with my family in Auschwitz. However, a man in my hometown got off the cattle car and entered Auschwitz with me. When we got into the line before Mengele, this man from my hometown told Mengele, “I’m a invalid from the first world war.” Mengele told him to go to the gas chamber line. When I was admitted to the barrack, I found out he was sent to the crematorium. Later after the war, I saw his daughters and had to tell them the story of their father and Mengele. I was in Auschwitz for five days in Birkenau. Then I was sent to Vistagursof (sp?). It was near Gross Rosen. We marched from Birkenau to this new camp. We performed hard labor all day. At night, there were a lot of people from Belgium who were very educated. At nighttime they would lecture us and it was entertainment and it would distract us. From this camp we marched towards Flossenburg. This was a political camp with a lot of German detainees and Austrian and Russian prisoners who were not Jewish.

On April 17, the American troops passed by our camp and we thought we were liberated and we started to clean ourselves up. That night the SS came back and forced us to march to Dachau. We slept on the side of the roads and on April 22, my father couldn’t walk anymore and my brother and I carried him. The SS said put him down or I will shoot you. We put him down and the SS shot him. I made a plan with my brother to run away at a curve and jump down in a trench. When I ran away, my brother kept going. I stayed in the trench and then stayed in a haystack at night. There was a farm and the other guys who ran away from me took a chicken.

We saw the tanks pass by us and it had five stars. It was the American troops. We met a Jewish solider and we spoke to him in Yiddish and he took us back to the farm and gave me a sweatshirt and opened up a can of spray and told the farmer hold them here and I will come and get them. He came back and got me and took me the hospital. I was in the hospital for five days. The German authorities told us where they buried people and I went and dug up my dad. I buried him and made a gravestone for him. I ended up re-burying my father twice. Once as I just described and then years later I moved him to a plot in Israel.

Eventually, I obtained a bicycle and I rode towards home. In Budapest they took away my bicycle. I found out that my mother had just left Budapest for my hometown. So I stayed in Budapest and then I got onto a freight car and got home. I found my mother. We stayed in our hometown for two months and then I came back to the Displaced Persons camp in Germany. There was nothing left in our home when came home. I tried to organize a factory there and it burned down. There was no future in my hometown. My brother who was in Mathausen came home and my other brother who was in Dachau came home. One brother was held by the Russians as a prisoner until 1947. We tried to get our mother to come to Germany and she refused to come with me. My one brother and sister stayed with my mom.

In 1947, my mother and brother and sister went on the ship Exodus to Israel and got stuck in Cypress. Because of this, my mom told me not to come to Israel but to go somewhere else. My mother’s sister sponsored me to come to the United States in February 1947. I came to the United States and I found my aunt. My aunt told me about her experiences in the United States during the war. Her experience during the war of rationing etc. was so different than what happen to me. We lost our freedom.

I knew that United States was a country of opportunity. When I first arrived, I slept over the gas station where I pumped gas for my cousins. Following that, I worked as a laborer for $1.25 an hour for forty hours a week. I paid for $5.00 for a room to sleep. After a while I told the boss I needed more money. The boss fired me and I found a mason contractor who paid me $2.40 hour and I worked for him for two years. I went to night school. At night school I met people. I worked with someone in a house and saw my wife. My wife grew up in Europe too.

The greatest loss was human mankind. People didn’t care and they were selfish. When you have a “me, me” society it is unbelievable.

During the war you help people but you didn’t remember what you did. I went to a book signing of a book called Remember the Martyrs. At this event, there was a man I marched with. He was from the same hometown as Elie Weisel. He goes over to the people at the event and says you see this fellow (me)- he saved my life on the death march. He carried me when I couldn’t walk anymore. There was also a man from my hometown who was a dentist. In the camp I had a friend who worked in the kitchen and gave me extra food and I would give the dentist some of my extra soup too. When we were liberated he asked me to come to my house and I said, no you come to my house. He came and he said to me I give you half of my house because you saved my life, all because I gave him a little soup.

The same person was living in Israel as a dentist. He told my wife that I saved his life. How did I save his life? By giving him a little soup. You have things that people do and that people will remember if you do. People remember you if you helped them. This is what counts. I remember being hungry and being starving and what it means when you are really starving. A machine cannot run without gas. A person cannot live without food. If I have food in my stomach I can produce. If you are an honest human and you work hard you can accomplish anything in this country. How wonderful it is to live a truthful life. If you can’t do someone good, then don’t do them any harm.

I survived because I knew you have to believe, you have to try. I wanted to survive and I wanted to accomplish something. My greatest accomplishment is my children and grandchildren. The greatest decision in human life is to have confidence in yourself and to have children who are confident, strong, and self-sufficient.