Sara Eker

My name is Sara Feldman Eker. I was born on February 22, 1926 to Miriam and Meyer Feldman in Skarzysko-Kamiena Poland. I had a brother named Nuchem and two sisters, Rose and Esther. We lived a happy life in a house together in Skaryzsko. My father was a house painter and my mother was a stay at home mother.

In our town, there were about twenty thousand people, one thousand of which were Jewish. Most of the Jews in our town were orthodox, including my family. We observed all the holidays. My father had his own Rabbi. There were two synagogues in our town. However, there were also chapels in people’s homes that people visited to daven or recite the prayers. My grandparents, who lived in our neighborhood, had one room in their home that they made into a chapel for each holiday. The room had a Torah and many people came to daven there. On Saturdays, my family always went to daven. In my town, I had so many cousins, and aunts and uncles. We actually had three cousins all named after my father’s mother- Sura! We had a close knit family and spent holidays and special occasions together.

I attended public school in my hometown with my cousins Sura and Yechil. In the afternoon, after public school, I also attended a Jewish school for girls. At this school I studied Yiddish and prayed. My brother went to a cheder, which was a school at the Rabbi’s house.

At my public school, the Jews and the non Jews were all friends. We were nice to each other and did not experience anti-semetism until the shortly before the war started. Shortly before the war began, the non Jews at my school started to call us “Jew” and began to segregate away from us.

Sadly, in 1937, my father passed away. My father had a heart condition. I remember it was right before the holiday of Simchat Torah and my father was not able to work. It didn’t work out with the people he hired to take over for him when he wasn’t well and he was trying to make a living for his family by traveling from one town to another to bring life stock for the holidays. On this day, before he left to travel to the other town , he visited the synagogue to daven. After davening, he went to the train, and as he sat down on the barrier, he suddenly passed away. After he passed away, things started to change. We moved into my grandparent’s house, and lived there until the war broke out in 1939.

In 1939, our town was bombed. Because our town had a big ammunition factory, we left and walked with only a few possessions to the next town. We were afraid if the German’s bombed the ammunition factory, the whole city would go up in flames. We took some belongings and left in our horse and buggy to travel to a nearby town. After a short while, we returned home. We were not sure what to expect. We had a cat and we were not able to take the cat with us and when we came back she was licking us and I felt so happy to be home and have my cat with us again. But everything had changed. Jews were no longer allowed to have stores and everywhere there were signs that said “No Jews Allowed.” We were no longer allowed to go to school. By 1940, all the Jews in my town were forced to move to the Ghetto. Because our beautiful home was not in the Ghetto we had to abandon it and find a place to live inside the Ghetto. The Ghetto was only two short streets and over a thousand Jews had to crowd together in there. My mom found one room for all five of us to live. It was crowded but at least we were together. In order to get a food ration (a half kilo of bread and some soup), we needed to go to work. We also had to wear an armband and a yellow star. One time, I took off the yellow star and armband and snuck outside the ghetto to see my Polish friends, who I missed. However, my non Jewish friends no longer wanted to be my friends and they told me never to visit them again. I was sad but life was so different for me now. I had to work everyday at the HASAG ammunition factory. It was dark when I woke up each day and by 6:00 am I had to march from the Ghetto to the ammunition factory to work. I didn’t get back to the Ghetto each night until late in the evening.

One morning when we woke up to go to work, my sister Rose couldn’t get out of bed. My mom got her up and dressed her and put Rose’s hand in mine and told me to take care of Rose. I marched the whole way to work holding Rose’s hand. On that day, the German’s didn’t let us go home. Instead they took us out of the factory where we worked, to a backyard somewhere and there was a place with barracks that had barbed wire all around. This was the HASAG Ammunition labor camp. We wanted to go home and we screamed and cried but they told us to stop carrying on or they would shoot us. The beds were so awful, just a board with no sheets. There were about a 100 girls in our barrack. We were so homesick. Even the crowded and dirty Ghetto was paradise compared to these living conditions. We missed our families. I was locked in this camp for three years. Eventually the HASAG labor camp in Skarzysko was closed and we were moved to HASAG Czestochowa. We were there for a while and then my sister and I were taken to Bergen-Belsen.

In Bergen-Belsen we had to leave all personal belongings and go take a shower. We undressed and went apprehensively into the shower. When we went out of the shower, some clothes were thrown at us- the stripped the uniform. None of the clothes fit us. I was given a pair of men’s shoes. We were put in a big room and we had to sleep on the floor. In the morning we had to stand outside in deep snow, almost naked, and be counted. This took a very long time and we were freezing. We waited for hours for the Nazi officers to count us. We repeated this every single day, sometimes a couple times a day. We sat in the room all day and then stood outside to be counted. Eventually, they sent me out of the camp to work at another camp in Turkheim, Germany. At this camp, we were forced to clean the streets. From there we marched to Dachau and the Nazis’ told us we were going to be sent to the crematorium. The train we were traveling on was bombed. Thankfully I was not hurt, but many in our wagon got killed. The German’s let us out of the wagon and we ran into the forest. We didn’t want to go back to the train because we knew what would happen to us in Dachau. We were in Germany and we got into the forest, and we started to run. We found a house with a barn and we hid in the barn in a loft and we covered ourselves with hay. In the morning, the owner uncovered the hay and told us he was the Mayor of the town and that you can’t stay here. We were crying and telling him we don’t want to go back to the train. He told us the train tracks are broken from the bombs so you won’t be able to go to the train. He took us to a house near the station to wait. The next day, the Mayor came back and brought us food. He told us “don’t be afraid, Berlin fell and soon the war will be over.”

One night we heard talking in a language we didn’t understand and they opened the door and came in. It was American soldiers and they told us it was May 5, 1945 and we were free. They sent us to a hospital. I was 19 years old when I was liberated. The Americans gave us a warm shower and food and doctors. They were careful feeding us so we wouldn’t get dysentery. They gave us a clean bed with a clean blanket. After five years, we had not seen a bed or anything white and clean. I couldn’t believe that this was the end of the war, but it was the end. When my sister and I were feeling ok, we left and went to Feldafing displaced person camp in Germany. We stopped talking about food and started talking about our families and how we could find them. At Feldafing, we were given passports from General Eisenhower. General Eisenhower told us that he considered himself lucky to liberate us. I didn’t understand what he was saying. And I said, if he considers himself lucky to liberate us, he can’t imagine the feelings we have toward the Americans who came to liberate us. When General Eisenhower became President, I thought he deserved it. He was there in Europe and saw the real things that I saw, the camps and the crematorium. He saw what we experienced in the war.

After a short time, we decided to move to Landsberg Displaced Person’s camp because we heard my aunt survived and lived there. In Landsberg, I met my husband and fell head over heels in love in with him. My husband was my first love. Because I spent my teenage years in the concentration camp, I never experienced the teenage years to go on dates or fall in love. We got married in Buchenwald. We had two chuppahs in one wedding because my auntie Dora got married the same day. I had a real Yiddish wedding in 1946. Eventually, I gave birth to a daughter-Mary. And this is how our life started. In 1949, we left and moved to Israel. We had papers to come to the United States, but we decided to go to Israel. We lived in Israel for three and a half years. My dear cousin Sura asked if we wanted to come to Canada. Because we didn’t have any relatives in Israel and we had relatives close to Canada in Rochester and New York City, we decided to move. Sura made the papers for us and we moved to Canada on July 8, 1952. A couple years after we moved to Canada, we welcomed our son- Harv- to the world. Slowly we picked ourselves up. We always were true to each other and shared so much love with our family. I picked up my pieces when General Eisenhower gave me the precious passport. My story is sad, but I am alive. I picked up the pieces, I got married, I had children, and grandchildren and great grandchildren and I have so much nachas and love in my life.