Survivor tells story of childhood spent in Holocaust camp
A Holocaust survivor sharing their story is always a powerful experience.
Inge Auerbacher, one of approximately 100 children out of 15,000 to survive the Czechoslovakian concentration camp Terezin, has made it her life’s work to spread her account of her life during the Holocaust in the hope that people will have an awareness of how awful mankind can be to their fellow humans and choose to be better.
“We should learn from each other,” she said last week during a talk give during Tolerance Week.
Born Dec. 31, 1934, in Kippenheim, Germany, Auerbacher was only a year old when the Nazis rose to power in Germany – too young at first to be aware of the devastation befalling the world around her.
“The first time I felt anything [of Jewish prejudice] was Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass,” Auerbacher said. “I was four years old.”
There were about 2,000 residents of Kippenheim at the time of Auerbacher’s birth, and among them were about 60 modern orthodox Jewish families.
“I was the last Jewish child born in that village,” Auerbacher said. “It ends with me.”
But being the last Kippenheim Jew may not have been the most extraordinary thing about her birth.
“The doctor who delivered me was a member of the Nazi party,” Auerbacher said, “but he continued to take care of his Jewish patients. And it makes me wonder, ‘Is there Jekyll and Hyde in all of us?’ because, in a way, I owed that man my life; but later on he probably killed many people and did many bad things, and he was in prison for many years because of it.”
When the Nazis rose to power, the Auerbachers did not at first believe that they were in danger; Inge’s father had fought in World War I and had received the Iron Cross (the German equivalent of the Purple Heart).
“We did not think they could touch us. We were Germans, after all; we’d fought in the war! But we were quite hoodwinked.”
When Inge was 6 years old, she had to get “travel permission” in order to be able to attend school. It was this same year that she and her fellow Jews were required to begin wearing the yellow Star of David everywhere in public.
Her grandfather could not bear the injustice that his people were suffering under the Nazis.
“My grandfather died of a broken heart,” Auerbacher said. “How could Germany abandon him?”
In the winter of 1941, when the Gestapo rounded up the Jews, Auerbacher’s father wrote to them and asked that he and his family be left alone because he was a World War I veteran.
Incredibly, Auerbacher and her parents were spared. However, her grandmother was not, and became one of 50,000 people shot and killed in a forest that Auerbacher visited many years later.
“I wanted to see where she died,” Auerbacher said.
In 1942, at age 7, Auerbacher was assigned her number – XIII I CDVIII (13 1 408) – and put on a transport of 1,200 people, of which she was the youngest, to Terezin.
“Terezin was a place where you sent the intelligencia,” she said. “All the best people – the artists, the doctors… I even found out recently that the inventor of the Bayer aspirin was sent to that camp!”
While on the transport, Auerbacher’s doll – a gift from her beloved grandmother – was torn from her arms and examined to ensure that Auerbacher had not been hiding anything inside the doll’s hollow body.
“They ripped her away from me,” she said. “I made such a fuss. They could see that I was not hiding anything and they gave her back to me.”
The doll in question now resides in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.
Auerbacher spent the next three years of her life imprisoned at Terezin. She and her fellow prisoners lived in constant fear of being sent to Auschwitz, where they would be killed – though they were not all aware of those details during their imprisonment.
“[The] fear was to be sent to the East,” Auerbacher said. “We didn’t know what ‘the East’ was, but [we knew that] the people sent there never returned.”
During her imprisonment, Auerbacher found solace in her best friend Ruth Nelly Abraham (Oct. 21, 1934 – Oct. 9, 1944), who had a doll identical to Auerbacher’s.
Ruth Abraham was an unfortunate example of the Nazis’ prejudices against bloodlines. Despite their mission to eradicate Jews, many non-Jews were sent to concentration camps, as well – just for having Jewish relatives or ancestors.
“Ruth was a developed Christian,” Auerbacher said, “but it didn’t matter. Her father was half-Jewish.”
Ruth Abraham died only seven months before the Liberation Day on May 8, 1945.
A year after being liberated from Terezin, the Auerbacher family immigrated to the United States. Auerbacher obtained United States citizenship seven years later, in 1953. She went on to graduate from Queens College in 1958 and worked as a chemist for 38 years before retiring in 1997.
Auerbacher has also spent the last 35 years speaking and writing about her experiences during the Holocaust. However, it took her quite a long time to become comfortable opening up about the darkest part of her life.
“It was not easy at first,” Auerbacher said. “[For a while] I just wanted to forget about it.”
Auerbacher did not speak about her tragic experiences until 1981, after the World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors. Her very first public acknowledgement of her devastating past was writing the lyrics of the song “We Shall Never Forget,” which was presented at the World Gathering.
Since then, Auerbacher has written six books, three of which are about her experiences from the Holocaust. Upon retiring, she also began traveling around and speaking to thousands of young people, spreading her message of peace and hope.
“Don’t be a bystander,” Auerbacher said. “I always tell people, ‘don’t be bystanders’! Think of other people! Don’t be afraid to do more than just sit back and be a bystander. The people who make a difference are never bystanders.”
Auerbacher hopes that future generations may one day live in a world without discrimination.
“We can all learn from each other. We can all be better people.”
About the Author
Ivy Sweet I am a proud poodle owner, avid video gamer, reality TV junkie, writer, Briar Cliff University alumna, and freelance editor from Sioux City. I like to do stuff and then write about it.