A lot people have never been able to meet a Holocaust survivor, let alone say that they are related to one. And to be completely honest with you, spending my time learning about my grandmother’s experiences in the Concentration Camps has tremendously helped to shape my life. My very existence stems from the fact that she survived the grueling years of labor, torture and abuse. Everything I do and my perspective on life reminds me of what my grandmother lived through. I’m beyond thankful that I was privileged enough to love, and be loved, by a beautiful soul like hers. I breathe and write furiously with the knowledge that she is the one who made my life possible. This is a topic I hold extremely close to my heart and it’s a story I do everything in my power to share.
My grandma’s name was Juliana, but she went by Judy for short. It was the name she’d chosen for herself after she came to America, because it was easy to remember and sharp on the tongue. She entered the Concentration Camps at thirteen years old, on a brisk March day. The air felt heavily grey and completely motionless as she pressed the tip of her nose against the cold slats of the cramped train. Everyone was packed in like sardines and herded like cattle. Women stifled cries as their children tugged lightly on the hems of their skirts and questioned what was going on. Judy held onto her mother’s hand, which was clammy in the most comforting kind of warm way. She thought of her home back in Czechoslovakia and wondered if she would ever stand within its sturdy wooden walls again. When the train abruptly stopped, the women were forced out and into the blistering cold. Judy was too short to see what was going on, but her mother was tall enough to have a clear view of the area. Seconds later, her mother dropped my grandmother’s fragile hand and held her own tightly against her thigh. Nervously, Judy tried to reach for her mother’s hand again, but her mother simply pushed her away. Again, my grandmother reached, but her mom shooed her and acted as if they were nothing more than pure strangers. Judy was suddenly blinded by thick tears that burned her cheeks, despite the coldness she felt; how could her mother shun her at a time like this? She was then shoved by a Nazi harboring a large gun into a line of young women, and her mother was pushed into another that consisted of women who were older. From that moment on, her mother never made eye contact with her again. She saw a Nazi throw a baby into her mother’s arms. Judy felt her kneecaps and elbows quiver with confusion and fright.
It wouldn’t be until she became an adult that she’d realize her mother saved her life by acting the way she did. On that day, my great grandmother’s line was sent to the gas chambers. She died as she helplessly held another young woman’s baby. Middle-aged women, the elderly, family members clinging onto one another in fright, and babies were immediately put to death on arrival in Auschwitz. My great grandmother became nothing but a puff of black smoke in that chilly, lifeless March air. I hope that when the dust settled, her ashes blanketed something like a beautiful field of endless lush grass. If she had remained holding hands with her daughter, then my grandma would’ve been sent to die in the gas chambers along with her. She sacrificed herself for the life of her child, and I wish I could hug and thank her for that.
My grandma Judy was sent to work on an airfield for Nazi fighter planes. After an exhausting day of labor at fourteen years old, she was dragging her now sixty-pound body back to the room where she slept amongst thirty other girls. She looked down at herself and mustered to cringe from all of her visible bones through her papery skin. On her way to the room, one of the male Nazis snatched and pulled her into a separate room. She had neither the strength nor voice to scream. He, along with four other Nazi’s, took turns raping her. One by one they each sodomized and victimized her frail body. They planned to kill and discard of her when they were done with their deed, but before that could happen, the Commander came in and yelled at the men for acting out of line. He saw my grandmother in a heap on the floor and was reminded of his daughter who was the same age, waiting for his arrival back home. So he helped my grandmother up and sent her on her way.
And as sickening as it sounds, I would like to thank that man for protecting my grandma just that one time.
She survived everything that was thrown at her and pushed through until the war was finally coming to an end. At sixteen, she was put on the Death March. This was the Nazis way of trying to kill off the Jews before their camps were liberated. Those who were on the March that were unable to keep up the pace due to illness or fatigue were executed by gunshot. She marched from Dachau to the Austrian Border, where she started out amongst six thousand other sickly, weak beings. On her treacherous journey she witnessed Nazis shooting people, infirm bodies dropping only to be forgotten under a blanket of snow, and she saw a woman who looked a few years her elder have her chest viciously ripped off by a Doberman Pinscher. Only a few hundred people survived this Death March, and my grandma was one of them. After this, she battled Malaria and Typhoid—both of which nearly killed her, but she was intent upon survival. How could she surrender to these diseases after she’d come so far to make it out of the camps alive?
As a society, we should strive to remember this horrific event in history and make it a goal for the human race to never let something like this happen again. Needless to say, this was only a small fraction of the atrocities that my grandma had to face in the Holocaust. But she survived and made a life for herself once it was all over. She moved to America, got married, and started a family—but her difficulties were far from over. Her past was around every corner and transformed into skeletons she hid deep within her closet. There were countless nights when she feared impending sleep, so these skeletons would choke her with their boney fingers until she was forced into darkness. It was something she could never seem to run from.
But one of the most important life-lessons she taught me was to NEVER let your past define you. You are not who you once were, and everyone has the ability to grow from whatever tough trials they’ve been through. She lived out her life as an individual that was far greater than her past experiences and she created herself from absolutely nothing when she came to live in the United States. My grandma never let the Holocaust consume her—she was the only one who could define herself. And to me, that was her own way of defeating Hitler.
She showed me that this life is one of the most incredibly beautiful and horrific things we will ever know as humans, but we must cherish every breath we shakily inhale and not take it for granted. She also helped me realize that even my worst days are dull in comparison to the agony she once suffered through. It’s a reminder that if she could survive the Holocaust, then I can survive whatever trivial stresses are thrown my way. My gram passed away two Octobers ago at the old age of eighty-six, and it’s a day that'll forever be imbedded like a seed in my memory. Now, I feel like I can never seem to capture the words that accurately describe just how much I miss her. When she left us, her chocolate eyes were wide open…but they weren’t focused on her past. Like always, her eyes were only looking towards a bigger and better future.
