The amazing story of 'Jack'

As part of the curriculum study on suffering in religious education lessons, year 9 students were invited to take part in a days workshop on the Holocaust.  Some of year 13 students who are studying the Holocaust as part of their History studies.  An expert in the Holocaust gave a morning lecture on how the Holocaust came about and life stories of some people involved.  He showed various photos taken inside some of the concentration camps, and some more disturbing photos of the victims held within them.

The afternoon was dedicated to a gentleman known only as 'Jack'.  Unbelievably Jack is a Holocaust survivor.  He told a silent audience slowly and sometimes emotionally about his early life in Poland where he had lived happily with his parents and younger brother.  His memories of the invasion are still very clear, and he is visibly moved when he speaks of how he, his family and the local community of Jewish people in his home town were slowly but systematically ground down.  Firstly from boycotting local Jewish shops to eventually openly beating and shooting Jewish people in the street.  When the violence began to become more intense, Jack and his family managed to escape and managed to hide for 2 years in a remote part of Poland.  But ultimately the invasion spread and the family were found. They were herded together and ordered to walk to a train station 20 miles away, during this march Jack's Father gave him an option, he told his eldest son to try and escape adding "one of us may make it out alive".  As they walked over a bridge Jack turned left his family turned right, it was the last time he ever saw his family, he was 11 years old.  Jack managed to escape the march and spent time hiding in an attic with some other children before they were all eventually caught.  Jack learned later in life his family were part of a larger crowd of victims who were taken by train to Belzec stripped of their belongings and killed in a gas chamber shortly after arriving,  Only few of the inmates were spared this fate, usually young physically fit men were chosen to work as slaves, all others, including women and children were murdered.

Jack was transported first to concentration camp Buchenwald, were he was spared and sent to work on ammunitions.  The life of a slave was a living hell, the men chosen to work wasted away as hunger and disease were prevalent.  At the height of his suffering Jack managed to make a single pea last for 4 days by cutting into 4 pieces.  It is unbelievable acts such as this which helped him to survive.  As the allied forces grew closer to the Buchenwald camp, the inmates were 'death marched' 103 miles to Terezin. Anyone too weak to walk or anyone who was left behind was shot.  The Russian army were liberating the concentration camps one by one and on May 5th 1944 they eventually freed the prisoners of Terezin.  Many inmates had not managed to survive the daily fight for life through exhaustion, hunger, disease and the regular beatings.  Jack was "drunk with hunger and close to death" when he was freed. 

In 1945 Jack was offered a chance to fly to England or America, he had nothing left in Poland, his family and home were gone and life as he had known it would never be the same there again.  He took the opportunity to fly to England, he says it was like leaving hell and coming into paradise. He met and married and worked hard to become Director of a luggage manufacturer.  He has a large family, including his pride, 3 grandchildren.  These children he says are the revenge of the Nazi soldiers who tried to take his life.

He says it is important to speak to children of this age as they are innocent and unless informed there is no guarantee things like this will not happen again.

Jack is pictured here with Mrs Adlam, Religious Education teacher and organiser and students: