Coffee Grounds and Potato Peeling Pancakes: The Garbage We Ate to Live

By Helen O. Bigelow

It takes courage beyond belief to sneak out in the night to dig in the garbage for scraps to keep from starving when you know you would be killed if you were caught, or to crawl through ice and snow to freedom because the muscles in your legs atrophied from sitting in a hay mow for almost two years. To defect to the west, leaving all your family behind, not knowing when or if youll ever see them again, or to endure the work, starvation diet, and beatings of concentration camp life also were courageous acts. However, these and other challenges were everyday living for millions such as those in this book. While those around them fell victim to WWII atrocities and did not survive, these people fought hard and won the right to live.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481760485

Helen O. Bigelow

Helen Bigelow lives on the family farm in North Branch, Michigan, where she and her family raise strawberries and have a greenhouse business. She and her late husband have two sons and two great grandsons. While raising a family, working on the farm, involving herself with charity work, and being an educator, Helen earned a master’s degree. She retired in 1987. In the 1970’s the Bigelow family expanded to include two girls, Pilar and Eliane, exchange students from Mexico and Brazil. In her many travels to foreign countries, Helen has visited the girls and their families several times. They have visited here in recent years, visiting their numerous friends in North Branch. Through her work as a counselor, Helen placed students in American homes. Both of Pilar’s sons have gone to school in North Branch, as have Eliane’s two daughters. After fifty years on the farm, Helen now enjoys being involved with her church and playing cards several times a week. This is her first book. People interviewed for this book were referred to the author by friends in her community and through contacts from the Holocaust Memorial Center of Farmington Hills, Michigan.

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© 2013 by Helen O. Bigelow. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/10/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-6049-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-6047-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-6048-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910160

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1- Paula Marks Bolton

Chapter 2- Anneke Kooistra Burke

Chapter 3- Rita Hazard

Chapter 4- Paulina Geeraert Pakka

Chapter 5- Ana and Miloslav Pich

Chapter 6- Helen Bigelow

Chapter 7- Jiro and Margaret Shimoda

Chapter 8- Leon Boruszko

Chapter 9- Rosemarie Ott

Chapter 10- Bruno Fantin / with Carol Bolge-Fantin

Chapter 11- Christa Borror

Chapter 12- Sandor (Alexander) Lorinczi

Chapter 13- Baik Young Soon (Patty Shepard)

Chapter 14- Porfirio Alforque/Greer and Rudy Papa

Chapter 15- Erna Gorman

About the Author

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the survivors like these telling their stories, who remind us of the value of freedom, wherever we are. It is also dedicated to those military and civilians who bravely fought, and are still fighting, to stop those who do not value human life

Acknowledgments

To all these people who relived the past to give me their stories, Thank You is so inadequate. You told of lives interrupted, lives lost, and lives changed forever, memories you can never forget.

Thanks to Julie Wright and Bonita Hunt for using their computer skills to get this manuscript written—to Dennis King and Bryan Bigelow who did research that was helpful in rounding out my stories—and to Melba Sarchett who helped with a word or phrase when I was stuck in completing a thought.

I am grateful for the proofreading by Nancy Spencer and Dawn Wright, a never ending task, and thanks to Louise Walther for chauffeuring me to interviews in cities unfamiliar to me.

To these and other family members and friends who gave me their encouragement, love and support, I owe my gratitude and thanks.

To my Lord Jesus Christ I am deeply indebted for giving me the desire and ability I needed each day to continue this new venture.

Chapter 1

Paula Marks Bolton

From Boxcars to Barracks

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A boxcar like this transported Paula along with about 100 others to concentration camps.

Paula Marks Bolton was born in Poland, daughter of Sarah and Israel Reichman. She had three brothers. The oldest brother, Moshe, was married and had two children. Paula’s middle brother, Semerl, got married, and shortly after that went to Russia to live, before the arrival of the Nazis. The youngest brother, Seymek, was two and half years older than she, and they were very close. He was one of the most intelligent students in school and always made sure she knew her lessons.

It doesn’t matter what color we are, what race or religion we are, we are all human beings and must treat each other with respect. This generation must be the one to change the world, one by one, each treating others kindly, protecting those who can’t protect themselves. We cannot let hatred build. We can change the world only by loving one another. The following story is Paula’s message.

When the Nazis came to Poland, one of the first orders was that each Jew must wear the yellow Star of David arm band to identify him as a Jew. If you did not wear the star, collaborators could report you, and a Gestapo would beat you. Six teenage boys decided they would not wear the arm band. All Jews were required to go to the square and watch as the boys were beaten and then hung. Mothers and fathers cried out, What have they done to deserve this? There was shouting and crying as people offered jewelry and anything they had to save the boys. We were told this would happen to us if we did not obey. They died before our eyes.

One day the trucks came to round up the boys and men to take them away, to where we did not know. Families ran down the street after the trucks crying to their loved ones. Moshe was crouched down where I couldn’t see him, but Seymek climbed high and yelled to me, Don’t worry. I’ll be back. Of course he didn’t come back.

I was 13 when the guards came for the rest of us. We had to all go into the streets, all neighbors, women and children and Religious Jews with their black hats and robes and long beards. We were ordered to march, the Religious Jews pushed and pulled by their beards and beaten. These were people who helped others and were always kind to people but the guards showed them no mercy. The cries of the people were unbearable. We were marched to the school where we filled all the rooms. There was no furniture so we huddled on the floor crying out in fear, wondering, What next, what next?

Someone opened a door near us. A Gestapo entered. My mother recognized him as Hans, our close neighbor’s son and asked him to help us. He pretended he didn’t know us. I begged my mother and father not to ask for me to be taken out for I didn’t want to be separated from them. I was now 14 years old.

It became dark in the room. Someone opened the door near me, grabbed my arm and pushed me into another room. I never saw my parents again. Who took me out? I couldn’t see him. I don’t know to this day who it was. I have always wondered if it was Hans. Maybe his heart softened and he saved me. Who knows?

At 4:00 a.m. they came for all the children. We were taken to a ghetto in Poland. Ghettoes were holding places for Jews, so the Nazis would know how many Jews there were and where to find them to take them to concentration camps.

The little rooms were shared with many others, some family members, some not, but we were all like a big family. Each day we were taken for forced labor. Once a week we received a meager ration. It was such a small amount, and we were so hungry that we ate it all in one day. Then we had nothing the rest of the week unless by some miracle we found some scraps.

I was sent to a larger ghetto where I shared a room with a professional couple, among others. The woman had been a teacher, he a principal. She had a sister, Ruta, who became my closest friend.

We still had to work every day, without pay. Our meager food allotment could not sustain us. There was a little meat and staples, no fruit nor vegetables. We scavenged for peelings, coffee grounds, or anything we could put in our stomachs. If we could find peelings, we mixed them with coffee grounds, flattened them, and made potato pancakes. Those found scavenging were killed. Many died of starvation. It was considered if you were a Jew, you were a dead person.

At 14 ½, I was so weak and bent over I had to walk with a cane. But I still had to work in the factory. I worked mainly in a shoe factory.

One day while we were at work, Ruta and I heard shouts to get out. I took only one thing-a picture of my mother she had put in my pocket when we first left home. I clasped it in my hand and cried as we were marched to the train and herded like cattle into the box cars. They beat us as we were pushed and crowded into the cars, sometimes as many as one hundred in a car. There were so many we could not sit. There was no food, water, or toilet. You can’t imagine what it was like. The smell was horrible. We were headed for a concentration camp. The door was padlocked until we arrived. Days and nights went by and they didn’t open the door. There was little air for us