The Seventh Miracle

By Jorge I. Klainman

The Seventh Miracle

by Jorge I. Klainman

Edited & Translated from the Spanish by Kal Wagenheim

Copyright 1999

Winter 1943. A Nazi concentration camp in Poland. A fifteen-year-old Jewish boy stands naked, shivering, at the edge of a deep ditch. He and several other prisoners have been marked for death by the psychopathic camp commandant. Ukrainian guards, holding machine guns, accompanied by snarling dogs, wait for the command to fire.

"My mind refused to comprehend the reality of what was happening. The end had come. They were going to shoot me and burn me. I thought of my loved ones, and that soon I would be joining them. I thought of the tremendous pain caused by bullets penetrating my body. My teeth chattered so hard that my gums hurt. It was total madness....I reached a state of mind where I just wanted, with all my being, to get it over with....Many of the condemned prayed aloud, others looked straight ahead without seeing...One of the Ukrainians pushed me into the hole. After that, I blanked out."

More than half a century later, Jorge Klainman, the author of this harrowing --

and ultimately inspiring -- memoir, tells how he miraculously survived, after the guards opened fire, and left him for dead.

Klainman, who lost his entire family in The Holocaust, vividly depicts the horror of life, and death, in a series of Nazi concentration camps. Yet it is also a tribute to the resiliency of the human spirit. In many ways, it epitomizes the triumph of the Jewish people whodespite the Holocausthave prevailed.

The story begins in Poland, where, before the Nazi invasion of 1939, Klainmans family enjoyed a prosperous life. His odyssey continues through a series of Nazi camps, where the teenage Klainman, through ingenuity, the occasional kindness of strangers, and plain good luck, manages to elude death.

At the conclusion of World War II, Klainman begins a heartbreaking, fruitless search for surviving members of his family, which ultimately leads to his suffering a nervous breakdown.

Finally, in 1947, he makes contact with a long-lost aunt in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He experiences more adventures during the journey from the Old World to the New.

Twenty-eight years later, Klainman, now married, with a successful business in Argentina, travels to Italy, to exhume the remains of his beloved brother, another victim of the Holocaust, to transport them to Israel.. In an emotional ceremony, with family and friends present, the remains are buried in a Tel Aviv cemetery, as Klainman recites the Kaddish, the Prayer for the Dead.

Twenty years after that, in 1998, Klainman, now a grandfather, returns with his wife Teresa to his birthplace, Poland. He has come full circle, standing frozen at the front door of the apartment where his family once lived, and, later, on the edge of the ditch in the camp where he was shot and left for dead.

Jorge Klainman began writing this memoir (about 70,000 words) on his sixty-eighth birthday, on March 28, 1996. It is related with remarkable restraint, understatement, and, even, with occasional surprising touches of humor. In the moving prologue to his story, he explains:

"In October 1947, when a train left me at the...railroad station of Buenos Aires, I was nineteen, and I began a new life.

"At that moment, I wrapped up all the memories of the previous twelve years and buried them in a deep well of my mind. There they remained, hidden and protected by a wall of silence that I had built, brick by brick. At the time, it seemed like the only way I could go on living. On my sixty-eighth birthday, I decided to take a pickaxe and knock down that

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 6, 2001
• ISBN: 9781465321572

Jorge I. Klainman

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Copyright © 2000 by Jorge I. Klainman.

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Contents

DEDICATION

Prologue

1 Heraus!

2 Life in Poland was getting harder

3 The Trap

4 The Defense

5 The bombing of Kielce

6 I’ll cut your head off

7 Jews to the slaughterhouse

8 The guard wants to kill me.

9 The Cracow Ghetto

10 The Little Mountain of the Damned

11 Prisoner Number 85143

12 Twenty-Five Lashes

13 The feeling is absolutely sublime.

14 What is Yiddish?

15 Searching for a familiar face

16 I dreamed Moniek was dying.

17 May peace be with you.

18 If God didn’t save me, who did?

19 Río de Janeiro

20 Asunción, Paraguay

21 Trap! Trap!

22 From now on your name is Jorge

23 Tel Aviv 28 Years Later

24 A metaphysical Judaism

Epilogue: Reflections

DEDICATION

To my beloved wife Teresa. My deepest gratitude for your selfless spiritual support.

To my children—Lili, Miguel, Claudia and Fabian.

Thanks for your constant support and encouragement.

The title of this autobiography is symbolic. Six actual miracles occurred, and saved my life. The seventh was my being able to write the story, after so much time.

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The author in 1947.

Prologue

I celebrated my sixty-eighth birthday in Buenos Aires on March 28, 1996.

That day—after nearly half a century of doubt and hesitation, despite my great fear of reopening old wounds that have never fully healed—I made a decision. That day I decided to write my autobiography.

The story begins in Kielce, Poland, my native city, in the year 1935, when I was seven years old.

In October 1947, when a train left me at the Constitución railroad station of Buenos Aires, I was nineteen, and I began a new life.

At that moment, I wrapped up all the memories of the previous twelve years and buried them in a deep well of my mind. There they remained, hidden and protected by a wall of silence that I had built, brick by brick. At the time, it seemed like the only way that I could go on living.

On my sixty-eighth birthday, I decided to take a pickaxe and knock down that wall. I felt strong enough to face the past. I could once again be Srulek Klainman.

I feel that I owe this story to the people I love, and to myself. I want to do it now, while my memory is still sharp.

The mind of a human being is quite marvelous. I sat down at the typewriter, and suddenly the curtains of my memory began to part, revealing events that happened fifty or sixty years ago, and I relived them as though they had just happened.

I remember it all clearly: places, things, dates, names that until yesterday lay dormant in my subconscious.

I am not a professional writer. I ask for the reader’s forgiveness. What I can assure you is that the story is absolutely true.

I dedicate this story to those I love, so that at last they will know who is this solitary being, where he came from, and how—despite everything—he is a happy husband, father, and grandfather.

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My parents

1 Heraus!

one day, in mid-March of 1944, we were standing there in the plaza when the madman Goeth came to choose his victims. He had already selected about two hundred when the son of a whore approached our row, and pulled out a guy standing ten feet from me. Then he came up to me, tapped me with his riding crop, and yelled heraus! (out!). My number was up.

I joined the group of the chosen, totally stunned. My mind refused to comprehend the reality of what was happening. The end had come. They were going to shoot me and burn me, along with the others. Little by little, it all sank in, and I began to tremble. My mind went haywire, like a kaleidoscope. A thousand thoughts were jumbled together. It was like a total short circuit.

I thought of my loved ones, and that soon I would be seeing them. I thought of the tremendous pain caused by bullets penetrating my body. I looked around. Was there some way to escape? It was impossible. We were surrounded by dozens of Ukrainian guards, armed with machineguns, holding German shepherds.

My mind continued on its crazy course. My teeth chattered so hard that my gums hurt. It was total madness.

It is hard to describe everything that you feel when you know that, very soon, they will strip you naked and riddle you with bullets.

They kept us standing there for a long time, by express order of that psychopath, Commandant Goeth, who surely wanted us to suffer as much as possible.

I reached a state of mind where I just wanted, with all my being, to get it over with. I became resigned. At last, my troubles would be over, and I would be reunited with my people in Heaven. But it seemed as though the clock had stopped, and every minute was like a day, and we kept on waiting.

Many of the condemned prayed aloud, others stared straight ahead without seeing. My mind was rushing a mile a minute.

Finally, after an agonizing, seemingly endless wait, they ordered us to march towards the famous Little Mountain of the Damned.

The last thing I remember is that we reached the top of the promontory, and we were forced to strip naked. Then, one of the Ukrainians pushed me into the hole. After that, I blanked out.

I awoke at night in a bed, inside the camp infirmary, covered with a blood-soaked sheet. My left leg, near the shin, was killing me. I lay awake for a long while, listening to all the sounds around me. Then a man in a white smock came close.

Shhhhhh! he said."Don’t speak. Just listen. I’m Doctor Ulman. I work here in the infirmary. You were brought here by the prisoners who take the corpses to be burned. Probably since you’re small and skinny, the bullet just hit your left leg, and the bodies of the others covered you and protected you.

"The prisoners carrying the bodies off to be burned saw you were alive. You had passed out, and were bathed in blood. When it was dark, they put you in a wheelbarrow; they covered you up with tools, and brought you here. They risked their lives for you. I don’t know who they are. They dropped you off and ran.

I have a young boy here, the doctor continued.He’s dying. I don’t think he’ll last the night. When he dies, you’ll take his place. His name is Gutman. From now on, you’re name is Gutman, understand? They scratched your name off the camp list, and if they catch us, they’ll kill us both. So just lay still now. Later on I’ll take care of your leg. Understand?

Yes, I said.Thank you. Thank you.

As I lay there, in pain, my mind drifted back nine years, to happier times in Kielce, Poland.

The freezing wind whipped against my cheeks. I was sitting with my brother and two sisters in our sled, pulled by two lively horses, driven by Ian, our coachman. Ian was about thirty years old, with blond hair, blue eyes, and prominent cheekbones, the real prototype of the Polish Gentile. He had worked for our family for as long as I could remember. We were all warmly dressed in winter clothing, with gloves, wool caps, and blankets covering our feet.

The landscape was incomparable. For as far as one could see, everything was an immaculate white; the fields, the trees, the houses, even the telegraph poles, were covered with a thick layer of brilliant white snow. The only sounds were the wind, the snorting of the horses, and the tinkling of the little bells that hung from their harnesses.

Sitting to my right was my brother, who was two years older than me; I was seven at the time. His name was Moshe, but we always called him by his nickname, Moniek. Just like everyone called me Srulek, even though my real name was Israel.

He was fabulous, my brother Moniek. He was a brilliant student; even though I never saw him doing his homework, he always seemed to know everything. We were real buddies; we always did things together. Moniek could work wonders with his hands; he was always building little houses and hideaways with fallen branches in the garden behind our home, and they were great feats of engineering. We also shared a passion for stamp collecting. We were inseparable.

I looked behind me, where my two sisters were sitting. Debora, the eldest, at fourteen, was an exceptional girl; she was the best student in her class; very shy and soft-spoken; always devoted to her studies and reading. She devoured books; I’m sure she read three a week.

Ruth, my other sister, was completely the opposite of Debora. She was very extroverted, very gay and coquettish; throughout our home one could always hear her crystalline laughter.

I was the youngest child, and the truth is I was very fortunate, because everyone spoiled me.

We kept on gliding along the snowy path until Ian decided to return home because the sun had set, and the cold was becoming quite intense. We reached our house, which was on the outskirts of Kielce, very close to my father’s slaughterhouse.

It was a large house, built of wood and stone. The ground floor had several bedrooms. The kitchen held an enormous coal stove, and a large tank for hot water, which was also heated with coal, and supplied the kitchen and baths. The spacious living room had a separate entrance, and a great hall with its wooden staircase leading upstairs. There were two bathrooms on the ground floor and one upstairs, next to the other three bedrooms.

The house was heated with large coal stoves, covered with refractory tiles, that occupied an entire wall in each room. There were double doors and windows throughout the house, since in Poland between the months of November and March the temperatures fell to twenty degrees below zero centigrade.

Below was an enormous basement where the coal was stored. There was also a separate area to store the wines my father made, and another part filled with shelves, where my mother stored all the delicious things she made: jams, preserves, and marinated fruits.

For many years we had four persons working in the house. Ian was the coachman. Iuska was the chambermaid. Maria was my mother’s helper. And there was Jacob, an orphan. My parents had taken him under under their wing, and he practically raised Moniek and me.

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My sisters Debora and Ruth

We were what you might call a bourgeois family, quite well off, since my father’s slaughterhouse was the only one in the city of Kielce, a prosperous town with many industries, and two hundred thousand inhabitants, about forty thousand of them Jews. Kielce was also the capital of the province of the same name.

My father was a tall man, very good looking with red hair, and a small pointy beard, with intense greenish eyes. His Hebrew name was Eli-Meloj, which means God King. He was very well known and respected in our town. The Gentiles called him Mister Landowner, even though he owned no lands; the Jews simply called him Meloj the Redhead. He was a self-taught genius, the son of a fanatical ultra-Orthodox rabbi from the city of Dzialoszyce, which was about two hundred kilometers from Kielce.

My grandfather, Jonas, had a very authoritarian character, and after he was widowed, all he really cared about was his religion, which became his refuge. He didn’t allow my father to study anything but Gamera-Mishna and Jewish religious philosophy for a minimum of ten hours a day. My father had to learn other things by himself, hidden away in a secret garret in the house, all the Polish language subjects—primary and secondary—as well as accounting. Using dictionaries and textbooks, he also learned the German and Russian languages. He learned these things with tremendous effort and dedication, always afraid that his father—my grandfather—would catch him.

My mother was a typical Jewish beauty, with very white skin, long, jet-black hair, and large, luminous brown eyes. She was as lovely and bright as a person can be. Sweet and affectionate, the entire family revolved around her.

She was the daughter of a wholesale grain merchant from the city of Wolbrom, a few hundred kilometers distance from Kielce. My mother was an extraordinary cook, and her delicacies—among them gefilte fish—were famous. She was also quite expert in silk embroidery. I remember very little of my maternal grandparents; I rarely saw them, because of the great distance that separated us.

My father had an arrangement with the government of the city of Kielce: they provided him with six hectares of land on the main access road for a period of twenty-five years. In exchange, my father agreed to build and operate a slaughterhouse and a small sausage factory. After twenty-five years, they would renegotiate the agreement.

My father had two large factories built. One was devoted exclusively to preparing kosher meat for the Jewish population; the other was for processing all kinds of beef and pork meat. There, using the intestines of the slaughtered animals, they also prepared beef and pork sausages. A third, smaller, building served as the office and the veterinarian’s laboratory. And there was a small house, where the watchman and his family lived.

In the rear were the large corrals for the beef cattle and pigs, and the stables for the horses. And at the far end of the land there was a garden cultivated by the watchman, where, in addition to fruits and vegetables, he raised chickens and geese for use by our family. Everything was surrounded by barbed wire fences. At the large entrance gate, an employee controlled the entrance of the cattle, and the outbound shipments of slaughtered meat.

The slaughterhouse was five kilometers from the center of the city. Our house was no more than five hundred meters from the slaughterhouse. Near our house was a large, very deep lake. In the summertime, because of its depth, we were only allowed to sit on the shore. But in the winter months, it was marvelous. The entire lake would freeze over, and Moniek and I, together with our two sisters, would spend hours skating. We would also slide on the ice with our sleigh, which we pulled along.

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My brother Moniek

On Sundays in the wintertime, we would also go to the center of town, in a place where you paid to enter, and could skate in time with the music, alone or in pairs. If it rained on Sundays, we would go to the movie theater. Not long before, sound films had come to Kielce and I particularly recall two films: one with Shirley Temple, and the other was a Jewish-Polish production called The Dibbuk, which means a person possessed.

In the summers, during our school vacations, my father would rent a spacious house in the lake country; we would spend the entire time there, doing everything we couldn’t do in the city; fishing, horseback riding, taking different excursions every day; we had a great time, and didn’t want to return to the city.

On Sundays after our vacations, we also enjoyed ourselves. About thirty kilometers from our house was a mountain range filled with berry trees, and edible mushrooms; we would take our father there on picnics, eating all the good things my mother had prepared, gathering berries and mushrooms. Life was beautiful that time of year.

My father liked to make wine; he would wait for the best time to get the grapes he wanted. I was always able to sneak away from my schoolwork for a while, to see how he made the wine. He would fill several large glass demijohns about two-thirds full of grapes and leave them out in the sun. Two or three days later, he would add sugar, and a special secret liquid that only he knew, and leave the mixture out in the sun again for several days, until the demijohns were filled with fermented wine. He would then pour everything into large tubs, and begin the process of filtration.

To filter the wine, he used special glass funnels and the kind of filter paper we use nowadays to make coffee. The wine would be distilled very slowly, drop by drop. He did this in the basement, in a special place he used as a wine cellar. When he had enough liquid to fill a few bottles, he would bottle them, cork them, and put a label on, with date and type of wine, and then rest the bottles