Holocaust survivor: ‘Shalom’

Anya Liao
April 15, 2009
Filed under Features

Abe Goldberg’s wit and extraordinary luck helped him avoid the fate of six million other Jews during the Holocaust. He evaded the imminent threat of death and the concentration camps as the world around him was steadily destroyed.
The Holocaust survivor began his Peace Weak speech with, “Shalom. It means peace.”
Mr. John Bickel introduced Mr. Goldberg as a Polish Jew, “86 years young.” Goldberg was born in Lodz, Poland, where the Jewish population of 2,400 was reduced to nearly zero over the course of the Holocaust.
It was a Friday when Goldberg’s happy childhood came to an end. He watched the German army marching into his hometown, snapping photographs and singing an upbeat tune: “The Jews’ blood drips from our knives.”
Germans who did not cooperate with the Nazis were eliminated.
“The majority welcomed the Germans,” Goldberg said. “They flew Nazi flags out their windows. The street was a red sea of flags.”
His life during the Nazi occupation was measure in a series of walks, arrests and miraculous escapes marked by his luck and will to survive.

Walk 1

Goldberg and friend were taking a walk. Jews were not allowed to walk on sidewalks. They were arrested and taken to the outskirts of a city where Goldberg had taken swimming lessons as a boy. Trenches had been dug: a mass grave.

Goldberg’s luck saved his life the first time. It came in the from of a sympathetic German soldier who ordered Goldberg across the street to fix his truck.

“When I finished, he said, ‘Go back, go do it again. Try to do a good job,’ ” Goldberg said.
The truck obscured his view, but Goldberg heard machine gun fire, and then screams. When silence descended, the soldier ordered him to slip out from the other side of the truck. And run.

Walk 2

Goldberg went on a walk. He planned to visit his girlfriend but was arrested. He was forced to scrub the school floors with his own shirt, but discovered a back entrance and escaped.

Meanwhile, two German soldiers entered his girlfriend’s house. She and her female relative were told to undress. They were forced to play the piano and dance while the soldiers took pictures and shouted, “Festive, festive!” Then she fainted.

“She told me,” Goldberg paused, “‘Good thing you didn’t visit me.’”

Walk 3

Goldberg and a friend were walking, posing as Polish Catholics. Soldiers ordered them to a railway station and into a boxcar crammed with Jews.

“We insisted we were not Jews,” Goldberg said, “but he said it did not matter.”

At a stop, Goldberg and his friend pried open the floor of the boxcar with a crowbar and pressed themselves between the train tracks. The other Jews only watched them, too frightened to follow.

The train left, and Goldberg, yet again, escaped.