"APPLE OVER THE FENCE"
I was born in 1930 in a village of Poland, the youngest of four brothers. At age nine my world started to crumble. The Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 and my family was herded into a small ghetto. From there we were sent to Piotrkow, a larger, more restricted ghetto. There my father died of typhus.
Soon after we got word that the ghetto was being liquidated. We were divided into two groups. The healthy and strong would be sent to labor camps. The others would be loaded into a cattle car and sent to Treblinka for extermination.
My mother was sent to the "wrong" line. I followed because I desperately wanted to stay with her.
My mother turned to me and said, "Herman, I don't like you. Get away from me!"
My oldest brother, who had assumed responsibility for the family, pulled me away and said, "You stay with me and listen to whatever I say. Period."
Because my mother loved me so much, she pushed me away.
Later I understood that because my mother loved me so much, she wanted to be sure that I went with my brothers, where I'd have a chance to survive.
The Germans asked me how old I was. "Sixteen," I replied, just as my brother instructed me to say. I was tall for a boy of 12, so I could pull it off.
So while my mother was sent to Treblinka, my brothers and I were sent to a slave labor camp. I was put to work painting in the carpentry shop. It was very hard work, and very long hours, with horribly inhumane conditions.
"Don't call me Herman anymore," I said to my brothers. "Call me 94983," the number on my arm.
Then we were sent to Germany, to Buchenwald, for three more months of very heavy work. I worked day and night, digging up rocks in a quarry, and moving bodies to the crematorium. It was a nightmare.
Throughout the entire war, we four brothers never separated. We worked together, slept together, and ate together. Every time there was a selection, they sent me to be first in line. And whichever direction I was sent, they all followed me. Because I was the youngest, and their job was to protect me.
Apples in Schlieben
In 1943 we were sent to another camp in Germany, a place called Schlieben. There I was put to work building anti-tank bombs. I worked nights, and slept during the day. I was always cold and hungry.
Then one day my mother came to me in a dream. She said just a few words: "I am sending you an angel." And then I woke up.
A few days later, I was walking around the camp, close to the fence. Of course, you couldn't touch the fence, because it was electrified. And even if you got near the fence, the Nazis would shoot you. Yet something on the other side of the fence caught my eye: a young girl, 10 years old, hiding behind a tree.
I didn't know at the time, but she was a Jewish girl whose family was posing as non-Jews. Her father knew a priest, who had arranged forged papers for her entire family. They didn't want to be recognized back in Poland, so they went to Germany where they worked on a farm.
I looked around to make sure that no guards were watching. And I asked this little girl, in German: "Do you have anything to eat?" I saw that she didn't understand me, so I repeated the question in Polish. Next thing I knew, she reached into her coat, took out an apple, and threw it toward me.
As I ran away, she said, "I'll see you tomorrow."
It actually landed in between the two rows of barbed wire, so I took a big risk crawling in there to reach it. But it was worth it. How long since I'd seen an apple!
I grabbed the apple and as I started to run away, I heard her say, "I'll see you tomorrow."
The next day I came back at the same time. She was there, and threw me a piece of bread.
My mother was right. She'd sent me an angel.
I didn't tell anybody about this. Not even my brothers. They would have surely forbade me from going nearing the fence. But I didn't care about the danger of getting killed. I just wanted something to eat!
These meetings went on -- every single day, at the same exact time -- for seven months. All this time, I never spoke with the little girl at all. I didn't know her name, and she didn't know mine.
Then we got word: The next day we were being transferred to a different camp. So I told the little girl not to bother coming around any more. And that was the last I saw of her. In fact, with so much else going on, just trying to survive the war, I even forgot about her.
My brothers and I were crammed into a coal car and taken to Theresienstadt, a Czech town that was converted entirely into a prison camp. More slave labor, and more hunger.
Then one day, in May 1945, the Germans told us that we should report at 10 o'clock the next morning to a certain part of the camp. We knew this meant that we were being sent to the gas chamber.
But then something miraculous happened to change those plans. The Nazi commander of the camp, Karl Rahm, knew that the war was almost over, and in an attempt to save himself, he went to the Red Cross and told them about the pending murder of all the Jews in Theresienstadt.
At that time there were thousands of Russian troops headed for Prague, but with this information they took a detour and came to Theresienstadt.
At 8:00 a.m., just two hours before our scheduled execution, there was shouting and a big commotion. The gates of the camp swung open. My brothers and I were liberated!
(The Red Cross did allow Rahm to freely escape, but he was later captured and put on trial by a Czechoslovak court. He was sentenced to death and hanged.)
Blind Date in Coney Island
After the war, I tried to rebuild my life. I first went to England, and then to America. I trained in electronics, and served in the U.S. Army. I was engaged to be married on three separate occasions, and broke it off each time. I guess I hadn't yet found my soul mate.
Eventually I started a business in New York as an electrical contractor.
One day, in 1957, I got a phone call from my friend Sid. He was Hungarian, and was dating a young woman in New York who was also Hungarian. This woman had a Polish friend, and Sid figured that since I was Polish, he'd set me up with her. At first I resisted -- because I was busy with my business and not so interested in blind dates -- but Sid kept pushing me to give it a try.
So I met this woman. Her name was Roma. She was a nurse at a Bronx hospital. We went to dinner in Coney Island and had a nice time. She was pretty, gentle and smart.
On the way home, we spoke about our experiences during the war.
On the way home, we started to speak about our experiences during the war. I told her that I'd been in a concentration camp.
"And where were you, Roma?" I asked.
"I was hiding with my parents in Germany," she said. "Next to our farm was a concentration camp. I used to go there and throw food to a boy."
"Really? What did he look like?"
"He was tall and thin."
Well, lots of people are tall, and certainly everyone in the camp was thin. So I asked her, "What did he wear on his feet?"
"He wore rags."
I wore rags.
I pressed on:
"How long did this go on?"
"About seven months."
"And one day, did he tell you not to come around anymore, because he was being transferred to another camp?"
"Yes."
"Well, Roma, that was me."
"And," she said, "that was me."
I asked her to marry me, right on the spot.
"You're crazy," she said.
"Now that I've found you," I said, "I'm never going to let you go."
A couple days later, she invited me to her house for Shabbat dinner. And a few months later we were married.
It was clear that Divine destiny brought us together. Actually, God had tried one time previously. In 1950, Roma was in Israel studying to be a nurse, and I came to Israel on a visit. I was with a group of people who met with that group of nurses, and Roma and I actually spent some time talking. But we didn't get into details about the war, and since eight years had passed, we didn't recognize each other.
The next time, we didn't miss the opportunity.
Three Factors
People ask how I managed to survive the war. There were three main factors:
First, Roma sustained me for seven months. She fed not just my stomach, but also my soul. She gave me hope.
Secondly, my brothers took incredible care of me. Even though we were all starving, every day they would break off a piece of their bread ration and give it to me -- because I was a growing boy. The way they cared for me, that's true love.
Many times they saved me from death. One cold winter day, we had built a small fire to try to keep warm. A Nazi guard saw me throw a piece of wood onto the fire, and he beat me over the head with a stick. He beat me so hard that I became blind. If anyone would have found out, I'd be deemed 'unable to work' and would be exterminated.
The Nazi beat me so hard that I became blind.
So every day, my brothers led me to the work site, and did my share of the work, so that nobody would find out. That was the extent of my brothers' love. And eventually my eyesight returned.
And thirdly, I believe I survived because my mother never left me. Not only during the war, but even till this day, she's always been there to protect me.
In 1992, I was working at my store and there was a robbery. I got shot in the stomach. The doctors rushed me to the operating table to remove the bullet. While I was under anesthesia, my mother came to me and said, "Don't worry, you'll be alright." The doctors couldn't figure out who I was talking to!
After the operation, I was fine. And I gave up my business and moved to Florida.
My mother greatly impacted my life again, in 1999. All those years since the war, I had never spoken about my Holocaust experiences. I just wanted to forget about the whole thing. But then I had heart bypass surgery, and my mother came to me in a dream. She said: "You've got to tell your story, so that your grandchildren will know who their grandfather was."
So I wrote a book called The Fence, and now it's being made into a major motion picture. Next month, we begin filming on location in Hungary.
And on June 1, 2007, Roma and I will be celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. I shared my life with that little girl who threw the apple. Roma is truly my angel. And I'm never going to let her go.
As told to Shraga Simmons
Published: Sunday, December 10, 2006
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This Is A True Story
Apple Through The Fence In 1945, there was a young boy of 14 in a concentration camp. He was tall, thin but had a bright smile. Every day, a young girl came by on the other side of the fence. She noticed the boy and asked him if he spoke Polish, and he said yes. She said he'd looked hungry, and he said he was. She then reached in her pocket and gave him her apple. He thanked her and she went on her way. The next day, she came by again, bringing with her another apple which she gave him. Each day, she walked by the outside of the fence, hoping to see him, and when she did, she happily handed him an apple in exchange for conversation.
One day, he told her not to come by anymore. He told her he was being shipped to another concentration camp. As he walked away with tears streaming down his face, he wondered if he'd ever see her again. She was the only kind soul he'd seen across the fence.
He made it out of the concentration camp, and immigrated to America. In 1957, his friends had fixed him up on a blind date. He had no idea who the woman was. He picked her up, and during dinner began talking of Poland and the concentration camp. She said she was in Poland at that time. She said she used to talk to a boy and gave him apples daily. He asked if this boy was tall, skinny and if he had told her that she shouldn't come back because he was leaving. She said yes.
It was her, the young girl who came by every day to give him apples. After 12 years, after the war and in another country.....they had met again. What are the odds? He proposed to her on that very night and told her he'd never again let her go. They are still happily married today.
Now that, my friends, is a love story. Miracles do happen, and there is a greater force at work in our lives.
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