RELS 131
Judaism Podcast Transcript
Hello, everyone. I’m here with Max Eisen, the author of the book By Chance Alone, about his life experiences, particularly back during the Second World War, in his time, about his time in Auschwitz. I’m really lucky to have Mr. Eisen in here today to tell us a little about himself, and to answer some questions for us. So thank you, Mr. Eisen, for joining me. Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you?
I’m Max Eisen, actually Tibor Eisen. And I had Max on when I came to Canada.
OK.
Somebody asked me, what kind of name is Tibor So I was asked– in fact, it’s in my book. And she said, what’s your Hebrew name? I said Mordecai. She said we’ll call you Max. So it’s Max D. Eisen.
So it’s Max since then.
Yeah. So I came to Canada 70 years ago in 1949, October 25. I arrived in Toronto. And I was finally home. after of all those horrible memories behind, and I started a whole new life.
And I was 20 years old. The treasured that I brought with me from Europe were four pictures that were received by a neighbour when our home was ransacked in 1944, when we were deported to, my entire family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944– first the brickyard.
And then we were shipped in cattle chains to Auschwitz-Birkenau. My family were immediately murdered. And my father, my uncle, and me were selected for slave labour.
So I was born in Czechoslovakia, which was a democratic country. And we Jews had 21 wonderful years from 1919 till 1939. And Czechoslovakia was the first victim of Nazi Germany. And then the perdition happened of Czechoslovakia, we were sent to Hungary. And they brought with them the racial laws. It was a fascist country, Hungary.
Right.
And Jews were demonized, the. Propaganda, propaganda took over. Dehumanization of Jewish people, racial laws. We were stripped of all our worldly possessions, step by step. Businesses were confiscated without compensation. And when we were marked to wear a yellow star. And so once that happened, all these poison sort of magnified. Because every morning, when Jewish kids arrived at school, we were less than 10% of the student body. Everybody piled up on the Jewish kids. It was a free for all. It was, it was bullying on a very large scale.
And the teachers, who came from Hungary, they were terrible anti-Semites. They hated our guts. They made us sit in the back of the classroom. We were segregated. So I think about these things. And it’s– I don’t ever want this to happen to anybody again, to be so removed and demonized.
And then, of course, where they went into Auschwitz, we’re parachuted in into a strange world. My father and uncle and I, we were as they were laborers. And my father and uncle, they were selected out in July of 1944. And I managed to find some documents in Auschwitz. Actually, somebody else found these documents when, many years ago, when they asked for people to come to do some volunteer work in the archives, historic archives.
OK.
And he came back, and the documents that was interested in, it says high command hygiene bacterium department in Auschwitz. They were asking for people for experiments on the Streptococcus hemolyticus. So these are pharmaceutical companies.
And that selection was in July the 9th, 1944. And I never saw them after that. So I was left without my support group.
Right, because your uncle and your father were–
They were gone. And so what Auschwitz was– it was, for a 15-year-old, it was very difficult to get adjusted. And how do you get acclimatized to living life as a slave labourer? So there was a Holocaust survivor, an Italian Jew, Primo Levi, who wrote in his book, unless a door opened for you, you couldn’t crawl out of that netherworld.
Right.
After my father and uncle were gone, I had a terrible hit by an SS guard in the back of my head with the butt of his gun. I lost a lot of blood. I went into shock. And I was thrown into a ditch. This was out on a job site, about seven, eight kilometers from Auschwitz. We were working of clearing scrub bushes and things, so they could– they were growing mustard.
So, because they knew that every square inch of space. We could mustard was used– I think they were pressing oil from it. And the stalk were also used for the soup for the prisoners. That’s what I remember from your book. That’s right.
So I was very fortunate, that I was operated.
So someone found you and helped you back?
Yeah, I was dragged back on a two wheeler, with all the tools, shovels and things. And I mean, I was designed to go to the gas chamber. And there were two– there was a surgery department in Auschwitz I. And simply because it was there a deception the Nazis used. They brought the International Red Cross, and showed them, we take good care of our people.
So Red Cross has in? Red Cross had–
Yeah. I mean, the Red Cross, yes.
Wow.
So in fact, Dr. Mengele arrived in South America on an International Red Cross passport.
I didn’t know that.
With his name on it.
I didn’t know that. Wow.
Dr. Mengele.
Yeah, this was the norm. I mean, Jews where– everybody knew what was going on. And so this was the deception that Nazis used. So after operation, if you couldn’t walk away from the hospital, two days later, you were there and gassed.
And this Polish doctor, who was a Polish political prisoner, he put me off the stretcher. And I became a cleaner in the operating room. So I was very lucky, that I worked in the operating room for six months. January the 12th, 1945-had I not been there, I would have killed me outside working here or in the fall and winter, under these psychopathic couples that were the worst bosses.
Right. So you stayed just in the medical–
I was in the barrack 21. I had bed upstairs in the ward, in the foyer. You have to understand that Auschwitz later, the layering of Auschwitz were, there was a permanent people. And it was Polish political prisoners who were the first inmates.
And Jews were on the bottom of the list.
Like after everybody.
After everybody else was saying they were politicals. They were couples. And they’re were gays. There were Jehovah’s Witnesses. But the Jews were on the bottom of the list.
Right. Life here hanged in the balance every second. You have to be very focused. You have to be very strong. And you have to be very resilient.
How old were you at that time? I was 15 years old.
OK. That’s a lot of resilience to ask for from a 15-year-old.
I think I had– I think a lot about it. My family actually, they prepared and that for me to travel by. My mother was my guardian angel. My grandfather, my paternal grandfather, he taught me many work skills and life skills.
Because here, if is you didn’t do the right thing, in a split second, a couple, he could beat the heck out you. He could beat you to a pulp. And you received one beating, you may not survive two beatings. And so I was very determined to put one foot in front of the other. Because if you gave up, you were done.
So in January the 12th, were taken on a death march. And I was in better shape than most others. But you know, to be relocated from one camp to another, that is a very big ordeal.
I can imagine. How long did that take?
Took 13 days, January the 12th to January the 25th, when are in. From then on, it was downhill all the way. The last three months were horrible. Had I not had that extra bit of strength– and by the end, I was in pretty bad shape. Typhus broke out. And people were dying by the thousands. Canadians say that was the last camp. And it was in the nick of time. May the 6th, I was in the lower bunk, a very high fever. and somebody shuffled in. And it’s wooden clogs on the cement floor. It was a skeleton a ghost. You were saying that the guards are not enough in this house.
Imagine that SS had helmets with a machine gun in a storage closet. And he was saying, I keep thinking, am I dreaming? So I called out. And I knew that I had to get out of this bunk. And I could see that the tower was empty. There was no guard. And I could hear machine– and the gate came flying in, and a tank was coming through it with a white star on it. Which the German tanks have the cross, the black, and the white, the border. And there were black soldiers sitting on the tank
That was liberation. They made it since 1945. I will never forget that moment. We were liberated, but we were really not free. And because the ordeal was terrible after liberation, simply it was your body was so torn up. It was a disaster. You’re dying for– many, many people are dying of starvation. And no one to give food. It killed people. It was weak. Our body will not accept.
The first thing the American Army did, they brought up an Army kitchen. And they cooked up a stew. I could smell the meat. And it was sort of warming your body just didn’t want it.
Because it adjusted.
We going down. You were, half an hour later, an hour later, thousands of us were murdered. They ate this food, and their stomachs ruptured, and then dropped dead. So we had a lot of things to deal with.
Yes.
And finally, the camp, two months later, I was in a hospital bed. It was a much healthier. It was just– we were just in the hospital room.
Where was the hospital?
It was in the camp.
OK. It was an SS hospital.
OK.
I remember the nurses were SS nurses. And they just took the whatever. The same uniform, but without the swastika band or something. Tough. Was not a good feeling. And the camp was being closed down. An announcement was me that anybody that is from Czechoslovakia, line up tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock. They put us on a truck and shipped us off to, back to Czechoslovakia.
Just like that.
And yeah, and the army took, the American army truck, and we got to a place called Chestkia. And all the while, I kept thinking, what’s going to happen to me in this other world? I don’t know. I was away a million years.
I was, the civilians in my town, the way we were treated, they were happy to see us be gone. Where am I going? That’s the only place I know.
I come home, and there’s nobody there. That was a crucial time. How do you pick up the pieces?
Of course. And there was no one left in your family?
Well two years later, I found a cousin.
You did?
From my father’s side and a cousin from my mother’s side, out of so many people. Were two of us left. We were in different places. And it was, in my town out of 500, Jews that where in deported a year before, 480 didn’t come back. There were only 20 survivors. There’s only one mother, Mrs. Rosenberg, with two beautiful daughters, teenagers.
They returned?
They were older than I was. And their son didn’t survive it. He was in my class. And there were two brothers that came back. One was in my class. And his brother was two years older. And you know, just to see them– he was two brothers. And here you are alone. And there’s all kinds of feelings that are– you want to feel sorry for yourself. But you know, you can’t go down that road.
I wound up, eventually, in an orphanage, where I was for three years. And it took me three years to become a normal person, I think.
And was that in Czechoslovakia?
In Czechoslovakia, yeah. And then the communists took over in late 40s. And we have to get out of here. Because we experienced fascism, communism, and communism.
Right.
And finally, I had to run away, after another ordeal. We were caught first try, and was put in jail as a political prisoner. And then they let us out. Somebody paid them off. Everybody is corrupt in a communist state. So three of us had to be taken out of a prison. And they said get lost.
We tried again, wound up in DP camp in Austria, from there to Canada.
And you’re arrived in Toronto?
I arrived in Toronto, October 25. This past October was 70 years ago. I’m in Toronto. I’ve lived here ever since.
And this is where you met your wife?
Yeah, and my son. Started a family. I had a successful career in business and Manufacturing, and I’ve been a speaker since 91.
91. Wow.
So I think you asked me what motivated me to be speaker? Well, I didn’t– they only– and we came here, nobody wanted to know.
That was going to be my next question.
What happened to us, you know. We are called Greenies.
Greenies?
Green horns yes. This was the name greenie. So we were very focused. We had no money. We had to get jobs. I was a dental technician. And I learned this after the war, and couldn’t get a job. So that’s a long story.
Finally, I started my manufacturing company. So the only people that I talked with– my wife knew the story. Our sons, Canadians born. And they had raised normal kids. I sort of watched them grow. And every step of the way, I could– as if I grew up with them, having a high school and university. They were top athletes. And you know, I sort of kept thinking, my gosh. I missed a lot of those things.
Last updated: 6/2/2020 By KA
The post RELS 131 Judaism Podcast Transcript Hello, everyone. I’m here with Max Eisen, appeared first on PapersSpot.