Abraham Malnik (M / Lithuania, 1927-2007), Holocaust survivor
Abraham Malnik (M / Lithuania, 1927-2007), Holocaust survivor.
- KEYWORDS : <Kovno Ghetto> Various Camps <Theresienstadt> <Liberation of Theresienstadt> -- <United States>
Biography
Abraham Malnik was born January 31, 1927 in Kovno, Lithuania. Abraham came from a wealthy family that was ordered into the Kovno ghetto after the Germans occupied Lithuania in 1941. Abraham's mother urged his father to flee, but he returned for them. Begging for mercy, he was able to save them from a massacre in the Ninth Fort, one of several forts around Kovno. Abraham and his father survived internment in five camps before they were finally liberated in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Abe's mother perished at the Stutthof camp.
USHMM's ID Card
Abraham was born to a Jewish family in Kovno, a city picturesquely situated at the confluence of two rivers. With an opera company, chic stores and lively nightclubs, it was often called "Little Paris." The city had a large Jewish community of 38,000 and was known for its extensive Hebrew school system. Abraham's father was a barber, and his mother was a beautician.
1933-39: When Abraham was a kid his family used to go to his grandparents' house for Sunday dinner. In the winter they would take a horse-drawn sleigh. His parents would bundle him up in fur blankets, and they would set off, the horses' bells ringing, their sleigh gliding over the white roads. When his family arrived, Abraham's grandfather would kiss him gently on the forehead, his beard tickling his face, and his grandmother would hug him tightly.
1940-44: Abraham was 14 when the Germans occupied Kovno and forced the city's Jews into a fenced-off ghetto. One day the Germans started rounding up all children to take them away. Abraham scrambled to hide in a potato cellar with two mothers and their babies. Through a crack he saw a German guard searching for escapees. One baby started crying and Abraham thought, "Please, God, please!" The wailing suddenly stopped. Later, he gave the "all clear" sign and they climbed out of their dark hole. One baby was dead, accidentally choked by his mother.
In 1944 Abraham was deported from Kovno. He survived five concentration camps and was liberated at Theresienstadt in 1945. He immigrated to America two years later.
USHMM Oral Interview
Abraham Malnik discusses the German invasion of Lithuania; his family's life in the Kovno ghetto; how his father, Josef Malnik, rescued him and his mother from a selection of elderly, children, and handicapped persons, thereby saving them from the massacre at the Ninth Fort near the ghetto in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania; his time hiding in a cellar in the Kovno ghetto to avoid capture during a "Kinder aktion" by the Germans; the liquidation of the Kovno ghetto during which many of the remaining Jews were massacred by Lithuanian collaborators; his family's transport to Stutthof concentration camp and subsequently to Dachau, Flossenbürg, and Leitmeritz (Litomerice) concentration camps; how he and his father participated in forced labor in a mine in Leitmeritz; the yellow star and number insignia the Germans assigned to him in Leitmeritz; his experience with Polish Kapos in Leitmeritz; his time spent in the Leitmeritz hospital with typhoid fever; his "walk" to Theresienstadt concentration camp in April 1945 and his liberation there by the Soviet Army; his thoughts on taking revenge against the Germans for their brutality during the Holocaust; and the special bond he and his father shared throughout their Holocaust ordeal.