Kalman Arieli / Kalma Aharonowitch (M / Lithuania, 1928), Holocaust survivor

Kalman Arieli / Kalma Aharonowitch (M / Lithuania, 1928), Holocaust survivor.

• One of the Kovno Boys, liberated at Gunskirchen
• KEYWORDS: <Kovno Ghetto> <Deportees> <Stutthof> <Landsberg> Dachau Auschwitz <Death March> <Mauthausen> <Death March> <Gunskirchen>

USHMM Oral Interview

Kalman Ariele (né Aharonowitch), born in Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania) in 1928, discusses his family and education; experiencing antisemitism; how life changed when the Russians came to Lithuania; his father being taken to a work camp and killed; Lithuanians robbing Jewish homes; moving to the Kovno ghetto with his mother; being sent to work on the construction of an airport; the orchestra in the ghetto; the Actions in the ghetto and murder of people at the Ninth Fort (Devintasis fortas); the social life in the ghetto; hiding during a Kinder Action; hangings in the ghetto and the killing of Russian POWs; the liquidation of the ghetto and his transport by train to Stutthof; his transfer to Landsberg; being taken, with 16 other boys, to Dachau where he stayed for seven months; his arrival and initiation at Birkenau; his job at Birkenau was to clean up the garbage; the illnesses in camp; ghetto songs; being marched then taken by train to Mauthausen; being marched to camp Gunskirchen; cannibalism; being sick and weak; being liberated by Americans and sent to a hospital in Udine, Italy then one in Milan, Italy; befriending an Italian priest and an Italian partisan named Joseppe Riegler, who later adopted him; attending a conservatory where he learned to play the accordion; immigrating with his adopted father to Israel in 1951; marrying and joining the Israeli Army, where he played in the army band; teaching and performing after the Army; getting married; adopting a girl after the war and having four grandchildren; and reuniting with a group of child survivors every year.