Moniek Bergermann / Monty Bergerman (M / Poland, 1927-2010), Holocaust survivor

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Moniek Bergermann / Monty Bergerman (M / Poland, 1927-2010), Holocaust survivor

Biography

Moniek Bergermann was born in 1927 in Poland. With his family he was forced to live in the Lodz Ghetto from May 1940 to the summer of 1994. He was then deported to Auschwitz and after six months to Buchenwald. He eventually ended up in Theresienstadt, where he was liberated in May 1945.

In August 1945 he joined the Windermere Children and went to England, where he remained the rest of his life.

Testimony

I was born in the city of Lodz, in Poland, in 1927. I was in a very large family.

Until the Germans invaded, I had a very happy childhood.

When they came, we were all moved into the ghetto. There were 10 families all cramped into a very small building. We had no privacy.

We were all made to work and for what we did we were only given vouchers. With these we could buy very small amounts of rations.

A lot of people died from starvation. When people died they were buried under the floorboards, so someone else could have their ration book for extra food. This was how desperate we got.

My own mother died from hunger in the ghetto.

What the Nazis did to us there was appalling. Young people today would not believe it.

With my own eyes I watched the Gestapo come to the hospital opposite where I worked to take people away to concentration camps.

Those that were not fit enough to leave were simply thrown out of the windows.

Some people from my own factory were taken into the yard and hanged. They were all young. There was no reason for it.

When the ghetto was liquidated, my sister, father and I were put on trains and taken to the concentration camps.

First I was taken to Birkenau, where we were penned in by electric fences so we couldn't escape.

On the first night we were given soup by prisoners who had been there a long time.

I was so hungry that I grabbed my bowl. The SS guard who was watching me hit me on the head so I had nothing to eat at all.

A short time afterwards I was transported again, this time to Auschwitz.

When we arrived, the SS guards marched us to the left or to the right. If you went one way it meant you were going to the gas chambers, and if you went the other way it meant you would be kept alive to work.

My dad, who was 47 at the time, was sent to the side for the gas chambers.

I ran after him but a guard grabbed me by the collar and sent me in the other direction because I was a young man. Otherwise I would not have lived.

My brother's wife had a two-year-old baby with her but the SS would not let them stay together.

When she tried to hold on to it, they grabbed the baby off her and threw it on the ground.

An hour after our arrival we could feel the heat and smell the fumes from the gas chambers.

It's impossible to describe the evil at Auschwitz.

Often my job involved putting the bodies in mass graves.

I had to put cement on top of them. They only gave me a tiny bit of food, just enough to stay alive.

If you weren't strong enough to do anything, you went straight to the gas chamber.

If you fell over on the way to work they shot you in the back of the head.

When the Russians got close, we were moved to Buchenwald, where again I had to bury many, many bodies.

It is too horrific to imagine now.

Then we could hear the shots of US forces approaching and we were moved again, this time in cattle trains where we were packed 110 people to a tiny carriage.

We were totally exposed to the elements, as there was no roof on the carriage, and we had no food to eat for four weeks. We then arrived at another camp in Czechoslovakia.

This was the last place they were going to take us. They built massive gas chambers there to kill us all.

We were due to die on May 10th but on May 8th the camp was liberated by the Russians.

I was ill for many months afterwards with typhus and malnutrition.

So when I was taken to England many months later I felt so thankful to still be alive. I owe everything to this country.

Sources

  • USHMM Database (Moniek Bergerman, 13 [30] Oct 1930) -- YES
  • 45aid.org (Moniek Bergermann, n.d.) -- YES

External links

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