Uri Chanoch (M / Lithuania, 1928-2015), Holocaust survivor

Uri Chanoch (M / Lithuania, 1928-2015), Holocaust survivor.

Daniel Chanoch (M / Lithuania / 1933), Holocaust survivor

• KEYWORDS : <Kovno Ghetto> <Auschwitz> <Dachau> -- <Israel>

Biography

Uri Chanoch was born March 28, 1928 in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania.

Yad Vashem, 2006 Torchlighter

Born in 1928 in Kovno, Lithuania, Uri studied at the local Jewish school and was a member of the Betar Youth Movement.

In August 1941, Uri’s family entered the ghetto. Uri, at the age of 13, began to work as a messenger in the German Work Office. He was recruited into the underground movement and risked his life stealing work permits that enabled many people to escape the ghetto and join the Partisans. During the German Aktions against the ghetto’s children, Uri hid his 9 - year-old brother in a hiding place, and despite receiving severe beatings he did not divulge his brother’s whereabouts, thus saving his life.

In July 1994, the ghetto was liquidated and the few people remaining after the Aktions were moved in deportation trains to Germany. On the way, the women and children were removed in Stutthoff, Poland – including Uri’s mother and sister. This was the last time that Uri saw them. The men were transported to the Landsberg/Kaufering labor camp in Dachau. Several days later, all the remaining young children were sent to Auschwitz – Uri’s brother, Dani, among them.

Due to the oppressive work, starvation and beating, Uri’s father’s health deteriorated, and in October 1944 he was sent to Auschwitz. Uri was now left alone and tried to satisfy his hunger by eating salt and drinking water. As a result, his body swelled and he weakened, losing the will to live. At sick call, he stepped forward, knowing full well that this meant almost certain death. Fortunately, the Jewish assistants to the camp commander who recognized him from the Ghetto intervened on his behalf, and the commander ordered Uri removed from the line and assigned him the job of cleaning the office.

Later on, this allowed Uri to save the life of his good friend Chaim Konfitz, who had been seriously wounded in a work accident. Uri struck a deal with the camp physician, Dr. Zachrin, who agreed to save his life in exchange for a supply of tobacco for his pipe. Uri stole cigarettes and tobacco from the pockets of Germans who worked in the office at great risk to his life, and Chaim recovered.

In April 1945, the remaining camp survivors were placed on a train to Dachau. During the journey, the train was blown up, and Uri managed to jump off and flee to the forest under fire. He hid in the forest until he was liberated by American soldiers.

In 1946, Uri and his brother Dani, who had survived Auschwitz, came to Israel illegally on the ship “Wedgwood”. He was recruited into the Palmach and fought in the 4 th battalion freeing Jerusalem from the siege. He then became an officer in the IDF. For most of his life, he was an industrialist, and since retiring has been engaged in public service. Uri is married to Yehudit and has 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

USHMM Oral Interviews

Uri Chanoch, born March 28, 1928 in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes a happy prewar family life, speaking Russian, Lithuanian, Yiddish, and Hebrew at home; his father’s business as a wood merchant; his mother’s positive attitude about everything; how Lithuanian society was completely segregated so that he had no non-Jewish friends; his close relationship with the family’s nanny; a reunion with the nanny’s daughter in 1995; the Russian evacuation of the city when the Germans arrived; German forces barricading Jewish men in one synagogue and then burning it down; spending three weeks barricaded in another synagogue with approximately 150 people; conditions during the confinement; the actions of Lithuanians in rounding up the Jewish population; returning to Kaunas and finding that everyone had disappeared, the mass killing of the Jewish community at the Ninth Fort; and life in the ghetto where he worked as a messenger for a German work office.

Uri Chanoch, born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1928, discusses being one of three children; his annual visits with his younger brother, Daniel, to his paternal grandparents in Žasliai; attending a Hebrew gymnasium; his father's car accident in 1938 resulting in a one-year hospitalization; his mother assuming responsibility for his business; Soviet occupation; attending a Soviet camp in Palanga in summer 1941; German invasion in June; Lithuanians separating the Jewish children, locking them in a synagogue, and beating them; their parents sending buses three weeks later to return them home; ghettoization in August; their former maid bringing them food and offering to hide Daniel; his mother refusing but entrusting her with their furniture; orders for the entire population to gather in October during which many were selected; observing them walking to the Ninth Fort the next day (they were killed); a privileged job as a messenger for SA Lieutenant Gustav Hermann, head of the German labor office; being approached to assist the ghetto underground; forming a cadre of four; weekly meetings; obtaining stamped work permits for groups escaping to the partisans; his mother's round-up to the Ninth Fort; Lt. Hermann arranging her release; hiding Daniel during the round-up of children; refusing to divulge his location during a severe beating; losing his job as a result; slave labor in a wood shop; the underground ordering him to escape with a group; retreating back to the ghetto after being fired upon; deportation with his family by cattle car; being separated from his mother and sister during the journey; slave labor in Kaufering; Daniel’s privileged positions in the kitchen; sharing extra food with their father; an order for deportation of children; deciding to remain with his father, in the hope of helping him and thinking Daniel was going to a better place; brutal slave labor building tunnels; believing God had deserted them; a public hanging of escapees; encountering a cousin who died shortly thereafter; his father's transfer (he never saw him again); punishment for taking a potato; reassignment as a messenger due to influence of friends from Kaunas; helping friends; bribing a prisoner doctor to save his best friend; train transfer from Dachau; escaping with three others; liberation by Soviet troops; beating Germans in Schwabhausen for revenge; United States troops stopping them; traveling to Landsberg; U.S. troops assigning them to a German home; humiliating Germans; learning Daniel was in Munich; traveling there with friends; continuing acts of revenge; encountering the Jewish Brigade which organized their trip to Bologna; learning his mother and sister did not survive; reunion Daniel; living in Fiesole for seven months, preparing for emigration to Palestine; communication from relatives in the United States; moving to Modena; departure for Palestine with Daniel from Tradate in June 1946; living on a Youth Aliyah kibbutz; and participating in the Arab-Israel War; the importance of luck and circumstances to survival; native Israelis' contempt for survivors; Daniel's reluctance to discuss their experiences until about ten years ago; emotional visits to camps, Lithuania, and their maid's daughter; and heightened emotions as the years pass. (He names many with whom he was involved and shows photographs.)