Harry Olmer / Chaim Olmer (M / Poland, 1927), Holocaust survivor

Harry Olmer / Chaim Olmer (M / Poland, 1927), Holocaust survivor.

• <Poland> <Plasnow> <Buchenwald> <Death March> <Theresienstadt> / <Liberation of Theresienstadt / <England> <Windermere Children>

NOTES : Harry Olmer was born in Sosnowiec which is near the German border in South West Poland on 15 November 1927. He was one of six siblings – 4 sisters and 1 brother.

In the Spring of 1940 he moved with his family to a very small village called Mierchow Charsznica where his Grandmother lived as our life in Sosnowiec had become very difficult with the German occupation. Between 1940-1942, they had to work for the Germans including street cleaning, repairing roads and working in German homes. The work was very hard but at least they could get home at night.

In 1942, all the Jews were expelled from their homes and were forced to gather at a field next to a railway track at a nearby village where 2000 Jews were held for 4 days. At the end of the 4th day there was a selection and all the females, children and older men were forced on to cattle trucks and taken away. After the train left another train arrived and the remaining young fit men and boys were sent to Plasnow concentration camp near Krakow where Chiam remained for a year.

In 1943 Chaim was sent to a munitions factory in a town called Skarzysko-Kammienne where he was filling shells with explosives and manufacturing land mines filling them with picrene. This place can only be described as “hell on earth”. In 1944 he was sent to Buchenwald where I remained for just 2 weeks and then sent to another munitions factory in Schlieben where he remained until April 1945. He was then evacuated to Therezenstadt concentration camp where I was liberated by the Russian Army on 8 May 1945. At this point I was very ill and was kept in a hospital until the end of June.

On 14 July 1945, 300 mainly boys and a few girls were allowed to come to England. They were sent to a camp in Windemere where they were able to recuperate. In September, 27 of them were sent to a hostel in Scotland where he remained until June 1946 when he went to Glasgow where he worked as a dental technician and studied at evening classes.

In 1948 He was accepted at Glasgow University to study Dentistry and qualified in 1953. In 1954 He was conscripted into the British army for National Service and sent to Germany to run an Army Dental centre. He married in 1954 and settled in Potters Bar where he remained a dentist until he retired in December 2013. He has 4 children and 8 grandchildren.

• March of the Living