Dvora Kuczynski: “I went to Auschwitz voluntarily”

On the night of March 14-15, 1939, they called my father and said: “Take your family and run to Poland. The Germans are about to enter Czechoslovakia.” His father, a professor, a specialist in Greek and Latin philology, was, firstly, an admirer of German culture, and secondly, it seemed to him to run away as cowardice. “Completely crazy,” he responded to the call. I was then 14 years old. And at 16, together with my whole family, I ended up in the ghetto in Theresienstadt.

“See you in Prague!”

Men and women were divided into different barracks. 50 women and children lived in mine. Slept on the floor. The worst problem was hunger. After some time, the families were allowed to live together. But we, teenagers, who were part of the youth Zionist movement, wanted to live separately from our parents, we had our own barracks. I was the head of it. We worked in the fields, growing vegetables for the Nazis.

There I fell in love for the first time in my life. His name was Peter and he had a blonde girlfriend. But with the help of women’s tricks, I got Peter to offer to teach me English. After three hours of classes, we were already kissing … In 1943, the Germans allowed weddings in the ghetto. Peter came to my father and, stuttering and embarrassed, asked for my hand in marriage. I was sure that my father would refuse him, saying that I was too young. But he only asked us if we love each other, and replied: “I’m glad! I agree!” And then I began to cry terribly: “Are you letting me go so easily ?!” Everyone, of course, laughed. And then Rabbi Leo Beck – he was such a major international figure that the Germans did not dare to destroy him – performed the wedding ceremony.

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In 44, the Germans began to transport men from the ghetto to Auschwitz. None of us understood what it was. The Germans were cunning, saying that they were sending them to other work. After sending the first echelon, someone managed to smuggle a note into the ghetto with a warning that death awaits everyone in Auschwitz. We didn’t believe. At that moment, Europe did not yet know about the concentration camps. My older brother was sent first, then my parents. I had no idea that we would not see each other. It was already July 1944, the Russian army was advancing, everyone was sure that the war was about to end, and they said goodbye to each other: “See you in Prague!”.

A month later it was my husband’s turn. I went with him to the station. When the officer called out his name, I approached and said that I wanted to go with my husband. The officer was surprised by my impudence, no one spoke to the SS like that. He even seemed to be embarrassed and said: “Go away from here, both of you!” We returned to our camp and thought we had escaped. But three days later, the husband was again on the lists for shipment. One of ours, who was in charge of the plantations, called me over and said, “Don’t you dare go with your husband. You will be together for the first 24 hours, and then you will be separated.” I didn’t believe it. This time the Germans allowed everyone to go. We were transported in cattle cars. The train arrived at Auschwitz in the dark – people were always brought there at night. Spotlights burned brightly, shepherd dogs burst from their leashes, an SS officer commanded: women here, men there. Peter and I hugged, kissed and said to each other: “See you in Prague!”

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Road to the gas chamber

The women, in turn, were divided into groups: young and over 40. They were taken to the barracks. The Jews, who had been elders there for years, said: “They will take you to the shower room now. There will be either water or gas.” Before the shower, the SS men shaved our hair – on the head, under the armpits and below. And we could not recognize each other, because without hair everyone began to look different. There was water in the shower…

We didn’t feel anything. The shock was so strong that it simply turned off consciousness. You just don’t understand what’s going on. You only feel the terrible cold. All the things we had were taken away. They gave us some dirty summer blankets. And wooden sandals. No panties, no bras, no more of that. At five in the morning we had to stand on the line in this terrible cold. Those who did not have time ended up in the gas chamber. After a few weeks, I didn’t want to get up in the morning. The girls bothered me, I said: “Leave me, I want to sleep.” They lifted me by force and supported me in the ranks so that I would not fall.

One morning there was a command: “Build, to the left, forward!” We were led across the railroad tracks. We knew that behind them was the road to the gas chamber. I was accompanied by a friend from our youth movement. Suddenly she bent down, seeing a needle and thread on the ground. I told her, “Listen, where we’re going, you don’t need a needle.” And she said: “You never know for sure…” Suddenly we were told to stop and wait. We stood in the cold for half an hour. Then we were turned around and taken back to the barracks. It turned out that on that day the crematoria were overcrowded, there was no more room for us. And three days later we were transferred to another camp, where there were factories for the production of weapons. We worked there. There was no crematorium, but the famine was terrible. Three pieces of black bread and black coffee, of course, without milk in the morning, soup for lunch and dinner. We were looking for food everywhere … In the mornings we told each other dreams. They had two typical plots. The first is what we eat. The second is that we meet with our families.

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Polite SS

What helped me survive then?.. I had a happy childhood. I remember myself at the age of 10, as I lie in my bed and think: nothing bad can happen to me! Alas, the worst, the worst thing you can imagine, still happened to me. But this childhood experience of happiness gave me strength, some basic confidence. But what prevented us from surviving is culture. I grew up in a very cultural environment. My father, as I said, is a professor, and my mother is a talented musician (having married, of course, she could not perform, but music always sounded in my childhood). Until the age of 14, I read more books than in my entire long life afterwards. So, all this should have been forgotten in the concentration camp. What allows you to survive there are instincts. And culture is the opposite of instincts.

Once every few weeks we were on duty in the kitchen. There were also night shifts, because military factories worked around the clock. It fell to me to be on duty on the night of February 13, 1945. This date was later included in the history books in connection with the bombing of Dresden by the British. And we were 15 km from Dresden. I had to cook soup in a huge cauldron, and, as usual, I was supervised by an SS woman, such a beautiful blonde in boots polished to a mirror shine. Suddenly, from somewhere far away, an incomprehensible sound was heard, it grew and grew, we realized that planes were flying above us. They began to drop bombs, powerful searchlights from the ground tried to capture them with a beam. Everything rumbled around. And we did not have bomb shelters, nowhere to hide. And suddenly the SS woman, in a changed voice, very politely, turned to me as “you”: “Madam, could you sit next to me?” I sat down. I was infinitely glad, I was simply jubilant because she, too, was afraid. She started telling me, “War is terrible. We Germans did not want this war.” I say: “We Jews, too!” She suddenly asks, “Do you think we’re going to die?” And I gloatingly answer: “Very possibly!”

I intimidated her with pleasure, not thinking that I myself could die. She began to talk about her life, about her friend who is fighting in Russia, and for many months she does not know what is happening to him. I say with burning eyes: “There is no longer any war in Russia, the Russians are already in Europe!” And finally, everything was quiet. Seconds and she started yelling at me! Workers came for soup, I handed out food to them, trying not to look at her, it seemed to me that now she could kill me. I don’t think she saw me as a person at that moment. All she needed was a function, someone to comfort her.

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I survived alone

In April 45, it became clear that the Germans had lost the war. They destroyed our concentration camp, and they wanted to take us away so that we would not get to the Russians. They put us in cattle cars and began to transport us back and forth, because the tracks here and there were destroyed. One of our guys told the warden that we were from Theresienstadt, maybe we could be returned there? And Theresienstadt at that moment was under the jurisdiction of the Red Cross, the Germans did not have the right to approach it closer than 5 km. They took us to this line. They even tried to treat us like human beings. Because they were afraid. And I already felt my strength, I was generally dominant, so I announced: “We won’t talk to them at all!” It occurred to me to pounce on them and take revenge, but I did not have the strength.

In complete silence we walked the road to Theresienstadt. There was a tragedy. The Red Cross prepared huge cauldrons of food for us, people rushed to them, attacked the food and many died. At night, my Czech friend and I ran away from there, boarded the train – they let us in for free, seeing that we were from a concentration camp – and on the morning of May 13 we returned to Prague. That night she was released, and at 8 in the morning the bells of all churches rang on this occasion. I got off the train in just a nightgown, wooden sandals, no underwear and no hair… I didn’t have a home. I didn’t have a family. My parents, brother, Peter – all died in concentration camps.

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Unbearable guilt

A year later, I came to Israel, where my husband’s family lived. At the port in Haifa, his father met me. I immediately recognized him – they were so similar to Peter. His family wanted to adopt me, but I did not agree. It was too hard. And I left them for a kibbutz.

I was depressed for years. I didn’t want to live. I think depression is a natural reaction to what I’ve been through. We had a very large family. With all distant relatives about 60 people. Only my father had six sisters, all of them were married with children. Of all, I was left alone. Like other survivors, I had a huge sense of guilt. I can explain it as a psychologist, although it defies logic. We preferred to feel guilty rather than helpless. We have developed black humor. When we met with the same survivors – and we survived about 10% of all – we could ask: “What about so-and-so?” – and get the answer: “Yes, it has long turned into smoke!” Black humor, yes, because the soul is not able to contain all this.

I couldn’t find my place. I received one specialty after another, but nothing suited me. I did not allow myself a personal life – it seemed to me infidelity in relation to the deceased husband. My salvation was that I got to Erich Neumann¹. He brought me back to life. I became a Jungian analyst. She got married at 29 and had two children. The husband with whom I lived for 30 years was not at all like Peter, he was his complete opposite. Well, it speaks of development. But I had to work on myself for many years. If they told me today that I would end up in the camp again, I would have committed suicide right there. But if you are already there, then you want to survive, the survival instinct is unusually strong. And this inevitably creates alienation in the soul. Many years must pass before the soul can somehow digest, understand what happened, and life somehow normalizes.

Dealing with guilt was incredibly difficult. Perhaps the main thing that helped me was the realization that I did what I had to do – I did not stay in Theresienstadt, but went with my husband to Auschwitz. I was with him until the last minute, until we were forcibly separated.

¹ Erich Neumann (1905-1960), German psychologist, philosopher, writer, student of Carl Gustav Jung.