Elly Gross nee Berkovits
I am Elly Gross, and this, as briefly as possible, is my story.
In that spring German, Nazis invaded
Czechoslovakia. On
September 10, 1940 three regions of Romania, Bihor/Crisana, Cluj
and Maramures were annexed by Hungary. In
1942 the new government drafted men age 18-55 to forced labor. My
father age 36 was drafted, forever disappeared from our lives. Home
with our mother, my brother and I never heard from my father. It
wasn't until after I was freed from the labor camps in the spring
of 1945 that I heard anything about him again. Returning as a young
woman to the home I had left as barely more than a
child, I
was told that my daddy was burned alive at Dorsensk, on the Russian
front in the spring of 1943.
Beginning early in the winter of 1944 we Jews had to wear the yellow Star of David. Gentile children spit on me and said, "Dirty Jew go to Palestine. Did a star fall on you?" My mother said tried to comfort me, saying "Elly, you have to learn not complain and take life as it comes."
After Passover, soldiers, university professors and brain washed students armed with rifles, ordered us to leave our house. We were escorted to the Ghetto, which was in a former brick factory at Chehul-Silvaniei. As we entered on the right side blood covered men were on gallows, Hungarian authorities tortured older people suspected that of concealing valuables.
In the ghetto 4 females were ordered to peel potatoes, by blind luck at age 15 I was one of them. At night, I was allowed to take my mothher and brother one or two potatoes. As long as I live, I'll never forget my little brother, who waited to see me, not for the potato, but because we loved each other. His handsome face got smaller day by day, my heart breaks when I think of him. In his short life, few good days he had.
On Saturday May 27th 1944, Erev Shavuas we were ordered into a tent strip searched and herded in boxcars, 95-100 person on each. We were given a bucket for waste and one with water. The river ran next to the transport, but we only had one bucketfull of water.
Friday June 2nd the door was opened. A newborn child with his mother, the dead, the sick and old were throw on a cart on top of one another. In the air was a heavy smoke. It smelled, I still recall, as burnt rubber. On the horizon were 4 tall chimneys which poured smoke with red flames. From the background I heard a symphony, somewhere.
At the head of the line of disembarking captives, an officer moved his white gloves. My familey and I were seperated, and I was pushed to the other side. I waived to my Mother and Brother, then ran to catch the small group on the right side. I never saw my mother and my brother again.
My group was escorted into a building. We had to undress, a girl chopped my ponytail, another shaved my head. As I entered into the shower, I got a tiny soap written engraved with the words "Jude Siefe," in English "Jewish Soap." After the shower all of us got a rag with a yellow cross on the back, wooden clogs and nothing else. On the plaza came a woman she said, "You are in Auschwitz-2/Birkenau, Lager C. In this area are 32 Blocks (trailers) each houses about 1,000 females from Hungary and territories under their jurisdiction.
I was put to work carrying water to the 1,000-1,200 women and cleaning the chimney bricks with a broken brick, bleaching the cement with white chlorox jell I applied wth my fingers. In the morning, with other girls, I was sent for the black water our captors called "coffee." Once, we found a garbage pile with dirty potato peels. When the female soldier looked the other way we picked a hand-full and shoveled them into our mouths.
In the end of August 1944 Dr. Mengele selected a group of us and I was shipped to Fallerslaben, Germany to work for Volkswagen on land-mines and bazookas. The fumes made me sick. I got a respiratory infection with fever, and a sort of whooping cough. Those who got ill were sent away and lost forever. For some reason, I was spared. The German officer in charge of our group ordered that I should not work in the factory, but instead wash the living quarter's floor.
Early April 1945 we were shipped to Zalsweden. I was reunited with my two cousins. On April 14, 1945 the Allies liberated us. Later we were moved to Hillerslaben and in a few months returned home. My parents were not waiting for me, our home was ransacked, soon I found that my family was murdered. "I am an orphan,"I realized. It was hard to believe,to face the ugly truth. Those were my darkest days, I walked as a zombie. For a while I could not talk.
In 1946 at the age of 17 I married Ernest Gross, a survivor of forced labor and Death March. We lived under the communist regime in Romania for 20 years and raised two children. In 1966 moved to United States. With my husband and I worked 16-18 hours a day, 7 days a week. While we supported our family, our children focused on their education, and were able to reach the American dream. God Bless America.
In 1995 I did a testimony for Mr. Steven Spielbergs' Shoah foundation and a law firm found my testimony. I was called from Los Angeles. In 1998 I served as plaintiff on the reparation for all former slaves. Gentiles and Jews alike.
In 1998 I took part in that years "March of the Living" tour of Holocaust sites. While walking through Auschwitz-2/Birkenau on a display I found my mother and brother's picture in front of a boxcar when we had just arrived, in the morning of June 2, 1944. As lighting hit me all the memories. There I made a commitment, that as long as I am able, I will remind everyone who will listen of our tragic past.
Yad Vashem in 1998 entered my parents on the website. In 1998 many newspapers in the United States and around the world wrote about my testimonies. In memory of our Martyrs I participated 4 times in the March of the Living with educators, survivors and teenagers. We walked through Polish killing fields where Nazis and collaborators killed millions of our brethren, through the death camps, the showers, and the memories.
In May of 2005, I was invited to Germany and participated on inaugurations. It was in Fallerslaben where I worked as a slave at the age of 15. One part of the inauguration was especially emotional for me, from the among all of the Holocaust victims, 15 families were selected on the permanent exhibition in the new Museum of Murdered European Jews in Berlin. My parents and brother were among the few selected for this high postmortem honor. It is a small, but nice piece if closure of my struggle to leave a lasting memory for my family.
I never forget, never forgive those whom destroyed my family. Through my books and on my speeches in schools I try to remind others of our tragic past. However I do not believe this generation can be blamed for their grandfathers' crimes. But it is important that they, their descendents, and OUR descendents, never forget the six million.
- Elly Berkovits Gross