Show Notes
Go to the photo cut out of the man showing a concentration camp tattoo on his forearm. This man is Henry Wyrobnik. Henry was born in Lodz, Poland. He, his parents, siblings and many other family members were put into the Lodz Ghetto by the Nazis until August 1944, when he and his family were sent to Auschwitz. Henry shared some reflections of his experiences. As the Allied Armies approached, he and thousands of others were taken on a Death March beginning on Jan. 15, 1945. They were given only small amounts of bread. They marched for two weeks, day and night. If someone lagged behind or walked out of line, they were shot immediately by German soldiers. They were put on open coal trains, other trains were hooked on, and they spent two weeks on the train. They had nothing to eat but snow. In Czechoslovakia, people threw food to the trains as they went through the countryside, but the Czech people were shot by the SS, a quasi-military unit that serviced as Hitler’s personal guard, if they were caught throwing food. One hundred eight people were on Henry’s train, “packed like sardines,” and at the end only 35 remained. The train finally took them to Mauthausen. There they were forced to bury bodies in mass graves. In Mauthausen, they had no clothes, no food and were sitting in crowded barracks. At the end of three or four weeks, they were sent to Gunskirchen, a sub-camp of Mauthausen. At the end, Henry says they “spent three weeks without water to drink, living in the woods with mud so deep if you stepped into it, you would sink in.” Many people from other countries were also imprisoned there. They built barracks for 500 people, which were actually a gas chamber. On May 5, 1945, Gunskirschen was liberated and Henry was freed and eventually sent to a hospital to recuperate. He had lost his whole family, including his parents, one brother and two sisters. Henry met his wife, Dora, also a survivor, in a Displaced Persons (DP) Camp at Feldafing, Germany. They came to the U.S. in 1949, and he worked for Shillitos, a department store in Cincinnati. Later, he owned his own business and came to Dayton.
More from Holocaust Audio Tour
Move to the grouping of photos on the left side of this exhibit. These buildings and places represent “Places of Ha’Shoah” – places where the events of the Holocaust took place. Tucson photographer Cy Lehrer used heavy black borders and film base to enhance the dramatic effect of his imagery. This technique encourages the viewer to experience the starkness of the photo and suggests an environment that would allow for incomprehensible crimes to take place.
Move to the long striped jacket in the glass exhibit case. Perhaps the rarest artifact in this exhibit, this concentration camp uniform is one of very few still in existence. It was given to the exhibit by Jack Bomstein, whose father Moritz wore the uniform while he was imprisoned at Buchenwald. Allied Prisoners of War, or POWs, interned at Buchenwald in 1944, had their U.S. uniforms taken away and were forced to wear uniforms similar to this one.
Along the floor path of the Holocaust exhibit, you will find a timeline of a brief history of human rights in the 20th century. This retrospective includes not only issues relevant to the Holocaust, but to all matters of human rights from across the globe from 1901 to 1950.
Near the “Places of Ha’Shoah” images is another grouping titled “Fragments of the Budapest Ghetto.” These scenes are from an old Jewish section of Pest, Hungary, a district of 19th century buildings near the Danube River. Here the Nazis established a large ghetto in June 1944, several months after occupying Hungary and deporting virtually every Jew living in the provinces. Budapest’s 220,000 Jews were forced into 2,000 houses marked with a yellow star. In October, Hungarian Fascists began their program of anti-Jewish violence, even as Soviet troops approached the city. In November, thousands of Jews were shot and thrown into the Danube and preparations were made for massive deportation of those remaining. The Soviets occupied Budapest on Jan. 18, 1945, and an estimated 120,000 Jews were saved. Dominating the Jewish section is the Moorish-style Dohany Street Synagogue, a huge, ornate, twin-towered structure inaugurated in 1859 by the city’s Neolog (Reform) congregation. The largest active synagogue in Europe, it seats 3,000 and has undergone a full restoration that was completed in 2009. During the war, the church was fenced off and used as a concentration camp for Jews massed prior to deportation. In the arcade courtyard are individual and mass graves of thousands of Budapest’s ghetto victims. Another courtyard contains a memorial to Hungarian Holocaust victims, a weeping willow tree created in granite and steel, by Hungarian sculptor Irma Varga. On nearby Sip Street are found the offices of the Central Board of Hungarian Jews, the Budapest Jewish Community, the World Jewish Congress and the American Joint Distribution Committee. The immediate neighborhood offers an Orthodox Mikvah, kosher restaurants, grocers and wine shops, Jewish gift shops and three Jewish schools.
By May 1945, Nazi Germany had collapsed. American and Soviet troops liberated the camps and were shocked at the conditions they found. They were sickened by the sight of thousands of dead bodies stacked on top of each other. Most of the survivors resembled living skeletons. Even after they were freed, the Jews had problems. Most survivors had no homes to return to and so they immigrated to places like the United States, where they could start a new life. The word “Holocaust” means destruction by fire. It is a reminder that many books, synagogues and people were consumed by fire as the Nazi leaders killed six million Jews and millions of others in their efforts to achieve racial purity. More people died in the Holocaust than now live in the state of Ohio. Today the survivors, their children and their grandchildren are scattered among many nations. They are our neighbors, and they stand witness to what happened when racial and religious prejudice is encouraged by people who offer simple answers based on lies and hatred. It is our obligation to the millions of persons who died in this great human Holocaust to see that this does not happen again. On the reverse side of this wall, you can view photos and other artifacts that represent local histories of the Holocaust.