"It Was a Real Freilach Wedding" (but you have to live to get to it)

  Today, I had the unbelievably good fortune to hear 96-year-old Frida Klinger speak about her experiences in from pre-war Warsaw to the uprising, from Majdanek to Auschwitz, and from Bergen Belsen to decades of family life in Israel.  Her warmth and honesty were only matched by her strong sense of purpose; I immediately felt moved by her presence as a human being, not "just" a survivor.

  The first thing that was clear to me about Frida was that she is very proud, in particular of her education and even more so of her children's education.  She valued us because we are teachers and she spoke so enthusiastically about memories of her children's teachers (and how swift her son and daughter were as learners!)   She then shifted to her own education, back in pre-war Warsaw.

   Young Frida attended a Catholic school for girls that was right across the street from her house, rather than attending the public school for Jewish students that was a while down the road.  Her father teased there that he was "afraid if it snowed it would cover me and he would never find me."    After all, she was always short, she said and "always sat on the front bench in photos.

    She was top in her class, and was especially strong in Math and Physics.  "There was a future! Oh!" she said, and let out a big sigh.  She told how there was one scholarship for high school, at that time, for the girl who was at the top of the class. As high schools were all private at the time, this funding was crucial to her, and she was promised by her beloved teacher that she would be the one who earned it in high school.

    Frida spoke of a time when she didn't even know the word antisemitism because it was the early 1930s, it was before Hitler, and she didn't need to know the word. It didn't enter into her life. She was "growing nicely with the girls".  But this all changed around 1934, when her beloved teacher grew ill and a new one came in.  This one saw her name, and saw that she was Jewish, and decreed that there would be no way a Jewish girl could receive a 5 (an A) in Polish language.  Every subjective assignment was scored brutally, and she was reminded that Jewish people will not master Polish.

    When the old teacher returned, Frida's big sister confronted her and explained the situation. It was unfair that a lesser student should receive the scholarship.  (Frida didn't want to make waves, in this one instance.)  Times had changed, though.  The formerly dear teacher first responded that they couldn't do anything because the substitute had given her a 3 in Literature.  "'And besides' she said, 'The body is closer than the shirt.'" Her loyalty to the Polish people had to be stronger than her loyalty to the Jewish people.  

    War broke out when Frida was almost 18.  "Bombs, fire was falling, it was a terrible thing."  Before long, the Nazi troops came into Warsaw and from then on, posters were hung on walls all over the city about restrictions for Jews.  One of the restrictions that hit the hardest was that schools were closed.  "So I found a reason to do some good things for kids" in helping open the doors to children in the neighborhood, doing whatever she could to teach them.  "I even made sure to get extra bread for the children when I could."

  As the living conditions grew worse, Frida became involved with a Youth Movement.  "Young people got organized, even though it was hard to find a place to come together. We had to try to find a solution."  The older people didn't like the younger people's solution: fight. That's because the Germans they remembered from the first World War functioned with a completely different line of reasoning than the Nazis.  There was just a "hush, just wait" approach from the elders, but the youth were less patient.

   There was a "Voluntary Action" in which Jewish people were invited to leave for a work camp of their own volition in exchange for 3 kilograms of bread and a kilogram of marmalade (very special!)  Many people went, falling for this.  Frida worked with her Youth Movement to warn folks: "It's a lie! Don't go! They are not going to give any favors to us Jews!"   But, sure enough, slowly, hundreds and hundreds of people were sent away to Treblinka "where they built up machines and killed people."

   Frida spoke of one of their family friends who was taken away, but escaped after a few months.  Upon his return to Warsaw, he told people what he had seen, but he was so traumatized that he just sat with his head on the table.  People believed he was crazy; nobody wanted to believe what he said. Maybe it was too much for a mind to conceive.

   I've always been intrigued by the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but I never thought I'd meet someone who was part of it.  Frida told us about how everyone (old, young, professionals, engineers) worked together to create impressive bunkers.  "We dug so deep that we came to water and dug wells inside!"  They managed to fill the bunkers with electricity that wasn't connected to the grid.  And they gathered materials to fight.

    The Warsaw ghetto ended up in flames.  Not immediately-- there were moments of seeming success-- but before long, the Nazis brought in the army and wiped out the ghetto. There was a point when she "was in a bunker with thirty-five people and we were choking, and had to break through the walls for fresh air."  She spoke with sorrow of the futility of a father of one of her friends trying to spill a pail of water on a fire so big.  The rage and fear came out in her voice when she spoke of the screams she heard: "Eemele! Pamela! Surela! Yankele!  You could hear the cries".  

   And the she was deported...first to Majdanek and then to Auschwitz.  She spoke about how congested the cattle car was: "There was no room to put two feet on the ground. If I tried to, I would step on somebody!".    She remembered the great thirst, and looking out a tiny crevice in the car, seeing people in a field, watering it.  "They had so much water!"   She managed to trade her watch for a half liter of water so she could take care of her nephew.

   At one selection point, her sister and nephew were separated from her. Now we know that mothers with young children were among the first killed, but she did not know that then.  She saw her sister and nephew being taken away, and she ran to a Kommando on a white horse. "I begged him to let me in with my child and my sister".   

"It must be God's will that I should remain alive. That's what I believe all these years.  If he had been "nice" and allowed me to go with Ludek and my sister, I would have died."

Instead, he told her "You are to young to die. Run!" and he gave her a hit with his boot.    She remembers seeing her nephew for the last time, with him calling out, "Auntie! I will never see you again!"

    In Auschwitz, she suffered the same dehumanization we hear about time and time again, but one of her stories particularly stood out.  Besides the constant screaming and orders, besides the shaved hair and tattooed numbers, another form of torture in the camps was how the Nazis often turned one prisoner against another.  Frida was working a night shift with a recently-arrived group of girls from Hungary.  You'll note that Magyar is a completely different language from German or Yiddish and Polish, and this put these prisoners at a disadvantage; they didn't understand directions.    The prisoner who was in charge of behavior threatened to tell a Nazi soldier if they didn't follow directions.  She said this a few times, and Frida couldn't stand it.

   "I don't know how I had the strength," she said. " I was always a fighter. I went up to her and told her she should be ashamed to report your sisters to the Nazi."

    Being an upstander didn't serve Frida well at first.  "She told on me!" The drunk guard grabbed her by her arms, and smacked her so much that her face swelled up.  Then he moved her to a new location to continue the same work.

    Not long after, the same guard commented that she was a good worker.  "He admired me," she observed and "wanted to find out why she told on me. I told. There's nothing else I could do."  It was with great surprise that he told her "You were right."  Suddenly, he became a human.  He showed her a picture of his wife and children, who he hadn't seen in four years.  "He told me I had rights. He told me the war is coming to an end.  It was the first time I had heard that! And he told me that if I met this girl who told on me, I should take off her head."

   Well, the guard was right. The war was ending, but first the Nazis wanted to clear out the camp. At first, Frida thought about hiding, but word got out they were planning on burning all of Auschwitz. "We lived all these years of torture. Why should we die now? And so we went."

    She spoke about how tired people were on the long walk in the cold January.  Without food and drink, she settled for scooping up snow in her hands to quench her thirst.  "People were helping each other as much as possible," she said, and there was another notable change: the soldiers were now out of uniform. They were worried about getting caught.  However, there were men with rifles who shot at anyone who sat down. "I wanted to sit, but thanks to my friend and sister Sabina, I remained standing."

    After a few stops in temporary camps, she ended up in liberated Bergen Belsen. "Women grew their hair. Men looked for anyone to help them warm up a bit. We woke up from sleep....life comes back."  

   Yes, she did say that thing about warming up. And she met a man through his sisters. Romek had been in a camp in Germany, and after being reunited with his sisters, he became fond of Frida.  He didn't like to talk about what happened; he thought more of the future.  

  "It didn't take long. Romeo asked me if I would marry him. I couldn't answer because I had secret plans to go to Palestine.  Besides, it was too early.  So...the next day, he asked me again. This time I told him the truth. And if you are ready to go to Palestine, I will marry you."

      News traveled quickly.  Without invitations, everyone in Bergen Belsen got involved and excited. Everyone volunteered to help prepare this December 18th wedding in 1945.  But there was a problem. There was no yeast for the bread. (At this point, basic food supplies were still being provided at the liberated DP camps.)  Some of her friends wanted to walk into town to get it. 

"No yeast? Then no cake!"  Frida said.  " The most important thing is us.  I don't w ant to accept anything from Germany.  ... But they made a delicious cake, even without yeast.  A friend found an accordion and played all Jewish popular songs.  It was a real freilach wedding."

  There were two rabbis, even! There was an English army rabbi and a survivor one.

  "And we lived together 64 very happy years and of course we came to Israel."

They actually came to Israel before it was a state, in 1947.  Romek, as I said, was mostly quiet about what had happened in the war, but there was another reason for that in this instance.  He was actually injured two days after the war had broken out.  In the Polish army, he was struck by silent "dumb dumb bullets" and a bullet had launched into his right hand.  Somehow he got well, but the bullet remained in his hand. "He went to his grave with that bullet in his hand!"

"He didn't say a word about his injury because he wanted to help build this country.  He wanted to be a good soldier, a good man, a good citizen, a good father, a good grandfather.  He never knew his great grandchildren, but his grandchildren say the prayers over food just like their beloved Saba did."

Thank you, Frida, for the bravery of sharing your story with us today.