KHC Survivor Testimony: David Widawsky (February 4, 2020)

Summary

David Widawsky recounts his father's experiences growing up in pre-WWII Poland, his survival during the Holocaust, and his eventual liberation. Born into a large Jewish family in Zduńska Wola, David's father lived through the formation of the Łódź Ghetto and was later sent to Auschwitz and a labor camp in Kaufering. He survived the war but lost most of his family. Post-war, he married, immigrated to the U.S., and reconnected with a surviving brother in Israel. The story is a poignant reflection on survival, family, and resilience in the face of unimaginable hardship.

Takeaways

• 👶 David Widawsky's father, born in 1925, was the tenth of eleven children in Zduńska Wola, Poland.
• 🏙️ His family moved to Łódź when his mother became a widow, and they led a simple life in a Jewish community.
• 🕍 He attended both public school and religious school but had a modest Bar Mitzvah, unlike typical American celebrations.
• ✈️ His father vividly remembered the start of World War II with the sounds of airplanes overhead and lived through the Łódź ghetto.
• 🚂 In 1944, his father was transported to Auschwitz and separated from his family, never seeing his mother and sister again.
• 🛠️ After Auschwitz, he was sent to a work camp in Kaufering, where the harsh conditions left a lasting impression, especially the constant taste of cement.
• 🏚️ After liberation in 1945, he spent time in a displaced persons (DP) camp where he learned some English from American soldiers.
• 👫 David's father met his wife through his brother-in-law after the war, and they married within weeks.
• 📞 In 1965, David's father was reunited with a long-lost brother who had fled to Russia during the war, and they stayed in contact every Friday.
• 👨‍👦 David, who has three sons, is named after both of his grandfathers, a meaningful and heavy responsibility given his family's tragic history.

Q & A

What was David Widawsky's father’s early life like in Poland?

David Widawsky's father was born on January 15, 1925, in Zduńska Wola, Poland. His family moved to Łódź when he was around eight years old after his mother became a widow. They lived a simple life in a large, bustling family with many children, in-laws, and grandchildren.

What type of education did David Widawsky’s father receive during his childhood?

He attended both public school and a religious school, which he referred to as Hebrew school, where he learned Hebrew and religious studies. However, his Bar Mitzvah was not celebrated with any ceremony; it simply marked the age when he could be counted in a minyan.

How did World War II affect David Widawsky’s family?

On September 1, 1939, the onset of World War II changed everything for his family. They were eventually concentrated into the Łódź Ghetto but had an advantage because they already lived in the Jewish part of the city. Over time, they faced increasing restrictions and hardships.

What happened to David Widawsky’s father and his family when they were sent to Auschwitz?

In 1944, the family was sent to Auschwitz, where they were separated by Dr. Mengele. His mother and sister were sent to one side, while David's father was sent to the other. That was the last time he saw his mother and sister.

How did David Widawsky’s father survive during his time in the concentration camps?

David Widawsky’s father survived through a combination of perseverance and luck. After spending about three weeks in Auschwitz, he was sent to a work camp in Kaufering, where he worked in a cement factory. He endured poor conditions, lack of food, and struggled with constant hunger.

What was David Widawsky’s father's experience of liberation?

He was liberated in April 1945 by American forces while being transported on a train. The locomotive was bombed, and when the American troops opened the cattle cars, many bodies fell out, and the survivors, including David's father, escaped.

How did David Widawsky’s parents meet after the war?

David’s father met his future wife through his brother-in-law, who survived the war. His brother-in-law introduced him to a woman, and three weeks later, they were married.

How did David Widawsky’s father learn English after the war?

David Widawsky’s father learned English from American soldiers in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps after the war. The soldiers only spoke English, so survivors had to pick up basic phrases in order to communicate and meet their needs.

How did David Widawsky’s father reconnect with his brother after the war?

David Widawsky’s father discovered in 1965 that one of his brothers had survived by fleeing to Russia at the beginning of the war. They reconnected 20 years after the war, with his brother living in Israel and his father in the U.S. They maintained weekly contact for the rest of their lives.

What message did David Widawsky's father emphasize based on his Holocaust experiences?

David Widawsky’s father emphasized the importance of Jewish unity and vigilance against antisemitism and race hatred, warning that another Hitler-like figure could emerge. He believed in staying united and fighting for the right to live in peace.

Outlines

00:00

👨‍👦 Life in Poland Before the War

David Widawsky shares the early life of his father, born in 1925 in Zduńska Wola, Poland, before moving to Łódź after his mother became a widow. His father attended both public and religious schools, and his Bar Mitzvah experience was informal. Life in Łódź was simple, with the Jewish community living in a close-knit neighborhood. Everything changed on September 1, 1939, with the invasion of Poland. His father's family was fortunate to already live in the Łódź ghetto, avoiding the displacement many others experienced.

05:14

🏚️ Life in the Łódź Ghetto

David's father and his family lived in the Łódź ghetto for about four years. Although they had rations, food was scarce, and everyone was hungry despite pooling resources. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1944, David's father, mother, and sister were transported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, they were separated by Dr. Mengele, marking the last time he saw his mother and sister. He spent about three weeks in Auschwitz before being sent to a work camp at Kaufering, where he worked in a cement factory, constantly struggling for food and survival.

10:19

🚂 Liberation and Escape from the Train

David recounts his father's liberation in April 1945, when American forces bombed a train that was transporting prisoners, prying open the cattle cars. Many bodies fell out before survivors could escape. His father spent a night in a farmhouse and later encountered American troops who brought him to safety. After the war, he found his only surviving family member, a brother-in-law, and quickly married the sister of his brother-in-law's new wife. Despite the trauma of the Holocaust, life began to rebuild through family bonds and marriage.

15:25

🇺🇸 Post-War Displacement and the DP Camp

David reflects on his parents' lives after the war, including their time in a DP (displaced persons) camp. He mentions that he was born in a hospital outside the DP camp, though they returned to the camp afterward. HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, helped Jewish refugees, including David’s family, move to the U.S. They settled briefly in Boston before moving to New York, where they lived in the Paris Hotel, a notorious refuge for Jewish survivors. Sponsored by an aunt, the family eventually moved to the Bronx, where his father found stability.

20:28

🕊️ Unspoken Memories of the Holocaust

David explains how his father rarely spoke about the Holocaust until later in life, prompted by David's own questions. Once his father began sharing, the stories were overwhelming, detailing life in the ghetto, Auschwitz, and the struggles to survive. Hospitals were viewed with distrust, as they often meant death during the Holocaust. This silence shifted as his father started participating in Yom HaShoah programs. David became a catalyst for his father’s reflections, and the depth of his father’s experiences left David grappling with the magnitude of the trauma.

25:29

📞 A Small Miracle: Reuniting with a Lost Brother

David shares a touching story of family reunion. His father, the only known survivor of 11 siblings, discovered in 1965 that one of his brothers had survived by escaping to Russia. The two brothers found each other after 20 years, and from then on, they maintained a close relationship, speaking every Friday before Shabbat. David reflects on the small miracles in life, such as this reunion, which brought some joy after years of loss. He concludes by sharing that his father left a legacy for his own three sons, although they won't carry his name while he's alive.

Keywords

💡Zduńska Wola

Zduńska Wola is a town in Poland where the narrator's father was born in 1925. It is described as a small town, possibly a suburb of the larger city Łódź, where the family later moved. This town symbolizes the beginning of the family's story and the simple life they lived before the disruptions caused by World War II.

💡Łódź

Łódź is a major city in Poland, to which the narrator's family moved when his father was around eight years old. During the Holocaust, Łódź became home to a Jewish ghetto. The family had the advantage of already living there when the Jewish population was forced into ghettos. This city represents both their new life and the gradual tightening of restrictions leading up to their eventual deportation to Auschwitz.

💡Ghetto

The ghetto, specifically the Łódź Ghetto, refers to the section of the city where Jews were forced to live under Nazi occupation. The narrator describes how the ghetto was formed around the Jewish neighborhood, with increasing restrictions over time. Living in the ghetto involved rationing food, surviving with minimal resources, and avoiding deportation as long as possible.

💡Auschwitz

Auschwitz was the infamous Nazi concentration and extermination camp where the narrator's father was deported in 1944. It is a place of trauma where his family was separated, with his mother and younger sister being sent to their deaths. This camp represents the ultimate horror of the Holocaust experience that his father endured.

💡Kaufering

Kaufering was a work camp where the narrator's father was sent after a brief stay in Auschwitz. Here, he worked in a cement factory under brutal conditions. The narrator’s father describes the constant taste of cement in the air and in their food, symbolizing the dehumanizing labor and survival struggles in these camps.

💡Dr. Mengele

Dr. Mengele, also known as the 'Angel of Death,' was a Nazi physician who performed selections at Auschwitz. The narrator recounts how Mengele separated his father from his mother and sister, sending them to their deaths while the father was sent to the work camp. Mengele is a symbol of the inhumanity and cruelty of the Holocaust.

💡Liberation

Liberation refers to the moment when the narrator's father was freed by American forces in April 1945. He describes the harrowing scene of bodies falling out of the cattle cars after the train he was on was bombed. Liberation marked the end of the father’s imprisonment and the beginning of his post-war life, though the trauma remained.

💡Displaced Persons (DP) Camp

After the war, the narrator's father lived in a Displaced Persons camp, where Jewish survivors gathered. These camps provided food, shelter, and a place to begin rebuilding lives. The father learned English from American soldiers in the DP camp, signifying the start of his journey toward resettlement and recovery.

💡HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)

HIAS is the organization that helped Jewish refugees, including the narrator's family, settle in the United States after the war. They arranged transportation and assisted with food and shelter, playing a critical role in helping Holocaust survivors begin new lives in places like Boston and New York.

💡Family Reunion

The narrator’s father experienced a reunion with his brother, who had fled to Russia during the war and survived. They reconnected 20 years after the war, leading to regular communication between them. This reunion symbolizes a rare moment of joy and hope in a narrative filled with loss and separation, highlighting the significance of family bonds.

Highlights

David Widawsky's father, Dovid Widawsky, was born on January 15, 1925, in Zduńska Wola, Poland, as the tenth of eleven children.

After becoming a widow, David's grandmother moved the family to Łódź, Poland, where they lived a simple life amidst many children, in-laws, and grandchildren.

David's father attended both public and religious schools, but a Bar Mitzvah was not a significant celebration; it merely marked the ability to be counted in a minyan.

Everything changed on September 1, 1939, with the outbreak of World War II, disrupting the family's life in Łódź.

Despite living in the Łódź Ghetto for four years, David's father's family initially had an advantage because they already had an apartment and did not have to relocate.

In 1944, David's father was transported to Auschwitz and then to the work camp in Kaufering, where he survived harsh conditions.

David's father recalled the constant taste of cement in the air and in the food while working at the cement factory in Kaufering.

David's father was liberated in April 1945 by American forces after the train transporting him was bombed, and the survivors escaped and found safety.

After the war, David's father found himself with no surviving family except a brother-in-law, with whom he eventually met his future wife.

David's parents met and married in 1947, having been introduced by his father's brother-in-law who had also lost his wife and child during the Holocaust.

The family lived in a Displaced Persons (DP) camp where David's father learned English from American soldiers.

David was born in a hospital near the DP camp and his family later moved to Boston before settling in New York.

In 1965, David's father miraculously reconnected with his only surviving brother who had escaped to Russia during the war and was now living in Israel.

David's father and his brother spoke every Friday for nearly 50 years after reconnecting, maintaining their bond despite the distance.

David became a catalyst for his father to share his Holocaust experiences after joining a group for children of survivors and pursuing Holocaust education in the 1970s.

Transcripts

My name is David Widawsky. My father was the tenth of eleven children, of

Baila Abowicz and David Widawsky. Dovid Widawsky. And he was born January 15, 1925.

And he lived... he was born into a town called Zduńska Wola, Poland.

I don't know much about that place except that when he was about

eight years old, his mother had become a widow and whatever children were

remaining, moved the family to Łódź, the big city. Zduńska Wola was actually,

I guess, a suburb of Łódź. And they moved to Łódź where they basically led a simple life.

I don't know how they got enough money or enough food to eat but

there were so many children and in-laws and grandchildren that it was always a

house full of kids and full of goings-on. He went to both public schools and he

went to a religious school. These days we would call something like that Hebrew

school, where he was, you know, taught about reading Hebrew and religion and

all of that. I once asked him if he had a Bar Mitzvah and he said, "Bar Mitzvah? You

woke up one morning and you were 13 and they counted you for a minyan. That was a Bar Mitzvah."

So, you know, it's no, not like here in America. There was no big

deal, no big party, no great celebration. Just one more young person that we can

count for a minyan when we needed to. All of that changed abruptly

on September 1, 1939. He would often talk of remembering the sound of the

airplanes overhead and everybody was going around and saying,

"Oh, this is nothing. The British, the French will come and save us in the next

day or two and this will be over." Of course, they all miscalculated when it

came to that. There was no rescue, but living in the city of Łódź, Łódź was

concentrated into a ghetto, and they had the advantage of already having

an apartment, a place to live. So the people who were transported to the

camps and to the, and to Auschwitz, many stopped along the way to live in Łódź.

But again, my family, my father's family had a great advantage because they

already lived there and they didn't have to move their stuff, they didn't have to

move in. They just had to guard their turf as best they could.

I can't say that we ever really discussed it. So no, I don't know the answer to that.

They were certainly conscious that they were Jews. They lived in, you know, their

separate part of town. The shops were kosher, there was certainly a synagogue,

and a nice surrounding Jewish community.

Not really. I think that, as I said, they really just kind of drifted into it. They weren't forced to

relocate, which was an advantage, and the restrictions were cumulative over time.

So there were certain things that they couldn't do, places that they couldn't go.

But these were not all at once, abrupt changes. These were, you know,

periodically, periodical newer restrictions.

I would say that the ghetto was created more around him. A portion of the city, which was

always the Jewish part of town, was concentrated into a ghetto.

I would say approximately four years, so it was only in 1944 that he was transported to

Auschwitz and then the work camp at Kaufering. So they lived, his family

lived in Łódź Ghetto for that period of time. They had rations. They had a fairly

large family, so if everybody pooled their rations, everybody was still hungry

but there was enough food. And, you know, if somebody wanted to pass food on to

their children rather than eat it, that environment permitted that.

I really don't know. My guess would be train.

Okay. By the time the ghetto was...taken apart and

everybody was evacuated, that was in the spring and summer of 1944, he was among the last...

of that group to leave for Auschwitz at that time. More or less over those years

his family had drifted away. They had either tried to escape or been on

earlier transports. So by the time he left for Auschwitz, it was only him, his

mother, and his younger sister. And when they got to Auschwitz, the three of them

were together and then they were separated by Dr. Mengele, the infamous

Dr. Mengele. His mother and sister went to the left, he went to the right, and

that was the last he saw of his family. He spent, to the best of my knowledge, he

spent about three weeks in Auschwitz and then they sent him off to a work camp in

Kaufering. And he spent several months in Kaufering, in the cement factory.

Just doing whatever he had to do to survive.

Not in great detail. It was always a struggle for enough food and enough

space to lay your body down and sleep. But he really didn't talk about that much.

I mean we, we always knew it was there, you know. Our families were, were

different. They spoke with an accent. Their English wasn't that good but they

never spoke of the Holocaust, per se, and it was only when I became more aware in

the 1970s about what went on that I started to question them.

My mother demured, she really never wanted to talk about it. But my father

was like, he was really like a spigot. He went from never saying a word to you

couldn't get him to shut up. And he did talk a little bit about the

cement factory, the that the taste of cement was always in the air. All of the

food that he ate tasted of cement. The water tasted of cement.

And I believe, I've seen pictures where it shows that the

barracks were primarily below ground, so you know, they didn't get much of a view

of the outside world.

I believe, I believe not.

He was, he was gone from Auschwitz. He was in the Kaufering camps,

which were in another part of Germany.

No, his story of his liberation, actually it occurred probably

April 28 or 29. He was on a train, of all things. He was on a train that was on

it's way to I don't know where. And the train, the engine, the locomotive was

bombed and the train was disabled, and it was American forces. They pried the

cattle cars open. And the way he used to tell the story was, first they waited for

all of the bodies to fall out and then once the bodies all fell out, they all

jumped out of the train and they ran away.

And he ran, he spent

one night, I believe he would say, that he spent one night in a farmhouse with

several of his other escapees. And then the next morning they encountered some

American troops who then took, took control of them and brought them to a safe place.

So he was among the first of that group to be liberated.

No, it was actually after the war. It's a bit of an interesting story. Sad, but with

an interesting twist. My father had ten siblings, one of whom was his sister and

the sister had a baby, a baby boy. And the baby was named David, of all things.

Named after the same person I was named after. Because his sister, or I should say his, his

brother-in-law, the Nazis killed his sister and the baby.

But his brother-in-law escaped and survived the war. That's a different family and a

different story so I don't don't know much of the story there. But after the

war he had nobody, except this one former brother-in-law and they hung out together.

And the story that they like to tell was one day his brother-in-law came

home and says, "I found a beautiful woman for myself and guess what, she has

a sister! So come with me tomorrow and I'll introduce you."

And three weeks later they were married.

Well, you know, the options were few but once you connected

with the Yiddish kind, the kind of environment that they grew up in, and my

mother also grew up in Łódź. The families did not know one another.

They did not even know of one another. It's kind of similar to, say, growing up in Queens.

And then meeting somebody who lives in Queens five miles away,

they're a total stranger even though geographically you would say, "Wow, you know.

Why didn't they meet on their own?" So, so that's how he found his bride.

So the great line in the family was always that, that his brother-in-law was his

brother-in-law twice.

I think you have to make a decision at some point to move on with your life and accept where you are and

move forward from there. And I think that's what they did.

They made a desperate effort, and you can read this, you read this in books, of trying to

reach out and find family. Most of it unfruitful efforts, because the person

you were seeking was not living so they're not going to respond to anything,

any note you leave. So, at some point, those are kind of vague years between

the end of the war in the middle of 1945 until they found themselves. My parents

got married in 1947, so I guess for two years they kind of just drifted around

the DP camp. My father didn't talk about the DP camp

very much. The only thing that I, that sticks out my mind is, I did ask him once

how he learned English and he said they learned English, they started to learn

English from the American soldiers in the DP camps. Because the American

soldiers spoke only English, weren't going to speak any other language, and if

they wanted to buy a loaf of bread and a container of milk, they had to know how

to say that in English in order to get it. So, so he learned a little English that way.

But he didn't, he didn't talk much about the DP camps.

I've read a lot about them. They were interesting places. They played a lot of soccer.

They had religious services. They had medical care. They had food, something

that they had missed for a number of years, and that was what the DP camp was about.

You know, when I would say, I say to people like you, "I was born in

DP camp." That's an honest answer because that was the residence where my parents lived,

in a DP camp. But my father and even my mother would always point out, "No, you

were born in a hospital. Outside the DP camp, there was a hospital and that's

where we all went to have the babies." So technically they would say I wasn't born

in the DP camp, I was born in a hospital outside the DP camp.

But when it's time to take the baby home, we went back to the DP camp.

No, I did not.

Well, I don't know much about that.

The organization that helped the Jewish refugees was HIAS, the Hebrew

Immigrant Aid Society. They're the ones, I guess, who booked passage and took care

of everybody's needs in terms of food and shelter until they could settle in. And...

my parents took a slow boat to Boston and the stories varied. The family was in

Boston, I was about 17 months old and

they stayed in Boston anywhere from one day to one month. And they got on a train in

Boston at that point, and came to New York. Stayed at the Paris Hotel, which was

a very infamous place for Jewish refugees,

at the corner of 97th Street and West End Avenue. One of the great ironies of my

life is, as I sit here today, I live a block away from the Paris Hotel.

So...anyway, they went to the Paris Hotel and

ultimately the same gentleman who was my father's brother-in-law twice, the

previously mentioned brother-in-law, he had an aunt known as Tante Lily, Aunt

Lily. And Aunt Lily sponsored them to get an apartment in the Bronx. So my parents

and my mother's sister and my father's brother-in-law, lived in the same

apartment building in the Bronx from approximately 1950. My family moved out

in 1952 and by then, my father was established.

He had a profession, he had a paycheck. He had a second baby on the way.

And we moved to another part of town.

No, he didn't share much of that with his children.

They kind of just lived their lives. We lived in a community that was

largely Jewish. German, the German part of town was elsewhere, so he did not really

reflect on Germans and the way he lived at that time.

The focus of life was family and synagogue.

I confronted him with it somewhere around 1976 or 77.

I had on my own joined a group of children of survivors. The name of the

group was "The Generation After," and I started to go to meetings. And then I

signed up for a lecture series at the City University with Holocaust scholars

and I educated myself largely about the Holocaust. And I guess one day, I just

asked my parents about it and my mother never wanted to speak. My father was I

guess hesitant at first, but once you got him going,

he couldn't shut up. He would talk about everything. He would talk about, you know,

how little how little food they had. How if you got sick, the last place in the

world you went to was the infirmary or the hospital because those places killed you.

I grew up believing that hospitals killed you because that's all he would

say, "Never go to a hospital." He, at some point, the synagogue started having Yom

HaShoah programs and we started to go to that.

And so, to the extent that he started to speak,

I was the catalyst. And as I said, once he started talking, you couldn't stop him.

He had so much to say. And to me, it was overwhelming. Between what I was getting

from the academic stuff at CUNY and from listening to my parents, it's, my brain

was exploding.

Because this is unbelievable stuff.

I think that is his only resource there was his synagogue. You know, that Jews

have to stay united and fight this kind of stuff and have, have leaders in the

country that you can rely on. It was hard to imagine another Hitler emerging but

he emerged once and he can emerge again.

Yes, I think the message is that we need to be always vigilant and call out any

race hatred, antisemitism, and continually fight to get out the message

that everybody deserves an opportunity to live their lives in peace and comfort. And, uh...

Yes, this is a picture of my parents, Sam and Eva Widawsky. It was taken, I'm not

really sure exactly where. It may have been taken in Germany before we came to

the United States, or it may have been taken on the ship on their way to America.

The cute guy in the middle with the hair sticking up is me. And this

is pretty much the only artifact that I have that predates my American family experience.

I think it's a somber look. It's like, "This is it. This is life."

You know, "We go on from here." There are no smiles. This was long before anybody

learned how to smile in my family.

Yes, there are two things. One, is that I was indeed

named after both of my grandparents. And of course, you know, you never know where

life is gonna lead you, so when you have one baby, you don't know if there are

other babies coming and what their gender will be. So I carried the burden

of being named after both of my grandfather's for my whole life. And...

I kind of remember when that thought struck me

50 years ago, whenever,

and I, all I could think to myself was, "Wow." Both of my parents when they looked at

me growing up were thinking of their fathers.

So that's pretty heavy. The other thing I'd like to bring up a brief story, a

nice little happy ending story. I mentioned that my father was the only

survivor of 11, and that is not entirely accurate. My father had one brother who

ran away, that was the term that he always used. He ran away to Russia at the

beginning of the war. And in 1965, twenty years after the war ended, my father and

his brother found each other. His brother was living in Israel. He had

gone back to Poland after the war. They kind of missed each other, don't know how.

And in, in 1965 they found each other. The brother was living in Israel. My father

was living in the United States and within weeks, my father was on a

plane going to Israel. Within months after that, my, my uncle reciprocated and

he came to visit his American family in America. And that kind of story had a

little happier ending. And for a period of about 50 years after that, my father

his brother spoke every Friday. Before the Sabbath every Friday they spoke, and

checked in with one another so that was one of the small miracles in my family.

You know, I also have three sons and I kind of passed off the, and they're

all...

No. We don't name after living people so nobody, nobody's gonna get David as

long as I'm around. No, I kind of leave it my wife to keep my kids in line.

One is, they range in age from 24 to 37.

Yeah.

I'm satisfied that you have it on video. I'll get beat up if I come home without this.

Thank you.