Aryan Papers

Copyright © 2014 George Dynin.

Original title: Aryjskie Papiery

Translated from the Polish by Katarzyna Jerzak, PhD

Edited by Marlene A. Kemp-Dynin, PhD

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-1137-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-1138-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-1139-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014917009

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/02/2014

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Afterword

Addendum

About The Author

This book is

dedicated to my heroic mother, Fania

and to

Jan and Halina Plater-Zyberk, who helped us during the worst time of our lives without considering their own.

There is no such thing as a hopeless situation.

The days are frightening. It is like Hell reigns all over the World.

You are in fear of your life each moment.

You watch your words and gestures.

What is said is important.

It can give a clue who you are.

You are a walking mask.

Your life restarts during the night. You may dream sweet dreams.

You are in a normal world—you are in paradise.

The night is passing fast. You hope it will last forever.

You hope you will wake up and think:

What a terrible dream was the day. Let’s live in night!

George Dynin

FOREWORD

by Sir Martin Gilbert

GEORGE DYNIN’S MEMOIR IS a tribute to hope and education. The hope is that of a young Jew caught up in the Holocaust; the education is the knowledge of the realities of the Holocaust in all its manifestations: suffering, courage, escape, rescue, resistance, and above it all—powerfully illustrated in this book—survival.

Born in the Polish industrial city of Lodz in 1925, George Dynin gives a charming portrayal of pre-war Jewish life. With the coming of war begins the first of four remarkable journeys, each of them mapped in this book. The first journey was in search of a safe haven from the German military advance into Poland; that journey took him to Vilna, in independent Lithuania. There, safety was followed first by Soviet and then by German rule, leading to the second journey, deep into Belarus, and a life in hiding, masquerading as a Christian. The third journey, after liberation, is to Vilna and back to Lodz. The fourth journey is from Lodz to British Mandate Palestine.

There are many powerful and thought-provoking episodes in these pages. The German air bombardments in the first days of the war are described with a terrifying immediacy. So is the Soviet deportation of Jews from Vilna. And the first days of the German occupation of Vilna. The fears and perils of life in the countryside, first in Lithuania and then in Belarus, with the ever-present danger of discovery, betrayal, and arrest, are powerfully conveyed: they are a theme of this story, as are the helping hands offered by those Christians whose own lives were at risk should their gentile guests be unmasked. Some of the most moving passages describe when George Dynin is in church, having to pass himself off as a devout Christian.

Every story of survival is different. George Dynin’s account adds a vivid and inspiring dimension to what we know about Jews who survived with an Aryan identity. How to avoid being seized with other Poles for forced labour in Germany? George’s mother had the answer: she signed him up for work in the forest as a logger, out of sight of the German occupiers. This was the first physical labor of my life, he comments. Danger and death were everywhere; one day, George and his mother heard the shots of an automatic when fifteen young Jewish men and women were executed. A few minutes later, we heard another discharge. Then a few single shots. It was horrible. We realized that these shots served to kill off the miserable young lives. George writes, "They’re killing innocent people over there, I said to God, rather than to myself or to Mother."

Every page of this book brings those horrendous years into sharp focus through the eyes of a human and thoughtful young man, whose decision to write his memoirs is a gain to all those who want to try to understand human nature, in all its variety.

When the German occupiers were driven out of eastern Poland, George and his mother made their way to Vilna, where she worked as a secretary in a weather station and George as a student-baker. Their search to find George’s father, who had been in the Soviet Union during the war, was rewarded when a telegram arrived from Moscow, reporting that Father was in one piece in Palestine; that was our new goal. This they did, with George serving as a soldier in Israel’s War of Independence. For the survivors, Jewish life was renewed; one of the uplifting photographs in this book is of George with his parents and his sister, sitting in a coffeehouse in Tel-Aviv.

PREFACE

I BEGAN TO WRITE these memoirs in the last months of 1946 in Tel-Aviv under the British mandate. It was a fulfillment of a vow I had made during the war: I had promised God that I would write a book-memoir in which I would depict the war experiences of my family. My conscience deemed this promise necessary. I shall then attempt to represent the world I saw, a world of falsity and hypocrisy, patriotism and treason. I shall also show how, due to circumstances, my family’s experiences differ from those of the other Jews who survived on Aryan papers.

I shall devote much space to my inner transformations for they are not common. I shall describe the wisdom and the folly of particular people who played a part in this bloody drama. I shall try to portray henchmen, informants, traitors, but also the people who helped us, risking their own lives and the lives of their families. I believe that the atrocities we witnessed and about which we heard must be preserved in writing so that the future generations can be aware of them.

I begin an immense task without any certainty that I can accomplish it. It may be beyond my strength; nonetheless, I wish to describe the immeasurable evils and blessings of that time. I want to describe that horrific life, but at this very moment I feel so feeble that I doubt my own ability to do it. But just like in those dark days, so now too I may experience God’s help, for which I pray. May God endow me with inspiration and talent. Unfortunately, I have not foreseen that conditions of life and the passage of time can change a man so. During the war I was forced to ponder things and to ask myself the most penetrating questions. But as I wrote these memoirs during short breaks from hard labor, it was impossible for me to delve deeply into my soul again. Hence certain moments which I had promised myself to write down have eluded me: I have not been able to recapture them with absolute precision. I did not know this then, just as I did not know that I would break yet another promise given to God, one incommensurate with my physical development at the time.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WITHOUT THE INPUT OF my wife, Dr. Marlene Kemp-Dynin, this book would never have been published. I thank her for the countless hours that she spent on editing and technical matters, as well as for her support.

I am extremely grateful to Sir Martin Gilbert for encouraging me to publish my book and for providing me with his Foreword and maps.

I would like to thank all the people who read my manuscript for their positive critiques and comparisons to books that had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

And I would like to thank the Almighty for giving me the chance to see my book published during my lifetime.

PROLOGUE

I WAS BORN IN the city of Lodz, in central Poland, on March 19, 1925. I attended kindergarten on Gdanska Street, not far from my home. On the corner house, just a short walk from the kindergarten, were attached two large signs advertising two doctors, both Lichtensteins, husband and wife, with offices on the second floor. They were the parents of my classmate Tolek. Their apartment was on the same floor, and many times after school, we went there to play. Mietek Rosen and another boy named Padwa were also my friends from the kindergarten. Later, all four of us started elementary school together and continued with Gimnazjum Spoleczne—which was High School—on Pomorska Street.

The owner/director of the kindergarten, Mrs. Paszkowna, was a nice lady who was dedicated to teaching us ballet, French, art, etc. I still have a few photos showing me performing ballet in one of the children’s stories, for the benefit of invited parents. Each of the students was assigned a black sticker in the shape of an animal. I felt as though I was tops in the school, as my animal was … the lion. It was proudly attached to my open wardrobe locker.

My best friend at this time was a boy named Marek Arkusz, who lived one floor above our apartment on Andrzeja. His full name translated from Polish was sheet of stamps, which was a little funny. Marek was a student in the Hebrew School—it was the very best school in town and on the same level as Gimnazjum Spoleczne. Each time we met, we played chess. As we met every day, I started to be highly specialized in chess and beat all my opponents, except for my father, who was a chess genius.

When I was about four and a half years old, I had the typical Polish haircut called grzywka, a short, straight cut. I always wore a blue beret. I remember that one time, my parents were talking about the bad health of my paternal grandfather, Moses. He lived with my grandmother, Musia, in an apartment at 8 Sierpnia Street. The outside of the house was dark from pollution caused by the air of industrial Lodz. My father took me upstairs, and the maid opened the door. He entered the room, and I was asked to wait outside. A few minutes later, I joined him. The following is vivid in my memory. My grandfather was lying on the bed. He stretched out his hand to me to be kissed, which I did reluctantly. This was the last time I saw Moses alive. The next time, all I saw was his cemetery lot with a large granite monument. His name and other details were inscribed on it. That was during my visit to Vienna in 1999. The monument was like new, without a scratch. I declared it as a survivor of the Holocaust. Sometime after Moses had died, Grandmother Musia moved to our apartment at 11 Listopada.

Jadzia, our live-in maid, was one of the occupants of our modest apartment on Andrzeja Street. When the weather allowed, she took me for a long walk to Park Poniatowski. In the park, we always passed the white-painted bridge over a huge fish pond in the middle of the park. I had bread to feed the fish with me. I liked to observe them grabbing the bread. I imagined that, in the pond, there were huge fish, much larger than the one I could see. Afterward, we continued to walk in the direction of the train station. I was fascinated with locomotives, and I loved the trains that were passing through. At that time, the locomotives spilled a lot of smoke and steam and made great noises. I was always very happy with these almost-daily strolls, and so was Jadzia, who was able to meet her boyfriend. Each time, he was waiting for her next to the railroad station on the edge of Park Poniatowski.

I adored my grandparents Leon and Ethel. I probably liked Leon even better than Ethel. They lived a few houses from ours. Each weekend, I carried my pajamas to their house and spent the night. The next morning, I would go with my grandfather to his property on Zielony Rynek. He rented this area to people who sold herrings, other fish, vegetables, and so forth, and each week, he collected rent from these tenants. They paid with coins, as there were high denominations of coins in Poland, and paper money was not much in use for such small transactions like buying a herring. We returned home with bags of coins, very heavy and smelling of herring and other fish. At home, we put all the bags on the table, sorted the coins, and counted the entire lot. For it, I always got some small cash. I earned this money. When I went home, I still smelled of herrings. But I was proud of it.

My life was quite good. I was adored by all my family from both sides. For many years, I was without competition. This didn’t last forever. Nine years after I was born, my parents presented me with a cute little sister. Her name was Aviva Marcela. She was born soon after my father came back from a trip to Palestine, and the name Aviva was very appropriate. Aviva means spring, and she was born in May. In a matter of days, another newcomer arrived. Her name was Maya, and she was the daughter of Rachel, my beloved aunt and the sister of my mother. So we were now three. Still, since I was a boy and the firstborn, I held an advantage among the younger generation of our family. I was probably a good-looking boy, as strangers on the street stopped and said, What a nice boy! Yes, I was definitely keeping a winning distance from the my newborn competitors.

During my early years, we always spent the summer at a nearby resort, a rather modest place named Zielona Gora. Later, when my father acquired more wealth, we traveled farther to Ciechocinek, famous for its mineral waters; to Muszyna and Krynica in the mountains; and to Orlowo on the shores of the Baltic Sea. I remember each of these locations for different reasons. Zielona Gora I remember because I rode a horse for the first time in my life, and I was scared to death. The horse was definitely too big for my first experience. I was so happy to be back with my two feet on the ground. Ciechocinek was very popular with my family, and we were there many times. We always rented a quarter of the same villa, while three other families rented the rest of the villa. There were always children my age to play with. I remember the first year in Ciechocinek because of the young girls I was touching—and by whom I was kissed in return. As time progressed, I was more and more interested in the opposite sex. One summer, the total of four families in the villa included one girl and three boys. The parents of the girl invited all three of us to their farm near the border with Germany. They were well-to-do and had a sugar factory in this huge farm. The girl’s name was Krysia. She had long, dark hair, was very nice, and spoke very warmly and slowly. All three of us were instantly in love with her. She, of course, figured it out and teased us accordingly, kissing each of us on the mouth for good measure.

Across the road from our villa was a coffeehouse named Pod Wieza. Translated this means under the tower. The coffeehouse was so named because there was a huge water tower next to it. Live music was supplied by a group named Karasinski i Kataszek, well-known Warsaw musicians. Live music was fantastic, and I loved it. I had very good relations with the musicians, and, therefore, they let me sit next to the orchestra during performances, which I enjoyed tremendously. Soon after, I started to compose some melodies in my head. My father visited us on the weekends, and we all went to the large coffeehouse called On the Swimming Pool, to enjoy what was known as five o-clock. Here again was not only great music, but also fantastic ice cream.

Orlowo, on the Baltic Sea, I remember not only because of the daughter of our summer landlord, but also because I collected each day small pieces of amber on the beach, and, from time to time, I caught some beautiful rainbow trout in the mountain-like stream next to our home. From time to time, we visited Sopot and walked the entire length of the beautiful sea pier.

Muszyna, where we spent our last summer before the war, was the most exiting in my memories. I was friendly with a girl named Mary, who was a few years older than me. We climbed the hills, drank water from mountain springs and crystal-clear streams, and she introduced me to her beautiful anatomy. But not much more. Yes, it was definitely the best vacation I had before the war. When I was back in Lodz after liberation, I sent a letter to Mary. I didn’t know either her last name or her address. I sent it to Muszyna, describing the location of her home and addressed it simply to Mary. The letter was delivered, and we exchanged correspondence for some time.

Next to Muszyna was Krynica. One year, my grandmother Musia was spending her summer in this beautiful mountain resort. I remember vividly bicycling from Muszyna to Krynica and back to visit my grandmother. The view from the road was gorgeous. The highway was hilly, and it was a very difficult task to bicycle there. In some places it was impossible to ride, and I had to walk next to my bicycle. But I never gave up, and I made it back to Muszyna in one piece. I was proud of myself.

Upon entering high school (gimnazium), all students were required to wear school uniforms—no exceptions. The housekeeper of the school stood at the entrance gate, and students without uniforms were not admitted to the building. I remember the tailor who made my uniform. His name was Migdal. His workshop was located in a small wooden house, painted green, on Gdanska Street. I was always a little scared when he was pulling out my sleeves, which were partly attached to the rest of uniform. He did it in one fast and strong movement, and it was always accompanied by a tearing noise.

Gimnazjum Spoleczne was a no-nonsense school. Lack of attention was not tolerated. The teachers were picked from the best in Lodz—except for one. His name was Landecki. His original name was Landau, before he converted from Judaism to Catholicism. I do not know why he decided to hate me. As a result of his hatred, I was always afraid of him. His method was very sadistic. He called me to the blackboard and tried to trick me into giving him a wrong answer. During one lesson, his question about classical Greece was: where is the Peloponnese? He knelt on the floor next to the large map of Greece in order to reach some other part of Greece than the Peloponnese and pretended that he was helping me to find it. I pointed at the spot he suggested, and the entire class laughed, including Landecki. From that time on, I was called Peloponnese by my classmates.

The lessons I liked the best were physics, mathematics, and particularly nature. The last one was taught by a young female teacher, Mrs. Bielska. She was just great. During her lessons, everybody concentrated on her every word. Each year, we had two weeks of her lessons at a country estate located near the river Pilica, a few hours by bus from the school. The sleeping accommodation was simple but very clean, and the food was very good. Small lakes were abundant around us, and some ruins of an old castle were nearby; there, we caught various lizards. There was one microscope for each student, and with them, we looked at various slides, mostly with drops of water from ponds in the area. Each drop was like an ocean of life.

Our teacher of Polish was a writer/poet who wrote under the name of Jastrun and was well-known in Poland. He was the husband of our great nature teacher. I liked his lessons about famous Polish writers, like Sienkiewicz, the poet Mickiewicz, and others. I learned that both teachers had survived the war; he, like the majority of students, was Jewish. In our class, thirty students were Jewish and four were Christian. Most students came from Lodz’s snobbish families. The school was extremely expensive and very patriotic. A few times a week, we met after five in the afternoon at our homes to play table soccer with various sizes of buttons for the class championship. After one of us finally claimed the championship, we started a new championship, this time bridge. I learned three years ago that my classmates from Gimnazjum Spoleczne who survived the war and are living now in Israel are still meeting to play bridge.

My father became richer and richer with passing time. Once, we had a new white Mercedes with red leather interior and a roof that opened. Sometimes I asked the chauffeur, Mr. Mitchnik, to open the roof, and then I stood in the car mimicking a well-known German dictator. Passing through the streets of my town Lodz, I was rather proud that people looked at me with curiosity. My relations with our chauffeurs were always the best possible for obvious reasons. I liked their stories and their well-pressed uniforms. Every time they passed our maid, Mary, they hugged her intensely.

I had a great-uncle living in Zgierz not far from Lodz. His brother, my grandfather Leon, took me a number of times to visit him. We always took the tramway from Lodz to go there. My great-uncle had a hardware store. He was a very nice man and tried to make me happy on each visit. He always offered me tools from his store to take with me and asked me to come again. I liked him. One day, my great-uncle died. The family decided to bury him in Lodz and not