Surviving the Holocaust: Think Before You Act

Writer's note: Sam Silberberg spoke at Soka University on April 14. His story was extraordinary, and I was given the chance to interview him at his home in Laguna Woods. His story of survival and tragedy will be told through a multi-part series on Aliso Viejo Patch. View the previous story .
Disclaimer: The following chapter of Silberberg's experience includes graphic and disturbing events.

Sirens screamed and filled the air with piercing, eardrum-shattering noise. Silberberg looked into the air and saw Allied bombers flying overhead.

“This is it,” he thought. “If I make my escape now, no one will be killed, because they’ll assume I died in the bombing.”

He looked from side to side and dashed into the forest and ran as fast as he could.

“Freedom at last,” he thought.

But there was a problem. The Allied bombers didn’t drop a single bomb. Now Silberberg was faced with a serious dilemma.

“I thought the plan through, and I was sure it would work,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t even think of my father. I didn’t give any thought of what I did except escaping during the air raid so no one else would be killed.”

Terrified, Silberberg made his way back to the camp unnoticed.

“If I had really thought the plan through, I probably wouldn’t have even tried to escape,” he said. "But you have to make choices when it’s life or death. Sometimes there just isn’t time to think things through.”

Later, he was able to smuggle in a loaf of bread. But the Nazis caught him and set him up against a wall.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Silberberg was whipped 25 times.

***

The gallows, Yom Kippur, 1944

Time became a blur at the labor camp. All of the prisoners were used as slave labor and forced to help the Nazi war machine.

Public executions were a normal sight on a weekly basis. However, the one that took place on Yom Kippur in 1944 was one of the worst that Silberberg witnessed.

“The bright floodlights from the guard towers would illuminate the gallows,” said Silberberg. “Then the commander would call out the prisoners who broke the rules by their numbers. They were told their accusation then hanged from the gallows. Then the commander would yell,  'If any of you try to escape, you will end up on the gallows!' ”

But on Yom Kippur, a savage execution took place.

“There were three prisoners who were to be hanged,” said Silberberg. “There 4,800 of us watching the execution. One by one they were called up to the gallows and helped up so that the nooses could be attached to their necks. Then the benches under them were let loose, and they fell under, and the nooses began to suffocate them. I remember the bodies slamming against each other. It was painful to watch.”

That wasn’t the end of this execution.

“Then, suddenly, their ropes broke one by one,” said Silberberg. “Under the Geneva Conventions, it was illegal to execute someone twice for the same crime. But the Nazis didn’t care. They brought them back up to the gallows to finish the job.”

***

After the execution of their three fellow prisoners, depression hit Silberberg really hard.

“How could we sit by and do nothing?” he thought. “Why didn’t we overpower the Nazis?”

Soon, batches of British and French prisoners of war began trickling into the camp. Silberberg was given a French sweater and leather shoes, which helped tremendously through the bone-chilling cold of Poland’s winters.

“Most prisoners had shoes with wooden soles,” said Silberberg. “Eventually, the snow would ball up inside making them wobble and freeze their feet. Thankfully, I had leather shoes.”

While the sight of Allied POWs was a relief to some of the prisoners, Silberberg would become a victim of one of the British prisoners.

“There was a British POW whom I spoke to several times in German,” he said. “Eventually we became good friends, but then that changed. One day he grabbed me by the arm and attempted to sexually seduce me. He dragged me into a latrine, forcefully ripped my pants off and attempted to rape me. At that point I didn’t care if the Nazis punished me. I screamed as loud as I could until he finally let go of me. I trusted him and never would have thought he would do such a thing to me.”

Silberberg thought of the incident for days after.

“Why would anyone do such a thing? What did I ever do?” he said.

Then he came to the conclusion that it was pointless to judge his former friend. He suffered just as Silberberg did. Now he just had to move on and avoid him.

But then, there was one person who did not betray his trust. The person was someone that Silberberg never would have imagined would help him.  

Check back Wednesday for more of Silberberg's story.