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Remembering the Holocaust and Those Who Survived, Part 1

By C. Hart
Middle East Correspondent
May 4, 2004

Hana Rojansky recalled that her mother was determined to save her life, because she was a little girl. Her grandmother knew of a Christian woman outside the ghetto who was ready to adopt her.

CBN.com – JERUSALEM - This is Part I of a two-part series. It is the testimony of a Jewish Holocaust survivor who recalls her frightening journey through Europe's ghettos, concentration camps, and the work factory of Oscar Schindler. She was on Schindler's List and remained an employee of his factory until she was liberated from Nazi Europe in 1945. Hana Ring Rojansky, wife of Yaacov Rojansky, is happily married now, with three boys and five grandchildren. She lives in Israel, where she tells her story as often as she is able, because she believes it is essential for young people to know what happened during the time of the Holocaust .

At 10:00 a.m. on Monday, April 20, 2004, a siren blasted the familiar sound of remembrance for the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Traffic on roads throughout Israel came to a standstill and motorists got out of their cars, standing motionless, as they observed the two minutes of silence. While sober ceremonies took place at Yad Vashem and the Knesset, the national flag of Israel flew at half-staff. Places of entertainment including restaurants, cafes and movie houses were closed, and television stations focused on Holocaust ceremonies and films. For one day, Jewish people worldwide focused on the sad events that caused the death of major Jewish populations in Europe from 1933 to 1945, and left a generation of people without mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents and relatives.

Hana Ring Rojansky, a Holocaust survivor, spent the day giving her testimony to high school students. Rojansky survived the Holocaust as a worker in Oscar Schindler's factory. As the famous movie Schindler's List reveals, the lives of more than 1,000 Jews were spared when they were employed by him during the Holocaust years.

Rojansky was born in the former Czechoslovakia in 1931, and until 1939, she had a happy and normal childhood. In 1939, the Germans occupied the area, so Rojansky and her family escaped to Poland to live with her grandparents in Bochnia, near Krakow. After three weeks, the Germans also occupied Poland, and according to Rojansky, that's when the suffering began for her family. The Germans ordered Jews to stay away from public places, including theatres and cinemas. They had to give up property and give away their pets. Rojansky explained the actions of the Nazis she remembered during her growing up years. "They abused old people on the street. They beat them. They laughed and it was not sympathetic. They took young girls and young boys to work, to clean the public toilets and to cut down trees in the forest."

Rojansky was eight years old at the time. She recalled that four German officers came to her classroom and talked to her teacher who announced that Jews had to leave the school, and were not allowed to continue their studies any longer. "I was so ashamed, because my friends and I played together and did our school lessons together and now they were sitting and looking. There was silence in the class. I think I saw hate because it was a Polish "shtetl" and the Polish people were very anti-Semitic. I went out with three other pupils from the class and I ran home, and the whole way I cried."

When Rojansky got home her mother asked what happened. Her brother, who was eight years older than her, was also expelled from his high school and he told Rojansky that she should stop crying; that he would teach her what she needed to learn. This was the first experience that Rojansky remembered of anti-Semitism directed at her, personally. "When I was eight years old, I understood that as a Jew I am something 'less.' It was very hard."

In 1941, Rojansky said the Nazis put the Jews in the Polish ghetto. "In the ghetto there was a feeling that something horrible was about to happen to us. We didn't know what. We were afraid and we didn't know why we were afraid." At the time, there were rumors in the ghetto that German Nazi leader, Adolph Hitler had decided on the total extermination of all Jews in Europe. Rojansky explained, "It was awful. What is a total extermination? We will not live? For the first time I was afraid. I wanted to live!"

In 1942, Rojansky recalled that her mother was determined to save her life, because she was a little girl. Her grandmother knew of a Christian woman outside the ghetto who was ready to adopt her. So, Rojansky explained that her mother prepared her to become a Christian. "One early morning we went out from the ghetto. I crawled under the barbed wire and went on the other side. A woman was waiting for me and said, 'Now your name is not Hana, only Marisha. And, forget what was until now." Rojansky went with the woman to the train station and saw how the Germans were brutally treating people. "Suddenly I felt so alone and I missed my mother and my gentle family. I was 11 years old and I needed my family."

Rojansky decided she wanted to be like the rest of the Jewish people she observed. So, she escaped and ran back into the ghetto where she returned to her parents and brother. "I entered the house where we were living. And, my mother said to me, 'Why come back? You could be alive. And, now you will die with us.' I remembered I said that I would prefer to die with my family as a Jew and not live as a Christian."

September 1942 was the beginning of the first transport out of the ghetto. Rojansky claimed that the Nazis first took young girls and boys, ages 18 through 35, in order to prevent revolts in the ghetto. The Germans told the Jews that the young people would go to a work camp and the Germans would keep them alive. Rojansky's brother was 19 years old at the time, and she thought he was very talented and intelligent. "He believed he was going to work. When he said goodbye, he told me, 'I will be rescued and will survive because I go to work.' " Rojansky's brother felt his family would be killed by the Germans, and he would survive. He told Rojansky that he would go to Palestine after the war, get married, and name his daughter Hana, in her memory. "The reality is that he's not here. He was gassed. And, I came here (to Israel) and married, and my oldest son is Danny. I named him after my brother," Rojansky cried.

Rojansky explained that instead of going to a work camp, the 18 to 35 year olds from the Polish ghetto were taken to Belzec, an extermination camp, where the German soldiers conducted experiments on how to kill as many Jews as possible in a short amount of time, and at a minimum cost. Only one person survived that camp, but it was not Rojansky's brother. The experiments included torture, and Hana thinks that her brother suffered much.

The same day that the Germans removed the young people from the Polish ghetto, they also took 500 old and ill people into the forest and shot them. According to Rojansky, "They took my grandmother and grandfather to the forest. We thought that they went to a rest home for older people." But, after two weeks Rojansky's family received a paper which stated that the young boys and girls were sent to the gas chambers at Belzec, and the elderly people were murdered in the forest.

The Jews stayed in the Polish ghetto until 1944, and during that time they were ordered to clean out their homes. The Germans demanded they remove all furniture and personal belongings. Their goods were picked up by trucks and delivered to German homes, according to Rojansky. "We stayed in the ghetto until 1944, and we did everything very slowly because we thought that when we finished they would shoot us." After that, Rojansky's family was sent to Plaszow concentration camp near Krakow. There she worked in a clothing factory named, Madrich, where she sewed uniforms for German soldiers. Then, Rojansky went to work for Oscar Schindler, that same year in 1944. He was a German businessman who did not like what his fellow Germans were doing to the Jews. He decided to employ as many Jewish people as he could in his factories. Rojansky became one of his workers, and her name was on Schindler's employee "list." Schindler managed to save more than 1,000 Jews by employing them during the Holocaust years.

Remembering the Holocaust and Those Who Survived, Part 2
By C. Hart
Middle East Correspondent

Hana Rojansky recalled that her mother was determined to save her life, because she was a little girl. Her grandmother knew of a Christian woman outside the ghetto who was ready to adopt her.

CBN.com - This is Part II of a two-part series. It is the testimony of Jewish Holocaust survivor Hana Rojansky. Today, Rojansky tells her story of working for German businessman, Oskar Schindler, who saved more than 1,000 Jewish people by employing them as laborers in his European factory. Rojansky survived as one of the workers whose name was recorded on Schindler's List.

By 1944, Hana Rojansky was tired of going from ghettos to concentration camps, fearing for her life as a Jew and looking for whatever way she and her family could survive the evil tyranny of Nazi Germany. It was a dark time in Europe, when Jewish people were being murdered in their homes and on the streets, sent to gas chambers to die, and marked for persecution, harassment, and torture on a daily basis. Already, Nazi leader Adolph Hitler was implementing his "final solution": to exterminate as many Jews as possible in Europe.

But, in 1944, while Rojansky and her parents were in the Plaszow concentration camp, they found out they were being transferred outside of the camp to Oskar Schindler's factory, nearby. Rojansky is still not certain how her family ended up on Schindler's employee list. They arrived at Schindler's factory, hungry and exhausted. Rojansky remembered that her only clothes were the ones she was wearing, and she carried no other personal belongings. Her greatest difficulty was dealing with fear, especially the fear of going to the gas chambers. "I decided I must survive and I must go to Palestine, and I must give my son the name of my brother. It was like an obsession. I remembered also the feeling that I was afraid. The suffering was the fear. The suffering wasn't like the hunger, but the fear of dying, and not in a nice way," she admitted.

Schindler was a German businessman who lived in the Czech Republic, and during the Holocaust he set up factories in parts of Europe. While he worked for the Nazis, he also had compassion for the Jews. Rojansky claimed that Schindler was influenced by his best friend, who was the son of a Jewish rabbi. She said, "In the beginning, Schindler wanted to be a German. But, when he saw what the Germans did to the Jewish people, he was human, and he didn't agree with the system." Rojansky acknowledged that she trusted Schindler, as did the 1,300 other employees in the same factory. On Schindler's birthday or on his wife's birthday, he would give out extra bread to his workers. "And he spoke with us," Rojansky explained. "His behavior to us was like a man to a man, and not as the Germans did, as a man to an animal."

When the Russian army came to the area, in late 1944, the Nazis decided to close down the Plaszow concentration camp and send the Jews to Auschwitz to be exterminated. Meanwhile, Nazi officials worked out a deal with Schindler, approving his request to send his factory workers to Brunnlitz in the Czech Republic. But, instead of going to Brunnlitz, in a twist of events, his workers ended up in extermination camps. The men were sent to Grosrosen, and the women were sent to Auschwitz. Rojansky spent three weeks in Auschwitz and said it was like being in hell. The camp was located near a base of Polish partisans, and one of the partisans saw Rojansky's shaved head and the holes in her shoes. "He asked me, 'What do you want?'" And, I said, a spoon ladle because they gave us soup in a big plate without a spoon. And, we needed to eat the soup like puppies, and my mother couldn't," she explained. Rojansky's mother's health was failing because of hunger and the harsh conditions they lived in. When the Polish partisan threw Rojansky a spoon, she gave it to her mother and she began to eat.

In the night, at Auschwitz, one of the camp Nazi "doctors," Josef Mengele, would come with a big flashlight and look for young pretty girls to perform his human experiments on. Rojansky's mother was not good-looking so she was not afraid of Mengele. But, she was afraid for her young daughter. So, Rojansky recalled that her mother would lie on top of her to protect her. The Jews at Auschwitz slept on boards, and when someone wanted to get up at night to go to the bathroom, it was so crowded there was no room for them when they returned.

In the mornings, there were selections. The Jews would stand in a line, and Mengele would come to separate the "useful from the useless," according to Rojansky. The useless were sent to the gas chambers, but the useful could stay. Rojansky was concerned that her mother, who was not in good health, would be considered useless by Mengele. "I understood that when Mengele would see my mother, he would take her. So, I exchanged places with her. And, when Mengele went to the end, I pushed my mother in my place. I was afraid that Mengele noticed my movement, and I was pale with anxiety. Mengele came back and he stood before me and asked me, 'Why are you so pale?' And, suddenly I felt I was very quiet. I think I looked at the face of Mengele. It was forbidden to look at the face of a 'doctor' of the camp. And, I answered him that I am always so pale."

Rojansky explained that she told Mengele in German that pale was the normal skin color of her face. Mengele looked at Rojansky and asked her, 'How do you know German so well?' At that moment Rojansky felt her destiny would be determined by her response to Mengele, because Jews who spoke with him, as she did, were usually sent right to the gas chamber.

According to Rojansky, "I said to him (Mengele), 'my father is a German.' It was true; my father was in the Austrian office there. And, he looked at me and he said, 'you will rot anyway.' And he left. Afterwards, everyone asked me, 'What did you tell him? How did it happen that he didn't send you to the gas chamber?' " Rojansky replied, "My German (language) saved me."

In Auschwitz, Rojansky's mother was so miserable that she wanted to die. She tried to convince her daughter that they could touch the electric wire fence near the barracks and end their lives immediately. Her mother didn't want to wait until they were sent to the gas chamber, because she had no more strength or will to live on. Rojansky recalled that it was a November day and very cold. Her mother was hungry and depressed. She begged her daughter to come with her, explaining that the Germans would not murder them if they alone decided their own destiny. Rojansky explained, "I remembered that I said to my mother, 'I want to live and survive.' My mother said, 'I will do it alone.' But, I said, 'No, you must live, because without you, I can't survive." Rojansky then held her mother in her arms determined that they both would stay alive.
Meanwhile, Schindler didn't forget his workers. His male workers were released from Grosrosen in two weeks time. And, after three weeks, Schindler managed to get his female workers out of Auschwitz. The 1,300 workers were re-united in Brunnlitz. When they arrived, Rojansky remembered that Schindler warmly welcomed them.

Jews, like Rojansky, were grateful to Schindler for saving their lives. They appreciated his willingness to protect them from the Nazis. Though at times Schindler was a womanizer, he stayed married to his wife, Emily. Rojansky said that when Emily would arrive at the factory, every two or three days, she was a generous woman who would give the workers extra food to eat. "Suddenly I felt something here on my legs. She gave me, always, a sandwich or a cake or a chocolate, and would tell me to cover myself," Rojansky said. There were four German female soldiers who watched the workers closely, so Rojansky learned to hide the extra food she received.

In Brunnlitz, Schindler had built a munitions factory because he hoped that when the workers would make ammunition, the Germans would not kill the Jewish employees. Eventually, Schindler would create more factories in order to save more Jews. "Schindler was very good for us. He told the guards in the factory that they were not allowed to beat us, because he said, 'When you will beat my workers, they cannot work. And, it is forbidden to beat my workers.' At the time he wanted to save us, and he didn't agree with the Germans who wanted to exterminate us," said Rojansky.

Schindler died in October 1974, in Frankfurt, Germany. He was 66, and to fulfill his request, he was buried in a Catholic cemetery in Jerusalem's Old City. In 1993, during the filming of Schindler's List, director Steven Spielberg brought his crew and members of Schindler's family and friends to Israel. They met with the Holocaust survivors on Schindler's list.

Rojansky asked Schindler's wife, Emily, why she had given out food to all the workers when it was dangerous to do so. Emily replied that she was Catholic, and her priest taught her that when there was somebody who needed her help and they were suffering, she must help them. She explained to Rojansky that this was the reason that the Schindler family helped the Jewish people during the Holocaust. "I was very touched that she, a Catholic, saved me as a Jew," cried Rojansky. "There were not plenty of Christian people that saved us. There were some, but not a lot."

Rojansky and her parents stayed at Schindler's factory until their liberation at the end of the war in 1945, when the Nazis finally surrendered. Then, they immigrated to Israel. Rojansky's father died years later, at age 69. Her mother lived much longer, until the age of 93.

Rojansky returned to the Czech Republic to see her best friend, a Czech Christian, in 1995, and then again, in 2001. Rojansky had spent four years with her Czech friend after liberation. "She sat near to me and she helped me, very much, to study. Until today we are friends. And, she is a Christian girl," Rojansky acknowledged tearfully.

As she finished her testimony, Rojansky talked about the different Germans she had met in the Polish ghetto, in the concentration camps, and in the factories; those who did not look to end her life, but to help her in her struggle to survive. She wondered about the favor she received during the Holocaust, and she somehow understood God's hand of protection over her and the people who cared for her. Rojansky expressed her gratefulness. "The Polish Gentiles were in danger when they helped Jewish people. Also, Schindler was in danger. And, when a Gentile woman helped a Jewish family, she could lose her life. It was very hard to understand how one person could save another and be in danger themselves. Many people were killed because they helped Jewish people. Now I am not angry, not with Germans, and not with Christians. I don't hate anyone. I am happy that I am alive."

While the memories of the Holocaust still haunt her, Rojansky says she will continue to give her testimony because she thinks it is essential for others to understand the preciousness of their lives. And, she has gone on to live her life to the fullest, in the land of Israel, where she has lived since 1949. "Every morning I am happy that I have a refrigerator full of food. I am a teacher. I have sons and I can teach our children to be good citizens. I am a free person and not a slave. I can work and not work. I can eat and not eat. In the morning I can stay at home or not. I can go to the swimming pool and the theatre. I think I am now happier than every one who did not experience the Holocaust."