Letters to Rose Read online

  I will tell my children and generations to come about the Holocaust so they know it happened.

  They will hear your story of hope, inspiration courage and bravery. Thank you for being the amazing human being that you are. It was such an honor to take a photo beside you and to hear your incredible story.

  Sincerely,

  Kaylee Valles

  Dear Rose,

  As I was listening to you talk about your grandmother, I realized I could empathize with you. You see, my grandfather, who I never really got to know, fought in WWII. I never got to hear his story, about what he saw and experienced. I can’t explain it, but as you were telling your story, I felt a connection between us. Perhaps, through my grandfather. I wanted to go up there beside you and just keep hugging you so you could put the sadness behind you. I wish that more people could hear you story and understand or at least take it to heart so that something like this could be avoided.

  Sincerely,

  Gwen Maxwell

  Dear Rose,

  The first time I saw you, I remembered my great grandmother. You look alike, and your voice reminds me of her. When you talked about the incident that happened to your grandmother, I couldn’t help myself and burst into tears. I could not imagine what it would be like to actually witness the violent loss of someone you love.

  After hearing what you experienced, it made me realize how blessed I am not to have experienced the hardships and losses you’ve encountered. My problems, my experiences, the stresses I am dealing with right now can’t even begin to compare with what you went through when you were my age. After meeting you, another reason to live is being added. You are another reason for me to strive hard, to live my life. You and your story will be a part of me from now on, and you will always be in my prayers. Take good care of yourself and stay strong, no matter what. I will do the same.

  Love you always,

  Trisha Kaye Mendoza

  Dear Mrs. Rose,

  You are such an inspiration to me. You not only educated me, but you moved me. A beautiful lady like you deserves to be loved, protected, and treated with the utmost respect.

  I think the most difficult part you described to us was when you were trying to help your grandma, but she was shot and killed for trying to help the children. Your struggle, along with many others in the Holocaust, has to single-handedly be the most tragic, upsetting inhumane action I’ve ever heard about. I know you must’ve gone through persecution even after you were liberated.

  The most important thing I have learned from you is never to be to a bystander ever again. Thank you for making me a better person and showing me how to appreciate life for what it is. I will cherish every single day I’m alive.

  I love you, Rose. May God bless your soul.

  Love,

  Mia Walker

  Chapter Six:

  The Nightmare

  Continues

  The barbaric attack and murder of over a thousand people in the streets of Glinice on August 5 was just the beginning of Operation Reinhardt in the Radom District. The liquidation of the large ghetto at Walowa St. occurred over two days and three nights, August 16-18, 1942. The same perpetrators were at play: the SS, Gestapo, Ukrainian auxiliary troops, and the Jewish police. The SS told the Jewish police that their cooperation would be reciprocated with no bloodshed, a lie from the outset.

  On that Sunday night, August 16, Polish electricians entered the ghetto to install harsh spotlights so that, on the stroke of midnight, the streets were lit as if it were daytime. Soldiers were on roofs with machine guns. Bloodhounds assisted the SS and Gestapo in locating those who tried to hide.

  Polish and German police were used to seal off the thirteen gates surrounding Walowa. They ordered Jews to pack one suitcase with clothes, valuables, and food for three days. “Juden! Raus! Schnell! They shouted at Jews to “get out” and “hurry.”17

  As described earlier, panic, screams, shouted orders from bullhorns, stampeding Jews chased by bullets….all these scenes replayed over the next nights and even days. Those who could not keep up with the group being force-marched toward the trains were shot in the street. Police searched houses from top to bottom and shot anyone hiding, including many attempting to secrete themselves in attics and cellars.18

  Commanded to retain the healthiest young adults and skilled laborers, the Germans ordered those with labor cards, both within the ghetto and at sites outside the ghetto, to report to predetermined selection points. Twenty-five thousand people were forced to go through the selection process and hear their fates, to the left or to the right. Left meant deportation; right meant labor. A few hundred escaped selection when their German employers hid them in factories outside ghetto walls.19

  The Germans did not spare anyone they could find, including those in hospitals, orphanages, and the aged still residing in homes. A total of 1500 men, women and children never stepped into a freight car. They were killed in the streets and buried in mass graves at the nearby Pentz Park. About 18,000-20,000 others guards crammed into cattle cars whose destination, unbeknownst to most, would be the extermination camp at Treblinka.20

  • • •

  Moving On

  On August 6, ghetto life went on, and so did I. The loss of my grandmother struck me to my soul, but there was no choice but to report to AVL. I remember that I was so broken down, so exhausted during the whole day, that I made many mistakes in my work. I felt feverish. Not a bit of food could pass through my lips. But life had to go on. In hindsight, the miracle was that my parents and Motek survived the purge. Neither of my parents had a work permit, and young children were among the first to be deported. The Germans must have simply met their quota before they could be selected. Jurek’s disappearance still weighed heavily on our hearts, but it was a relief that he was not there to witness his grandmother’s murder.

  The next ten days passed with an uneasy calm. No late night raids occurred, but there were changes. My department at AVL was dissolved. That left me without work for brief time, both a blessing and a curse as I was, once again, susceptible to the whims of the Jewish police.

  One remarkable thing did happen: Jurek returned! He told us that he had been caught in a roundup and sent to Blizinki for forced labor these past months. Only twenty years old, Jurek looked like a man of forty. He had been savagely beaten, the scars evident. We had all suffered, but Jurek’s return brought a moment of pure joy and happiness to us all.

  Barrack 72

  Another chapter began to unfold when Binne and I, both caught in a police raid, reported to Barrack 72 for steady work. Barrack 72 was in Radom but outside the ghetto and originally belonged to the Polish garrison. We were walled off and surrounded by barbed wire on Szwarlikowska St.

  One part of the facility had been partly transformed into a hospital; the other part consisted of wooden huts where the Ukrainian soldiers were assigned. We considered them our greatest enemy. Ukrainians seemed to have murdered, raped, shot, and plundered even more than the Germans themselves. Nine girls and eight boys comprised my work group. Our daily task was to clean the huts after the Ukrainians left for work.

  Our supervisor, a Pole who had spent all his life in France, spoke a splendid German. He felt compassion for us and informed us of any coming event. Our chief supervisor was a German, named Richter, a horrible character—fiendish, bloodthirsty.

  My sister worked with me in the hospital section. A short time after being fetched to work at Barrack 72, we heard a new rumor that the Nazis planned to evacuate the rest of the Walowa Ghetto. That meant a sure death or deportation for all its inhabitants. Alec, the French Pole, confirmed this rumor, but he assured us that we would be closed up in the barrack. My sister’s and my apprehension for our remaining family escalated.

  A Sense of Foreboding

  Several days after the liquidation of Glinice, two deportees, named Zigman and Bankier, some
how managed to escape and return to Radom. The two had met up with men hiding in the woods near Kosow. Those men told the Radomers that they, too, had escaped Treblinka after being forced to work on the construction of the barracks and the gas chambers there. The crew assured these men from Radom that those on the train would all have one end: gassing and cremation. There was no labor camp at Treblinka.

  Zigman and Bankier told Radom Judenrat authorities, and anyone interested, about the true nature of these “resettlements” to the East. No one listened. No one could imagine that such atrocities could occur in 20th century Europe. But I think my parents knew their story was true, whether they were willing to admit it or not.

  One night, after leaving the ghetto for Barrack 72, Binne and I both expressed the sense of foreboding that we wouldn’t see our parents and Motek again. We weren’t as concerned about Jurek. He was young and strong. He had a labor card, which we all believed was key to our survival during random selections. Neither of my parents had such a document.

  Before we left what would be our last visit, we hugged our parents and asked them to come with us. My father wouldn’t leave. In his Jewish garb and with his beard, he was in immediate danger of being shot and knew it. And my mother, whom we possibly could have saved, said that she would not leave without our father and her baby boy. Mother said that they would share their fate together. She took us as far as the gate of the ghetto and kissed us for the last time.

  I still felt the arms of my mother around my body and her tears on my cheek when we heard the first cries coming from the ghetto. It was the night of August 16. All nine of us girls could not stay in our barrack that night. We ran out, thinking we could help the poor victims by just standing there inside the barbed wire fence.

  Suddenly, the sky got darker, not just from clouds but from the smoke of bullets. I saw how Binne looked for some opening in the fence to slip out. I also observed how the guards had noticed us. They were pointing their weapons. With all my strength, I dragged my sister back into the room where the others had already gathered. I myself couldn’t remain in the room. The thought that I wouldn’t see my parents again drove me back outside.

  I learned from the guards standing next to me that the evacuation couldn’t be finished that same night as there were not enough freight wagons to transport all the people. I remained there, helpless, inside the barbed wire surrounding our barracks. Gray drops of rain fell over me as I stood immobile, staring, hoping. Finally, having become exhausted and drained of tears, I fell on the ground and slept.

  A Roundup of Jews in Radom—

  The August 16-18, 1942, liquidation happened both day and night.

  Photo courtesy of Yad Vashem. Archival signature 1605/1960

  Nightmare Confirmed

  My soaked body was ice cold when I awoke. A new day had begun. I was numb, but I still felt my blood rush through my veins. In my utter despair, I cried out, “Oh G-d, let me die, too, so that I can be with my parents.”

  While I had lain near the barbed wire, the sun had risen high. Once more, I tried to rise, but I had no strength to walk. Was it a delusion? Was I sought by someone? It seemed to me that someone was approaching. I thought it must be my sister who had noticed my absence. And then this thought came to me: “I don’t want to die. I want to avenge myself and the deaths of so many of the children of Israel.” It was as if this idea were a shaft of light into my wounded soul.

  My mind then filled with one word: Maybe. Maybe I could see my parents again this morning. Maybe—a cruel word. Like a doctor who, standing at the bed of a dying man, tries to console his family, I tried to console myself with the word maybe. I was lying near the barbed wire still. I don’t know what I felt, rage or fear. I just knew that, in my heart of hearts, I wouldn’t see my parents again. The thought nearly broke me.

  With my last effort, I got up and dragged myself into one of the sheds. Nobody had noticed my absence. I fell on my bed half dead. I woke up again, but I was so tired that I only wanted to sleep. Even this rest was not allowed to me. Wet hands touched my body; sobbing cries woke me up. I only heard, “The whole ghetto was evacuated. We have lost all and everybody. Nothing remained.”

  I didn’t feel anything but a raging thirst and a desire for sleep. I had a bad fever. It was a wonder that I didn’t die of pneumonia. With all my strength, I tore myself from the bed and cried, “Mother, Mother!” I felt her arms around me. I felt her tears. I saw her beautiful face as when she had sat at my bed when I was sick of typhus. The idea of never seeing my parents and Motek, never hearing their words again, simply tore my heart into pieces.

  Binne and I assumed that our parents and Motek were all deported to the East, which we came to learn was synonymous with the extermination camp Treblinka. We did not talk about that night even long after the war ended. It was simply too painful to relive. All our strength was needed to focus on surviving each day. Only in old age did I learn that, surprisingly, Jurek had returned from a labor camp to Radom in mid-August. He participated in the selection that night. Unbeknownst to me, some years after liberation, he recounted the story to Binne. She never told me. I learned about the fate of our family from Binne’s testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation decades after both siblings were deceased.

  During that August 16-18 selection of 25,000 residents of Walowa Ghetto, my parents and both brothers were forced to line up for selection. Although he did not have a labor card, my father, age forty-five, was sent to the right as was Jurek. Unfortunately, Mother and Motek were sent to the left. Jurek watched in abject horror as my terror-stricken father ran out of line toward his wife and child. His intention was to sneak them into his line. An SS or Ukrainian guard shot him on the spot.

  Like 1,500 others in Walowa, the Nazis murdered my father in the streets before he ever reached the trains. Learning of their fate seventy-six years later should bring some closure after decades of not really knowing, but there is no closure. The pain of losing one’s family never completely leaves; we just learn to carry on. And, at the time, Nazis allowed not a moment to grieve. There was no day off from slave labor to mourn the loss of loved ones.

  Return to Radom

  When the sun pierced the night with its sharp darts, the work day began as usual. It didn’t matter that we were grief-stricken or ill. Our cruel chief supervisor Richter appeared with a grimace on his lips and told us that we couldn’t remain there. The Polish Frenchman had kept us overnight at Barrack 72 through the evacuation, hoping he could influence the administration to let us stay. But Richter said we had to leave.

  Miraculously, Alec appeared with a permit to have us brought back to AVL where so many others were legally placed. An escort of two soldiers was to accompany us through the city. We could see the disappointment on Richter’s face. His plan had been to return us for deportation; Alec had saved our lives once again,

  Under escort, we marched through our hometown, the town we had loved, the town where we had spent our childhoods, the most beautiful hours, weeks, months of our youth with family of over fifty dear, dear people in Binne’s and my lives. There, accompanied by a thousand memories, we walked like automatons, robotically forced to keep moving forward. I dragged myself along, beyond fatigued after all the suffering and trauma. I felt so near death that it wouldn’t take much to make an end of me. I almost longed for death.

  At last, we arrived just to go through new agony. The AVL building lay near the railroad tracks, and we could hear the crying of children looking for their parents, mothers and fathers calling out for their children. We saw how the sentinels thrashed at the Jews’ heads with the butts of their rifles. We saw the blood flow. I saw the clouds pass over the glow of the sun, pass and go away. But the storm raged on with undaunted force within my soul.

  Radom could never be the same to me again. Almost everyone I had loved and had shared memories with had been taken away. With them, all hope of happiness seemed forever destroyed.r />
  Dear Mrs. Williams,

  One thing you said that really made me think twice was about family because you are right: we never know what could happen next. Things come out of nowhere and without reason. As you said, I need to make sure my family knows how much I love them. Thank you for opening my eyes and helping me see the truth.

  Michael Goff

  Dear Rose,

  I am one of the students from Johnson High School who had the opportunity to hear your story. Being the history nerd that I am, I was so touched. It was honestly the coolest experience of my life so far. I have to admit that I cried multiple times.

  But the part that hit me the hardest was at the end when you told us to go home and tell our friends and family that we love them because we never know when the last time we will see them might be. I lost my best friend this fall due to suicide, so what you said really got to me. So I did it. I went home that night and told my family that I love them.

  Rose, thank you for sharing your story. I will promise you that all of my family and my future family will know you too.

  Love,

  Kyle William Gentry

  Dearest Rose,

  I am humbled to be able to write to you, and, as you can see, I am inspired by your words. From the moment you began to speak, I was mesmerized. I hung on your every word because I can relate to many of the things you shared.

  You are so strong. I know you said you lost your faith when you were alone. Even when I am surrounded by family, I feel I am alone.

  You said at the end of your message to tell our parents when we have the chance, to remind them how much we love them. Your words persuaded me to do just that. Later, when I was on my way to a doctor’s appointment with my mom, I told her how much I appreciated her for being there, for cheering me on, and for always putting me, her baby girl, first.