Holocaust Survivor: Yisrael Goldberger

Born 1922 in Szatmar, Transylvania. Parents' home. Hungarians arrive, October 5, 1940. Evades draft by means of false documents. In Margareten, 1942. Returns home when Germans enter Hungary; drafted for forced labor in Ukraine, May 1944. Hungarians' cruelty in forced-labor camp at Stri-Doline, and arduous work chopping trees for fortifications. On foot to Hungary and escape, October 1944. Arrest by gendarmes at Debrecen on way to Budapest. In Budapest, shelter in protected buildings in Arena Street, 32 Benczur Street and Columbus camp. Bergen-Belsen; Sonderlager. To Teresienstadt by train, April 1944. Liberated by Americans at Teresienstadt, May 8, 1945. Back to Szatmar, July 1945. To Austria with help of Briha, Zionist underground movement taking survivors to Eretz Yisrael. Six-week military course by Hagana, Zionist underground military formation, in Hochland, Germany. To Eretz Yisrael via Austria and Italy.

The singer from Bergen-Belsen

From Columbus camp in Budapest we were taken to Bergen-Belsen. In the railroad station they promptly lined us up five abreast that was their system. From the station we walked several kilometers to Bergen-Belsen. We walked through the gateway. We were all wearing ordinary clothing. They took us to a warehouse and ordered us to undress in order to put on clothes and shoes they would give us, but they didn't give us a thing. Fortunately, I was in the Sonderlager, a special camp in Bergen-Belsen, whose Jewish inmates were considered candidates for exchange for German subjects held in "enemy" countries. After we undressed, they ordered us to put on our clothing again. In my pocket I had my Tefillin, and they remained with me throughout that period. They put us in barracks the familiar barracks of Bergen-Belsen. Every barrack was long as Exile, and from one end it was impossible to see the other end.

We began the daily Bergen-Belsen schedule. They woke us in the dark and ordered us outside for Zehlappel (rollcall). We stood for hours in that hellish frost, dressed in almost nothing. I had no shoes, nothing but rags covering my feet. On the first day they gave us Gemuese an insipid vegetable soup. We were still finicky and didn't want to eat the soup. The SS men laughed and said that we would yet eat it. I ate it on the very first day, because I was no longer so finicky. They distributed a very carefully measured square of bread. I don't remember exactly how many people shared that bread, but there were plenty of them.

The bread was also weighed, and someone devised a scale with cord at each side, lest, God forbid, someone get a slice weighing as much as a gram more than someone else got. I saved up bread to get myself shoes. I had saved up half a loaf, when it was stolen. If someone took sombody else's bread, that was a great disaster, for bread meant life.

Luckily for me, I could sing. God had blessed me with a pleasant voice, and to this day, for the past 40 years, I lead the Mussaf service in the High Holy Day services. In the evenings I would go from barrack to barrack singing Yiddish songs. The next day each barrack would give me a spoonful of Gemuese. There was a woman in the Sonderlager who had come from Austria with five children. She had obtained milk for the children, and she gave me some, for my singing. Later I met her in Israel.

When I got engaged, I visited my wife's relatives. She took me to an aunt of hers, my future father-in-law's sister. When we arrived, the aunt was sleeping, but her daughter, who had received us, jumped up with a shout: "The singer from Bergen!" I didn't remember her, but she had recognized me. In Bergen I had always worn a cap. She took off my fedora and put a cap on my head, saying: "Yes, that's him." She woke her mother and said: "Mama, the singer from Bergen is here!" This happened to me several times.

I think those songs had taken them back to their homes. I sang Yiddish songs that had been popular then Sabbath songs, family melodies. In Bergen-Belsen I had several friends from our hometown. They came along on my singing rounds as my assistants. I already had assistants, and they also enjoyed part of the "fees" I collected. It may be said that that is what kept me alive. I'm sure of that, because every gram of bread there meant: life.

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