Arek Hersh
On 1 September 1939, the Nazis attacked Poland. Arek's family had to leave their home town and stay with relatives in Lodz. Arek remembers seeing the German motorbikes, tanks and planes that was way better than anything the Polish army had. He also remembers seeing Nazis laughing while they cut the beards off of Jewish men.
In 1940, the Jewish population of Lodz had to start wearing the star of David and were later forced into ghettos. Later in 1940, German solders came to take Arek's father. Arek's father managed to escape the German soldiers. Arek's brother did the same thing, and so 11-year-old Arek was taken instead. The following day Arek and others were taken to a railway station. At the station Arek's brother wanted to take Arek's place but Arek refused.
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Arek was taken to a camp called Otoschno. Arek survived by stealing food from his job where he cleaned the camp commander's office. In 1942, Arek was sent home, when he got there, people asked him about their relatives, he just told them that they were working, he couldn't tell them what was really happening.
In August 1942, the Germans decided to destroy the ghetto. 4000 people were sent to the church. Arek ran away on pretending to get some water, he went and joined a group that had been chosen to do work. The Jews in the church were taken to Chelmno death camp, they were sent to gas chambers and buried in mass graves.
Arek and 150 other people were sent to Lodz. The president of the ghetto demanded that it should hand over 10,000 children. Arek knew that he was going to be part of those 10,000 children. He hid from the SS in a cemetery while the children were taken to Chelmno where they were also gassed. Arek was taken by an orphanage, he worked in a textile mill during this time. He stayed in the Lodz ghetto for two years.
in 1944, the Nazis destroyed the Lodz ghetto due to the Russian army getting too close. The people in the ghettos were put on a train and were sent on a two-day trip to Auschwitz. When they arrived at Auschwitz a German doctor, Dr Mengele, chose people to do slave labour and people that were going straight to the gas chambers. Arek didn't know what was going on, but he realised that the healthier people were on one side, so he ran to that side in the middle of a disturbance. Arek was forced to leave everything he had, he was then shaved and was showered. He was handed a striped uniform that had the number 'B7608' on it. Then he was only known as B7608 and not as Arek Hersh.
Later, Arek was chosen to head to Auschwitz 1 with a group of boys. He was put into a building with political prisoners. He worked as an agricultural slave labourer for the SS, he ploughed fields and fertilising the fields with ashes from the crematorium. Arek remembers being able to feel the bones as he spread the ashes. Arek later worked as a fisherman, catching fish from the River Vistula that was sent to Germany.
In January 1945, Arek was able see and hear American and British bombers, he knew that Nazi Germany were losing the war. On 18 January, the Nazis wanted to clear-out Auschwitz. The Germans took the prisoners on a death march, for three days , no food whatsoever, wearing only their striped uniforms in snow with temperatures as low as -25 degrees. The survivors of the death march were in Buchenwald, Germany. Arek was put into a barrack full of children. In April 1945, Arek and 3000 others were taken to Weimar, Germany. From there, they were loaded onto wagons and sent on a month-long trip to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp that is now a memorial. A lot of people had died on the train, Arek was one of 600 people who had made it to Czechoslovakia alive on 8 May 1945. It was there where they were liberated by the Russian army.
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Later moved to Liverpool in England with some other boys. Arek didn't talk about what he had experienced until 1995 when he wrote his book, 'A detail of History' . Arek now goes to schools, universities and other organisations to share his stories and what had happened to him during the Holocaust. He hopes that by sharing his experiences, the young people will make the future a better place than what it previously had been.