Val Ginsburg | The fate of my community

'As our prison conditions worsened, we realised that our chance of survival was very slim and
we made a pledge obliging any survivors to bear witness, to sound a warning about man's
capacity for inhuman behaviour.'

Val grew up in Lithuania, a small country in between Germany and Russia. He came
from a secular Jewish family of free thinkers who did not believe in organized religion.
During the inter-war years Lithuania was on what Val describes as "a political fault line".
It was a tiny country with a population of about 3 million caught between two
superpowers: Nazi Germany in the West and Communist Russia in the East.

As a young man, Val wanted to become a pilot. Aviation was his passion and he loved
building model aeroplanes. Instead he enrolled to study architecture, but his education
and plans for the future plans were interrupted by the coming conflict. In summer 1940
the Communist Red Army marched into Lithuania along with the Russian Secret Police,
the KGB. They turned every aspect of life upside down. Anyone who owned land or a
business was classed as a Capitalist enemy of the people, for which the punishment
was deportation to a Siberian slave labour camp. The Ginsburgs' property was
confiscated and they were put on a list to be deported.
Fate intervened and the week before they were due to be taken, Hitler's army began an
assault on the Russian empire and swept through Lithuania. Val's family faced a difficult
choice. They could flee into Russia or stay put and try to survive under the Nazis. 14
members of Val's immediate family gathered to make the choice. After a morning of
debate they chose to stay, hoping that their chances of survival would be better under
the Germans than the Communists.

The Nazis immediately began to implement their racial laws against the Jewish
population. They were deprived of every basic human rights. Jewish people were not
allowed to walk on the pavement, use public transport, have a telephone, or even own
pets. They had limited access to food, and constant hunger sapped their morale. The
most terrifying thing was the constant arrests anad executions. Within two months of the
Nazi invasion, the 35,000-strong Jewish population of Kaunas had been reduced to
30,000.
On 15 August 1941 the Jewish population was crammed into a ghetto in a small suburb
of Kaunas, surrounded by barbed wire and armed sentries. They had no fuel and barely
any food. Val was sent out as a slave labourer and kept his remaining family alive by
scrounging potato peel which his mother cleaned and cooked. Val's most upsetting
memories are of the massacres: the 'Big Action', in which 10,000 people were taken
away and shot, and the 'Children's Action' in spring 1944 when all the ghetto children,
along with anyone who was old, sick or disabled, were forcibly taken away and
murdered.
By 1944 only about 12,000 of Kaunas's Jews remained alive. The German army was in
retreat. The remaining Jews were ordered onto cattle wagons and taken into Germany
to work as forced labourers building factories for the production of Messerschmidt jet
fighters. After a three-day journey Val arrived in Dachau where he was forced to do
back-breaking work on starvation rations. By the time he was liberated by the American
armed forces on 1 May 1945, Val was 'a walking skeleton'.
Val's liberation euphoria soon turned into a deep depression. Of the 14 family members
who had gathered to decide whether to stay or go, he was the only one left alive. Out of
the 35,000 Jewish citizens of Kaunas, only 2000 were left alive. Val spent six months in
hospital, and while he was there he met his future wife Ibi. Val describes their meeting
as 'therapeutic' and together they decided to embark for England and start a new life.
They married, arrived in England in October 1948, and quickly became British citizens.
They spent their working lives in the textile industry in West Yorkshire and brought up
their two children.

Val and Ibi remained a devoted couple for over 60 years. It wasn't until their children
were growing up that they began to talk about their Holocaust experiences. They have
both been involved in several HSFA projects, sharing a passionate commitment to
raising young people's awareness of the consequences of prejudice.

Ibi Ginsburg | Surviving Auschwitz

"Even though we only had one year of the troubles, instead of 3 or 4 like other people in Poland
and Czechoslovakia, the end product was devastating. They did everything very fast and very
efficiently."

Ibi was born in Hungary and brought up in a strict, religious

family. She lived in a comfortable home, in a community
where people of different religions and backgrounds lived
harmoniously side by side, hoping that the war would pass
them by.
On 19 March 1944 the Germans invaded Hungary. Immediately the Jewish population
were ordered to wear yellow stars. Within a couple of weeks, Jewish people were
rounded up and made to live in crowded ghettos. After two weeks in the ghetto, people
were told to prepare food for a three day journey because they were being taken into
Germany to work.
Ibi's family packed for the journey with no idea where they were being taken. On arrival
at the deserted station, they and thousands of other Jewish people were packed into
cattle wagons with no furniture other than buckets for water and sanitation. They soon
realised they were not heading towards Germany. After a three day journey the wagons
arrived at Auschwitz Birkenau.
Ibi remembers being helped from the wagons by men in striped uniforms and being
made to wait in a queue with her family, surrounded by other disorientated people. The
family was separated. Ibi's father was taken from the family first, then she and her 13year-old sister Judith were led one way, and their mother and two younger sisters went
in a different direction. Ibi later learned that her mother and sisters had been taken
immediately to the gas chambers.
Ibi and Judith were then taken to a different part of the camp. They had their clothes and
possessions taken away, all their hair shaved off, and were issued with camp uniform.
Their barracks was a wooden building with a concrete floor and bare wooden bunks to

sleep on. There was barely any food, and every day they had to stand for hours while
the guards counted the thousands of prisoners in the camp.
After three months Ibi and Judith were taken out of Auschwitz to work in a slave labour
camp in Germany. They kept going in the knowledge that the war was going badly for
Germany. Ibi says, "We were constantly hungry, humiliated, we worked, but we knew
that the end was coming... We just hung on to life". In the dying stages of the war they
were taken on a forced march to a concentration camp, where they were finally
liberated by the Americans on 1 May 1945.

Ibi, her father and sister survived the war. Ibi was taken into hospital, and when she was
well enough she began to work in the hospital administration. It was here that she met
Val who was recuperating from his experiences in German slave labour camps. Val and
Ibi married, but neither of them wanted to go back to their home countries in the
knowledge that so many of their friends and family had not survived. They got an
invitation from Val's cousins, the Kagans, to move to England and work in the textile
industry and came here in 1948. They brought their two children up in West Yorkshire
and remained a devoted couple for over 60 years, sharing a passionate commitment to
Holocaust education.

April 20, 1985

Dear Susan,
You have asked me to set down in writing some of the things I remember about
Dachau. Its difficult. It was just about 40 years ago today that I was there and
as a consequence of the time interval I cant be absolutely certain as to the
accuracy of that which I believe I saw and did.
Our division (the 42nd Infantry about 15,000 men) was heading for the city of
Munich, and as I recall we were going across a wide expanse of level land and
over to the left I saw what appeared to be a large factory which was enclosed by
a wall to the best of my recollection this was my first view of Dachau although
I didnt know it at the time and we did not stop. While crossing this level land we
were overtaken by (what seemed to me like) hundreds of American tanks. I read
somewhere later that this was the 20th Tank Corps and that they had been
ordered to overtake us and enter Munich first. The dust, noise, and confusion
was one thing I recall for some reason or another I have a recollection of
Munich being exactly 17 kilometers from Dachau. Whether this is the correct
distance or why I remember it as such is beyond my comprehension.
I dont recall where I spent the night but I do remember being in Munich early
the next day strange I found a book there about the 1936 Olympics and
remember looking at Jesse Owens Picture. For some unknown reason me and
several other guys in our company were loaded into the back of a truck and
driven out of the city. We were taken to Dachau.
I dont know how long we stayed there or what we were supposed to do there
but I do recall that we went back to Munich later that same night.
Now for Dachau we saw nothing unusual from a distance some smoke
coming out of smokestacks you couldnt see inside the walls or whatever the
enclosure was. We got out of the truck and walked toward a gate (wide enough
for a vehicle). Before we got to the gate we found a railroad siding with a bunch
of box cars on it. Some of the doors to the box cars were open and as we got
closer to them I saw that they were piled up with emaciated bodies it seemed
to me that they were laying on top of each other and piled up to a depth of 4 or
5 feet. As I walked toward the end of the train toward the gate I saw a dead
German soldier and beside him a rifle that was broken in half. I recall supposing

that someone had hit him so hard with the rifle that it had killed him and broken
the rifle.
We went in the gate and there was some people inside as the day went on
more and more people came. I didnt know who they were at the time but found
out later that some of them were war correspondents as you probably know
from your journalism studies many of them traveled with front line troops.
Just inside the gate and to the right was a high wire enclosure it was filled
with big mean looking dogs who were barking like hell this went on all the time
I was there. I recall hoping that nobody turned them loose this was before I
saw all the other unthinkable things. I never ever saw any mention of those dogs
in anything I ever read.
Immediately in front of me after entering the gate and about 20 yards away
was a moat with water in it about 4 or 5 feet wide a dead soldier was lying
face down in it. Just beyond the moat was a high fence Id guess it to be 8 or
10 feet high I understood it was electrified. On the other side of the fence was
a valley which was about 20 feet wide and 8 or 10 feet deep on the other side
of the valley were barracks and those locked up.
We did not talk to the prisoners and they did not talk to us between us there
was a moat, an electrified fence and a steep up and down valley. We stared at
them and they stared at us. It was as if they didnt know what to do and neither
did we.
On our side of the fence and to the right of where the dogs were were the gas
chambers and ovens where people were killed and then burned. There were
stacks of bodies (all looked like skeletons) apparently prepared for burning.
There was a long walk (cement) and roadway (black-top) to the right of the
ovens which ran alongside the moat and fence that I mentioned before it ran
the entire length of the compound and I would guess it to be between 1/4 and
1/2 mile in length. Down toward the end of this I saw a big cart the kind you
used to see around railroad depots. It was filled with bread and was being taken
in to the prisoners.
Why I should remember this I dont know but near this wagon of bread was a
woman and a man who were dressed in civilian clothes rather than the striped
uniforms that other prisoners wore. They seemed to be in much better health
than all the others. Somebody told me that this couple was Kurt Von Schussnig
and his wife and that prior to becoming a prisoner he was the Chancellor of
Austria. Whether this is true or not I would have no way of knowing but this is
what comes out of my not so good memory.
In retrospect I suppose we should have done something immediately to ease
the prisoners pain or to free them from their confinement but on the other

hand perhaps we were all too shocked by the gruesome discovery to be

anything other than immobilized. The only people at that time who were not
immobilized were a few prisoners who threw themselves into the fences I told
you about earlier. I understand that shortly after I was there guards were
established to prevent them from doing this but neither myself, nor others with
me did anything.
Ive already told you about picking up the orange colored thermos bottle at
Dachau and discarding it a few days later I wasnt the only one who did this. I
think all of us who were sent out to Dachau that day wanted to get it out of sight
and out of mind as quickly as we could. I dont think any of us were successful
despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge not a single person who was
there with me ever discussed it with me nor I with them. I even went so far as
to not even mention it in my letters to your mother.
As I sit here and write this I am reminded of a monumental inconsistency.
During the war as we traveled through German occupied territory it was
common for us to encounter slave laborers in both cities and the countryside.
We did the natural thing and released them there was joy and celebration on
both sides. I guess as I said before Dachau was too much all we were capable
of doing was staring and being immobilized.
The Jewish people and all the rest of us should continue to try to encourage all
of us to remember places like Dachau despite my own constant push to
repress that which is so horrible, I too would like to forget but I cant quite cut it.
Perhaps I should be more upbeat like Mr. Reagan.
Your asking me to do this has been helpful it makes me feel more thankful for
what is as opposed to what used to be and what was.
Warmest regards to you, and Frank, and the kids.
Love, Mom & Dad
P.S. You suggested taking a half-hour for this. It took about 4

April 4, 1945
REPORT ON SURRENDER OF THE GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMP ATOHRDRUF:
The date was April 4, 1945 and I was on a patrol as a member of the I &R
platoon attached to the Headquarters company of 354th Infantry Regiment, of
the 89th Infantry Division, 3rd Army U.S.A.

As I recall it was a beautiful spring morning marred by the fact that we were
under mortar attack. I remember very well my surprise when I observed
Brigadier General Robertson strolling upright down the road. He was an elderly
gentleman who thought nonchalance under fire characterized the general
officers role model.
I was impressed but remained prone in the drainage ditch until the attack
ceased. Shortly thereafter, an acquaintance let it be known that a camp had
been liberated further up the hill.
Fifty years have passed since this day but I recall my first impression of the
camp called Ohrdruf which I found later was associated administratively with the
camp called Buchenwald. Ohrdruf was named after the town of the same name,
apparently locally famous for its history of being the place where Johann
Sebastian Bach composed some of his works.
From the outside, the camp was unremarkable. It was surrounded by a high
barbed wire fence and had a wooden sign which read, Arbeit MachtFrei. The
swinging gate was open, and a young soldier, probably an SS guard, lay dead
diagonally across the entrance. The camp was located in the forest and was
surrounded by a thick grove of pine and other conifers. The inside of the camp
was composed of a large 100 yards square central area which was surrounded
by one story barracks painted green which appeared to house 60-100 inmates.
As we stepped into the compound one was greeted by an overpowering odor of
quick-lime, dirty clothing, feces, and urine. Laying in the center of the square
were60-70 dead prisoners clad in striped clothing and in disarray. They had
reportedly been machine gunned the day before because they were too weak to
march to another camp. The idea was for the SS and the prisoners to avoid the
approaching U.S. Army and the Russians.
Adjacent to the parade ground was a small shed which was open on one
side. Inside, were bodies stacked in alternate directions as one would stack
cordwood, and each layer was covered with a sprinkling of quick-lime. I did not
see him, but someone told me that there had been a body of a dead American
aviator in the shed. This place reportedly had been used for punishment, and
the inmates were beaten on their back and heads with a shovel. My
understanding is that all died following this abuse.
I visited some of the surrounding barracks and found live inmates who had
hidden during the massacre. They were astounded and appeared to be
struggling to understand what was happening. Some were in their 5 tier bunks
and some were wandering about.
This was the first camp to be liberated by the Allied armies in Germany.
Orhdruf was visited by Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley and there are
photographs of them observing the bodies of the machine gunned inmates.

According to Eisenhower, Patton had refused to visit the punishment shed as he

feared he would become ill. He did vomit at a later time.
Further into the camp was evidence of an attempt to exhume and burn large
numbers of bodies. There was a gallows, although I really cannot remember
whether I saw it or not. I dont remember leaving the camp. I recall being numb
after seeing the camp. I had just turned 20 years old and I had read the
biographical Out of the Night. It was a pale and inadequate picture of a
German concentration camp by a refugee German author.
I recall becoming very upset when we got back to our quarters, but the whole
experience was far beyond my understanding. I wrote a letter to my parents
describing the experience which was read at a local gathering of business men.
It was widely disbelieved.
Bruce Nickols