Jerzy Czarnecki
My Life as an "Aryan"
From Velyki Mosty through Zhovkva to
Stralsund.
Edited by Erhard Roy Wiehn
1st Edition 2007, 192 pages, many
colored reproductions.
€ 14,80. ISBN 3-89649-998-X
Erhard
Roy Wiehn (Editor):
A Struggle for Survival
This is a gripping tale of struggle for survival. Jerzy Czarnecki was
born in 1924 in the shtetl Velyki Mosty, a small town in eastern Galicia, then
part of southeastern Poland. In his family, pious men and women observed the
beautiful old Jewish customs and rituals. These were living traditions, kept
all through the week and year. Jerzy had a brother Jacob slightly older than
him, and a brother Shmuel (Samuel), eight years his junior. His father ran a
successful business for building materials. Jerzy's mother took care of the
children and household. She was an avid reader and had a developed interest in
cultural and social life.
The attack by the German
armies on September 1, 1939 following the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact brought vast
changes as the family came under Soviet control. This lasted for 22 months,
with both drawbacks and advantages. On the one hand, it ushered in the
expropriation of all "capitalist private property." On the other, it
held out the possibility of relative civil equality for all Jews.
On June 21, 1941, Germany
invaded the Soviet Union. Eight days later, on June 29, 1941, Velyki Mosty was
taken by German soldiers. A wave of looting by the local population against the
Jews erupted immediately, and the occupiers began to round up Jews for forced
labor. On his first day as a forced laborer, Jerzy had still not turned 16. His
name then was Izaak Steger. He had luck with the group he was assigned to.
Another was marched out into the woods, forced to dig their own graves and then
shot. The authorities repeatedly ordered new "contributions" - a form
of compulsory levies imposed on the Jews. Again and again, the Germans carried
out "operations," seizing Jews and transporting them by force,
chiefly to the nearby death camp of Belzec.
Jerzy decides to flee. His
odyssey takes him from one hiding place to the next, finally to Warsaw. Later
he manages to make his way to Germany as a Polish forced laborer. Here he is
deployed on an agricultural estate near Stettin. After getting into a fight
with an "ethnic German" foreman, he is forced to flee once more.
Jerzy is arrested and then tortured almost to death in the Gestapo prison in
Stralsund:
I felt this torture was a
form of degradation for my mother. Had she ever had any premonition, she would
never have brought me into this world. I saw her crying. This situation went on
for many hours. Suddenly I was relieved. I found a way out. I swore an oath to
my mother that I would study after the war. And would correspond to the image of
what she wanted of me. Exactly as she had brought me up. As a scientist in the
field of nuclear energy, I can say now, 13 years after my retirement that I
kept my solemn promise (p. 58).
Jerzy is confined to
hospital twice, and survives. Then he is transferred to a wood processing
plant, and also manages to survive the last year of the war. He is liberated by
the Red Army. In mid-June 1945, he arrives in Warsaw, then a city totally
devastated. There he learns that his brother Jacob has survived, but that his
parents, younger brother Samuel, his four grandparents, Uncle Moses (p. 90),
his wife and child, the brothers and sisters of his mother and their families,
and almost everyone in the shtetl have all been murdered. The terrible fate
suffered by the family is described by his aunt Hela Graubart.
Today he still uses the
assumed name of the forged passport, a document which made possible his
survival. Since the anti-Jewish violence of 1968 in Poland, he has made his
home in Switzerland. Again and again he is troubled by a recurrent experience:
that people are weary of hearing about the Holocaust. This is the reason he
decided to record his memoirs, a compelling narrative of survival.
The author deserves our
great gratitude for his work of memory "Mein Leben als 'Arier'"
(German edition, Konstanz 2002/2007) – "My Life as an 'Aryan'" (2007)
- and of course our congratulations for his outstanding as well as exemplary
project of creating a memorial on the mass grave of the 1.500 murdered Jews
from Velyki Mosty and surroundings in the "Babki" forest in 2006:
Like Yevgeny Yevtushenko complained 1961 in his famous poem "No memorial
at Babi Yar" concerning the massacre in Kiev 1941, and the first memorial
was built in 1976 the Jewish memorial in 2001 - so Dr. Jerzy Czarnecki
fulfilled the holy duty not to forget, but to remember forever: "zakhor we
lo tishkach"! (5 Moshe 25,17/19; see Erhard Roy Wiehn, Babij Jar 1941.
Konstanz 2001)
Last not least many thanks
to all who contributed to this English version of Dr. Jerzy Czarnecki's
"Life as an 'Aryan'": Prof. Avi Gover and Joan Gover, Helen Elazari
and Betty Granatstein, Ayala and Gil Proaktor, Zvi Gover and Yael Gover,
relatives of the author and friends in Ukraine as well as collegues in the
University of Konstanz, especially Gabriela Kruse-Niermann M.A., last not least
many thanks to Yad Vashem Jerusalem for taking this publication into the YVS
catalogue and for giving therefore permission to use the YVS logo in this book.
Once such narratives are
committed to paper, published and made available to a broader readership in a
number of important libraries, they will perhaps not be forgotten so swiftly.
May this very special book find many interested readers.
November 9, 2002 – English
edition January 27, 2007 – Holocaust Memorial Day in
Books about Jewish Survivals
from Poland, edited by Erhard Roy Wiehn:
Leah Shinar, Wie ein Becher Tränen - Jüdische
Familiengeschichten aus Krakau.
Leben und Leiden in Polen 1939-1945.
1999, 124 Seiten, € 14,32. ISBN 3-89649-388-4
Jehuda L. Stein, Die Steins
- Jüdische Familiengeschichte aus Krakau
1830-1999.
1999, 148 Seiten, 16,36 €. ISBN 3-89649-417-1
Erhard Roy Wiehn, Ghetto
Warschau -
Aufstand und Vernichtung 1943 fünfzig Jahre danach zum Gedenken.
1993, 300 Seiten, 24,54 €. ISBN 3-89191-626-4
Josef Goldkorn, Im Kampf ums Überleben - Jüdische
Schicksale in Polen 1939-1945.
1996, 180 Seiten, € 15,24. ISBN 3-89649-005-2
Joachim Kalter, Eine jüdische Odyssee/A Jewish Odyssey
-
Von Leipzig nach Polen abgeschoben und deutsche Lager überlebt.
Ein
Bericht/Deportation from Leipzig to Poland and Survival in German Camps.
A Report 1938-1946. Vorwort von/Preface by
Edgar Hilsenrath. (Deutsch u. englisch).
1997, 142 Seiten, € 16,36. ISBN 3-89649-161-X
Erhard Roy Wiehn (Hg.), Totengebet
60 Jahre Beginn des Zweiten Weltkriegs und der Schoáh in Polen.
1999, 79 Seiten, 14,32 €. ISBN 3-89649-415-5
Nina Klein, Die polnische Erinnerung an Auschwitz.
Am Beispiel des staatlichen Museums Auschwitz-Birkenau. Vorwort von Aleida
Assmann.
1999, 130 Seiten, 15,24 €. ISBN 3-89649-409-0
Jeanne Levy-Rosenberg,
Durch die Hölle - Von Holland durch Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Ravensbrück, Malchow, Taucha, zurück und nach Israel 1944-1949.
2000, 158 Seiten, € 17, 38. ISBN 3-89649-410-4
Inka Wajsbort, Im Angesicht des Todes -
Von Chorzów über Zawiercie, Tarnowitz, Tschenstochau durch Auschwitz nach
Malchow und Oschatz. Jüdische Schicksale in Oberschlesien 1939-1945.
2000, 236 Seiten, € 20,45. ISBN 3-89649-513-5
Nava Ruda, Zum ewigen Andenken -
Erinnerungen eines Mädchens aus dem Ghetto Lwow [Lemberg/Lviv].
Jüdische Familiengeschichte 1899-1999. Aus dem Hebräischen von Avri Salamon.
2000, 66 Seiten, € 12,68. ISBN 3-89649-526-7
Brigitte Pimpl, Zu sayn a Mentsch -
Mensch sein. Die Geschichte einer Frau.
2000, 78 Seiten, € 9,20. ISBN 3-89191-253-5
Friederike Mager-Beck, Die vierte Träne.
2002, 212 Seiten, € 12,00. ISBN 3-89649-762-6 (herausgegeben von Dr. Kurt
Tohermes)
Jerzy Czarnecki,
Mein Leben als "Arier"
Jüdische Familiengeschichte in Polen zur Zeit der
Schoáh
und als Zwangsarbeiter in Deutschland.
2002, 99 S., 14,80 €. ISBN: 3-89649-815-0
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski,
Die deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen -
gestern, heute und morgen.
2002, 27 Seiten, 9,80 €. ISBN 3-89649-818-5
(Konstanzer Schriften zur Sozialwissenschaft Nr. 61)
Anna Cwiakowska,
Verstecken vor dem Tod -
Retter und Rettung jüdischen Lebens in Polen.
2003, 70 Seiten, € 7,50. ISBN 3-89649-845-2
Bronislaw Erlich
Ein
Überlebender berichtet.
Von Warschau durch das KZ Wołkowysk und nach
Fluchtversuchen als Zwangsarbeiter in Deutschland,
dann von Polen nach Israel, Deutschland und
in die Schweiz.
2007, 110 Seiten, € 12,50 oder CHF 20,00. ISBN 3-86628-141-2
Zwi Helmut Steinitz
Als Junge durch die Hölle des Holocaust
Von Posen durch Warschau, das
Krakauer Ghetto, Płaszow,
Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Berlin-Haselhorst, Sachsenhausen bis Schwerin und über
Lübeck, Neustadt, Bergen-Belsen, Antwerpen nach Erez Israel 1927-1946.
(mit zahlreichen Fotos aus dem ehemaligen Krakauer Ghetto heute
sowie von der jüngsten Lesetätigkeit des Autors in Deutschland)
1. Aufl. 2006, 2. durchgesehene und erweiterte Auflage
2008,
455 Seiten. € 24,80.ISBN-10
3-86628-075-0 ISBN-13: 978-3-86628-075-5
Konrad Görg
Wir sind, was wir erinnern.
Zwei
Generationen nach Auschwitz.
Stimmen gegen das Vergessen.
In Erinnerung an Erwin Katz
Vorwort von Erhard Roy Wiehn
1. Aufl. 2008, 98 Seiten. € 9,95. ISBN 3-86628-208-7
Hartung-Gorre Verlag
D-78465 Konstanz/Germany
Telefon: +49 (0) 7533 97227
Telefax: +49 (0) 7533 97228
eMail: verlag@hartung-gorre.de
http://www.hartung-gorre.de
Zurück
zum Inhaltsverzeichnis / back to the contents of Shoáh & Judaica / Jewish Studies
Direkt
bestellen bei / to order directly from: Hartung.Gorre@t-online.de