He survived two concentration camps. The Jews stayed in Auschwitz for barely two months, says the witness
What anti-Jewish bans and regulations bothered you the most as a young boy?
There were many of them. We were not allowed to go to the park or along the waterfront. Fortunately, I was taken care of by friends who were not in the same situation as me. When they were no longer allowed to have contact with me, they came to our apartment. But even that was dangerous, because a Prague German lived above us. So that they would not have to leave the visit when the Jews were no longer allowed out, they stayed with me all night. So I had a lot of support from my friends and scouts. I went and still go to the 18th Scout Club, which is located in Prague Dejvice.
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Did you stay true to the scout principles?
I never forgot I was a scout. One of the rules that every Boy Scout follows is to help the weaker. I stuck to it, especially in Auschwitz, and thus unknowingly saved myself. I had a camp in the concentration program, for which I still had to live and survive. I’m getting stronger. I have taken on the responsibilities of helping the weaker without talking about them. I think I helped a lot of others survive as well.
You were one of the first to get to the Terezín ghetto, weren’t you?
We arrived there by the first transport, which was sent on November 24, 1941 by train from Prague to Bohušovice. It was a transport of 342 young people with the visit of several elders who went with us and then created the Council of Elders in Terezín. That’s when my anabasis started with concentration camps.
You managed to graduate before the war. Was she useful to you in Terezín?
After graduating from high school in Prague, I could not engage in mental activity, which was forbidden to the Jews. I could only work with my hands. My mother got me a job as a carpenter and I continued this work in Terezín. It was more of a carpentry job. I built four-story, three-story, two-story or just bunk beds, it always depended on the height of the room.
How did you manage to avoid transports to the extermination camps in Terezín?
We were young and defended from the first transport, which prepared the Terezín ghetto for other prisoners. We could even credit about three or four people to our card, and they were defended as well. I wrote my mother, grandmother and my German teacher from Prague and her daughter on the card. We were protected until the autumn of 1944, when the Nazis wanted to exterminate us and sent us to Auschwitz. They knew the Allies were approaching, they feared there would be an uprising.
I don’t know exactly how long I’ve been there. In Auschwitz, the days did not count. I estimate I spent about two months there. But even that was a wonder, because the Jews in Auschwitz could survive for about three weeks. Prisoners of other nationalities survived an average of six Sundays. So the fact that I lasted two months was really a weird thing.
Do you remember arriving in Auschwitz?
As I stood on the ramp, waiting for a selection by the non-Nazi doctor Mengele that day, one of the prisoners in striped clothes approached me. In some language, I don’t remember what, but I understood him perfectly, he told me, ‘You’re here in a concentration camp, and there’s only an escape from here,’ and pointed to the chimneys from which the flames whipped. I didn’t understand what I mean.
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I went through the selection and saw that he had sent most of the other Mengeles to the left. I will not forget the picture when the whole crowd of people in the five-stage, as a single body, slowly moves towards some kind of entrance. I probably knew at that moment that death awaited him. At that time, I understood what was going on, but he kept asking himself, ‘Why? After all, we didn’t do anything. ”But it was enough for the Nazis to have a Jewish religion.
How did you manage to survive Auschwitz?
I would say that chance and luck came first. In second place was chance and luck again, and I could go on like this ten times in a row. But in eleventh place was the task I set myself and knew from scouting: I will help the weak. This task gave me a chance to survive.
How did you finally manage to get out of Auschwitz?
They wanted to take me by transport to the sulfur mines, from where no one alive returned, which we knew well. I remember the night they loaded us. They chased us with a whip, barking dogs and shooting at the ramp where they were waiting for the train. They guided me and the others to the cattle ranch that had designated the sulfur mines. But I saw my well-known, former prisoner from Terezín, such as the well-known conductor Karel Ančerle, in the next car. A spotlight shone on us, spinning around. And when he was heading elsewhere and our car was in the dark, I quickly jumped down and got to the side. That probably saved my life.
I then spent the end of the war in the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, about ten kilometers from the Czech border.
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What were you doing there?
At first we dug the foundations of the underground factory, even though it was clear to us that it would no longer work. It was the end of 1944 and we knew where the eastern and western fronts were. We also worked in former textile factories converted into the arms industry. I pressed the engine blades for the planes. There was a certain standard for how to bend them, but I deliberately did not follow it. I had a master from Hamburg who behaved humanly and did not investigate whether the work was done well or badly. I had a good feeling that I had sabotaged my activities for the Nazis. About twenty years ago, I flew to Warsaw on a plane that had the same propellers we made during the war. So I say to my wife, ‘If these are the propellers I made during the war, then say goodbye to life.’
Prof. Ing. Felix Kolmer, DrSc., Was born in Prague on May 3, 1922, where they lived in Italská Street, his father was an Italian legionnaire and a tradesman in electrical engineering. In 1933 he made a scout vow. At the beginning of the occupation, he managed to graduate and became a carpenter’s apprentice. The first AK I. transport with the number 76 reached Terezín on November 24, 1941, where he worked as a carpenter. Here, on June 14, 1944, he married Liana Forgáčová, whom he then officially married for the second time after the war in Prague on July 27, 1945. On October 16, 1944, he traveled to Auschwitz, from where he went to the Gross-Rosen-Friedland branch camp, where worked in the arms industry. On the night of May 9-10, 1945, he escaped with other prisoners and arrived in Prague on May 20, where he met his wife again. After the war, he graduated from the Czech Technical University and worked at a research institute as a physicist focusing on acoustics. He is the author of many professional publications and a member of a number of Czech and international scientific societies. He lives in Prague.