Today, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we are bringing you an episode we made five years ago with two of the survivors, Susan Pollock and I have a pearl. That episode was made for the 75th anniversary. It is a really moving listen and I hope you get a lot from it.
Today's episode is very special. There are now few survivors of the Nazi's largest concentration camp Auschwitz. On the 75th anniversary of its liberation, either Pearl and Susan Pollock, who were children just 12 and 13 when they were taken there, tell us their stories. From The Guardian, I'm Anush Gorostana. Today in focus, life after Auschwitz.
Well, I lived in a small village in Hungary, not far from the capital Budapest, and my life was happy.
went to local school, had my girlfriends there. They played a bit of football if they needed someone. What is it called when you're a gay goalkeeper? Yeah, that's me. And so that was my life. And it was fun. As a child, did you have a sense that a darkness was coming?
Well, as a child, I was aware. There's no doubt about it. I was aware that I was the other. There were signs of that difference and not very friendly signs, sometimes hostile. You Jews, what are you doing here?
Well, my name is Isaac Pearl. Of course, I've anglicized it since I came to England. I thought to myself, you know what? I'll have to make my own living. I've got to find an English name as well. So it's Isaac Pearl, but I was born Isaac Pearl matter in Southern Hungary in the tank called Mokkul.
going to school from home but virtually like running the gauntlets and invariably you were given literally a penny for some sort of truck or whatever it is and nine times out at 10 they said come on you but what do you got in your hand you're lucky if they took the money and that's all
Once the war started, Hungary was initially an ally of Nazi Germany. And those stories of, by then, pretty cruel, anti-Jewish behavior. Did you see or remember any of that? I love it. I don't ever forget it. Before we were taken away, things had been very difficult in Hungary. We had been deprived of our rights, our citizenship,
Ah, the schools were close to us and eventually we lost our right to have this little business that offered us sustenance. So how do you live? How can you feed your family? We had to wear the yellow star. We were terrified.
we're going to be resettled somewhere we had been told. And we thought, well, perhaps if we're lucky, we'll be taken somewhere safe, safety, acceptance. That's all we were longing for. So the Hungarian gentleman said, okay, get ready, start baking, you know, the food, because tomorrow morning you'll be corrected.
I'm taking the sewing machine. Sewing machine on my back, a little girl. Heavy, metal sewing machine, thinking, oh, well, maybe it's useful, you know? Can you describe the train journey, how it felt, what it looked like?
Um, surprising enough, when I'm asked about that, I feel ashamed of myself. You know why? Never. I've never been on the train journey before. Like a big, big, big leg, big, big leg. And I thought, this is a wonderful, I'm going on train ride. But, needless to say, we already sat in eventually, not too long after that. I remember it quite clearly.
I remember was strong on the floor to buckets of water for a hundred people, a lot of women, with many children. No men, those were shut, started moving. But then we knew this is not going to be for resettlement.
We feared that might be the end. I mean, the conditions were so difficult. Suffocation and crying, nobody could speak. Yes. That's what it was. It would have been impossible to know the inhumanity that awaited you.
But what sense did you have as you were sitting inside that dark lock train amid all those people? Well...
We kind of, well, I did. And I'm certain my mum, who was silent, because there was nothing to talk about. We realized we had been deceived. We had been lied to. This is going to be something unknown to anyone. And many of us died along the way. All you could hear was
Praying and crying and dying, dying in that train. What does dying sound like? Gasping for air. There was no fresh air, lack of water for six days. I mean, you were a baby. I was.
So what happens is, in such circumstances, dehumanization sets in early. You don't feel like a human being anymore. Eventually, after a few days, we arrived somewhere. We had no idea where.
And all you could see from the crux of the cattle truck, people working with the striped suit, striped cotton suits, working in the shovels by the yard, kept shouting to us in Yiddish, eat all the food. Children must say they're 16 years old, at least. Now, I thought to myself, I don't know what they're talking about. I haven't got the fuckers to hear what they're talking about, but you remember it.
Angeria speaking person whispered, don't say you're younger than 15 years old. And I just nodded, didn't understand.
A few thousand people, women and children on the side, men and boys on the other side. I ran over to my mother. She was there with my younger sisters and the girls. And she said, no, no, no, no, either. You say, go back to your brother. It's one thing you didn't have time for. You just can't cry or argue and whatnot. So of course, I went back to my brother, the men. And so last time I saw my family. So when the German came,
tall and powerful, and spoke German, and I could understand a few words. How would I be?
And he asked in German, I'd be obvious to him, but she was the same akin to Yiddish, so I understood what they meant. I said automatically 16. And he says, well, I'd go and go over there. If I've not spoken Yiddish, he said, how old are you? I said to him 12. No matter how big you are, you'll never have been allowed to live. So I said, I'm 15 and a hub. I'm 15 and a half.
And I was reasonably told for that age, I suppose. What you're saying is that they took under 15s to be gassed. Children and old people, not capable of carrying out work with known eternal food. Yes, useless.
Let's get rid of them. That was their policy. That's what it was. Tell me what happened next. Well, we were selected. I mean, I was reasonably tall, so I suppose I was considered to be still useful for a short while.
My brother was also selected, two years older, young strong guy. My mom, she was in her 50s, very worn from the former experience in Hungary and the journey and the fear and all combined. She looked like a very old lady. So she was sent to the gas chamber
I remember her walking away and I walk the other direction. I didn't cry. I wasn't hysterical. I was nothing. I wasn't a person anymore. And tell me where they took you. What were the places like that you stayed after that?
And he arrived in the barricade we were. So there was a couple. He said, you arrived at the place called Auschwitz. Don't you ever forget it? And you're being given a number. He said, if you forget that number, you don't exist. You're not a name, just a number. That's when I start a burst of crying. And somebody comes over to me, he said, why are you crying? He said, oh, I want my mommy. I miss my mommy.
I said, don't worry. You'll see it tomorrow. But somehow or rather, I can visualize that something took hold of me and thinking to myself, you know, whatever. This is not what it sounds. This is not like it looks. This is a lot more horrible than you think it is. I've read that you've never forgotten the number.
No, no, no. Surprising enough, I've got... I've got my computer number quite often. I have to phone up by children. What is it to tell me? I forgot. But I'll never forget that number. 112, New Line and so on. So... This is 1-1-2-0-21 in German. By doing that, they dehumanize us. So we were human beings.
Well, they shaved my hair at first. The old girls she had were shaven and dropped the clothes that you wore. I don't remember what I was wearing. Shoes. Not to wear. There were mountains of shoes. First pair came to my hand. That's what I wore. And it was smaller. I still got a bit crippled toes.
And then we were taken to a barrack. And what did we do? I waited for the food and the supper that was without any nutrition, just like dishwater type of soup. And we had to be set up a little, a little pantry game.
And what will you have for breakfast this morning? We whisper to each other. You couldn't speak loud, because you got beaten up. So we remembered, maybe an egg will have maybe a coffee, perhaps some jam on it. Such home environment came back momentarily.
I think it was Dr. L. Mangala who inspected our bodies, stark naked, how we fare on that starvation diet and those who lost weight rapidly were gassed. Auschwitz. And it was only yesterday in my mind
Did you cry? Never cried. Because crying is a human expression. Do you remember any moments of humanity or likeness in there? Oh, you know something.
I was there for 11 months in the camps, other than from my brother, and wanted to saw the people that you knew, nothing whatsoever except ones. When we were taken to the satellite camp of Dachau,
We were given a loaf of bread, so we had to share the loaf of bread with my brother. The mother and I started fighting because one of us excuses of the other one have taken a bigger bite of the loaf, wrestling in the mud. And suddenly, as you look up her head, you could see a boot, a German boot, with a butt of a rifle standing. By that time, except, you know, anybody did anything wrong, you were going to get shot. So it didn't seem such a terrible thing.
But what surprised us, mostly, he spoke to us in Hungarian. He says, why are you fighting? You're not supposed to fight. He said, we are not fighting. We are brothers. He said, don't tell me I'm Hungarian. I heard you. He said, don't fight for your brothers. He said, you'll be soon liberated, then you'll be very, very sorry in the shame that you fought with each other. Now, that's the only kind of humanity which I experienced from the outside.
I suppose that as the allied forces were coming, and they didn't want to have any trace of their evil treatment. They wanted us to leave. And so we started marching. But many of us died along the way or shot.
and marched and marched into a place of death in the part of Belsen, where I was, with just mountains of corpses and rotted bodies.
We knew the war was coming to an end. That Egypt came out from the high up in Germany to say that they've got to liquidate all the camps. And what do you do with the prisoners? This person you've taken to the Tirol to be massacred.
We arrived somewhere around the big camp outside, the wireplane wire, and we were there for, I think, only for a day. And suddenly, at nighttime, the shells started falling. The Americans are quite near. The tanks are firing the shells. And it fell onto the wire, maybe because of the wire in the wire, the fence. And people started running out.
And my brother said, come on over, let's go. So we went through the fence. And that was, we didn't realize it was the first sort of day of freedom. So we sort of ran out from there. We found a dead rabbit.
It's a picture up, there was a hut, and we went in there, and that was the first bit of decent meal we had. There was also a two bed there, a straw and sheets, and they were rather when I fell onto the bed, I can clearly see my mind day after day. A beautiful bed, and I think I just fell asleep in a deep sleep. Until the middle of the night, there was a knock on the door.
And exactly, all of us, what are we supposed to do now? So, of course, we went to the door, we looked out, and there were four Americans, so we were just standing there. Can you imagine what greeted them, what we were? And because it was so kind to us, you know what, we offered them part of these two. Eventually, we had to go back to the camp itself, to the Red Cross office, and they said, no, I'm afraid none of your family survived.
So this point is going back and the clothe is going back to Hungary. How did you feel at that moment? I think at that moment you're already new. So I crawled out because I was unable to walk in Belgium. I crawled into our next barrack.
And for the first time I see my, from my little village, somebody I recognized, and I could speak, I found my voice. And she said, she recognized me. And she said, Susan, do you think we're going to survive? And I just nodded. I said, yes, just hold on a bit.
I crawled back to this barrack when I was placed. For one day, I crawled back. She had lice all over her head, on the forehead. I knew she was dead, like most of us. Do you remember her name? Yeah, Mrs. Schwartz. I remember her name, a neighbor of ours, from South Shagot.
And not long after, I crawled out in the open. That's where I wanted to die. And somebody picked me up. I felt it. Somebody picked me up and placed me in, I think it was an ambulance. Then my body was washed.
And I was placed in a clean bed, a miracle of survival. Couldn't understand it. They were gentle, and you hadn't experienced that for so long. I haven't. I haven't. And you know what? It's my guiding light to this day.
that goodness, kindness, a word outside hasn't been tainted by all this violence, this brutality, this unexplainable horror. And I just can't get over it. And this to this day, I hold that deer in my heart.
that moment. And I met some soldiers who actually liberated Balsam. I don't know whether I met that soldier who liberated me. And I said, what put that goodness into your heart?
You better war soldiers, and yet you retain that, that deep health desire to help an amateur recipient. That is the rainbow of this world. So you went to Sweden. What happened next?
There were gradually signs that feeling somehow seemed to arise in me. Like, for instance, the doctor, the Swedish doctor, took me out, to teach me how to walk. And he said, I don't even know what language he spoke, because I could only speak Hungarian, a bit of German. And he said, I've got a daughter like you.
Well, me, compared to his daughter, I was a wreck, I was a nothing and nobody. And such, you know, the discovery of being a human being comes very gradually in my age and in my condition.
But it did. It did. Let's come. How did you meet your husband? So the offer came. I could go to Canada. I just nodded. Yes, please. We stayed in this hospital for a few weeks. And that's where I met my husband, to be.
And he liked me. And I wanted to have a friend. I wanted to have somebody who's mine, who will protect me, and wants to be protected too, because he went through a similar experience. So we grew to each other. Where? What was his name? Where was he from? He was from Transylvania, Abraham Pollock.
Yes, lovely man. We had a good marriage. Were you able to help each other because you were both survivors? Yes, we were very helpful understanding to each other. We didn't have to explain what he went through on you and the same for him. But we had the same sort of by then, same hope and aspiration to have a life together and maybe a family
He added to our unity a sense of fun too. You know, going to the pictures, occasional dance. So life was coming back. Did you have it anymore, football, goalkeeping? No, nobody asked me anymore. Tell me about meeting your wife. Oh.
I had to look out to myself not to try to lie on other people too much, although I have been there badly by people in awful lot. I was in business with my partner's friends, Gazan, and he said that I would like to meet some nice Jewish girls. I said, no, I'm too young. I'm too busy making a living. He insisted all right, so I went along to a lovely family.
I was 19, and there was an 18-year-old girl and a 21-year-old girl, and after introducing to the family at a very nice time, so he said to me the following week, well, I've had to enjoy you. So I said, yes, they're nice people. So why don't you find that up for a date?
I was a bit too shy and a little bit a lot of shy so I phoned up and So was you like to I'd like to take you I'd like to come out for a film with us silver I Didn't have a proper overcoat. I had to ask my brother to lend me the overcoat to take my girlfriend out and As is she walk you towards me. I can see the younger girl coming toward me. So what's she doing here? I Thought I was asked her eldest sister to go. Was it the 18 year old? Yeah
Anyway, but needless to say, we hit it off very well. In fact, going home by underground, we were talking so much. We went to stop so far. What was her name? Rhoda. What happened to Alec? Well, we were together in that order time. In fact,
Then my brother died. He died about 15 years ago. And as I was shoveling the earth into the, to the, to the grave, I could feel this from the first time I could feel as I'm shoveling the earth on all my family. That's the first time that I, I until then we had each other's company to help each other.
But when he died, he passed away. It's when everything came back to me again. It's like I was betting my whole family again. Did you two talk about it over the years? How did you confront the sadness?
Do you know something? I don't think I've ever been asked that question before. And think about it, no. No, we never spoke about it as such. We spoke about the family and he was to say, should you remember this? Do you remember that obviously a lot? But the cause and the effect and everything else, no. And with your wife, did you ever talk about it? Not too much. And in fact, even to my children,
I remember now and then when I started talking to our children about it, they started running under the stairs, hiding, crying. And I thought to myself, what's the point? What's the point of just making them miserable? Both of course, one can't run forever. I want to talk about it, but I've got to be careful not to overdo it. Lots of questions are in my mind. Was I a good mother?
Was I an attentive, was I a smiling mother? Was I a fun mother? It doesn't just, oh, you know, that's a tend to do this, do that. But a sense of belonging, hugging, kissing, that kind of a, that's the basis of relationship.
I don't know. Some survivors have talked about inherited trauma. Yes. Have you experienced that? Well, I don't know. I really don't. I like to think no, because I like to be protective to my children. But we were strangers in a strange country. You can't, don't speak English.
So that's not easy for the kids to bring up children. I couldn't help them with homework. Very difficult. Very difficult for the kids.
I think their trauma can create difficulties for the children. But I'm talking about now my grandchildren. I'm close. I like to have fun with them. I like to roll on the floor. Let's go for a dance. I have six grandchildren and I'm grateful that I was able to have children.
You've been finding ways to deal with what happened on a personal level, but there's a much bigger society level. I mean, the question of justice. Justice. Can any reparation ease what has been done to us? Can any form of
for asking for forgiveness and merely a rate, what has ruined our lives. And why is it? I don't have any hate in my heart against them, the Nazis. I don't have any love, but I don't have any hate.
By the way, I don't know how many times I've interviewed survivors. Hatred and revenge never, never hears its head, ever, for any of us. Do you forgive people? Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear.
And the only way I can answer that question is that I was asked to be a witness for a SS guard Oscar Gröning in Germany, which I said, yes, I'm prepared to give you testimony, but I don't want to go to Germany, I don't want to meet him.
I said, all right, I can do it through the embassy. But my children said, Dad, you know, this is something you've got to do. You've got to do. I said, right. So I phoned back the judge in Germany and said, I'm coming and prepared to come and bear witness.
So, of course, we arrived at the court, and after a while my daughter said to him, a dead look, he's arrived. I said, who do you mean, do you, do you accused? And I can see an old man being walking with a similar frame, two nurses either side and two lawyers with him.
and suddenly my, I'm not that I don't know if I had any hatred, but whatever I had drained away from me, I said to man, you bastard, why don't you come here with your jack boots and your uniform, I could hate you. But now I can see you just like a human being also, I'm not saying I loved him, but no hatred, no I don't know. Unforgiveness?
Forgiveness, do you know what? I can't forgive, but not forget. But what about forgiveness for all the other people? What about all my family? What about for all the other millions of souls? Forgiveness, I don't know.
This Monday is 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. And we've lost survivors now who were adults at the time. There will come a time where there won't be people who can give first person testimony. How important is that? Is the world ready to remember when we haven't got people to tell us about it? Very true. Very true. It's very much on my mind.
Well, what will happen? All right. I've been speaking. I've been giving talks to schools. I've been to Rwanda to try to help the genocide survivors. Each generation must be aware of what took place.
It is our duty to remember. It is our duty to speak about it. And it's a duty to create a better world than what I had seen. And the end of anti-Semitism. Because we know what has happened and what took place. And if we don't stop it at the beginning, it could have the potential to grow again.
My aim in life is, hopefully, that I'd like to see that the world itself has learned something about it. Now, looking around and from what happens lately, I'm a bit sort of not scared, but not as hopeful as I think I was once upon a time.
The only thing I can end up is saying that I can myself have proved it time and time again, including in marriage. That love will get you a lot further than hate. Hate might give you an immediate satisfaction, but it's not a lasting run.
That was Susan Pollock and Iver Pearl, huge, huge thanks to them for speaking to us, and also a big thanks to Arthur Carey, whose extraordinary documentary The Last Survivors features both of them. Arthur helped put us in touch with Susan and Iver. His film is being shown again on BBC2 at 11.30 tonight and will be on iPlayer. I really encourage you to watch it.
Our colleague, Kate Connolly, has interviewed Auschwitz survivors all over the world, and Jonathan Friedland is at Auschwitz today. Do read their work at TheGuardian.com. Today's episode was produced by Josh Kelly. Sound Design was by Axel Kucute, the executive producers on Nicole Jackson and Phil Maynard. We'll be back tomorrow.