BRONI ZAJBERT
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
BORN 1933, POLAND
TOPICS: 
    ANTISEMETIC MEASURES
    DAILY LIFE IN LODZ GHETTO
    ANYTHING TO SURVIVE
    HIDING FROM THE GRAVE
    LIBERATION
    DANGER OF HATE
    UNITED NATIONS EDUCATION

TRT: 16’44”

A child surviving the Łódź Ghetto

MUSIC FADE UP AND OUT

Broni: 

All we do, it can help some. I’m glad I could use some of my experiences, maybe to help some people under-stand, and to be better persons.

Narration: 
Welcome to In Their Words: Surviving the Holocaust. Finding Hope, a podcast preserving the testimonies of those who survived the atrocities committed by the Na-zis and their racist collaborators in the 1930s and 1940s, and who shared their stories at United Nations Holocaust commemorative events around the world, re-minding us of the human cost of hate, and our responsi-bility to fight injustice. Some survivors have agreed to join us for an in-depth conversation. This is the story of Bronislaw Zajbert. 
Bronislaw, or Broni, was born in Łódź, Poland before the Second World War. At age six, his childhood was in-terrupted with the Nazi invasion into his home country. 

The Nazis forced six-year old Broni into the confines of the sealed Łódź Ghetto. Broni, his younger brother and parents survived  five years in the Ghetto,  wit-nesses to the mass deportations of Jews, unknowingly sent to Auschwitz Birkenau, Nazi German concentration and death camp, and the Chelmo killing center.

Hiding places define Broni’s story of survival, up until the last moments before his family’s liberation, when the Nazis had already prepared his grave.

Broni shares his testimony with us from his home in Mexico City, decades later and thousands of miles from this defining chapter of his life. He attributes his survival to his parents who did everything in their power to protect their sons, and instances of what he can only explain as pure luck. 

Broni: 

I was born 1933, in Łódź, Poland. My childhood before the war, as far as I can remember it, was very pleas-ant, very nice. My parents were middle class maybe high-middle class, so I had everything a child could desire, starting with the love of my parents. 

Natalie: 
And you were six years old when the Second World War began. Did you understand the restrictions that were imposed upon Jews at this time?

Broni: 
Not fully, my parents tried to explain. At that time, I just couldn’t understand, what’s the difference. I nev-er felt any difference. When I was a little child I had friends, we never knew if they were Jews or Poles, didn’t make any difference they were my friends. That’s it. But there was a difference there was a difference that was imposed on us, not of our free will. We were forced to wear a yellow star. I would ask my father, “why do they want to show that we are different”, the answer he would give me, “they’re discriminating, cre-ating ghettos to put us all separate.” I didn’t under-stand that at all. 

A week or two weeks after Łódź was liberated, we’re finding out about the killing machines, and little by little I started to understand more and more, how lucky we were in the ghetto. That we are the lucky ones. 

Natalie: 
And for those that stayed at the Łódź Ghetto, what was life like inside?

Broni:
Life was very, very sad. Very, monotonous: Get up in the morning, go to work, come back, eat a little of whatever it wasn’t much, go to sleep and wait for the next day. A lot of hunger, a lot of sickness. There was no heating system. A lot of deaths were considered “natural deaths”, that meant they were not killed by a bullet or by a gas chamber, they died a natural death, why? Hunger, sickness, no medicine, they were also lucky ones, they died a natural death, a so-called nat-ural death. There were a lot of doctors, but what could a doctor do without the medicine?

Natalie: 
Do you remember how your parents dealt with seeing such terrible things, how did they communicate to you that there was still hope?

Broni:  
Just caring for us, loving, protecting us, within their power. And the result was, we survived. 

Narration: 

While Broni’s family was spared from concentration and death camps, illness and hunger threatened the lives of Jews in ghettos. The sick and weak were the first de-ported, often along with children and elderly, while the healthy and able were deemed “useful” by the Nazis. Within the Łódź, Ghetto, this meant contributing to the production of consumer goods and war ammunition in the ghetto’s many factories. 

Broni’s father was determined his family would not be vulnerable. When Broni was ten, his father forged a birth certificate that aged his son by three years. At a false 13 years old, Broni was considered eligible to work. Between Broni and his parents, there were now three food ration cards for the family of four rather than just two, a better chance for survival.

Broni: 
I worked in the furniture factory making chairs, beds, furniture and toys also. Which was very funny for me, I didn’t have any toys in the ghetto, and I was working in a factory that was making toys. And there were a lot of contradictions; all those toys and I don’t have any toys. And my little brother doesn’t know what a toy is, he never had a toy until he was six years old. 

Natalie: 
That must have been difficult. You also described a mo-ment when you and your brother were hiding and you were holding onto him when he was just a baby, could you share that moment for listeners?

Broni: 
Yes. During the time in the ghetto, sometimes the Ger-mans would surround a couple of blocks, and have every-body come downstairs. They would take some of them to left, and right.  One group would go to left, maybe right, I don’t know, from that place downstairs, they would take them to trucks, the other people would re-turn to their living quarters. 

So my parents knew if we went down the four of us…my parents were relatively young at that time, they didn’t look so bad. Hopefully they would be sent back to the living place. On the roof there was a water tank, and they put us into the water tank, and they told us, “We hope we will come back. If not, nobody knows that you are here. Start making noise, maybe somebody will hear you and take you out.” They went downstairs. 

And we’re holding onto each other. I don’t know if I was holding him to keep him out of the water, or maybe because I wanted to feel another human being with me. I never knew why, I just did it. Luckily, about half an hour, an hour, I don’t know, they came back and they took us out. Wet. Cold. Luck saved us. And my parents, their effort, their sacrifice. 

Natalie:
Certainly. You must have been very scared.

Broni: 
Yes it was. 

Natalie: 
But you were saved. 

Broni: 
Yes we were fortunate. 

Narration: 
In the spring of 1944, the pace of the Nazis’ killing plan intensified, and they began deporting Jews from Łódź Ghetto onto trains by the thousands daily. Thinking deportation couldn’t lead anywhere worse than the ghetto, Broni’s mother was prepared to board with her family, but his father thought otherwise and the four remained. With the Nazis sweeping every corner of Łódź,  places one could hide became scarce, but Broni’s family would find shelter at the precise moment.
 
Broni: 
Well the Germans were, little by little saying, “This part of the ghetto has to be abandoned. Move to the other one.” Until finally they moved us to one block. And my parents, my mother would say, “Well let’s go, let’s go to the street cars, get it over with. It’s hot here, it’s summer, the children are tired.” She wanted to go. And my father was the opposite, “Let’s wait, let’s wait.” “What are you waiting for?” Well the last day they said, “Seven or 800, tomorrow, it’s your turn.” 

And that night, a friend of my father came and said, “Listen I have a hiding place. There are more people there. I will have room for all of you if you want to. You are welcome too.” 

That night we went there, and there were 33 people there. There in that hiding place we stayed for 10 weeks, without any fresh air. We did have water, and some food. 

Narration: 

By the end of August 1944 SS officers nearly liquidated the ghetto, deporting an estimated 70,000 Łódź Ghetto dwellers to Auschwitz Birkenau during this month alone.  

The Nazis relayed a message to families like Broni’s, in hiding. They sent a group of the Jews still residing in the ghetto to ask them to come out of their hiding places and return, with the promise that they would live in exchange of labour. Broni’s parents accepted, and the four returned in October. In January of 1945, the Nazis prepared 80 graves with plans to bury the re-maining 779 Jews of the Łódź Ghetto. Broni was 11, and at this point, had lived half of his childhood under persecution.

Broni: 
So we stayed there until the 16 or 17 of January, 1945, when we started hearing bombs, not in the city, Łódź was never bombed. That night, there was a rumour going around that the Germans did dig out 80 graves at the cemetery. So we, with another family, we went as far as we could. We stayed there, to see what would happen. Until the 19th of January, we started to hear shouts, “Come out! Come out! We are free already!” They took a chance, and they said “What happened?” “We are free. The Poles and the Russians are here already, come out!”

Natalie: 
Your family decided to trust that this was real, that you weren’t being lied to. How did it feel, and what happened when you were freed?

Broni: 
I don’t know, maybe it was the emotion of the moment, or the accumulated desire I had to be free, I don’t know, as if I had it holding inside and all of the sud-den it got loose. So there I went. 

Natalie: 
You passed out?

Broni: 
I passed out. 

Broni: 
The Russian soldiers came in, made a big bonfire. The first thing we wanted was not to be hungry. 

Narration: 
Broni and his family had survived and their graves would lie empty. This was true for less than one per-cent of the Jews who arrived at Łódź Ghetto.  

The family of four returned to the apartment the Nazis had seized five years prior. Like a time capsule, the concierge was still there. Their belongings were gone, but Broni, his brother and parents were alive, and for the first time in five years, they had food at the ta-ble. 

Broni: 
The same concierge was there, so we went upstairs. Ob-viously there was nothing there. And we installed our-selves there, the first night we slept on the floor. And the next day we had a big celebration, the four of us around the table.

Narration: 
When the war ended Broni’s family left Poland, wanting to start life anew. They found refuge first in Paris, followed by New York City, and then Venezuela in the year 1948. Broni eventually emigrated to Mexico in 1960, where he met and married his wife. They have a son and a daughter, and four grandchildren. At 87 years old Broni says he hopes his story and others can live on for posterity, and that the danger of discrimina-tion, in all its forms, must be taught to future gener-ations. 

Natalie: 
You witnessed and went through a great deal because of hate and antisemitism, what is your message to younger generations? 

Broni: 
My message would not be only about antisemitism, but to avoid all kinds of discrimination: Because of religion, race, colour, anything. That you shouldn’t discriminate no matter what reason. We are all human beings and we are all equal. We are all human beings. One human being should never discriminate. 

Natalie: 
Your story was used to develop educational materials on the Holocaust with UNESCO, an agency of the United Na-tions. What role do you think the United Nations has in educating about the Holocaust?

Broni: 
Education. To show them what happens, to show them, to explain to young kids about it, and to educate them against that. To show them that you should never hate anybody. It should be taught in schools, starting prob-ably in grammar school, little by little showing them more and more what can happen to people if you start hating. No one is your enemy. 

Natalie:
I thank you very much for your time Broni. Your testi-mony is a great help to that. 

Broni: 
It’s okay. All we do, it can help some. No problem, I’m glad I could use some of my experiences, maybe to help some people understand, and to be better persons. 

Narration: 
Broni Zajbert, who with his family, survived the Łódź Ghetto and the Holocaust. This is In Their Words: Sur-viving the Holocaust. Finding Hope, a podcast by the United Nations Holocaust Outreach Programme. To find out more about the organization's Holocaust remembrance and educational programme and how you can participate, visit www.un.org/en/holocaustrememberance. I'm Natalie Hutchison. Thanks for listening.