My Mother's Art: My mother was an artitst. Johanna Liebman remarked that it showed none of the horror of most survivor art.In my search for my mother, I have both sought knowledge and intentionally avoided it. For example, the Leo Baeck Institute is one of the leading German Jew research centers in the world, and it's only 50 blocks from my home, but I've not been able to bring myself to go there.

Honestly, I'm afraid. I know how difficult I became to deal with while writing, and therefore reliving my failure in business memoir. And that was just about losing $4 million and people being put out of work. How will I face the world trying to put myself in a time of millions killed?

That said, one night I Googled relentlessly on a town my mother may have lived in, Karlsruhe. This is how I found Johanna Liebman at the Queens College Holocaust Center.

And so, I share some of her story, which is likely very similar to my mother's. (The very formal style of the interview is because my girlfriend is both a wonderful person to document it and a lawyer. So it does read a bit like a very very scary Law and Order.)

On Saturday, July 9, 2005, David Silverman (“DS”), Carol Silverman (“CS”) met with Johanna Liebman (“JL”) at 10:30 a.m. at the Holocaust Resource Center (“HRC”) at Queensborough Colllege in Bayside, New York. JL recounted her experience at Le Camp de Gurs (“Gurs”) in 1940.

Life In Germany Before the Deportation

JL said that life in Germany for the Jewish population started going “down the hill in every way” in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. First, the Jewish population began to lose its privileges as citizens. For example, the cities took away Jewish citizens ability to have phones in their houses and to have radios.
Additionally, JL said that the Germans were using propaganda to teach the children to be prejudiced against the Jews. JL showed us a book called “Do No Trust The Fox In The Meadow And The Oath Of A Jew,” published in 1936. This book was a picture book depicting horrific caricatures of Jewish men as compared to the angelic blonde Germans.
CS asked JL why she thought that the Germans blamed the Jews. JL said that “Jews are used to that because we are always the scapegoats. We are thought of as poison that should be destroyed.” Then CS asked what the Jewish people thought about how far the treatment of Jews would go. JL said “I don’t think anyone had enough imagination to see how far things would go.” In fact, JL said that Jewish people were deported in Steltin (now part of Poland) outside of Berlin in February of 1939, but the Jewish population in Karlsruhe did not think it would happen to them. Still, JL recalled that she was horrified when she saw synagogues being destroyed every day.

It's a long story, but I felt it was worth being posted in its entirety, so more below.

The Deportation and Internment at Gurs

Gurs

Gurs was one of the first and largest camps established in prewar France. It was located in the Basque region of southwestern France, just to the south of the village of Gurs. The camp, about 50 miles from the Spanish border, was situated in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains northwest of Oloron-Sainte-Marie. It was originally established to house refugees from the Spanish Civil War.

JL’s Deportation

JL was born in 1924. When she was 16, in October 22, 1940, 6,500 Jews were deported from the Baden, Palatinate, and Saar regions of Germany to Gurs. When JL was deported, she resided in Carlsruhe, German. Karlsruhe had a Jewish population of 3,000 prior to the deportation, and 900 after the deportation.

JL recalls the day she was deported vividly. JL’s mother ran a photography studio, and JL and her mother lived with four other woman, including JL’s aunt and two apprentices. JL’s aunt was a dressmaker who worked in the “black.” This meant that by the time of the deportation, many of the Jewish population of Karlsruhe had been forbidden to work, but JL’s aunt secretly persisted. In fact, JL’s aunt had two apprentices, “one jewish girl and one gentile girl.”

On the morning that they were deported, JL’s mother went out shopping as she did every morning. Someone on the street yelled to JL’s mother, “You are going to get deported today.” JL’s mother did not believe the warning, but did head to the Jewish Center in Karlsruhe. The Jewish Center was locked with an official was seal displayed on the door. JL’s mother came home and said “let’s pack.” Shortly thereafter, the police arrived and broke into the apartment of six women ranging in age from “16 to 91.” JL said, “it was a total surprise to her.” JL said that in the years that have passed, she has spoken to others, like her husband who resided in Mannheim, and he knew that the deportation was coming. According to JL, her husband, who had been a member of a jewish organization, knew about the deportation one day in advance. Still, JL’s husband said that neither his friends nor his family believed him until he started to pack his clothes in anticipation of the deportation.

When they were deported, each person was allowed to take one suitcase and approximately100. Additionally, each person being deported had to sign a statement indicating that all of their possessions were now the property of Germany. JL recalled that her dressmaker aunt did not want to sign the statement transferring her property to the Germans. Then, the police said that if she did not sign the statement, she would be deported to Dachau. As a result, JL’s aunt signed the statement, and JL’s family knew that they were being deported to some location other than Dachau.

On October 22, 1940, 6,000 Jewish people were put on a train with seven passenger cars with wooden seats on route to Gurs. The journey began in Mannheim, lasted three days, and ended in Gurs. The first stop was Mulhouse, France. The SS accompanied the passengers until the next stop at Chalon Sur Saône. There, the SS, using a very unfavorable rate, converted the passengers’ marks into French francs. Then, the train proceeded to Lyons. At Lyons, the French citizens of the city had no idea of the deportation and believed that the jewish passenger were just Alsace-terraine citizens fleeing the Germans traveling from Mannheim. After Lyons, the train’s last stop was Oloron-Sainte-Marie, which is near the now-resort city of Pau, France. At Oloron-Saine-Marie, the passengers were trucked to Gurs.

JL recalled that one woman escaped during this three day journey to Gurs. The woman had relatives in one of the nearby French towns on the route to Gurs. When the woman went to get water at a stop, she ran away. A fellow passenger had the forethought to throw the woman’s suitcase out of the window of the train. While the women survived and later emigrated to the United Sates, she was tragically murdered by her own son.

When CS and LF inquired as to whether others escaped from Gurs, JL said very few. JL said that the refugees did not escape, because the majority of the Gurs Jewish population: 1) had no money; 2) spoke no French; and 3) were mostly middle-age and lacked the adventurous spirit necessary for an escape.

Stories of Life at Gurs

JL said that “life was tough” at Gurs. There was no slave labor or gas chambers but “hunger is hunger and it does not matter where you are.” In fact, many died of malnutrition.

The living arrangements were simple barracks. The barracks were bare with no beds and no windows. People were required to sleep on dirt floors, and there were as many as fifty people per barrack. Women and men were put into different barracks. The barracks were each identified by a letter of the alphabet and divided into blocks. Barrack “A through H” were the male barracks, and barracks “I through M” were the female barracks.

Each block of barracks had an office, and each office was staffed by the Jewish refugees at Gurs. The office was responsible for keeping the statistics of each block. The French wanted a record of all relevant statistics for the block – who had been brought to block, number of residents, sick, deceased, etc. JL worked in the office for her block, and she met her husband who was also working in the office.

There was also a population of Spanish refugees at Gurs. The Spanish had a higher status than the Jewish refugees. The Spanish had privileges which allowed them to go out and buy possessions. Then, as entrepreneurs, the Spanish set up bodegas in Gurs to sell these possessions. Sometimes, the Jewish refugees would pay the Spanish to make cots for them. The cots were useful. Those with cots could avoid sleeping on the cold barrack floor with the rats and mice.

ES’s Deportation and Records of Gurs

ES was deported with her mother Gertrude Rauh (“GR” or Gertrude Rah) and her grandmother Lina Mayer (“LM” or Lina Mayer). DS speculated that ES and her family were possibly deported from Mannheim, which is near Karlsruhe. Due to harsh conditions in the camp and poor nutrition, many of the deportees died within weeks.

Sadly, Lina Mayer died on November 12, 1940 from malnutrition. See Robert Mayer submission to Vad Yashem. To confirm her death, JL asked us to review a registry of those who died at Gurs in a book titled, Le Camp de Gurs, 1939-1945, Un Aspect Meconnu de L’Hisotire du Bearn, by Claude Lahaire. Upon a review of the deceased, LF located one entry, entry number 113, for “Minna Maer” who was noted as being born on January 17, 1869 in Kochendorf. See attached Registry of Decease, Entry 113. While the information in the registry is not completely consistent with ES’s family history, JL said that some of the registries have “nearly” complete information with some inaccuracies attributed to human error.

JL said that when each Jewish refugee died at Gurs, there was a burial and a religious funeral service. Each one of the deceased had a wooden marker with the name and date. Today, these markers have been replaced by stone markers for each one of the deceased.

Johanna survived after being taken in by a Swiss family and hidden on their farm. Her husband, also a survivor, was hidden on another farm and they met after the war. They were married and had their first child in Germany, but could not bear to live in Europe for more than a little while, and ultimately moved to the US.

Lastly, more of my mother's art is here.