All language subtitles for Le.Chemin.Des.Juifs.2019

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- A bunch of kids are coming by.

About three or four girls and
a couple of nice, young men.

And they're in their, oh,
early 16, late 17, 18,

that's about the age.

So, I felt very safe in going up

and saying to the students,

(speaking foreign language)

No problem.

I said, (speaking foreign language).

We don't know, lemme think about it.

So, they go off in a little huddle,

and they come back,

(speaking foreign language)

In other words, this is the road,

our teacher told us that this is the road

that the Jews took during the Middle Ages

when they were on their way to Jerusalem.

(soft music)

- Life in Belgium was paradise.

I was about six months old
when we arrived in Belgium.

My father, right away,
started his own tailor shop.

We lived in a Jewish neighborhood,

which would you call today
a ghetto, it was a ghetto.

But it was a good rapport.

All the Jewish people
did get along together,

and in one state where we lived

was at least three or four synagogues.

They call it Stiebels.

And it was paradise.

Everything was fantastic until
the Germans occupied Belgium.

They didn't even declare war on Belgium.

They just started to enter the country,

and Belgium, Holland and
France was occupied in 18 days.

The biggest shock, I
still can't believe it.

The minute we arrived at
the French-Belgian border,

the Germans were there already.

So, there was no use going any further,

so we went back to Antwerp
and hoping for the best.

At the beginning, the
Germans did not bother us.

So, we felt maybe it's not as
bad as people thought it was.

We heard so much going on in Poland,

but sadly enough, we didn't believe it.

Then, slowly, slowly, laws
came out one after the other.

The yellow star, Jewish people
are not allowed in the park,

Jewish people can't go to schools anymore.

Just these laws, one after the other.

But it's still not the end of the world.

We felt it's still safe.

- There was a group of 2252
Jews deported from Belgium,

who took part in the
building of the Jews Road.

They were deported from Belgium

in early summer and autumn of 1942.

Though in fact, few of these
Jews were born in Belgium,

most came from other countries

in western and eastern Europe.

And one of the Jews in
fact, came from London.

When the Germans came to Belgium,

they stripped the Belgian
Jews of their civil rights,

and they gradually threw
them into unemployment,

and because they were unemployed,

they were labeled by the
Germans as antisocial elements.

And this, in the mind of the Germans,

gave them the right to deport them

to be used as unpaid labor.

And accordingly, in the
summer and autumn of 1942,

they were deported, mostly from Antwerp

to camps in northwest France.

(somber music)

- The Germans chose northern France

because the military for all of them.

So, the military government, Belgian,

was also responsible for northern France.

At a certain moment in June 1942,

the Germans decided to introduce

the forced labor for Jews.

Jews had to work in northern France

for the (speaking foreign language).

So, for the construction
of the actual pit road

on the coast.

In total, nine convoys
departed from Belgium

to northern France.

The first on June 13th, 1942 from Antwerp,

and the last in September 12th, also 1942.

A period of about three months.

No less than six of the nine
convoys to northern France

left from Antwerp.

In total, about 2150 Jews were
deported to northern France,

of which 1500 Jews from Antwerp.

So, about 68%.

- We received a letter from the Germans

that we have to meet at the train station

two or three days ahead,

to be sent to a French labor
camp, we had no idea where.

Everybody was in shock.

But then we felt, how bad can it be?

Just didn't believe the inevitable.

We left.

We lived only about 10 minutes
from the train station.

5th of August, 1942.

(somber music)

We walked over to the train station,

which was only about 10 minutes.

My mother and my two sisters,

and when we came to the
station, we had our luggage.

I kissed my mother, kissed my two sisters,

and hopefully will see you again soon.

As I was walking up the
stairs towards the trains,

I made a big mistake to turn around,

and I saw my mother crying.

The minute I saw my mother crying,

my two sisters started to
cry and I started to cry.

And even today, I felt I
should not have turned around,

'cause I'd never seen my mother cry.

They took away our identification card,

and we put us on a train.

It took a whole day until we
arrived in Dannes-Camiers.

- When the Jews were
deported from Belgium,

many were initially taken
to Lager Tibor at Dannes,

where they were organized
into work parties or groups,

and sent to different camps

along the length of the Cote d'Opale.

They were perhaps some 19 camps,

and many of these camps
were temporary work camps

or commandos associated
with particular work sites.

The main task for the Jews
who were sent to these camps

was to labor upon the Atlantic Wall,

which was the huge
defense which Hitler built

along the entire western coast of Europe

to defend against Allied invasion.

Originally, it'd been an offensive line

to attack shipping in the
channel and that sort of thing,

but as the tide of war
swung towards Russia

and the tide of war swung against Hitler,

he requested that the Atlantic Wall

would be substantially strengthened,

and they needed a huge cohort
of laborers to do this.

And the Jews were sent
to help fortify the wall

in the most heavily fortified section

along the length of the Cote d'Opale

around the Calais and Boulogne area.

The narrative of the Holocaust

for very good reasons,
concentrates very much

on the concentration camps in the east.

But many people are unaware

of the huge Nazi archipelago

of camps and prisons and ghettos,

which spread across Europe.

There are over 43000 Nazi
camps, prisons and ghettos,

not just for Jews, but for
many other prisoners as well.

And the Holocaust was happening

right up to the very
western edge of Europe.

So, Jews were in camps and weer dying

literally in sight of the
white cliffs of Dover.

It seems that David Shentow

may be one of the only living survivors

from the Jews Road, and is one of the few

surviving deportees from Belgium itself.

Most of the people who
were deported with him

died either immediately on
arrival or shortly after.

So, in his transport of around 700 men,

there are only four survivors,
including David Shentow.

- Once we got off the
train in Dannes-Carmiers,

which took us a whole day,

and we walked towards the camp

and when we saw the other
prisoners who were there already

two or three months, I couldn't
believe how they changed.

Skinny, hungry, dirty,

and I thought was that
they working extremely hard

and are getting rationed on
bread, which is horrendous,

not enough to keep going,
especially with all the hard work

they had to do.

And then all of a sudden it hit me

that the Germans could easily
win the war over the Jews

just to stop feeding them.

- The condition in virtually

all of these German slave labor camps

was very, very, poor, very severe.

Prisoners at all of these camps

suffered severe malnutrition.

They had starvation rations.

Beatings were extremely
common, sometimes murder.

Conditions were very primitive.

They would be in tents or in barracks,

and they had very little
medical attention.

And very often, there
would be a single water tap

in the camp for prisoners to drink from.

There'd be open latrines,

and many of the prisoners
would be verminous with lice

and other parasites.

(somber music)

- It was the Wehrmacht.

It was not the SS, it was not the Gestapo.

We did our work, and once
we were inside the camp

they were there when they
went out the camp to work.

They brought us back in the
camp and we didn't see them.

They did not bother us.

It was a labor camp.

And as a matter of fact, I was so naive.

I figured, if this is it, I'm
starving but I'll make it.

Not the end of the world.

(somber music)

Wake up call was six o'clock.

Our ration was given at seven o'clock.

No enough water to wash ourselves,

but then, the hunger was setting in.

Because it's the wall
that made it so difficult.

Because if you're hungry
and you have to work hard,

it makes it twice as hard.

- When the Jews worked
on the Atlantic Wall,

they did a lot of labor in concrete,

and one important task
in that was making roads.

Some of concrete, some of other materials.

The Jews Road in itself was an access road

going from inland to the coast,

a distance of four kilometers.

And the object to the road was ostensibly

to assist Operation Sea Lion,

which was Hitler's intended
plan to invade England.

And certainly would
provide an access point

for heavy vehicles to get onto
the beaches near Hardelot,

which are huge and ideal
for mass disembarkations.

Also, it was there to provide
a path for heavy equipment

to construct various
block houses and casements

on the coastline at that point.

So, there's a cluster of
defenses around there,

and it would have been
necessary to get access

to an otherwise inaccessible
part of the coastline.

Many of the bunkers along
the section of coastline

that we're talking about,

were constructed by the
Jewish slave laborers.

They were constructed using the Jews

as the heavy lifters and haulers.

So, their job was to carry concrete sacks

to the castings.

The work would usually be supervised

by a German engineer in the OT,

in the Organization Todt.

And they would set up the
framework of rebar steel,

and wooden shuttering
and the task of the Jews

would be then to transfer cement

from the giant cement
mixers and lifting equipment

to the actual block house in construction.

All of these block houses
had to be cast in one go.

So, you couldn't do a bit in one day

and a bit the next day.

And the Jews and their German overseers

woUld often be required to
work for 36 hours at a stretch

to construct one of these block houses,

which might have many hundreds
of tons of concrete in it.

So, you can imagine that
they were starved laborers

working without sleep for
three days or more sometimes

to get the block houses made.

It was a terrible strain on the workers,

and indeed, after the wall,

some of the Germans were prosecuted

for forcing the Jews to
engage in acts or works

of superhuman labor.

When the Jews were deported
to northwest France,

only men and boys were deported.

The women, children, young girls

were left back in Belgium.

In terms of the ages of the men and boys

deported to Belgium, it
was a whole range of ages.

So, from the very young, 14, 15 years old,

up to older men.

However, the reason for
splitting the families

was very, very deliberate.

The Gestapo and the SS wanted
to weaken the family unit.

They wanted to remove
the protection of the men

from the families.

So, it would then be very easy

to deport the rest in Belgium.

And that's precisely what happened.

- It was horrendous.

And of course, a month or two later,

when one day we did
not have to go to work,

we were being sent to another camp.

And this been the first time I saw the SS.

And I changed from the
regular Wehrmacht to the SS.

They were abrupt, they were
rude, they were beating us,

they put us still also on passenger trains

and said we're going to another camp,

we're going home again.

We didn't know what they meant.

What they meant home again is Poland.

(somber music)

- In the summer of 1942,

the deportation of Jews
to Auschwitz began.

So, the (speaking foreign language) Jews

were an alternative for the other Jews

to send them to Auschwitz.

From the Antwerp Jews, more than 80%

were deported to the
Dossin baracks in Mechelen,

from where they were
deported to Auschwitz.

All the trains who departed from Mechelen

to Auschwitz included children.

- Four days later, four
o'clock in the morning,

I looked out, the train stopped.

I looked out the window and I
see prisoners running around

with striped uniforms.

And right away we felt
that something is amiss.

Something doesn't make sense to me.

We had to get off the train,

and everybody wanted
to take their luggage.

You don't take anything with you.

Everything stays on the train.

So, I jumped out of my train,

and an elderly gentleman
jumped off the train

and he asked very politely an SS man,

"I'll leave my luggage.

"Can I take a couple of pictures?"

They told him, "You don't take anything."

And because he asked a second time,

the SS man let the dog loose.

I just couldn't believe what I saw.

The dog just flew in the air
straight to the man's neck.

The screaming, the yelling, the moaning,

the crying was heartbreaking.

And I looked at him, he
was just right beside me.

He was bleeding from his
mouth, from his ears,

and the minute he stopped moving,

I said, "My God, that man is dead.

"I've never seen a dead man in my life."

Then another young lady
with a baby in her arm

got off the train, and
the baby started to cry.

The SS walks over to her,
points, "Keep it quiet."

So, she tried to keep the baby quiet.

So, no matter how hard she tried

the baby started to cry twice as hard.

That's when he walked over to her,

grabbed the baby by the legs

and threw it against the train.

Then I knew I'm in hell.

Oh, then I knew this is
not anymore Dannes-Cammier.

This is hell, hell on earth.

From about 3500 people, we had to line up.

Women and children on the left,

anybody over 50 on the left,

people with canes all on the left.

So, from over 3500 turned
down to about 2000.

Then we had to line up five abreast

and the infamous famous German doctor,

I don't know if it was
Mengele or not, I don't know.

Mengele's nickname was The Angel of Death.

He's the one who decides who's
to live and who's to die.

With the flick of his finger,

he decided, left, right, left, right.

We advance five abreast,
I'm in the middle.

The two on my left, on the left.

Me, on the right.

The two on the right on the left too.

When I looked on the left,
I saw elderly people,

babies, women with children,
so I knew I'd be better off

on the right side.

It just hit me like a ton of bricks.

I'm better off to be on the right side.

Where are these people going.

They'll be taken to the camp in trucks,

they don't have to walk.

And I was so naive, I believed them.

Then, from the 3500 to 2000, down to 700

who actually entered the camp.

700 people.

As we entered the camp,

and I saw that big famous
sign Arbeit Macht Frei,

it hit me very hard.

I said, "God forbid if
Germany wins the war.

"I'll never make it."

And this was just the
first couple of hours.

(soft music)

Once inside the camp,

we had to get completely undressed naked.

Don't forget, this was October 1942.

If I was cold then, I
was freezing in the nude.

And we were in the first camp, Auschwitz.

Because the transport
out was all from Belgium.

And they knew that Antwerp

was the diamond capital of the world.

And I figured, who knows how much diamonds

these people brought with them.

Some of them were extremely
poor but they had no idea.

As we stood completely in the nude,

we had to bend over,
and with a flashlight,

they're shining in our rectum

to see if we're hiding diamonds.

They told us we're
gonna be taking showers.

We were hoping that the water
will be warm, ice cold water.

And the SS walking around with the dogs,

make sure that we are under the water.

That's when people started
to drop left and right.

I don't know if they had
heart attacks or whatever.

But it just felt but when
I didn't see them moving

and the water just was dropping on them,

I thought for sure that
they must have died.

Then we had to line up again, soaking wet,

running to the other end of the camp,

we had to line up again
where we were being tattooed.

Everybody was given a number on their arm.

My number was 72585.

When I asked the prisoner,
because it was also the prisoners

who tattooed our arms.

They also shaved our hair,

everywhere, pubic hair, every
hair on your body was removed

by other prisoners.

When I asked the prisoner
who put the number on my arm,

I said, "What does it mean?"

He said, "You're the 72585th prisoner."

I said, "Well, how many
people are in the camp?"

He says, "About 30000."

So, where are the rest of them?

And he pointed to the chimney

which was spewing flames.

He says all these people
that came with you

went to the crematorium.

From the crematorium to the gas chambers.

And this is the flames that you see.

I said, "What are you talking about?"

I was so naive.

I thought these were the kitchens.

He says, "You have something
else coming to you.

"This is just the beginning.

"But make sure, do as you're told,

"God willing, you'll make it."

Wake up call, four o'clock.

Roll call, five o'clock.

Six o'clock we went to
work from six to six.

When we came home, two slices of bread,

which will have to last until
the next evening, 24 hours.

We worked extremely hard.

What I did, I still don't know.

But when we came back
from work in the evening,

roll call lasted more than an hour.

Roll call lasted two, three hours.

At times even four hours.

Six o'clock, seven o'clock,
nine, 10 o'clock at night

we were still standing
there, and it was cold.

One night when we came back again,

a prisoner was missing,

and by that time, roll call
was getting close to midnight.

We are not going into our barracks

until they find the missing person.

I can't find a word to describe the agony.

That's when for the first time

I saw some prisoners running
to the electric wire.

And I thought to myself, oh my gosh!

They're gonna kill themselves.

They're gonna electrocute themselves.

But that's exactly what they wanted.

The minute they grabbed
the electric wires,

the blood kept coming down their arms,

their eyes bulging out of
their head, they were dead.

And would you believe it, I envied them?

They're not suffering anymore.

And it was only about three
or four months in the camp.

I can't find a word to describe.

But then they found out that
the person who was missing,

they found him.

It seemed that when we came
into the camp after work,

he had a bad case of diarrhea.

And he ran to the outside latrines,

and because of maybe a heart
attack or some weakness,

he fell in backwards.

They found him, they got
half a dozen prisoners

to pull him out.

They flushed him with a hose,

and that's when we were
allowed to go into the barrack.

But by that time, it was
close to four o'clock.

So, forget the barrack,
we're going straight to work.

- Picture this, as he would say,

1951, I am now the mother of a new baby.

It's about 30 below.

And in Ottawa winter, that's
10 times worse than this.

And David comes down in his bathrobe.

It's a plush one.

And I said, "I'm not ready
to give you breakfast yet."

"Oh no, I don't want breakfast."

He said, "I'm gonna
conduct an experiment."

I said, "What kind of an experiment

"are you going to conduct?"

He said, "Well, I'll tell you."

He said, "Do you have a big
kettle, a big pail of a kettle?"

I said, "Yeah, I got something like that."

He said, "I want you to
put in a lot of water,

"and if you have any stones
or anything that's rotten."

"And may I ask, where are you off to?"

He said, "Yes, I'm going
out in the garden."

I said, "It's about eight
feet of snow out there."

I said, "What kind of an
experiment are you conducting?"

He said, "I'll tell you when I come back."

And I said, "How long do
you intend to be out there?

'cause it's gonna take a
while to make this soup."

And he said, "I don't
think it'll take too long."

He goes outside and less
than five minutes later,

he's in (huffing).

That's exactly the way he did it.

And I said, "Well, what now?"

I said, "Have you
conducted your experiment?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "Did you succeed?"

He said, "Yes."

He said, "Now I know
what would have happened

"or could have happened
when I was in Auschwitz

"during the winter."

And I'm starting to hear stuff
that I'd never heard before.

And he said that because some prisoners

had done something to
offend the Nazi commandant,

that they had to put some of the prisoners

out all night.

So, David was one of the
ones who made a bad move

and he ended up between two rows

of electrical barbed wire fences,

in his prison clothes in
the middle of a winter,

a Polish winter.

And he says that something
unusual happened.

He said, when he closed his eyes,

his mother's voice and his
mother's image came to him

and she said to him in Yiddish,

"Don't cry, you'll be all right.

"You'll be fine."

And he survived.

And if that isn't a miracle,
I don't know what is.

(somber music)

- We were given two cigarettes a month.

I don't know if it was tobacco
or grass or straw, whatever.

And I felt if I can barter
with other prisoners for food,

for a ration of bread.

A gentleman walks up to me and says,

"What do you want for
your two cigarettes?"

I said, "One ration of bread."

And he stood there with his two slices.

He looked at me, he said,
"Would you take one slice?"

I said, "No, two slices.

"Otherwise, no deal."

He says, "Can I take
one bite out of a slice?

"Just a small bite?"

I said, "No."

He gave me his two slices of bread,

I gave him the two cigarettes,

and a few days later I
found out that he had died.

And I took in personal.

I felt I am responsible for that.

But then again, I didn't wanna die.

I just kept hoping for the best.

One Sunday afternoon, when
we did not have to work,

I was going to the gutter

seeing if I can find a
rotten potato or anything,

anything that I could put in my mouth.

I saw somebody approaching me.

I stopped in my tracks.

I said, "I know you."

He looked at me, he says, "Are you sure?"

I said, "Your name is Lipschitz?"

He says, "Yes."

"Your father had a bakery?"

He says, "Yes."

"And you lived in such and such a street

"down the street where I lived?"

He says, "Yes."

I said, "My God, I know you."

But then he looked at me
and says, "But who are you?"

He didn't recognize me.

I was already three months in the camp.

Skinny, bald, walk around
with a striped uniform, a cap.

I can imagine that he
did not recognize me.

This was only after three months.

And I told him who I am.

He started to cry.

Don't cry.

We'll live together, we'll
sleep together, we'll make it.

This was only 1942.

We'll make it, we'll survive.

We'll stick together, we'll
live together, we'll make it.

Did I make him feel better?

He started to cry twice as hard.

I said, "Easy does it, we'll make it."

He says, "I have some
terrible news for you."

"You'll tell me tomorrow."

I said, "No, I want to tell you right now

"because it's on my chest.

"Your mother and your two
sisters were on my train."

(somber music)

Once a month, we did
not have to go to work.

We had no idea at the beginning why.

But then we found out.

Inspection.

Selection.

Skinny prisoners, people
with black and blue marks,

extremely skeleton.

These people were picked
right before the gas chambers.

We had to stay complete
in the nude all day long.

The doctor with his entourage walked in.

The minute he pointed,

his assistant took down the number.

Once he took down the number,

you knew that man won't be
sleeping in his bunk tonight.

(solemn music)

Can you imagine what I went
through every month for a year?

Stood there, I remember
scratching my tongue,

my finger to see if I can get some blood

and rub it on my face.

He looked at me, walked by.

A miracle.

And I went through this
every month for a whole year.

Can you imagine, there are no words.

Agony is putting it mildly, it's worse.

I can't find the words.

Anyway, they picked 2500 prisoners

to be sent to another camp.

We thought this is more
than meets the eye.

This is definitely the gas chamber.

Because whenever the camp
was at full capacity,

transport that came in
from all over Europe.

Belgium, Holland, France,
Germany, from all over Europe.

When the chamber's at full capacity,

the whole transport
went to the gas chamber.

They didn't even have a selection.

And we figured maybe the
camp is at full capacity.

These 2500 people are
going to the gas chambers.

And we found out it was
not the gas chamber,

they were being sent to another camp.

They took us to Warsaw.

What a mess.

What a mess of the Warsaw ghetto.

Our job was to break down the bricks,

all the buildings that were standing.

Tear down the bricks, clean them up,

put them on the side.

There was not even a camp.

We slept outdoors.

And because it was so suddenly planned,

then they didn't plan our rations.

We didn't even get food.

One day as I was working,
shoveling and loosening up bricks,

I saw the earth moving.

I thought, this must be an earthquake.

I saw the gate open, two door opened.

And I see men climbing out.

If I thought I was skinny,
you should've looked at him.

He looked at me, I looked at him.

And I'm standing there with my shovel.

And the very first thing he says,

(speaking foreign language)

In other words, "Are you a Jew?"

I said, "Yes!"

He says, "Is the war over?"

I didn't have a heart to tell him

that the war just began.

I says, "Who are you?"

He says, "Well, when they
started the uprising,

"we fought and we hid in the sewers.

"Some of them hid on roofs

"and when they started
to bomb every building

"one after the other,
we felt the safest place

"is to be in the sewers.

"And when they started to
bomb building after building,

"people started to jump off the roofs."

I looked at him, I said,

"We won't make it."

He says, "Come down with me.

"I'll introduce you to the
other Jewish people below."

I went down the raggedy
stairs, about 20 of them,

walked around with a sheet around them.

I said, "How did you manage?

"How long are you here already?"

He says, "About six weeks."

"How do you manage?"

"Well as long as we have
something to barter with,

"the Polish people will bring us food.

"We'd give them the belt,

"we'd give them the gold of our teeth,

"we'd give them anything for food.

"The minute we didn't have
anything to barter with,

"they stopped coming."

So, I could imagine what he went through.

His name was Castellebong.

I said, "If I'm back tomorrow,

"I'll be glad to come and talk to you

"if the same is the same location."

The next day I came by.

We made arrangement I
should knock at the sewer.

He opened it.

I couldn't open it, so I
managed with all my power,

open it, I climbed down.

By then, all of them
were lying on the ground.

So, I knew they had all died.

They hadn't eaten for a month.

Can you imagine not...

I saw Castellebong sitting at a table,

a raggedy chair.

And I walked over to him and I say,

"Castellebong, I'm here."

And two or three times, he didn't move.

But when I went a little harder,
he turned and he fell over.

And when I looked at him and realized

that he had died.

(somber music)

We were definitely about a year.

The Russians were getting closer.

We went on a transport.

They said that we were
going to another camp.

And this is the first time I realized

that we are going on a death march.

We've heard of death matches after the war

in the winter, but this
was the first death march

in the summer.

The very first death march, August 1944.

From hunger, you die slowly.

You die from hunger.

You just pass away, you just die.

From thirst, it affects your brains.

People drank their own urine.

We left Warsaw for about five days

until we arrived in a small
town by the name of Kutno.

Not a drop of water.

People who could not walk were shot

and left right there and then.

And nearly, when we arrived in Kutno,

they had trains already set up,

and they said from now
on, the trip will continue

in cattle trains.

But to show us good intentions,

we are arriving at a river,

and we'll be able to get water.

When we heard water,

it's like saying, "God is here."

He says, "But only on one condition.

"100 prisoners at a time
are allowed in the water.

"The minute they come back, the next 100."

Don't forget, we hadn't
seen water for over a week.

August 1944, people went crazy.

I must have been crazy too.

But the minute we arrived
at that river, pandemonium.

Like a stampede.

Everybody, about 3000 people
rushed towards the water.

And the yelling, stop, halt, halt.

We could not have cared less.

We saw the water.

And I ran, and before I even know it,

I was up to my eyes in water.

And splashed and splashed and splashed.

And I took a look on my side,

and I saw the SS heading up machine guns.

But I figured, this is not important.

Water.

But then all of a sudden,
when I stopped for a moment,

I heard a shooting.

The machine guns.

And I take a handful
of water and it's red.

And I lick it, and it's blood.

And this is when I saw for the first time

about 20, 30 prisoners
floating on the water.

I ran back so fast

because I felt that I managed to get rid

of a little of my thirst,

but it was just the beginning.

Cattle trains were ready
to take us further.

100 prisoners in one cattle train.

100 prisoners, no siting, no
lying, like sardines, standing.

100 prisoners.

Horrendous!

No facilities, everything standing up.

If this was bad, the main
doors had to be free.

So, they squeezed more, 50 on each side.

If this was bad, they locked the doors.

And when I heard the click of the lock,

I can't find the words.

And they told us, will
take you a couple of days.

Five days until we arrived in Dachau.

(somber music)

Doors opened, everybody out.

About 100, maybe 50, maybe 60 climbed out.

And all the ones who had died,

for the first time they could fall over.

They had died of heart
attacks or whatever.

The filth, if I may be blunt.

The excrement, the smell...

Oh my God!

So far, so good.

Went into Dachau, and they never realized

from other prisoners what we went through.

I was in Dachau about eight months.

The work was horrendous.

Every day, 50, 60, maybe 100
prisoners for the gas chambers.

I don't know how I made it.

But I was just waiting to die.

I knew I'm not gonna make it.

It was April 1945.

We knew the war was over.

We also knew that
Germany had lost the war.

But I also knew that
I'm not gonna make it.

(somber music)

I was lying on my bunk
just waiting to die.

I give up.

I just can't.

And I had a skinny, little
blanket on top of me

that I removed, and I took
a look at my two legs,

two sticks like that.

And I felt so sorry for
me, I started to cry.

An SS man walked by
and he heard me crying.

"Get up!"

I wish I could, but when he
took out his revolver, I got up.

And I thought for sure,
he was gonna shoot me.

Because I remember from experiences

about somebody who forgot
to take off his shoes,

he shot him right between the eyes.

So, I figured if he has
his gun in his hand,

he's going to shoot.

And I grabbed him by his belt.

(speaking foreign language)

"Please, please, don't shoot."

I must have touched his heart.

But instead he gave me with his revolver

right, a bang on my head.

And all of a sudden, I fell down,

and all of a sudden I
didn't hear anything,

I didn't see anything, no pain...

All of a sudden, I felt good.

I didn't feel anything.

But then slowly, slowly,
my hearing came back,

and this is my hearing.

It affected me even still today.

The eardrums are permanently damaged.

That's when I climbed
on my hands and knees

out of the barrack, and what do I see?

No SS.

I look at the sentry post, no SS.

I look at the front gate, open.

Oh my God!

Am I dreaming?

This is it, I made it?

Other prisoners were running around,

the one who still had some energy.

Because they were starving,

they were eating anything they could find.

Grass, straw, mice, rats.

They ate whatever they
could stuff in their mouth.

All of a sudden, I see an American,

I didn't know it was an American tank,

hauling into the entrance.

And I stood there like that.

Opened the hatch, and a black soldier,

he didn't climb out.

He was petrified, he's never seen...

I can't find a word to
describe, wild animals.

That's what we were.

Wild animals running around

and stuff things in their mouth to eat.

He tore me a piece of gum, he says,

"How you doing, young fella?"

And I stood there, and I
didn't know what to say

and I didn't know what to do.

And then he kept going.

Then American soldiers started to come in.

That's when I realized
the first time, I made it.

So far, I made it.

But when the other American
soldiers saw the famine,

they started to throw their food rations

to the prisoners.

They had good intentions,

and the other prisoners, including me,

when they started to
grab their food rations

like little boxed lunches,

they shoved it in their mouth.

Big mistake.

As they shoved in their mouth,

it went in one way, it
went out the other way.

That's when I knew, better not eat it.

Then the medics arrived,

and I saw all these prisoners lying there

where stuff was running
out from the behind.

He says, "Stop feeding these
people, you're killing them."

Well, they all of course meant well.

(somber music)

Two or three days later,
I woke up in a hospital.

And I woke up and a
German nurse walked by,

and she yelled out loud,
"Oh, he's alive, he's alive."

She comes up to me, she says in German,

"You okay?"

Whatever I think she said.

Said, "Where am I?"

"You're in a hospital."

"Where are we, what date is it?"

"April the 29th."

"This is day of my birthday."

And she called over
two other German nurses

and they started singing "Happy Birthday."

About a week later, I was back home

in my hometown in Antwerp.

And that's when I felt
the agony more than ever.

Because that's when I realized
for the very first time,

I'm the only one from my
whole family who survived.

Parents, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins,

and I felt guilty.

How did I make it?

I don't know.

I kept going to the Jewish
community to find out,

did anybody else come back?

And they said after two or three weeks,

"You should realize that nobody
would come back anymore."

The best thing that happened to me

when I came to Canada.

An uncle of mine who
was my father's brother,

he wrote to the Jewish
community in Antwerp

to find if anybody from
the family survived.

They said, "The only person
who survived is your nephew."

He made arrangements for
me to come to Canada.

I came to Canada.

Within six months, I met my wife.

We were married within a year.

And this is the best thing
that's happened to me.

- We set off in a small car

with a couple who owned the car,

and who were neighbors in a small town.

And David had talked to them

about Le Chemin des Juif

and they knew about his background.

And so, these people were
really anxious to drive us

to that place in France.

So, we find a tourist bureau,

and sure enough, there's
maps of that area.

And I go through the maps,

and I said, "I think
this is what you want."

So, we opened it up and we looked around

and we find the road.

I said, that's it.

Le Chemin des Juifs.

And our driver and his wife
plonked us back in the car,

and off we scoop and we get to that area.

It was rather wild.

Nobody had been taking care
of leaves and the trees and,

it was messy.

It looked definitely abandoned.

And we headed towards an area

that David thought had
to do with the place

where the other prisoners
who had passed away

had to be buried.

And we didn't see any coffins.

So, we didn't see anything really.

It's just a hole in the ground,

and David said, and I think
he had tears in his eyes

that he was holding back.

He said, this is where we said
(speaking foreign language)

for the dead.

(somber music)

The people who had driven
us, they were not Jews,

but they understood what that meant.

What really shocked me,

and I'm getting shivers now
when I'm telling you this

is when David looked down this road,

which was partly cement and partly mud,

and you could see the footprints,

the human footprints of men
who walked in bare feet.

And you can see the
paw prints of the dogs,

the shepherd dogs, which
would be biting them

if they didn't work fast enough.

And you can see the boots,
these military boots

of the soldiers.

And then David told me
that two of his uncles

from Belgium had not been
shipped to Eastern Europe.

They had been shipped to France,

and they each worked
unbeknownst to the other

in two different work camps

making leather boots for the Nazis.

They survived, they came back

and when David came back into
Antwerp, they were there.

And they offered David a place to stay

until his uncle in Canada
had made arrangements

to bring him to Canada.

- Every day was hell.

Now figure, three years, that's 1000 days.

The piece de resistance, I made it.

(somber music)

(dramatic music)