First Person with Estelle Laughlin
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EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Good afternoon. Can everybody hear me? Alright. Welcome the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. My name is Edna Friedberg, and I am an historian here at the Museum. This is our tenth year of our First Person program and in just a few moments, I will be introducing you to our very special guest for today, Mrs. Estelle Laughlin. First Person is a series of weekly conversations—or actually at this point, we’re doing them twice weekly, ‘cause as you can see from our full house today, the demand is so great—conversations with survivors of the Holocaust who share with us first hand their experiences.
Each First Person guest also serves as a volunteer here at the Museum. So, next week is actually the last week this summer that we’ll have a First Person program on a Tuesday, but we’ll be doing them tomorrow and every Wednesday through the end of August, so if you’re able to come back or if you have any friends or family who are going to be visiting Washington, please encourage them to join us on a Wednesday at 1:00.
Additionally, excerpts from our conversations with survivors are also available in an audio series, podcast series, through the Museum's web site and also through iTunes. So, you’ll be able to, if you’d like to share this with people at home or far. The First Person podcasts also join two other podcasts series the Museum produces. One is called Voices on Antisemitism and the other is called Voices on Genocide Prevention. The 2009 season of First Person is again made possible through the generosity of the Louis and Doris Smith Foundation, to whom we’re very grateful and I’m very pleased to tell you that Mr. Louis Smith is here with us today. If you could just stand up and wave at everyone.
[Applause]
Thank you. Thank you very much.
More than sixty years, actually almost seventy years, after the Holocaust, hatred, antisemitism, and genocide unfortunately still threaten our world. The life stories of Holocaust survivors transcend the decades and remind us of the need to remain vigilant as citizens of the country and as global citizens to confront hatred, injustice and prejudice wherever and whenever we may encounter it.
In just a moment, I will invite Mrs. Estelle Laughlin up to the stage to share her first person account of her experiences during the Holocaust with us. Estelle will speak for around 40-45 minutes after which time you will have a chance to ask questions. So, if something occurs to you during the program, please keep it in mind ‘till the end and I do ask that you try to keep it to a question rather than a comment. Before I bring Estelle up, I just have a couple of housekeeping announcements and requests of you. First of all, out of respect for Estelle, if possible, please stay in your seats for the duration of the program in order to minimize any disruption. Also, if you as I’m sure you do, have cell phones with you; take a second now to turn off any noisy ringers that will interrupt us. And finally, I want to let those of you know who may be holding passes for the Permanent Exhibition that they are good or the balance of the afternoon. So, if your pass is for 1:30, 1:45, 2:00, you don’t need to be there at that time. You can come in anytime after the time printed on your ticket.
What you are about to hear from Estelle is one individuals account of the Holocaust era. We have prepared a brief slide presentation to offer you in an introduction and a framework for her story.
The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims; six million were murdered. Roma and Sinti, also known as Gypsies, people with mental and physical disabilities, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi Germany.
Estelle Laughlin was born in Warsaw, Poland on July 9th, 1929. She was the younger of two sisters, and in addition to her parents, was a member of a very large extended family, including aunts, uncles and cousins. This map of Europe in 1933 shows Poland. Warsaw is indicated here by the red arrow, obviously, the capital of Poland. Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939; a seventieth anniversary that we will be marking here at the Museum in just over a month. And Estelle’s formal education was stopped in addition to many other changes she will tell us about.
Soon after, about a year after, the invasion Estelle and her family were forced to move into the ghetto in Warsaw which was an urban prison zone that the Nazis set up to segregate and isolate the Jewish population. This photo shows German troops parading through Warsaw after the surrender of Poland. In 1943, Estelle’s family went into hiding in a bunker in the ghetto. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was an armed rebellion of the remaining Jews living there, began on April 19th, 1943 and against overwhelmingly lopsided military odds, the Jewish fighters were actually able to hold off German forces for a month. The Germans began burning the ghetto building by building in order to force out resisters, and that’s some of the destruction and flames you can see in the background of this photo.
After Estelle and her family were discovered during the liquidation of the ghetto, they were deported to the Majdanek concentration camp. This map shows also other death camps throughout German occupied Poland. Estelle, her mother, and her sister endured two more forced labor camps, forced labor in two more concentration camps; one called Skarzysko and the other called Czestochowa. They were eventually liberated by Soviet troops. And I’ll close with this immigration certificate from 1947. Estelle and her mother and sister emigrated to the United States in 1948 on a ship called the Marine Flasher. That’s the name you see in the bottom right, and we’ll have a chance to talk about that. So with that, please join me in welcoming our First Person guest, Mrs. Estelle Laughlin.
[Applause]
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Hello.
AUDIENCE:
Hello.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
First of all Estelle, I want to thank you very much for being our guest today. I know these are not easy things to talk about under any circumstance and especially not in front of a room full of people you don’t know. So, thank you for your courage to do it. If we could, I’d like to begin by having you tell us a little bit about your family’s life before the war, helping us get to know them.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Uh, everything I remember from before the war glows in radiant colors of golden sunlight, lilac trees against open blue skies, a joyful time with family and friends, holidays, magic train rides to the country during the summer. All these memories really became like a shelter in a world that soon was crumbling around me.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
I also meant to mention that Estelle, who is a retired teacher, has written a wonderful book that she hopes to see published entitled A Tale of Three Monkeys Who Transcended an Apocalypse. And during the course of our conversation, I know you will explain what that meant. But if you could tell us, you had one older sister, correct?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
I had one older sister who was a year and a half older than I am. When the war broke out, I was ten years old. My sister was 11 and a half. And suddenly, our life completely changed. Our streets were patrolled by foreign soldiers with guns and whips, and they walked into our homes. They accused us Jewish people being greedy, yet they walked into our homes, helped themselves to whatever they wanted to.
As a child, when I thought, my goodness. It just did not make at all sense. It seemed like the whole world was standing on its head. How could adult people do things like that? We had no recourse. We could not—we had no rights. All our rights were taken away. Schools were closed. Lights, electricity was turned off. Food was rationed. Newspapers were stopped. Radios were stopped. Telephones were stopped. We were completely cut off from the world and had no idea what was going on around, outside our isolation. Then they created a ghetto.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Estelle, if I…I’m going to interrupt you for a second. We made a deal beforehand that I would remind her things I knew she wanted to share with you. I know that in the first month after the German invasion, during the siege of Warsaw, there was a period of time when you were separated from your father. Could you please tell us about that? When he…
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Oh, okay. During, during the bombardment, at the crack of dawn, after the bombardment seized and we were all asleep in our beds, I heard a voice of a woman screaming, “Danger! Danger! The Germans are here!” As it turned out, and, “They are killing all the men, every male!” Then my, and it happened to be we ran out on the balconies, looked out the windows and there we saw my petite little aunt who ran all the way down, maybe 2 miles, to our building to warn us of the danger. She ran up to our house and announced to the entire building—we lived in an apartment building—that all the males, all the Polish males, all the soldiers, were being killed. So, she pleaded with my father to leave. Well, my father left.
During that night almost all the males in Warsaw disappeared. My father was gone for a week. Then after a while I was fortunate enough that my father did return. All I had of him to hold onto was a chess game that he gave me, and I remember the day when my father was returning. I was, there was a pause in the bombardment, and I was leaning on the window with my favorite chess game box next to me. The children, there was a pause, and you know wonderfully, children always remain children. They always hold onto the magic part in themselves of make believe and forgetfulness and enjoying the very moment of peace. So, my friends were calling me. They said, “Come out to the courtyard and play with us,” and I just couldn’t. I had such a strange feeling of my father tugging me from the distance. There I was sitting at the window, and my father’s face showed up. He’d returned to me.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
After a week of total uncertainty, no idea where he was.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Total uncertainty, right.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
So, in the intervening year, before the Germans established the ghetto, what was life like for you and your sister and your parents? No school, you said.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Oh, well, when the occupation occurred, and the ghetto was formed and of course, we had no schools. Owning a book or going to school was capital punishment was a capital crime. When they formed the ghetto it really caused a problem both for the Christian people and the Jewish people, [be]cause the Christian people had to leave the area that was designated the ghetto. They had to leave their churches, their, their, all their places where they lived or business establishment, and the same was true of the Jewish people. After a while, very soon, they built a ghetto around, a wall around us, around the ghetto. We were completely walled in. They designated the ghetto they called it the “death box.” They collected people from surrounding areas around Warsaw and they drove them into the ghetto.
You can imagine the starvation; you can imagine there was no housing for them. The place was so small. The streets were littered with, with hungry people, with little children, little tots—no older than four years old, with bare knees and bare feet—begging in the streets. The stoops were filled with corpses, corpses of children. People would take large sheets of paper and write on them, “Children are holy. Our children must live.” But there was so little that could be done. And in this hell, I met the most wonderful people. That’s where I really met my most noble heroes.
Immediately, the Jewish people in the Warsaw ghetto organized themselves and established a self-help organization. Everybody contributed. Everyone who had anything they could contribute, either money or collecting clothes or collecting food. There was not a child—and I see children in the audience here, and I, when I see them, they restore the childhood to me that I have lost—and I want you all to know that the young children did a lot. We collected money. We put on shows. Every child did something. Every adult did something. And you know, so often people ask me,”How come we didn’t, you didn’t fight back?” But, we did. We fought back so hard to hold onto our identity, to hold onto our values.
You know, Jewish people were persecuted for ages and just like other Jewish people in the ghettos, worked hard to hold onto their values and to create their own culture. So did we in the ghetto. We had hidden schools. Imagine, we, to go to, I, that we children had to hide our books under our clothes. We really did and walked by, by soldiers with guns, knowing perfectly well that if we were caught, we would be shot. Our parents would be shot. Our tutors would be shot. We didn’t think we did anything special. It seemed like it was the right thing to do, because that’s what we saw our adults and our community to do, doing. Only now, as an old person, as a grandmother, I recognize that it was a courageous act. It was an act of holding on to our values.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Estelle, if I can just interject to give people a sense of the kind of crowding you’re talking about. The ghetto population at one point reached over 400,000 people in an area of only 1.3 square miles. So, just think about how that must have felt; lack of privacy. Can you talk a little about the sanitary conditions in the ghetto?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Well, the sanitary conditions were awful. Typhoid, dysentery ran rampant. You know, even in this horrible place, I mentioned the fact that we had hidden schools. Imagine we had theaters when we had no bread. Across the street from us, there was a church and the church was an abandoned church. A room was used there for theater. My father who rarely left the house—he only left the house when, if it was urgent that he had to take care of our needs to survive—but he just could not endure what the streets looked like. But he was a great supporter of the theater and I remember the magic I felt when he took my sister and me to the theater, a little stage with a yellow carbide light.
And I’m sure—I was maybe 11 years old or 12 years old— I’m sure that I did not understand the place, well, I don’t even remember them. But I do remember the magic that I felt. Even then, I did not yet realize that when you lose everything, your memories become your possessions. There were authors. My father read to us. Owning a book was a capital punishment as I mentioned. And my father had a stash of books that he read to us every night by Shalom Aleichem and by Shalom Ash and by Peretz.
You know, we can imagine that little dark room lit up by carbide light. We sat in that globe of light, the shadow. The rest of the room was in shadow. The windows were blacked out. Nights were the most hopeful times for me, because the darkness was like an isolation from, from the people I feared so much, from the people who trampled over us. And my father in that little room, his voice was so comforting and brought to life remote worlds and the people became as real to us as the real people I knew. And, it was like a capsule of paradise.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Estelle, let me ask you in 1942, the Germans began to deport large numbers, hundreds of thousands of Jews, out of the Warsaw Ghetto to death camps and to concentration camps. And for a substantial period of time, your family was fortunate and was able to avoid deportation. Could you tell us a little bit about how you survived during that time?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Yes. In 1942, the great deportation in Warsaw began. It happened where suddenly you had brigades of soldiers marching into the ghetto, but, you know they were raids and they were very spotty, and you never knew because we didn’t know anything that was going on outside the wall. They would just come in, invade one street and pick up everyone, scoop up everyone they found in the street, load them onto carts. Then they would stomp into the courtyard and then up the steps and round up people and take everyone away. Well, we were told the German people—I feel very self-conscious when I use the word “Germans,” because by no means do I mean to imply that all Germans….I just don’t want to stereotype—but the German soldiers, the Nazis, they, we didn’t know what was happening to the people when they were picked up. But, most of us started, found a way to hide.
We hid in cupboards. We hid in drawers. We hid in closets. We hid in, under beds, between mattresses and box springs. To this day, I have known a lot of happiness and I still, anyplace I come to, I am, the first thing I am aware of, is where can I find a good hiding? And I know that I am safe. I also, where ever I go, I have to sit facing the door or facing the window. I don’t live life with being stuck in the past. I live life joyfully, but there is a part of me that still sits there where I once used to be. And now I forgot what I was saying…
[Laughter]
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
We were talking about deportations. I actually wondered if you could tell us about, your, you had a dear friend, Yanka, about her nanny.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Right. Well, during the, but the German authorities made some Jewish people write letters to tell us that they were in places where they were taken care of, where they had food and they had clothing. But, most of the, and those who would march willingly would be spared being killed, because anyone who would be caught who was hiding would be killed. Most of us did find hiding. We hid in a room behind a closet. We would put a closet in front of the door to obscure the room. So then you had that slapping of the boots when the soldiers ran in, were in the building and up the stairs and we were in our room listening to the, to the slapping, to the gun pops, to screams, to barking dogs, and they marched into our room. We could hear them pull open the door in the closet; pull the drawers so that they could plunder.
Then when, after all this horrible sound ceased we waited under, there was complete quiet, complete silence. In our room, you could only hear the heartbeat, your own heartbeat. We took pillows to cover up the faces of the children when they were trying to cry or when they were giggling. It was such imprisonment. When this was over, we would walk out and then look at the dark windows and look at the windows of the neighbors. Wherever we saw animation, we hoped there was life. Where there was no animation, we knew that there was, that the people disappeared. Then we would go slowly down into the courtyard to see who still survived. Most of, my, one of my friends had a little dog. When all the soldiers marched out and the dog ran after one soldier and was barking and sounded so uneasy and so this soldier followed him and followed the dog to the bed where my friend was hidden between the, between the mattress and the box spring. That was the end of her.
Yanka, my friend, Yanka at one point there was the big selection where the announcements were sounded throughout the ghetto with such intensity that everyone had to report, had to report at the designated area for a selection. A selection was where they, and they assured everyone that only a small portion of people will be selected and the others will be permitted to live.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Selected for deportation you mean, right?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Right. To send to Umschlagplatz which was the deportation area, and lowered onto trains. Well, during that deporta…during that selection, we, my parents decided not to hide and take a chance. All my family there were four people; my mother, sis-, my mother, father, sister and I. We all passed the selection. Then when we were walking back home, we saw the, our friends who were marched to Umschlagplatz and there was, I saw my friend, my best friend, Yanka. She was sick with jaundice, yellow with jaundice. Her eyes were glistening with fever. She clutched a pillow and she yammered, “Mama, Mama, Mama.” Her mother was standing not far from me. Her eyes were wild with pain. She stood as though she was glued to the ground. She didn’t move. Neither did I.
And after Yanka and the people were marched away, her mother fell down to the ground in convulsion and cried. She hammered the pavement and little liver colored tears, blood stains, appeared on the sidewalk. It felt to me as though the pavement was crying blood. That was the end of my friend.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Estelle, against all odds, you were one of the very few children still in the ghetto in April 1943 when the ghetto uprising took place. Can you please tell us what you remember about that?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Now, when the people were taken away, for a while we had no idea. All we knew, we never saw them again. But, some of the people who were taken away snuck through the night. They got away from that place that we didn’t know of. They did it at night, because strangely enough, there were very good Polish people, Christian people, but there were some who were not very kindhearted, who also, in spite of being persecuted by German authorities, were not very…also believed in ethnic cleansing. It’s like a foot without shoe is okay as long as it’s not my foot. I forgot.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
About the uprising. People that you were saying who escaped deportation and came back.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Ok. The people who escaped the deportation came back to the ghetto, and they told us that the people who were taken away were taken away to a place called Treblinka. They were given a cake of soap, and they were told that they are going to take a shower. That was, of course, a ruse to make the people go to the shower agreeably. Only the shower did not squirt water but a strain of gas, and that the people were all killed. Little children. My father used to so often chant, “How can anyone who loves their mothers, who loved their children, how can they send little children? How can they kill people without any cause? How can they kill people? Life is sacred.” You know, in 1942, from July 1942 to September, 99% of the Jewish children in the, in Warsaw Ghetto were exterminated. I was one. I was among the 1% still alive.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Now, Estelle, the news of this inspired action in the ghetto, right?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Right.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
News of what awaited…
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
When the, we people in the ghetto learned what was happening to the people, armed rebellion began to form. So, my father was a member of the uprising. The freedom fighters began to build tunnels to get from one—because there was curfew—and so tunnels from one, and they also built bunkers in basements. So they built bunkers and tunnels to go from one, from one end of the ghetto to the other one, small as it was. And also, to get to the other side of the wall, to the Christian side to, in hope of getting armed help and instructions.
They climbed through the sewers and then there were a couple of skirmishes between the freedom fighters and the German soldiers. And as a punishment, Himmler promised that he’s going to cleanse the rest of the ghetto in 3 day’s time as a present in time for Hitler’s birthday. An army of soldiers came into the ghetto with loud speakers and they said, “Anyone we going to find, we going to chop to pieces. You all better report.” But, most of us bolted down to our bunkers.
Our bunker was, at that point, we moved to the ground floor. We lived in an apartment building, but there were so few people you could move anywhere in the building, [be]cause almost everyone was sent away. What we used for fuel were, were the furniture of the abandoned houses. Our bunker, the entrance to our bunker was a secret trap door. It was the powder room floor with a commode and everything left, left it. So, we bolted into our bunker. Well, when I walked in there, I stepped down the ladder. The walls closed in on me. The ceiling came down on me. And the few people, I was when the trap door was closed, that was my whole universe. That was my whole world. And the few people, our neighbors and our friends, were my whole nation.
The carbide light was a substitute for the sun. The ticking of the clock was our only connection with the outside world. That was the only thing that told us when the sun was rising or setting. How I craved, how I longed for the open horizons, for the crisp blueness of day. I don’t know how long we sat there, not very long. But I can assure you, if you sit in such, in such isolation, such dark as isolation, some part of you remains sitting there all your life. We, while we were in the bunker, the few Jewish freedom fighters, a few, a handful, a very small number of, of starved fighters against a brigade of well armed army with tanks, with airplanes, and bombs reigning down on us. I could hear the world crashing around us.
And then at some point…Now, you know, the freedom fighters got very little help from the other side. They were hoping—the other side of the wall. They were promised more arms that was given. That some was given to them, but not as much. I remember some of the freedom fighters who were in our bunker, how they waited for the instructions and they never came, and the arms that never came. But they fought Molotov cocktails and explosives. Amazingly enough, the freedom fighters in the ghetto, in Warsaw Ghetto, fought longer than it took for Poland or for France to capitulate. It’s really incredible.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Estelle?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
…and. Yes?
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Because of time, I’m going to have…I would happily talk about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising all afternoon, but I know there are important things that we want to cover. After you survived the uprising, you were sent with your family to the Majdanek concentration camp. Could you please tell us about arrival there and if you’re able to, about your father?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Well, we walked through the ghetto when they took us out of the bunker, and the buildings were crumbling to our feet. The flames were licking the sky and painting the sky in other worldly colors of iridescence. The smoke were like towers. We were covered with dust and ash and people in congealed blood and I was wondering “What does that feel like?” My biggest hope was to make the transition with our par…with my parents, and they loaded us onto the, they took us to Umschlagplatz, loaded us onto the trains. Just for the sport of it, they were shooting at the train, all night that we were going to the end of our lives, the end of the world.
We arrived in the morning in a place, Majdanek. Majdanek was an extermination camp. There were two kinds of concentration camps. There was Majdanek and Auschwitz and other camps were extermination camps where you just waited your turn to be gassed. And then there were also slave labor camps. Well, Majdanek was an extermination camp. They pulled us when we were unloaded in Majdanek in the big field. Women and men were separated. The few remaining children were put into a little enclosure that looked like a pig sty. The poor children were yammering, “Mama, Tata, where are you?” I was so afraid. The women were, I was sitting with my mother and sister. My father was sitting with a group of men. I was so afraid that if they find out that I am a child that I am — children under 14 were “contraband.”
My father was sitting with the group of men across from us. And he looked so pathetic. He was sick with tuberculosis. His spittum was crimson. He’s had fever. To quell his chill, he wrapped, took off his jacket to wrap it around his head. I was so used to look at his face for comfort. He was such a dignified, wonderful man. I couldn’t stand the pain in his eyes. When the German soldiers were looking away, I got up and ran across to my father. I knelt in front of him and I said, “Daddy, don’t worry. They won’t get me.” I turned the lapel of my coat and showed him the vile of cyanide that was sewn into our, my lapel. We all had it to use it as a last resort. I said, “Daddy, don’t worry. They won’t get me. Remember, I have the cyanide.” I meant to reassure him. He looked at me. He said, “No, child, you must live.” I guess his message stayed with me, and I lived, and we survived Majdanek, my mother, my sister and I.
By some miracle in Majdanek my mother and my sister, we were all sent to work once in a, well, we went to work every day after the assembly. But my sister and I were sent to a ditch to sort some personal items like wedding bands, crowns of teeth, gold crowns, pictures. And suddenly, Brigitte was a German overseer, a beautiful, statuesque woman, as vicious, when we saw her, we saw death. She stepped at the edge of the ditch that we were working in, looked at my sister who was a beautiful, delicate 14 year, 14 ½ year old girl, jumped at her and she said, “I saw what you were doing. You were looking at that picture.” My sister was trying to say, “Well how else can I sort things without looking?” But she just beat her so terribly that we, when we marched back from, from that field to the camp, past the barbed wire fence, we had to prop her up. And the other women tried to screen her like form a curtain, because we were afraid that if they noticed that she is weak, they’ll just shoot her.
The following day when we were taken to work, my sister was not able to stand up. So we hid her under the bunk. When we came back—my sister always pleaded with my mother to surrender. She kept on saying, “I cannot live in such indignity. I don’t want to live. Let them kill us. Let them do what they want to do.” My mother would say to her, “Well, you know, life is sacred. It is noble to fight to stay alive.” Well, when we came back, my sister ran up to us and she said, “Thank God. That’s the end. We won’t have to suffer like that anymore. While you were gone, some soldiers came and put all the people, whom they found on a list. The assumption was that everyone on the list was going to be gassed.
My sis-, my mother, sister, and I had a pact that if one of us was going to be killed, we would all go. So, we did the obvious, logical thing. We traded. My mother and I traded with two other women who hoped to see one more sunrise. And the following day, when my sister, my sister’s name was called, she stepped out. When the other two women’s names were called, my mother and I stepped out, and they marched us onto a train. We were sure that was the end of it, but it wasn’t.
We were sent to the forced labor, slave labor camp in Skarzysko. The two other women who hoped to live another day never made it. And I must, before I end, I must stress the fact again that we were all very brave. And, you know, there were so many times where I wanted to jump at their throats and say, “Ok, let them!,” but, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it, probably, for the same reason that when a gun is held to one’s head or if a person is marched to the gallows or when brave soldiers are marched as prisoners or when we know that we have terminal illness, we don’t scream and we don’t cry and we, because we want to make our exit with dignity. When I was marched, I didn’t cry. I didn’t want my parents to see my tears, and I did not want the soldiers, I did not want to give them the satisfaction. That was my way of fighting back. And my way of fighting back was to hold onto my values.
I think I said what I want. Do I have time about Dr. Korczak?
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
I want to give time for questions, but I also want just to clarify also the conversation that you described with your father when you arrived at Majdanek. That was the last day that you saw him ever?
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
That was the last day that I saw him.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Before we turn to questions—then you’ll have some time at the end too—if you could just briefly—and we’re skipping through two forced labor camps, a lot of things that you endured…If you could just tell us about liberation, please.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Liberation. Well, we were liberated in January. Poland is quite cold…
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
’45. January ’45.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
January ’45 by the Russian soldiers. Well, we were so completely cut off from the world. It was unimaginable that just maybe a few rabbit jumps away from where we were there was freedom. There were people who were sailing on lakes and children sitting around tables. We were so isolated. We might as well have been on a different planet.
Well, suddenly we hear the bombs and bombardment. “Oh, we are going to die from Allied bombs!” What a joy it would be. What a victory it would be for us not to be killed by the gas chamber. We finally, somebody is coming to our rescue. You know, we were on death row. We were just so, so, so happy and could not imagine. Well, eventually people started to step out from the barracks, out and into the gate and the German soldiers were gone and people walked out. Then in the morning, my mother, sister and I followed the people who were marching out of the camp.
Now you have to visualize, all we had was wooden clogs, a caftan covered with lice, covered with mange, covered with scabs. My limbs were covered with scabs. My face, the skin on my face was covered with scabs from scratching from the lice, and the skin broke and so it got infected. And we are marching out, oh! And around the camp outside the barbed wire fence, there was a no-man’s land. And we walked through the no-man’s land. And we see Russian soldiers. Well, I’m rushing now because I don’t want to miss telling about one, the lady in Kielce.
Well, eventually we met up [with] the Russian soldiers, and we thought, you know Messiah is there. The soldiers took one look at us, and they said, “We have a war to fight.” And gave us a slab of bread and said, “You have to rush, because curfew is enforced and when it’s, you have to find shelter before dark.” I don’t know if I was more afraid of dying of starvation and cold than being put in prison again for, for breaking the curfew.
Well, eventually we did find a shelter in a school, and we were wandering like this through the winter. My first meal, somebody pointed to us out a pickle factory and we climbed in through the window. My first meal was a dill pickle. You know we dug through the ice encrusted ground with our bare fingers. But we were searching for our family. We came to a town called Kielce in Poland. We came there on a train, by train that we had, well, I’m rushing.
So, when we arrived at the train station, there were people greeting one another, families, and we were there all alone. So, there my mother, sister, and I are there all alone, very frightened. Then we hear a sound, “amcho.” Amcho is a Hebrew word, and it means “of the people” or “of the clan.” That was very often used when we were lost among people that we did not trust, we were afraid of, we would always chant, “Amcho.” If there was another Jew, so he knows that he is not alone. Well, we met up with, there were a few people, there were maybe eight of us and we walked out in the street aware that we have to find shelter.
A group of hoodlums spotted us and they started to pelt us with stones, with rocks, dogs, and sick dogs on us. I was very frightened. We were frightened of dogs, because dogs were also used, German Shepherds, to attack us. So, there were parents who were watching the children, the young kids do it. Nobody said anything. Night was falling. I could not imagine how the moon or the star can hang in the sky when my people were so completely abandoned.
Down the street we began to see lights flickering in windows—lights in windows, home, enclosures, security. Such, such, such craving. And there we are, alone in the street. And the door, and these guys, the hoodlums chasing us with the stones, and a door opens. And a little old woman steps out, dressed in black, looking darker than the black of night, a crescent smile on her face. She looks, looks down the street and she sees what happens, and she jumps, places herself between the flying rocks and us, raises her hands and she says, “Stop it! Stop that cruelty!” She advanced at them with the bold conviction of, of absolute values of what is right and good, and she stopped them. Then she ushered us into her house. She gave us shelter. It was a tiny little hovel, a little room. She was like a good aunt. She talked to us all evening, shared about her life, asked questions. Then when the first light of morning rose, we left to wander into the wintry landscape again. I left very grateful. My faith in humanity was restored, but utterly puzzled. If this old woman could do it, why didn’t others?
I believe, you know when I was a young child, my father used to tell us a legend about, he said, the old Jewish legend. It says that anytime in life, there are thirty six righteous people. They don’t know who they are. They don’t know that they are the chosen ones. They don’t know that they are the righteous people, because—and nobody else knows that they are the 36 righteous ones. Nobody knows, because they are ordinary people, dressed in ordinary clothes, doing, just going about their life doing what is good and right. When I was a child said that these people will always be with us. When I was a child I believed him. I am now an old grandmother, and I still believe. I believe that the old woman in Kielce was one of the Lamed Vav Tzadikim , and consider that anyone of us here, anyone of us, maybe one of the Lamed Vav Tzadikim. Because, they are just ordinary, humble people who do what is right and good.
I want to thank everyone for being such good listeners. I know that it’s hard to listen to such stories, and it’s hard to share such stories, because they generate such pain. But we need to be reminded from time to time what can happen to the conscience of a nation when we live with tyranny; what can happen to love; what can happen to trust. And I am very proud to volunteer for the Museum, because this extraordinary place reminds us that history remembers. We have to remember, as long as Darfurs are still happening, Majdanek and Auschwitz are still with us.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
We have time just for a couple of questions. If you could raise your hand, and then because this is being recorded, I’ll have to repeat it. Yes, sir, in the hat.
AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Yes. What was your reception in Bavaria?
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
The question is about reception in Bavaria.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Reception in Bavaria… Well, it was a very, very difficult…I have to point out that I am I appreciate very much the fact that German people now are making a conscious effort to understand what happened. I think that redemption comes with understanding. I think understanding is an obligation. We all have to understand in order to transcend. In order to make the world a place that everyone is safe in.
The reception was that most people did not know in Bavaria when I came. The most people didn’t know what happened. Most people didn’t know that neighbors were being marched down the street, and it was very difficult for us. I wanted to believe that not everyone was that way. I did not want to be unfair to anyone who wasn’t that way, because…I had to believe, and I still do. I had to believe in the good of people. I had to believe that the people, even if they did wrong if a situation like whatever circumstances made them be blind and deaf and mute. Not all, but those who were, that they would act differently, because Germany too did not benefit from it. So, most of the people made an attempt to be hospitable.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Was there a question here? Yes.
AUDIENCE MEMBER:
I realize your life will never be the same because you went through this experience, but I’d like to know if you could say there’s been one thing in your life since then, what has inspired you to be able to go on and not have hatred or you know, in peace? You seem to be a very successful or peaceful woman with this situation. What has been the one thing that has inspired you to be able to live that kind of life?
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Estelle, just for the recording, so they’ll be able to hear the question is about what has inspired Estelle to have a peaceful and positive outlook on life.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
Hate has to stop somewhere. I have to believe that I am not being romantic in saying that people are all good. I know that there is good and there is and we do noble things and we’re capable of very cruel things. I have to believe and address the best in us. I know that everyone who is here today and everyone who works in this Museum; we are united with a belief that for humanity to survive, for humanity to progress, we have to address the best in us. And, I do, there’s a balance too. Pain and suffering is part of life. Loss is part of life that never leaves you, but misery is a choice and you have to fight it. Find a balance. I am very conscious of some young people there. I want to make sure that I tell the young people that young people, 10 year olds and 9 year olds and 8 year olds are very resilient. They are very wise children, know right from wrong. When you see bullies on the playground, you know who is the bully. It takes courage to speak up, but as long as you hold on to the best in you and as long as you don’t forget what is good and right, you’ll always be fine.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
I want to tell you, I’m sure you’ve all been touched as I have by Estelle’s reflectiveness and also her articulate nature. It won’t surprise you to know that in addition to speaking to groups here at the Museum and around the country on behalf of the Museum, she is also part of our survivors writing group. And after the program, if you’d like to talk to Estelle, she’ll also be signing books of reminiscences and essays from a whole range of our survivor volunteers entitled Echoes of Memories. So, you could have a chance to continue the question and answers there. In addition, remind you that portions of this program will be available as a podcast, and if you can come back any other Wednesdays through the end of August or recommend it to someone. To close, I’d like to thank you Estelle, and also our tradition at First Person is to let the first person have the last word. So if there is anything more that you’d like to add, please do.
ESTELLE LAUGHLIN:
I think I wanted to be sure that I did not miss was my appreciation of this wonderful Museum. Also, to say that the purpose of my being here is not to curse the darkness of the past, but to illuminate the future.
EDNA FRIEDBERG:
Thank You.
[Applause]
