{"id":40961,"date":"2023-03-24T01:51:12","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T08:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=40961"},"modified":"2023-03-22T16:19:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T23:19:13","slug":"survivor-breaks-his-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2023\/03\/24\/survivor-breaks-his-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"Survivor breaks his silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emerich Klein speaks to a student following his recent talk at King David High School. (photo from KDHS)<\/em><\/p>\n

For decades, Emerich Klein kept his story of survival during the Holocaust to himself. While raising two children in Vancouver and making a life, he shared nothing of what had happened to him after he,\u00a0together with his family, was deported to Auschwitz.<\/p>\n

After years of cajoling, Klein shared his experiences with Russ Klein, his son, who is principal of King David High School. In 2019, he also sat with interviewer Hodie Kahn and recorded almost four hours of testimony for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 14, with his son the principal at his side, Emerich Klein spoke of his survival story for the first time to an audience, addressing students in a Holocaust studies class. The students had viewed the recorded testimony in advance of the visit.<\/p>\n

Klein was born in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia, in 1930, and lived with his sister Judith and their parents Isidor and Rose on the site of the electric power plant where Isidor worked. They had a large extended family and Emerich remembers Shabbat dinners at his grandparents\u2019 home, with throngs of cousins. His grandparents, who were very traditional, were in charge of the mikveh and his grandfather was a melamed<\/em>, a teacher.<\/p>\n

Emerich\u2019s early childhood was largely uneventful, except for being taunted and beaten up on his way to and from school by non-Jewish kids. At one point, on the advice of a teacher, he loaded his school bag with rocks and took revenge on his tormentors. When one of the bullies dragged the police to the Kleins\u2019 door urging assault charges, Emerich\u2019s father explained how his son frequently returned from school bloody. The cop apologized and left. The father of the bully beat his own son \u2013 not for bullying, it would seem, but for being bested by a Jew.<\/p>\n

While older people may have sensed the shifting social climate, for kids like Emerich, things seemed pretty good for a time. By 1941, though, Jewish businesses could operate only with an Aryan partner and so an uncle had to close his small bakery.<\/p>\n

When Isidor was conscripted \u2013 first into the army and then, when Jews could no longer serve in the military, in a work battalion \u2013 the family\u2019s fortunes suffered. His boss at the power plant eventually convinced authorities that he was an irreplaceable employee.<\/p>\n

One day, a stranger showed up in town, speaking a language Emerich did not understand. The boy took the man to a rabbi and, after the rabbi shooed Emerich away, the man explained that he had escaped Poland and told the rabbi what was happening to Jews there. The man\u2019s stories of ghettoization, forced starvation and worse was unimaginable to the Jews of Uzhorod.<\/p>\n

Under the 1938 Munich Agreement, which British prime minister Neville Chamberlain signed with Hitler to partition Czechoslovakia, Uzhorod was returned to Hungary, to which it had belonged until the First World War. (It is now in Ukraine.) In 1944, the Nazis occupied Hungary, and things got much worse for the Jews living there. When they heard the word \u201cghetto,\u201d the words of the Polish stranger who had shown up in town returned to them.<\/p>\n

Emerich\u2019s grandfather was stopped on the street, beaten up and had his beard cut off. Jews were ordered to report to a cordoned-off area but, because this ghetto was so small, it served mostly as a deportation area. The Kleins remained there only for a couple of days.<\/p>\n

They were packed into railway cars, with only room to stand. One big drum served as a potable water supply and another as a toilet. Children were crying, people were moaning.<\/p>\n

After several days \u2013 Emerich doesn\u2019t know how long \u2013 the train stopped. People were banging on the outside of the cars and the doors were flung open. People in striped clothes screamed at them to get out. They had arrived at Auschwitz.<\/p>\n

Once they got down off the train, the women and children were separated from the men. The old and sick were yanked across the tracks and packed into big waiting trucks. Rose pushed Emerich to join the men. The boy didn\u2019t want to let go of his mother but she screamed at him to leave. He ran and found his father.<\/p>\n

While waiting for the next step in their processing, Emerich saw what he thought were piles of cordwood but he soon realized they were human bodies. The new arrivals were taken to a building for a cold shower, then they were shaved, doused in disinfectant and handed clothing in random sizes.<\/p>\n

When an army officer called for metal workers, Isidor volunteered and a fellow prisoner advised Emerich to step forward or risk being separated from his father. Despite his lack of knowledge in the field, Emerich passed himself off as an apprentice. Together, the father and son were separated from the rest of the group and transported out of Auschwitz, on a train again for days, until they arrived in France.<\/p>\n

Isidor and Emerich worked at a mine in tolerable conditions, with survival rations for a time, until they were moved again, to a salt mine in Germany. There, they were joined by 1,000 inmates from Poland and Emerich and the others learned the horrors of what was happening further east.<\/p>\n

At the salt mine, their job was to break boulders to make gravel and then level out the ground, so concrete could be pored over it. After a time, Emerich was put on burial duty, which was less physically onerous work. A Russian prisoner assured Emerich that the war would soon be over and to keep up his strength. He would move on to factory work, cleaning the floor and cutting aluminum.<\/p>\n

In April 1945, the workers were forced on a death march. Planes were flying so low that the prisoners could see the pilots. As the march continued, Isidor insisted he couldn\u2019t go on, but Emerich and two of their friends stuck together and forced the father to keep moving. Eventually, they were loaded onto a train and provided food for the first time in nine days. Then, in the midst of a great commotion, the incarcerated passengers realized that the German army was in full retreat. The guards abandoned the prisoners.<\/p>\n

Emerich and his group walked into the nearest town, which was already overrun with freed prisoners. They were put up in a German army base that had been repurposed as a repatriation centre. Tables had been set up for each country and people registered their names and hometowns.<\/p>\n

Emerich and Isidor eventually made it back to Uzhorod, but Emerich\u2019s mother Rose and sister Judith never returned. All the extended relatives but two cousins were gone. Emerich spent most of the time crying.<\/p>\n

After a few weeks, Emerich left by himself for Prague and registered with the Joint Distribution Committee, after which he was transferred to a displaced persons camp in Germany. He intended to go to Palestine with members of his youth movement, but word came that the British were halting migration.<\/p>\n

A friend told him of an opportunity to go to Canada, so they signed up. Six months later, Emerich docked in Halifax and made his way to Toronto, where he stayed for two years. The Jewish community there was highly supportive and Emerich became an apprentice jeweler. Isidor, who in the new world would be known as Robert, and his new wife arrived during this time.<\/p>\n

Isidor\/Robert had remarried a fellow survivor from Uzhorod, who had a sibling in Chilliwack, B.C., so the family headed to the West Coast. Emerich met his wife, the Vancouver-born Jenny, in a bowling alley during a B\u2019nai B\u2019rith event.<\/p>\n

In the King David classroom last month, students asked thoughtful questions and Klein responded. His son told students they were lucky to see the elder Mr. Klein at his most talkative, as getting a sentence from the soft-spoken senior is considered by family members to be an accomplishment.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Russ Klein, principal of King David High School, and his father, Emerich Klein, who spoke to a KDHS class in February about his experiences during the Holocaust. (photo from KDHS)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A student asked if he ever lost faith that he would survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, definitely,\u201d said Klein. \u201cWe lived not from week to week or day to day, but from hour to hour. Life didn\u2019t mean a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

About liberation, he said, \u201cI felt wonderful. I felt that I\u2019d been given a chance to live again, to be human again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked how his experiences under the Nazis and their collaborators had affected his attitudes toward religion, Klein was blunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sort of turned me against it,\u201d he said. Nevertheless, he insisted that his two children attend Talmud Torah elementary school. Why?<\/p>\n

\u201cTo learn about Judaism and to learn about the Holocaust,\u201d he said, turning to his son. \u201cI was not able to talk about it, but you had to know about it. That was the only way that I could get my children to learn about it. They couldn\u2019t learn it through me.\u201d<\/p>\n

His decades-long refusal to discuss the past with his children was intended to prevent the next generation from anguish, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should they suffer my pain?\u201d he asked. \u201cThat was a terrible thing to think about. Bad enough that I suffered, [why should] they suffer the same thing through me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on his postwar return to Uzhorod, Klein was again straightforward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went back to see who came back from the family. I spent a month, maybe six weeks there and then I left, never to return,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was very difficult. I came up against reality there. Up until then, we did not know what happened to the rest of our family. We were separated and that\u2019s all I knew. I had hopes that everybody was coming back. Nobody came back. So there was no point in me staying there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming to Canada was wonderful and difficult, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWonderful just to get out of Europe \u2013 doesn\u2019t matter where,\u201d he said. \u201cI just wanted to get out of that country that was soaked in Jewish blood.\u201d But, he added: \u201cIt was difficult \u2013 difficult to get used to a new life, a new way of living, a new language, a new country. I was 17 years old. It was very difficult but you make do. You do the best you can. You adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Settling into life in Vancouver, Klein made family and stability his focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cA normal person would try to make a living and get themselves a better position, work your way up in life,\u201d he said. \u201cTo me, that was not important. To me, the important thing was family. I concentrated on one thing only. Just to give you an example, all my friends went into business \u2013 I did not. They asked me, why don\u2019t you go into business? I said \u2026 what happens if it doesn\u2019t go right? These children cannot be hungry. I knew what hunger was. It was so important for me to stay just at a low level but make sure that my family will not go without. That was an effect of what happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A student asked why, after all these years, Klein decided to speak.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I was convinced after an awful long time that to be silent is being complicit in what happened,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to talk about it, even if it hurts, you\u2019ve got to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is concerned by some of the political developments he sees in the world today.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of humanity is very good,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are parts of society that are not good. Let\u2019s face it, people can be influenced very easily. If you get a charismatic person, [they] can convince people of almost anything they want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emerich Klein speaks to a student following his recent talk at King David High School. (photo from KDHS) For decades, Emerich Klein kept his story of survival during the Holocaust to himself. While raising two children in Vancouver and making a life, he shared nothing of what had happened to him after he,\u00a0together with his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3076,22201,53,1559,1047,7807,5768],"class_list":["post-40961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-education","tag-emerich-klein","tag-holocaust","tag-kdhs","tag-king-david-high-school","tag-russ-klein","tag-survivor"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}