Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps

As a mischevious boy, Jack used to…

• Climb the tall buildings in his neighborhood

• Walk the railing on the harbor’s bridge

• Jump freight trains for a ride

• Swim among ships in the harbor

Why didn’t Grandfather’s non-Jewish friends and neighbors aid them?

• They had been secret Nazi sympathizers

• They were being held at gunpoint

• They were given the Jews possessions by the Nazis

• They were anti-semitic deep inside

In 1940, how did Jack earn extra money?

• Partisans paid him to smuggle messages past Nazi checkpoints

• Well-off people paid him to take their place on forced labor crews

• He picked up pieces of coal from the railroad track and sold them

• He sold vegetables he was able to glean from harvested fields

How was Jack separated from his mother and Jakob?

• His mother and brother were apprehended as they traveled to visit Jadzia

• Jack was sent to the right after showing his letter with its Nazi stamp

• Jack was away on a forced labor detail when the Nazis came for his family

• His mother and brothers hiding place was betrayed by a non-Jewish “friend”

What survival philosophy did jack think was the better way?

• Hoard food for lean days

• Conserve energy by working as little as possible

• Work hard to avoid beatings

• Become a kapo by showing no mercy to the other prisoners

According to the other prisoners, why was Jack lucky he had typhus?

• It kept him from certain death demining a field

• A mild case of typhus was like an inoculation

• The hospitals Catholic doctor gave the inmates extra food

• His work detail had been strafed by Russian planes

When sick with dysentery, Jack realized…

• His brother was in an adjacent cot

• The doctor was giving Sickman shots to kill them

• The opportunity to rest in the hospital saved his life

• Some SS men smuggled food to the patients

Jack didn’t think either here, or Moniek would be alive if…

• They hadn’t become camp cooks

• The Americans hadn’t liberated the camp

• The commandants wife hadn’t interceded with her husband

• They hadn’t stolen medicine while assigned to the hospital

What did jack think was fortunate about the last camp he was at?

• It was located close to the rapidly advancing American lines

• The camp had a typhus epidemic that kept the guards out

• The camp had run out of poison gas and fuel for the ovens

• The guards were not members of the ideologically motivated SS

Jack’s 17 year old sister died because she…

• Spit in the face of a Nazi officer

• Insisted on leaving her hiding place to help in the fields

• Refused to become the commandant concubine

• Would not abandon the baby she cared for