FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, November 12, 2009

Contact:  Robert Preston, Jr.,
              912.260.4276
              robert.preston@sgc.edu

Thomasville author tells of mother’s experience in Holocaust

Silence. That’s the policy that Thomasville therapist and author Yocheved Artzi’s mother employed regarding her experiences at Auschwitz, the largest and most efficient Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Yocheved’s mother, Rachel, remained silent about Auschwitz for 50 years.

Then, some 20 years ago, after the family moved to the United States, Rachel began talking. And Yocheved began writing. Stealing German Bread, a book detailing Rachel’s experiences, was the end result of those conversations. Tuesday, Nov. 10, Yocheved discussed the book and the story behind it in the William S. Smith Library on campus.

Rachel was born in Sighet, Hungary. She later moved to Budapest, where she lived until the German occupation of Hungary. When the Germans arrived, she returned to Sighet. According to Yocheved, the Jewish community in Hungary thought they were safe from the Nazis. “The Jews felt like the Hungarian government would protect them,” she said. Instead, the Hungarian government capitulated to the Germans, who rounded up as many Jews as possible and sent them to Auschwitz. Yocheved told the story of how her mother was transported. “The Germans ordered all Jews in Sighet to gather at the local synagogue. That’s where the Jews were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz – in front of the synagogue. They were loaded on trains and taken to Auschwitz,” she said. They arrived in the spring of 1944.

Upon arrival at the concentration camp, Jews were divided into two groups. Those who German soldiers determined were fit to work were sent to barracks where they were subjected to slave labor in the camp. Those deemed too weak or unfit for work were sent immediately to the gas chambers. Avoiding the gas chamber initially was no guarantee of survival – unsanitary conditions, torture, back-breaking labor and random executions made survival difficult at best. The Auschwitz death machine worked with chilling and grisly efficiency. Many of Rachel’s family members were among the millions of people – over 90 percent of whom were Jews – who were killed at the camp.

Rachel and her sister were selected for work, and they remained in the camp until it was liberated in May of 1945. In the year Rachel and her sister spent in Auschwitz, they were witness to unspeakable horrors. Stories of the brutality of Auschwitz can be readily found in a number of resources – mass executions, abuse of the worst kind, starvation, macabre medical experiments, just to name a few. Those stories are just that – stories – to many of Yocheved’s readers. But to Rachel, they were the grim realities she faced every day for one long year.

Rachel would never say anything about Auschwitz. Yocheved knew she had been there, but it wasn’t a topic conversation. “When I was in the first grade, I started getting very curious about the Holocaust,” said Yocheved, who was born in 1951, some six years after Rachel’s release.

She would have to wait nearly three decades for her mother to open up. Stealing German Bread is more than simply a collection of stories about life in Auschwitz. It’s the story of Rachel’s quest to help her sister survive the atrocities of the camp. Yocheved’s aunt was stricken with typhus, a common disease among prisoners in the concentration camps. Sadly, Rachel’s sister died from typhus two days after being liberated from Auschwitz. “She did everything she could to save her sister. It’s a very courageous story,” said Yocheved.

The title of the book is interesting itself. It comes from an incident in which Rachel stole bread from the kitchen at Auschwitz. SS guards saw her, and she fled – with the bread. The guards and their attack dogs gave chase, but Rachel managed to avoid being caught. “It’s a miracle she wasn’t captured. I still don’t understand it,” said Yocheved.

Following liberation, Rachel lived in Germany until Israel was formed in 1948. Then she, along with thousands of other Jews, moved to their new homeland. “My mother recovered from Auschwitz physically but the pain is always there in her heart,” said Yocheved.

Rachel and Yocheved both wanted the story told to ensure that the Holocaust doesn’t happen again. “Jews are always afraid that the Holocaust will happen again. We are still in danger in a number of ways. For us, the Holocaust could happen again,” she said, speaking of those countries and groups that wish to purge the Middle East – and the world – of Jews. “I would love to take a shipment of books to Iran and let them read it. They are the biggest Holocaust deniers of them all.”

Rachel survived because she is very strong and maintained an optimistic outlook despite her grim circumstances. A self-made woman, she prospered in Israel after the war and has done very well for herself. She lives today in Israel, and talks to Yocheved daily. Yocheved, who is named after her aunt who died of typhus, has not visited Auschwitz but plans to in the future. She also hopes to write other books describing the Holocaust in the future.

For more information on Yocheved or Stealing German Bread, visit www.yochevednovels.com.
 

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