There are a lot of Holocaust memoirs out there. This one is a little bit different. Czech-English physicist Felix Weinberg does
not like to refer to himself as a “camp survivor.” He considers it a series of miracles that he
lived and his family did not. But I find
it hard to call Weinberg anything but a survivor. This book tells the story of a teenager who
survived not only Terezín, but Auschwitz-Birkenau, Blechhammer, the Blechhammer
death march, Gross-Rosen and Buchenwald.
Once the war was over, Weinberg vowed only to look toward the
future. But years of not talking about
his experiences left him feeling that he owed it to both his living and
deceased relatives to put his story on paper.
Much of this book is a monument to his family. Weinberg’s memories begin when he was a young
child living in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem), Czechoslovakia. He speaks fondly of the beautiful family
home. How he and his mother, father and brother went to visit his mother’s
parents in Prague during the holidays.
He talks about his health obsessed father, Victor, who always took the family on nature outings,
fed them all vitamins and even went so far as to hire a gymnastics trainer for
young Felix.
In 1939, Weinberg’s father left Czechoslovakia for London
where he was arranging to move the entire family. Hitler invaded the country in March of that
year. Victor had secured three Red Cross
transportation passes for the remaining Weinbergs but through some sort of red
tape or missing documents, they were not allowed to leave the country. Nelly, Felix’s mother, moved them all to the
small town of Wildenschwert (Ústí nad Orlicí) to live with the
family of Rudolph Pick, a family friend.
Things continued to deteriorate in Czechoslovakia. Soon, Felix was refused access to the local
school due to his status as a Jew. Food
shortages worsened. The SS even had the
nerve to confiscate all of the skis belonging to Jews living in that mountain
town. Rudolph and Nelly decided to send inexperienced
Felix to live at a nearby farm where he would be well fed. This arrangement lasted about a week. The Germans requisitioned the Picks’ large
home in 1942 and the Weinbergs were soon after deported to Terezín;
beginning a five year journey of horror and chance survival.
Weinberg’s short memoir is striking in its straightforward tone
but is not filled with ghastly details of Nazi atrocities. Felix explains that he does not remember
large portions of those five years; that his mind enabled him to “see without
seeing” as a coping mechanism. Weinberg
defied so many odds by surviving the war and his everyday account of life in
Nazi concentration camps makes for an enthralling read. Boy30529 is a thoughtful account of one man’s family and his experience during
the holocaust.
