Manfred Goldburg wants you to know how the Nazis take away his brother’s life. How to save him

London (Associated Press) -Manfred Goldberg was only 13 years old. At that time, in the Nazi Labor Reform Camp in Latvia, a man was naked and dragged his footsteps towards a SS detention. A man leaned on his shoulder and whispered to save the secret of saving the life of the young Jews.

“If he happened to ask your age, he said you were 17 years old,” the man told him.

Goldburg obeyed the suggestion, and the guard took him to a group selected as a slave worker. It wasn’t until later that he realized that the young prisoner was sent to death because the guardian believed that people under the age of 17 were too young and could not seek benefits for the Nazi war machine.

“I sometimes think that person is sent to save me,” Goldburg said. “I have never seen him again.”

The ritual to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Oswell Camp on Monday is not just a time to commemorate about 6 million Jews in the Massacre. This reminds people that the number of survivors is decreasing as the massacre and anti -Jewie rises, and fewer and fewer people witness to the extinction of Nazi races.

“I’m just a drop in the sea,” he said in an interview at the Survivor Center of the Jewish Care Massacre of London. “But I have made up my mind. As long as God continues to do my physical and mental power, I promise that I will continue to do it. This is why I speak to you here at the age of 94.

This is his story.

Nazi rise

Manfred was born in a city with a population of about 220,000 in central Germany. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was only 3 years old. It was not until he entered the nearby Jewish elementary school that he realized how the country was changing.

At that time, the Hitler Youth League was similar to the scouts, but was used to instill the Nazi ideology to children, and has begun to spread the hatred of Jews.

“They sometimes ambush to wait for us, ambush us, attack us or cursed us,” Goldburg said.

Children are warned: escape, otherwise they will face more trouble.

Because the Nazis systematically excluded the Jews in public life, they first tried to expel Goldburg’s father, and then threatened to send him into a concentration camp. Manfred’s mother Rosa requested time to apply for an immigration visa for him.

She heard that diplomats in the British Embassy in Berlin might help, so she treated 200 miles to see them in a long journey. There, she found the British agent Frank Foley. He worked in the embassy to cover his espionage and eventually issued a visa to escape from Germany for more than 10,000 Jews.

“I believe he is a caring person,” Goldberg said.

The benefits gave Goldberg’s father an emergency visa and told his mother that others in the family could follow up in the next few weeks. But 10 days later, on September 1, 1939, the Nazi invaded Poland. The family was split.

Wearing a stars

With the fierce development of the war, Germany strengthened anti -Jewish law.

The Jews were asked to wear yellow hexagonal stars outdoors and could only buy food in certain stores. When the store was sold, the Jews fell down.

One day, Goldburg’s mother asked him to carry a schoolbag, the schoolbag covered the stars on the jacket, and went to a non -Jewish bakery with her. She stood opposite the street, gave him a coin, and asked him to run into the store. He asked for a bread, put the money on the counter, and stopped him from grabbing the bread before someone stopped him.

“I was seven or eight years old at that time. I just did it according to her requirements,” he said. “But in retrospect, I realized how serious the situation was. She might be hungry, but she couldn’t bear to see her child hungry.

In 1942, the Nazi regime began to implement the so -called “final solution”, that is, the European Jews were systematically held systematically.

When the SS ringing the door of a humble apartment in Goldburg, they only gave his mother for 10 minutes to clean up his luggage. After three days and three nights without food and water, Manfrad, his brother Herman and their mother found that he had come to Latvia’s capital, and started a nightmare. This nightmare will be next. He brought him to five camps in three years.

Become a number

Manfred lost his name. His number is 56478.

Soon they arrived at a branch of the Precu, where Goldburg and his mother worked there. But Herman was too young. When Manfred and Rosa went out to work, Herman stayed at the camp. In the end, the SS came and took the children away. Manfred has never seen his brother again.

“The next morning, my mother and I had to line up to work, as if nothing had happened,” he said. “Mourning is carried out inside, but if we refuse to go to work, we will lose our lives.”

Just a few months later, when the unknown benefactor whispered in his ear, Goldburg faced the same fate as his brother.

When the Nazis began to lose on the East Line, they transferred prisoners to the Western Front to prevent them from falling into Russia and continuing to massacre.

Goldburg was transferred to the Schutkhof Concentration Camp near the Polish city Gdansk. The front door of the concentration camp was called the “door of death” because there were very few living prisoners. More than 60,000 people were killed and killed by the concentrated camps due to the typhoid fever, injection of death, and being poisoned by Qi Klong B (the same compound used as the Oswelin concentration gas room) from June 1944).

But the last horror is coming.

As the European War was close, the Nazis continued to drive prisoners to west and head to central Germany.

Goldburg and his mother were escorted to 25 miles northwest. Hundreds of prisoners were caught up with the barrier and were detained at sea for a few days without food and water. When the guards of the party disappeared, the prisoners with strong physical strength tear up the wooden board and used them as paddles to return to the shore with large ships.

But as soon as the prisoner landed, the guards returned. First of all, they shot those who were too weak and could not escape, and then arrested those who fled to the shore, including Goldburg and his mother, and began to bring them back to Germany.

Then the British tank column arrived.

Goldburg recalled: “Our armed guards were still murdered because they couldn’t keep up with speed. Suddenly they turned away in the opposite direction and stayed away from us.” “People are very happy. We are not alert. We are free! We are free … you can’t imagine the happiness we feel.

After reuniting with his father in the UK, Goldburg began his engineer career, married and had four children.

For more than 50 years, he refused to tell his story.

He hopes that his child will have normal parents and will not be buried by the Holocaust. But about 20 years ago, when he was in his 70s, his Jewish church invited him to a memorial service. His wife, Sally, encouraged him to remember: Who would say your story when you die?

He never turned back.

“Silence will never help the oppressive people,” Goldburg said. “It always helps oppressors.”

The best revenge

Goldburg’s living room in the home of London proves that it is important to him. The gallery is filled with photos of children, grandson, great -grandson, and family gatherings of life. Standing in the room, you will see a person who is celebrating his miracle that he is allowed to survive.

But there are another photo.

This painting is a fat boy, a grid -collaring tie, with a smile on his lips. Hanging next to the front door, you can see it every time Goldburg stepped into this world. This is another photo of a boy who has not got this opportunity.

Herman.

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The Associated Press, Danish Copenhagen, has contributed to this report.