This was published 3 years ago
'I said to the Gestapo man, I am Jewish and you can shoot me'
By Caroline Hartnett
Sarah Saaroni swam laps at her local pool in Kew every day until the COVID-19 restrictions forced it to close. The 93-year-old does not complain or want restrictions lifted too soon. She swapped the exercise she loves for an hour on her indoor bike, and when the pandemic has subsided she will return to swimming.
Sarah knows better than anyone what it means to live in lockdown, to feel repression and have liberties removed. In 1942, aged 16, the then Sarah Fiszman was living in Germany posing as a Polish Christian when she was betrayed by a friend who revealed she was Jewish. She was captured by the Gestapo, imprisoned, interrogated and condemned to the second-largest concentration and extermination camp, Majdanek in Poland.
Holocaust survivor Sarah Saaroni, 93, at home in Hawthorn with some of the sculptures she has created.Credit: Jason South
Sarah, who now lives in Hawthorn, had a happy childhood with her parents, two brothers and sister in the town of Lublin, Poland. However, in September 1939 the Nazis invaded and the then 13-year-old schoolgirl had her life brutally upended.
“One day I was a little girl, protected, loved, spoiled; the next day I had to be an adult,” Sarah says.
The Jewish people were evicted from their homes and forced to move into a Jewish ghetto, where living conditions were horrific.
“The ghetto was just a few blocks in the slum area. It was dirty, no running water – people were hungry, there were epidemics, people were dying by the hundreds,” Sarah says. “At that time regardless of what we saw we still could not believe in it; it was too horrible to comprehend. We did not believe they would kill all of us, who would do a thing like that. A nation like the Germans – they won’t be killing babies, children, women, all the people.
“We saw people being killed, we tried to find excuses for it, justification for it - they are killing a few to make us submissive but surely if we follow orders and do what we were told to do somehow we will manage to survive.”
Sarah in lockdown at home. Credit: Jason South
After several years in the ghetto and then outside in hiding, Sarah’s family ran out of money.
“By the middle of 1942 there was no way for us to exist as a family outside of the ghetto. At that time to give refuge to a Jew was very dangerous. There were not many people willing to risk their lives to save us. I can understand it; those that did it were really heroes. But unfortunately there were a lot of people who freely co-operated with the Germans. The Germans would never have succeeded to do what they did without the help of millions of helpers behind them – and there were helpers everywhere,” Sarah says.
Her parents arranged for her to escape alone with false papers that said she was a Polish Christian so she could join other young Poles who had been forced to leave their homeland to work in Germany.
Sarah (front) in 1934 with mother Estera, brother Julek, sister Zosia and father Aron.Credit: Jewish Holocaust Centre Archival Collection
"When I heard the plans my parents had for me I was horrified. I had just turned 16 and I couldn’t imagine even one day on my own in a faraway place, in a different country, surrounded by hostile people who want to kill me. It was the first time I stood up to my mother, and I said, 'I won’t be going anywhere. Whatever will happen to you all, will happen to me.'
"My mother started to cry and told me that nothing will happen to them, they don’t need all the people, that I was the one in danger and I would be the one taken away and every time she heard footsteps outside her heart will stop, but if she knows I am safe it will be easier for them and they will be able to look after themselves better, that we will survive and we will meet again."
Not wanting to burden her parents, Sarah agreed to go. “I was so angry with my mother for forcing me to make the decision and when we parted I didn’t say a proper goodbye. That was the last time I saw them.”
Sarah worked with 47 other girls in a Heinz and Hasse sauce factory in Hamburg, where she was forced to lead a life of lies.
Sarah's parents, Aron and Estera Fiszman, at their clothing store in Lublin, Poland, circa 1938.Credit: Jewish Holocaust Archival Collection
"But by telling one lie I had to cover it up with so many other lies. There were times that I was completely confused. I was scared every minute of the day and night of being recognised. If someone just glanced at me my heart would stop. At the same time I couldn’t show that I was scared. I had to look everyone straight in the face – I had to dance, I had to sing, I had to laugh, while I was crying inside. I couldn’t be different from the others and I could not trust anyone.”
For the first two months, Sarah would receive smuggled postcards from her father, but one day they stopped coming. So in Easter 1943, desperate to learn of her family’s wellbeing, Sarah posted three postcards to Polish friends wishing them a happy Easter.
“On the envelope I put my address, hoping that if they know anything about anyone from my family they will get in touch with me. One of the so-called friends went to the Gestapo and betrayed me. I don’t know if it was for the belongings that we left with them or just for the pure satisfaction of having another one of us eliminated.”
Meanwhile, Hamburg was bombed and Sarah left the city to find work on a farm 50 kilometres away. “While Hamburg was burning the Gestapo still had time to look for me, because I had committed such a tremendous crime – of being born Jewish. And they found me,” she says.
Sarah was taken into Gestapo headquarters and interrogated. They eventually let her go, but retained her identification documents. Knowing she was no longer safe, she fled. She was once again caught and taken to Gestapo headquarters and held for two days.
“I was standing all day long with my hands in handcuffs. At night I was taken down to the cellar. I was not given any food or anything to drink. I was simply ignored. I was like a piece of furniture. By the end I just gave up. I couldn’t take it any more and I wanted to end it. I knew deep down there was no one left from my family,” Sarah says. “So I turned around and I said to the Gestapo man, 'I will tell you the truth, I am Jewish and you can shoot me.' ”
Sarah was condemned to Majdanek concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin. But the train trip to the camp included a transfer in Leipzig, where she managed to escape.
"People say you must have been very clever and very, very brave, but that is not the truth. I wasn’t brave – I was petrified. I wasn’t clever. Having the time to plan, I would never have had the courage to do it. I was like an animal. I did everything instinctively, on impulse," she says. "As much as I wanted to die at that time, something inside of me was fighting to stay alive. And I succeeded.”
She made her way to a town outside of Dresden where she established a new false identity and found work. And on May 8, 1945, 75 years ago, Europe was liberated when Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. Sarah was freed by the Russian army and eventually returned to Poland. There were no family members left there, although her brothers were still alive.
A montage of photos Sarah donated to the Jewish Holocaust Centre of her family before the war. Rear from left: Brother Gidal, mother Estera, Sarah and father Aron. Front: Brother Julek, sister Zosia, Zosia's son Misza and husband Ziamka Buszmac. Credit: Jewish Holocaust Centre Archival Collection
“All the family I left behind in Poland perished, I don’t know how or where,” she says, “I didn’t belong there; it wasn’t my home any more.”
Displaced, Sarah joined a group of young Jewish refugees pretending to be Greek bound for Greece and illegally crossed war-torn Europe’s borders. From Italy on a fishing boat the group tried to get to Palestine.
“All the borders were closed for us. No one wanted us and Palestine was the only place we felt we had roots. Unfortunately, we were caught by the British, but as we were in an Italian port they did not have the power to take us by force. We sat on the boat [the Dov Hoz] for six weeks; there were 1014 of us. Then we had a hunger strike; it was huge news all over the world. By the end the British were forced to give us free entry. And in the beginning of May 1946 we arrived in Palestine. We were the only group that arrived legally,” Sarah says.
A crowd had gathered to meet the boat when it reached Palestine. Among the faces she spotted a familiar one – her brother Gidal, whom she had not seen since he had left for Palestine in 1937.
In Palestine, Sarah joined the underground defence movement, the Haganah, and was involved in the defence of Tel Aviv. She took part in the war of independence that resulted in the formation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. “We won the war but we were sitting on top of a volcano that's erupting all the time,” she says.
Sarah (front) in 1945 with surviving relatives (clockwise from left) sister-in-law Ester, niece Dahlia, nephew Aaron, brother Gidal and brother Julek. Credit: Jewish Holocaust Centre Archival Collection
Sarah was married and had two children. In 1953 she made a voyage with her young family to meet her second brother, Julek, who had survived by escaping to Russia and eventually travelled to Melbourne. Julek had arranged papers for the young family to come to Australia.
“I came to Australia, not to settle, just to live a couple of years without wars. I was sorry I came. I was so disillusioned not being able to communicate, not a penny to our name, with two small children. But we couldn’t turn back, we burnt our bridges and it took me 15 years to realise how lucky we are to be living here – it is the best country in the world.”
For 42 years Sarah never talked about her past. It was not until 1983 that she found catharsis in sculpture, an outlet for her pain. This led her to write the first of two books, Life Goes On Regardless…
“It was only after I wrote my life story did I become free. I looked out the window and it was so beautiful, there was colour – I didn’t see it before. I felt so light, like something heavy was lifted from my arms, and that was the first time I realised I can talk without breaking down.”
Sarah has been volunteering at the Jewish Holocaust Centre for decades, telling her story to students and other visitors.
In 2015 she was awarded an Order of Australia for promoting tolerance and diversity. "I feel it is my duty to talk for those that lost their voice, because people should be aware of what ignorance can bring. We are all human beings, there are no races – we are all the human race.
"You can’t live with hatred, you will destroy yourself. You can’t blame a whole nation, a new generation – they are not guilty. In every nation you have got good people, bad people and evil people – it all depends who is in power.
“If you want to go on living you cannot dwell on the past, you have to put it behind you. You have to have hope. Without hope there is nothing left.”
If you would like to connect with Sarah or other Holocaust survivors, you can visit the Jewish Holocaust Centre Survivor Connect Mission at jhc.org.au/survivor-connect/
More pictures: jhc.org.au/storypods/storys/sarah-saaroni/