The Tattooist's Son: Journey to Auschwitz 2025
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00:00I'm terrified of Auschwitz, okay?
00:00:30Nah, I'm not ready to walk in yet, sorry.
00:00:35Why do I not have the guts to do it?
00:00:43You live in a very unique world,
00:00:45because the world knows about your mother and father.
00:00:51Mr Sokolov.
00:00:55You're looking for someone to write your life story?
00:01:00My parents were almost like that got put away in a box.
00:01:05His story was kept hidden for decades
00:01:07until he revealed it to author Heather Morris.
00:01:10It is a Holocaust story.
00:01:12It's not the story of the Holocaust.
00:01:15There are still unanswered questions.
00:01:18Why was my dad so hardened?
00:01:20Why was my mum so depressed?
00:01:23The people that have read the book actually knew more than I did growing up.
00:01:29The thought of having to walk through those gates terrifies me.
00:01:33And I have tried four times and I couldn't even cross,
00:01:36which made me feel like a coward.
00:01:40This is my parents' history.
00:01:42Oh, my dad would be so proud of that.
00:01:46It's amazing.
00:01:48I felt the presence of your mum.
00:01:51She let me tell this story.
00:01:54He's just this one man and he's so small in this enormous camp.
00:01:59And he's learning about horror that's unfolding.
00:02:01And that's what beats me up,
00:02:03is that there's this gap of their experience
00:02:08that I haven't experienced yet.
00:02:11I have to do this now.
00:02:41Smile for the camera.
00:02:45I'm a beautiful bird.
00:02:48And she's not shy and telling me off.
00:02:51There you go.
00:02:53Yeah.
00:02:55Okay, so my name's Gary Sokolov.
00:02:59I am the only child of Lali and Gita Sokolov.
00:03:05My parents were happy people.
00:03:08They had managed to almost wipe out that whole experience.
00:03:15And for them, it was always about moving forward.
00:03:18I mean, how beautiful is my mum?
00:03:20And look at my dad.
00:03:22And there was this smile.
00:03:24How proud they were to have had a child.
00:03:28You know, 16 years of trying.
00:03:31And they finally had the same.
00:03:33And you can just see the glow.
00:03:38I'm 63.
00:03:43It's time.
00:03:45It's time for me to know my parents.
00:03:49And they deserve for me to understand what they went through.
00:03:57I want now to walk in their footsteps.
00:04:04You know, try and understand what was going through their heads.
00:04:09Because the impact it had on them was lifelong.
00:04:12When did you arrive in Australia?
00:04:191949 September.
00:04:22You want to see the picture?
00:04:24In that photo is when we arrived the first day to Australia.
00:04:29It is Sydney.
00:04:31And have you had any children?
00:04:33I have one son, thanks God, who is a very big and good boy.
00:04:38He's big all the time, but good occasionally.
00:04:41What's his name?
00:04:42Gary and we love him very much.
00:04:44You want some help?
00:04:54Can you grab out the mayonnaise?
00:04:57Yeah.
00:04:58Salt?
00:04:59Look at that.
00:05:00I did it.
00:05:01Being a dad was really, really important to me.
00:05:07I suppose if there was any enormous guilt, it would have been if my parents had survived
00:05:16and there was no continuity.
00:05:18Hello.
00:05:19Good Shabbos.
00:05:20Good Shabbos.
00:05:21Hello.
00:05:22Molly, you look beautiful.
00:05:24How are you?
00:05:25Good Shabbos.
00:05:26I cherish every single happy or sad moment with them because I'm a dad.
00:05:35And it's like amazing.
00:05:37Good Shabbos, everyone.
00:05:40Good Shabbos, everyone.
00:05:41Good Shabbos.
00:05:42L'chaim.
00:05:43L'chaim.
00:05:44Dig in and eat.
00:05:46Wait, who stole the gravy?
00:05:48Me.
00:05:49Are you ready?
00:05:56Yes.
00:06:00When I had spent that first day with him, he said to me,
00:06:04did you know I was a tetavera in Auschwitz?
00:06:08I was spending time with this man who had lived
00:06:11through one of the most horrific episodes of recent history.
00:06:15Not only lived, he'd survived.
00:06:17He'd been a fighter.
00:06:19He always would do that to his arm and make the numbers.
00:06:36I would sometimes come home from work
00:06:38and he would be standing, staring at that window.
00:06:42He wouldn't even hear me come in.
00:06:44And it would be like, hi, Dad.
00:06:47And he wouldn't react for a minute or two.
00:06:53I'm right here.
00:07:02You know it.
00:07:03My dad said to me so many times about he was constantly surrounded by ghosts.
00:07:13They'd been part of his life since the day he left there.
00:07:15I could see every now and then when he left me.
00:07:18And I knew now he's back in 1942.
00:07:20I was 11 or 12 years old and there was a documentary, World at War.
00:07:29And my parents said to me that I had to sit there by myself watching this.
00:07:41And I had to sit there by myself watching this.
00:07:41What we went through will be difficult to understand even for our contemporaries and much more difficult for the generations that have already no personal experience from those days.
00:07:52I saw the bulldozers doing piles of dead bodies and people just lying there, skin and bone.
00:08:12And that has stuck with me.
00:08:14And that was my first exposure.
00:08:17And even after that, have something to eat, go to bed.
00:08:22Would you say you've been traumatised by their trauma?
00:08:28That's a really interesting question.
00:08:33My parents were almost like that got put away in a box.
00:08:38That was where we were.
00:08:41This is where we are now.
00:08:44We're in Australia.
00:08:45Why did you come to Australia?
00:08:47Why we came to Australia as far away from ISM as possible.
00:08:52Nazism, communism, I didn't want to hear about it.
00:08:56So as far away.
00:08:58Australia opened its doors to Europe after World War II.
00:09:05The million-odd migrants brought a new flavour and a new look.
00:09:09Learning English, finding jobs, raising families, and by and large having few regrets.
00:09:16Yes, young Australia is a bright light.
00:09:19A fair dinkum land in our changing world.
00:09:28I've never met a Holocaust survivor that's actually willing to talk about his experiences.
00:09:51So we're now on our way to visit a gentleman called Abraham Goldberg.
00:09:57He was one of the founders of the Holocaust Museum here in Melbourne.
00:10:02It's actually his birthday in 10 days' time.
00:10:06He's going to be 100.
00:10:07When they opened the doors, do you remember what your first thought was?
00:10:29I'd only thought about, what will I do?
00:10:33How will I save my mum?
00:10:34Right.
00:10:35Okay.
00:10:36And when my mother helped me down to the high cattle train, we didn't know what those flames are.
00:10:45Right.
00:10:45Nobody knew anything.
00:10:48You only realized it's hell.
00:10:51And how people were treated, she realized she's not going to survive.
00:10:57No.
00:10:57Okay.
00:10:59So she turned to me and said,
00:11:01Abraham, you should do everything human and possible to survive.
00:11:06He knew what I'm going to dedicate my life.
00:11:10It's what I'm doing.
00:11:11Not let the world forget what happened.
00:11:22I'm so honored that I got to talk to you, because my whole life no one spoke to me.
00:11:28No one wanted to.
00:11:30I made it show that my children know.
00:11:33The young Jew in Australia has often been brought up in the shadow of his parents' direct experience of persecution.
00:11:44I shallotah, ah, hell.
00:11:49Amen.
00:11:54My name is George Hallas.
00:11:57And for the last 25 years, I've been researching intergenerational trauma based on the lived experiences of my mother, Alice, who's a Holocaust survivor.
00:12:07You're a second generation like I'm a second generation.
00:12:11So were you curious about their stories?
00:12:15I think I was already at the point where I stopped asking, because my parents never answered.
00:12:21So that, to me, speaks about the desire to be secretive.
00:12:26Yes.
00:12:27Do you think there was any quality of numbness in either or both of your parents?
00:12:32Definitely not mum.
00:12:33Very possible with dad.
00:12:35Just because I never saw any emotion from him.
00:12:41Right.
00:12:42So something must have happened to him in the camps that numbed him, where he became a person that only ever looked forward.
00:12:52Yes.
00:12:52Never looked back.
00:12:53Look, I witnessed things, killings, right, torture, beatings, right?
00:13:03Unbelievable.
00:13:04Well, boys killed boys.
00:13:07Inmates killed inmates.
00:13:09What I'm hearing, your father, despite the experiences of Auschwitz, Birkenau, went on regardless.
00:13:19If you survived, when everyone around you is dying, you just think, all right, I'll survive today.
00:13:28That's survival instinct.
00:13:31Yeah.
00:13:31That makes a lot of sense.
00:13:33Right.
00:13:35Holocaust trauma is the lived experiences that were so overwhelming as to actually have changed their minds and their bodies.
00:13:43And it is this persistent survival mode that is labelled traumatic experience.
00:13:52Why was my dad so hardened?
00:13:55Why was my mum so depressed?
00:13:58How they must have felt every single day when they woke up, the concept of, am I still going to be alive in 10 minutes' time or will someone just walk past me and shoot me?
00:14:10I want to understand and feel that.
00:14:18I think I'd like to go back there.
00:14:23Yes, to Birkenau, to the camp.
00:14:28I thought you'd never go back to Europe.
00:14:32One of my biggest regrets with my father is I should have just hopped on a plane and taken him.
00:14:45I'm terrified of Auschwitz.
00:14:50You know, you hear the stories, you read the book, you see the miniseries, but to actually stand where they stood?
00:14:58Yeah, I don't know.
00:15:00I've been avoiding doing it.
00:15:02I'm 63 now, yeah?
00:15:05And I wake up at night and sweat.
00:15:11Why do I not have the guts to do it?
00:15:13This is my parents' history.
00:15:17I have to do this now.
00:15:18Keys, phone, wallet, passport.
00:15:24We're ready to go.
00:15:26Look at that.
00:15:27It's real.
00:15:28It's actually happening.
00:15:29All passengers and cabin crew should now be seated with their seatbelt security fastland.
00:15:45The cabin lines will remain.
00:15:46Where were you born in Czechoslovakia?
00:15:59In a small town named Krompachy.
00:16:03It is Slovakia.
00:16:08See, this view is just phenomenal.
00:16:13Overlooking the hills and the valley.
00:16:17I didn't wake up to that every morning.
00:16:20What a peaceful way to grow up.
00:16:23What would it have looked like back then?
00:16:29So I know absolutely nothing about Krompachy.
00:16:33All I know is that my dad lived in Krompachy with his parents.
00:16:41And then, what a shock.
00:16:44There was a war about to happen.
00:16:50In 1942, the Germans came into Slovakia.
00:16:55Yeah.
00:16:56Did you have any indication before that that they were coming your way?
00:17:00Not what, if I want to tell you, I never believed it, right?
00:17:11I never believed it because we lived in a different environment, right?
00:17:17I don't think Gary has any idea what he's about to see, feel and learn over the next few days here.
00:17:28He's now learning it for the first time as a man in his early 60s.
00:17:38I suspect this is going to be a very, very emotional time.
00:17:41I'll be there for him.
00:17:43I'll be there for him.
00:17:43I'll be there for him.
00:17:44I'll be there for him.
00:17:45I'll be there for him.
00:17:46I will be there for him.
00:17:47I think I'll be there for him.
00:17:49We have no official place in Kumbhaketam where we are standing right now.
00:18:09This is my gift to your dad and your mum, to you and your girls.
00:18:12And my girls?
00:18:13Yeah.
00:18:14This is it.
00:18:15Minka, please come and join us.
00:18:18Hi, Minka.
00:18:19Pleasure, Minka.
00:18:20I want you to...
00:18:21Minka, can you translate?
00:18:23Yeah.
00:18:24It'll be my honour.
00:18:25So, this is to the memory of Mr. Ludwig Eisenberg Sokolov, who has lived here and this memorial
00:18:34has been dedicated to all the people deprived of their freedom, dignity, home and their
00:18:44own name, for the memory of all victims of Holocaust.
00:18:49Oh, my dad would be so proud of that.
00:18:51It's amazing.
00:18:53And we are very proud to have it here.
00:18:57This image, you know, is embedded in my brain.
00:19:04My whole life in my parents' held hands.
00:19:09They were just so in love.
00:19:12Did you go to school in Kampachi?
00:19:21Yeah.
00:19:22Yeah.
00:19:23I went.
00:19:24I went for eight years in the normal school like every child should have.
00:19:31Yeah.
00:19:32Hi.
00:19:33Hi.
00:19:34Hi.
00:19:35Gary.
00:19:36Gary, I'm Gary.
00:19:37Gary.
00:19:38Anna.
00:19:39Nice to meet you, Anna.
00:19:40Dobry den.
00:19:41Dobry den.
00:19:42No.
00:19:43Oh, wow.
00:19:44Am I allowed to sit in the chair?
00:19:47I don't think it's an original one, but...
00:19:50It doesn't matter.
00:19:51It's the room.
00:19:52I don't see one.
00:19:53In the back row.
00:19:54Oh, yeah, because Dad would never have been in the front row.
00:19:56No, he wouldn't.
00:19:57Yes.
00:19:58It was just something he said to me about at school, how we used to sit and look out the window
00:20:02and daydream.
00:20:03Have a look at this, Dad.
00:20:05I'm probably sitting in your chair looking outside the window at your hometown.
00:20:10How cool.
00:20:11How cool.
00:20:12How cool.
00:20:13How cool.
00:20:14How cool.
00:20:15How cool.
00:20:16How cool.
00:20:17How cool.
00:20:18How cool.
00:20:19How cool.
00:20:20How cool.
00:20:21How cool.
00:20:22How cool.
00:20:23How cool.
00:20:24How cool.
00:20:25So when the book came out about the Dattles of Auschwitz.
00:20:28Lalei sa narodil 1916.
00:20:31I have realized that Lalei was born in 1916.
00:20:34A môj otec sa tiež narodil 1916.
00:20:39We are hoping for you to pick your dad, Lalei.
00:20:43Who?
00:20:44It will be one of those two.
00:20:47More than likely this one.
00:20:49Definitely him.
00:20:51Right there.
00:20:52Looking really smart.
00:20:54What was your mind?
00:20:56Really?
00:20:58And keep it as a memory.
00:21:01Well, thank you so much.
00:21:08I've never seen a photo of my dad before the war.
00:21:13Nothing.
00:21:14Gary.
00:21:16Thank you so much.
00:21:17Yes.
00:21:18Very good.
00:21:19Very good.
00:21:20Today was the most amazing day.
00:21:25I have found something that I believe you would love to see.
00:21:37I can confirm that we have found a house where your dad lived in the year 1930.
00:21:54This is my friend Miro.
00:21:57Hi Miro.
00:21:58Very nice to meet you.
00:21:59Nice to meet you too.
00:22:00This is a very good find.
00:22:02Well done you.
00:22:03The houses here are beyond repair and they have to be demolished.
00:22:11This part of the building was for the animals.
00:22:14The stables.
00:22:15Yes.
00:22:16And you can imagine where there are some rabbits, maybe some chickens.
00:22:22There would have been a horse as well.
00:22:26We had horses ride with two people, carrying stuff all from the station to the places where
00:22:36they had to go.
00:22:37Did you help out in your family business?
00:22:40Yes.
00:22:41No.
00:22:42Not much.
00:22:49So finally we are approaching your grandfather's house where your father lived.
00:23:00So we got the steps leading into the house for sure.
00:23:04The family members would have walked.
00:23:07Oh, lucky they were short.
00:23:14Yeah, as you can see it's in a very bad situation.
00:23:18So this is probably the last chance to visit the property as it is.
00:23:34I was really hoping when I walked in just to get, I don't know, a feeling, something spiritual.
00:23:49I'm just looking for some stones to put on my dad's grave from his home.
00:23:59Look at this.
00:24:00I've got enough for both graves.
00:24:01Wow.
00:24:02This is just superb.
00:24:03Every time you go and visit someone's grave you're supposed to leave a stone just to let
00:24:20them know you've come to visit.
00:24:22You know how you were talking about living history.
00:24:29This is the history of where they were living.
00:24:34That is just unbelievable.
00:24:39Hello.
00:24:40Lally from Compassion.
00:24:41I have to go.
00:24:42Wait, wait.
00:24:43I don't know your name.
00:24:44It's Gita.
00:24:46Where were you born?
00:24:47Where were you born?
00:24:48Where were you born?
00:24:50In Slovakia.
00:24:51I live from Krompashi.
00:24:56I have to go.
00:24:58Wait, wait.
00:25:00I don't know your name.
00:25:03It's Gita.
00:25:09Where were you born?
00:25:10Branovna Toplow, Slovakia.
00:25:15About 200 families were in that little town.
00:25:19It was a very close-knit town.
00:25:23Was that 200 Jewish families?
00:25:26Jewish families, yes.
00:25:28How many people were in your immediate family?
00:25:32Six children, my late father and mother.
00:25:38We want to show you the birth record of your mum.
00:25:44Oh, wow.
00:25:45Which we have found at this registry office.
00:25:49Oh, I'm tingling.
00:25:52Wow, wow, wow.
00:25:54Baby steps, please.
00:25:55Baby steps, yes.
00:25:56Yeah, because it's so overwhelmed.
00:26:02I've never seen that photo.
00:26:04But how stylish is my mum?
00:26:08And look, you know, look at the smile.
00:26:11And there's no trauma in that photo.
00:26:13There's a genuinely happy person, happy to be alive.
00:26:19It's a pretty cool photo, huh?
00:26:21Bless my mum.
00:26:25Gary, this is the place where you register the birth of every child being born in Vrano.
00:26:30The first and probably the most special.
00:26:34My mum.
00:26:35It's your mum.
00:26:36Yeah.
00:26:36So, this is the recording of her being born in Vrano on the 11th of March, 1925.
00:26:46Here, you can see the recording of your mother's sister.
00:26:51I've got Rachel, Golda, and Franny.
00:26:55Didn't come home.
00:26:59Didn't come home.
00:27:02Yeah, okay.
00:27:05Oh, that bastard.
00:27:17Why did your mum not tell you about her sisters?
00:27:19Well, how do I answer that?
00:27:24How closed must my mum have been and shut down to not even mention that she had three sisters?
00:27:33I love my dad dearly.
00:27:36But all my heart came from mum.
00:27:41And this just has a little bit more meaning.
00:27:45She just buried it.
00:27:48She buried it.
00:27:49And maybe that's why she was so depressed.
00:27:51Because she buried it all so deep, but it was still in the back of her head.
00:27:55And, you know, that would explain the nightmares.
00:27:58Where we're standing, what was the heart of the Jewish community, is symbolic of what happened all over Europe.
00:28:16And I'll phrase it like this.
00:28:18So, here there was a synagogue until there wasn't.
00:28:25Over here was the spiritual bath called a mikvah until there wasn't.
00:28:31The Jewish people were there until they weren't anymore.
00:28:34What's left is a plaque.
00:28:39That's it.
00:28:40That's all that's left.
00:28:41This was the wall of the synagogue here that my mum attended.
00:28:47It's a bit of stone from my mum's synagogue that is no more.
00:28:53We're reading excerpts from something called my mum's show at tape.
00:29:04And this is a phenomenal project to videotape every single living Holocaust survivor's story.
00:29:16Maybe, if you don't mind, I just want to read to you what my mum remembered.
00:29:27So, I went to school.
00:29:30And then they kicked me out of school.
00:29:33Like every young person, I had hopes that I had to study.
00:29:41At 17, you still haven't got a clear mind what you want to do.
00:29:45So, we knew that the times aren't very healthy.
00:29:49Knew something was going wrong.
00:29:52They didn't fully understand a lot.
00:29:56And then they asked her the question.
00:30:00And was your father able to continue working at this time?
00:30:04No.
00:30:05They took away the bakery.
00:30:07That's when the troubles started.
00:30:10And after they had closed everything down,
00:30:13A few weeks later, they took us.
00:30:20And for her, that simple life.
00:30:26Overnight.
00:30:27Gone.
00:30:29Childhood.
00:30:31Gone.
00:30:33Family.
00:30:36Ripped apart.
00:30:38Gone.
00:30:39Everything was
00:30:41Just
00:30:43Gone.
00:30:46The Slovaks were always anti-Sermites.
00:31:11You talked to everybody.
00:31:12They knew that you are a Jew.
00:31:13But maybe inside, they hated you.
00:31:17People ask Weber, what is being done with the Jews, is Christian?
00:31:22Is it human?
00:31:23Is it not robbery?
00:31:25I ask, is it Christian when the nation wants to free itself from its eternal enemy?
00:31:31The Jew.
00:31:32Slovak.
00:31:33Cast off your parasite.
00:31:35I have a letter here.
00:32:05This letter is from a six-year-old boy who wrote to Josef Tissom.
00:32:10You know, I've got a seven-year-old, so this is like trying to imagine her writing a letter to do this.
00:32:16Right.
00:32:16It's just mind-boggling.
00:32:18He's the youngest letter writer that I have found so far.
00:32:21This little boy writes,
00:32:22Dear Mr. President, every night, I pray for your health.
00:32:27Mommy always tells me that if I'm a good boy, Jesus will bring me the most beautiful gift from Mr. President, which is an exemption.
00:32:37I would like to talk to you a little bit about this piece of propaganda that is behind us.
00:32:50It says,
00:32:51It is he, you know him, by the star.
00:32:54It is he who grabs everything for himself.
00:32:58It is he who acts against the state and its friends.
00:33:03The wearing of the yellow star of David was mandated by the Jewish code.
00:33:09The Slovak press touted it as the most strict racial law in all of Europe, even stricter than that of the Nazis.
00:33:19You couldn't go to sporting events, parks, restaurants, movies.
00:33:25You couldn't even go to the market at the same time as everyone else.
00:33:30What kind of people as human beings?
00:33:33So these are the things that your parents would have seen.
00:33:37And they suggested that the Jews were responsible for all of the country's problems,
00:33:43which is impossible because they were only 3.6% of the population at the time.
00:33:50To ask me to leave, they didn't come to the home.
00:33:53They just put out announcements that the oldest kids from every family have to come to that place that evening.
00:34:04Otherwise, they will take the parents.
00:34:06It was up to me to go.
00:34:08So I went, I was 17 in March, and in April they already deported us.
00:34:18The Slovakian government came for your parents.
00:34:21Yeah, not only for my parents, for all the Jews, because they took everybody who they could.
00:34:28The Slovak government paid 500 Reichmarks for every deported Jew.
00:34:34Were you aware of that?
00:34:35No.
00:34:36And they had to pay for transportation.
00:34:40That makes it very uncomfortable to be in this country.
00:34:44Right here, right now, the country that my parents lived in, their brothers and sisters lived in,
00:34:52and knowing that the government was happy to pay for them to be deported.
00:34:57I would just bring up the point, though, that not everyone hated Jews.
00:35:03Right.
00:35:03But there was tremendous social pressure not to associate with Jews and not to aid them in any way.
00:35:10What was the response of the Jewish community to these actions?
00:35:26They had no response.
00:35:29They couldn't do anything.
00:35:33Nobody could do anything.
00:35:36I feel privileged.
00:35:38Every survivor needed some luck in their life, and I'm a reflection of that luck.
00:35:45Where are we going?
00:35:52Poland.
00:35:56I hear they'll train you as a mechanic, fixing cars, engines.
00:36:00It's funny being back here.
00:36:15This is where we filmed getting onto the carriages, and it was such a strange day of filming.
00:36:21Like, just me as Jonah, trying to imagine what your dad went through, stepping onto a carriage,
00:36:27it's almost impossible to imagine.
00:36:30And action!
00:36:32Well, what did you go through when you walked into the carriage?
00:36:36They slammed the door shut, and everyone just goes completely quiet.
00:36:54It was impossible for it not to impact you on quite a profound level.
00:36:58Nobody knew what was going to happen.
00:37:10Nobody knew where we were going.
00:37:14He's just this one man, and he's so small in this enormous scale of this camp,
00:37:20and he's learning about the horror that's unfolding.
00:37:23I can see my dad in your eyes.
00:37:26I saw my dad in the way you looked at Anna.
00:37:30That look of love.
00:37:36Your eyes.
00:37:39Aren't they blue?
00:37:40Sometimes.
00:37:45Is there a problem?
00:37:47No, I'm just getting some ink.
00:37:51How difficult would it have been for you to play my mother in a Holocaust environment?
00:38:03You know, it was, it was very scary.
00:38:07I was, I was terrified.
00:38:09First, just felt this great responsibility.
00:38:13I felt the presence of your mom from then.
00:38:20And I, I mean, I still feel that presence sometimes.
00:38:24Serious.
00:38:25I do.
00:38:26How was it for you to watch the story on the screen?
00:38:31So, I'll tell you what my biggest impacts were.
00:38:34You said God isn't going to help.
00:38:36And this is an ultra, ultra orthodox woman where everything is because of God.
00:38:43Yeah.
00:38:44That was all mom.
00:38:47Yes.
00:38:51Where is God?
00:38:56God can't help us, Molly, but we can help God.
00:39:00We can show him that love still exists.
00:39:03Even here.
00:39:04I was brought up secular.
00:39:08And I think my mom let go of a lot of it.
00:39:13Maybe because of a disappointment in God.
00:39:16Because of the war.
00:39:20How are you feeling generally about going?
00:39:22Do you feel ready now?
00:39:23No.
00:39:25Even more so not ready.
00:39:27All of a sudden that's become, I'm shaking, just look at me.
00:39:30That's not the cold.
00:39:31That's thinking about walking into Birkenau has a different sense of reality than it ever did before.
00:39:41Because I know so much now, if for any reason my parents' souls are not resting, maybe this will help both of them as well.
00:40:01This is it.
00:40:03We're getting on hair.
00:40:13Mum's describing her arrival in Auschwitz.
00:40:19And through the little window in the wagon, we could see people in striped clothing working in the field.
00:40:27And so we talked to each other.
00:40:30Well, they must be some criminals.
00:40:33Definitely not for us.
00:40:36But when we arrived, we had a very, very bad surprise.
00:40:46The SS came in and they started screaming.
00:40:50You are not going to get out of here.
00:40:53And you are going to die.
00:40:54Women this way, men over here.
00:41:07I want to know now.
00:41:12I want to know what it was like for them as best as I possibly can to walk in their footsteps.
00:41:17I didn't go four times before this trip.
00:41:22I don't want to make it number five.
00:41:25It's time I'm going.
00:41:26I'm actually surprised at how I'm feeling.
00:41:49I want to see what happened there.
00:41:53I want to be close to my mum and dad in there.
00:42:00I'm ready.
00:42:21I can't stop shaking.
00:42:23I can't stop shaking.
00:42:30I can't stop shaking.
00:42:31I can't stop shaking.
00:42:32I'm okay, I'm okay.
00:42:42Hi, Pavel.
00:42:44Hi, hi, Gary.
00:42:44I'm very nice to meet you.
00:42:45It's a pleasure to meet you here and I know it's going to be a challenging time but thank
00:42:52you very much for coming to the memorial.
00:42:53Thank you very much for coming to the memorial.
00:42:54I suppose we can start.
00:42:55I can't stop my knees from shaking.
00:43:01Okay.
00:43:02Okay.
00:43:03Okay.
00:43:04From 1942, Auschwitz becomes an extermination camp.
00:43:10And what you can see here in front of us is the, this iconic entrance with the Arbeit macht frei
00:43:18inscription work makes one free.
00:43:19They took us to Auschwitz.
00:43:20I looked up.
00:43:21I saw Arbeit macht frei in a general language.
00:43:25And when we came in, the health started there.
00:43:26I'm not ready to walk in yet.
00:43:27Sorry.
00:43:28I can't stop my legs from shaking.
00:43:29Okay.
00:43:30Okay.
00:43:31No.
00:43:32Ha, ha.
00:43:33Stop my legs from shaking.
00:43:34Okay.
00:43:35No.
00:43:36No.
00:43:37No.
00:43:38No.
00:43:39No.
00:43:40No.
00:43:41No.
00:43:42No.
00:43:43No.
00:43:45No.
00:43:46No.
00:43:47Don't.
00:43:48No.
00:43:49No.
00:43:50No.
00:43:51No.
00:43:52No.
00:43:53No.
00:43:54No.
00:43:55No.
00:43:56No.
00:43:57No.
00:43:58No.
00:43:59When we came out and we saw the SS, and we saw the dogs, and we saw the beating, then
00:44:23we knew what time it is.
00:44:37Most of these blocks were places where prisoners were sleeping.
00:44:41The number of people inside such a building could exceed 1,000.
00:44:48Do we have any idea which one my mum might have been in?
00:44:51No.
00:44:52We don't have documents related to your mother.
00:44:54Right.
00:44:55The SS, before the evacuation, they ordered prisoners to burn the documentation.
00:45:02And our estimation is that even up to 95% of the camp documents was destroyed.
00:45:22So over here, what we have is a collection of children's shoes.
00:45:33Some of these would have been for kids that were less than one year old.
00:45:42We have to remember when we look at every single object here, it is one person.
00:45:57Yes.
00:45:58There's always one story, one name, one person object.
00:46:01And this is a bit close to home as well.
00:46:02It's got my dad's first name on it.
00:46:03Ludwig?
00:46:04The scale of that just...
00:46:24Ludwig?
00:46:25The scale of that just...
00:46:26I don't know.
00:46:27I don't know.
00:46:28I don't know.
00:46:29I don't know.
00:46:30I don't know.
00:46:31I don't know.
00:46:32I don't know.
00:46:33Ludwig?
00:46:44Did they give you a number?
00:46:46Yes.
00:46:4632-407
00:47:03When people think about Auschwitz survivors, the tattoo is something essential.
00:47:11Survivors, children remember the tattoo sometimes without understanding what it was because they don't want to explain to them.
00:47:19In this bureaucratic world of the SS, they didn't know who was who.
00:47:24Then they thought it will be more useful if this number will be permanent.
00:47:29And therefore they need tattoos and your father was one of them.
00:47:34End of the world was two needles, right? One was longer, the other one was a bit shorter, right?
00:47:42And that's how we did the numbers.
00:47:46My mum, I remember her coming home one day with a big bandage on her arm and she had just had her tattoo, her number removed,
00:47:57because she just couldn't look at it anymore.
00:48:10The SS, they took you there. One day I came to the bunker, number 11.
00:48:18And they took me in and they tortured you, right? They beat you.
00:48:25We don't know exactly how this investigation that led to his incarceration, it is likely that he could be here.
00:48:35First you will see the standing cells, which is a particularly harsh punishment, up to four people standing in basically one square meter space for the entire night.
00:48:48Each standing cells looked like this. It was bricked up, people crawled inside and they were standing the entire night.
00:48:57And that's the only entrance of air. You can see there's a very small hole, it could be covered from the outside.
00:49:04So this was one of these extreme types of punishments that we have here.
00:49:10They had different designations, standing cells, starvation cells, death by suffocation.
00:49:23This is the execution yard of the prison building and they were shot in the back of their heads.
00:49:29So this is a site which is a commemorative site, as you can see.
00:49:34And there's always this flag above with this stripe pattern.
00:49:40The uniform.
00:49:41The uniform pattern, so it symbolizes the prisoners.
00:49:44But there was a sand and sawdust that they were throwing here to drain the blood.
00:49:50Blood.
00:49:51And that blood reached meters into the ground.
00:49:54Into the Azeroth.
00:49:55And that blood.
00:49:56Into the Chennai.
00:49:57Into the Dead.
00:49:58And that blood.
00:49:59The beam.
00:50:00The stone.
00:50:01So the braking line was something that sh 是 up.
00:50:02What a sec era.
00:50:03I don't know.
00:50:33The gassing was separate and the burning was separate.
00:50:41They couldn't burn them that quick.
00:50:53There was a conveyor belt from the gas chamber which came into the crematorium.
00:50:59And the conveyor belt was working non-stop 24 hours a day
00:51:05and bringing in those guest people naked.
00:51:09I don't know.
00:51:15I don't know.
00:51:17I don't know.
00:51:19I don't know.
00:51:29I don't know.
00:51:49Long July we went to Birkenau.
00:51:53That's where the real trouble started.
00:51:55The real killings and disappearings.
00:51:59No, here we go.
00:52:01There's the building.
00:52:03There's the train tracks.
00:52:05My heart's racing.
00:52:09So this is the space that you can see.
00:52:19Just how vast.
00:52:21Of basically, maybe not the entire but the majority of the Birkenau site.
00:52:25But there's more?
00:52:27There's parts in the forest that it's difficult to see from here.
00:52:31But basically, we can look at this around 500-acre space.
00:52:35When the SS moved the killing from Auschwitz-1, which is some three kilometers from here, to Birkenau,
00:52:42they're building an industry of murdering people.
00:52:47We have around one million Jews murdered in Auschwitz.
00:52:52In fact, in Birkenau, there were six homicidal gas chambers and four...
00:52:57Just in time for my family to come, yeah?
00:53:01The headquarter was Auschwitz.
00:53:05The factory killing was done in Birkenau.
00:53:08In the whole world, they mention Auschwitz.
00:53:12But the real McCoy was Birkenau.
00:53:16Here you can see a historical freight train car.
00:53:19And most of the Jews were deported in freight train cars.
00:53:22Sometimes people talk about cattle train cars, but cattle would get a lot of air.
00:53:26Yes, correct.
00:53:27And in many testimonies, you have people who have lack of air.
00:53:29And it's overcrowded, around 80 people in it.
00:53:32Oh, God.
00:53:34So that's all they had?
00:53:35Yes, there's one for the air on one side.
00:53:38There was something on the other side.
00:53:39Right.
00:53:40Many survivors talk that finding a place near this little window would be...
00:53:44Life-saving.
00:53:45Because you would get air.
00:53:47Right.
00:53:48And this is the place where the selection happened when the transport of Jews arrived,
00:53:53because non-Jews do not go to this election.
00:53:56And we estimate that around 75% of Jews are murdered immediately.
00:54:01Not everybody came into the camp.
00:54:04Only the stronger people came.
00:54:06The rest went straight away to be killed, to be gassed.
00:54:10If you had a little pimple on your hand, you went to the left.
00:54:15Most of the girls from my town were taken from nothing.
00:54:21Nothing.
00:54:22People have no idea that they will never see each other again.
00:54:26And then some of them become prisoners.
00:54:29They get to a place where someone makes the tattoo.
00:54:32And then they enter into the camp.
00:54:35And they learn in a moment that the others were taken to the gassed.
00:54:41The prisoners do not have...
00:54:42You know, they don't sugarcoat it.
00:54:44They tell them blunt truth.
00:54:46And for many of those people, it is simply too much to take in.
00:54:49In the early days, people couldn't take it.
00:54:54They ran to the Postenkete and there were three, four thousand volts in it.
00:55:02They grabbed the wire and they were killed right away.
00:55:07The power killed them.
00:55:08And that was on a daily basis.
00:55:11That were the early days in Birkenau.
00:55:16It's so massive when you look down this row.
00:55:20And it's row after row after row.
00:55:24The efforts they put in.
00:55:26You know, all the logistics that went into building and killing and transporting.
00:55:34I have nothing else to say, Stephen.
00:55:36You know, you can't get blood out of a stone.
00:55:38I'm kind of like...
00:55:42Yeah.
00:55:46My dad, when he said, I want to apologise to the people whose lives I couldn't save.
00:56:12His only curiosity about all the gas chambers was this one.
00:56:18Crematoria 3.
00:56:20I want to pray.
00:56:34This is a place where tens of thousands would walk down.
00:56:38And I know you wanted to specifically say a prayer here.
00:56:42I want to pray to others who have eaten to their God.
00:56:57I'm not answers to God.
00:57:00We didn't bring water.
00:57:02I don't know if myLER made a prayer here.
00:57:06Yes, you will.
00:57:08Oh, my God.
00:57:38So, what are we entering now?
00:57:43So, we are entering into one of the smaller sections, and this was called the Tzigoina Lager.
00:57:49It was the camp for the Roma and Sinti prisoners in the family camp your father stayed for some time.
00:57:55Yes.
00:57:55In one of the wooden barracks, and it's over here.
00:57:59Unique in the story is that Lali says that he lived on his own.
00:58:03Yes.
00:58:04What we think is that he lived as part of the larger group of this whole unit.
00:58:08Right.
00:58:09Maybe their conditions of life were better.
00:58:13So, this is maybe the kind of the reason for this more isolation or the feeling that they are...
00:58:17That makes no sense.
00:58:19I can understand his... some of his memories would be very vague as an 89-year-old man, but one thing that isn't possible to be vague is not knowing if you were in your own room or not.
00:58:33That's... and I can still distinctly remember my mum yelling at my dad when he was describing the room, yelling at him that it's not a... it wasn't a six-star hotel.
00:58:44But maybe they had enough space that they would be able to have their own kind of a sleeping places.
00:58:52Maybe that's the explanation.
00:58:54Or he just had his own room, might explain it.
00:58:56Maybe.
00:58:56That's also...
00:58:57Yes.
00:58:57But there could be maybe several of them.
00:58:59This sector at the very back of Birkenau has a German name, Affectenlager.
00:59:06Your mother worked here and that was considered to be somehow privileged work?
00:59:12Yes, correct.
00:59:13And then something that is unique for this place is that on the other side of the fence, you can see this red line.
00:59:20Yes.
00:59:20This is the ruins of Gastrima No. 4.
00:59:23So, they were also close witnesses to the killing process.
00:59:28We heard the screens from where they went to the gas.
00:59:36All my friends were taken.
00:59:43When you look across everything, it's mind-boggling, the vastness of this.
00:59:48It's mind-boggling, the vastness of this.
00:59:53CHOIR FIONS
00:59:55ORCHESTRA PLAYS
01:00:25Walking in my parents' footsteps was very special.
01:00:36I don't think I could ever have been closer talking to them than I was here.
01:00:41When you put it in perspective of all my family members that didn't survive,
01:00:47I felt honoured that, for whatever reason,
01:00:51my mum and dad were lucky enough to survive.
01:00:56I'm going back to Melbourne and I can talk to my children
01:01:00in a whole different way about their family.
01:01:03I remember my mum and dad saying
01:01:11they wanted to get as far away from Europe as they possibly could
01:01:17and you can't really get much further away than Australia.
01:01:22Welcome.
01:01:23Nice to meet you. Thank you so much.
01:01:26This is Marley, my youngest daughter.
01:01:29Yes.
01:01:30Shall we go in?
01:01:32Okay. Let's go.
01:01:33Put on some beautiful music and they do a dance tango.
01:01:37Oh, she got out.
01:01:39Twinkle toes.
01:01:41Oh, we've done so lot in here.
01:01:44Fantastic.
01:01:45Are we hungry?
01:01:46Yes.
01:01:47Yes?
01:01:48Good.
01:01:49I've got lots of food.
01:01:50All right.
01:01:51Why don't you come in?
01:01:52Shall we go in?
01:01:53We've got pickles.
01:01:54How can we get the pickles?
01:01:55How can we get the pickles?
01:01:56How can we get the pickles?
01:01:57How can we get the pickles?
01:01:58How can we get the pickles?
01:01:59Can we sit down with the rubber?
01:02:00Your parents never talked about the Holocaust world.
01:02:02It's his stories.
01:02:03Yeah.
01:02:04We grew up with everything, with Dad telling us, from when we were really young.
01:02:11I did a lot to survive, but I still consider it was 99% of luck.
01:02:17Because every moment of today, you could be shot, killed, beaten to dead, or sent to the
01:02:25question.
01:02:26Yeah.
01:02:27But whatever question we ever had was always answered.
01:02:31Brilliant.
01:02:32When I was 10, I turned around to Dad one day and I said to him, Dad, you hate the Germans.
01:02:38And he said, don't you ever use that word, because once you give in to that emotion, what
01:02:42is it that you become?
01:02:43As bad as that.
01:02:45Yeah.
01:02:46So to me, that was a lesson in not only survival, but survival with your humanity and your dignity
01:02:52and tact.
01:02:53Yeah.
01:02:54It's the right message.
01:02:55He's an amazing man, this one.
01:02:58So really, this trip has been amazing for you.
01:03:01just phenomenal.
01:03:02You're telling everything to your children now.
01:03:05Yeah.
01:03:06I don't want them to have that same intimacy.
01:03:08Yeah.
01:03:09That I have.
01:03:10Yeah.
01:03:11It's really sort of, it's quite profound on me how you're telling the stories that you
01:03:15never heard.
01:03:16It's so important.
01:03:18Now having come back, how are you feeling to have a lived experience of Auschwitz?
01:03:29Relieved.
01:03:30I'm a different person.
01:03:32In what way?
01:03:33I'm not empty anymore.
01:03:35Oh.
01:03:36Maybe I don't know the right terminology, but it's almost like peace of mind.
01:03:42Okay.
01:03:43If that makes sense.
01:03:45Yes.
01:03:46I am comforted and fulfilled by the fact that I now know so much more.
01:03:53Yes.
01:03:55How do you think you coped with the emptiness all the years before?
01:03:59I think I knew it was there, but I ignored it.
01:04:02There's a way of looking at trauma that is not actually a state of mind, but a state of
01:04:08body.
01:04:10Now you're noticing this and you're saying it's peace of mind.
01:04:14And I would say, many people might say, what a paradox.
01:04:18You're going to Auschwitz and you come back with peace of mind.
01:04:22How do you?
01:04:25I don't know the answer to that.
01:04:27I just know I have that feeling.
01:04:29It's very real.
01:04:30And I've noticed it.
01:04:31It's very real.
01:04:33Yeah.
01:04:34I have such a different relationship with my children as a parent and as a friend.
01:04:40I think I'm going to like myself a lot more too.
01:04:43Please do.
01:04:44The way I relate.
01:04:45Because of that.
01:04:46Please do.
01:04:47Yeah.
01:04:48It's an absolute honor to be in your presence.
01:04:52Oh, thank you.
01:04:54It's a very warm feeling.
01:04:55Oh, I'm sorry.
01:04:59Please, please.
01:05:00It's a release.
01:05:01Okay.
01:05:02Right.
01:05:03Does it go in like order, like in the alphabet?
01:05:22No?
01:05:23No, it's wherever you buy the plots.
01:05:26There you go.
01:05:28This is Mum and Dad.
01:05:29Look at that.
01:05:30I miss you guys very much.
01:05:31First time I've brought your grandchildren out to see you.
01:05:32This is Marley.
01:05:33And this is Aviva.
01:05:34So I've got stones from both your hometowns.
01:05:35So let's all put one on just to let them know we've been here.
01:05:37Dad, look at that from outside your front door.
01:05:43You've got a bit of home to have as well.
01:05:47Oh, I wish you could have met them.
01:05:50Jeez.
01:05:51My dad would have fussed over you too.
01:05:52And Mum would have had you in the kitchen teaching you songs.
01:05:54And watching her bake, she would have been in heaven.
01:05:59How are you going, Chip?
01:06:00Doing good?
01:06:01Yeah.
01:06:02Yeah.
01:06:03How did you find Gita after you came here?
01:06:05How did you find Gita after you came here?
01:06:10I wish you could have met them.
01:06:13My dad would have fussed over you too and Mum would have had you in the kitchen teaching
01:06:19you songs and watching her bake.
01:06:21She would have been in heaven.
01:06:23How are you going, Chip?
01:06:25Doing good?
01:06:26Yeah.
01:06:27How did you find Gita after you were liberated?
01:06:34I couldn't go by train because it was bombed.
01:06:38The train couldn't go through the bridges, so I bought the horse, you know.
01:06:46And I took my horse and I was going hundreds of kilometers to look for her.
01:06:54And one day turns up a horse on two wheels, you know, that carriage.
01:07:00I look better and it's my husband.
01:07:02Daddy!
01:07:03Daddy!
01:07:04Daddy!
01:07:05Daddy!
01:07:06Daddy!
01:07:07Daddy!
01:07:08He chased me and found me and we are happy together.
01:07:26Do you know who that is?
01:07:37That's your dad.
01:07:39And who's that?
01:07:40That's your mum.
01:07:41And who's that?
01:07:42You.
01:07:43Yeah, this is from their 50th wedding anniversary.
01:07:47I threw a really big party for them.
01:07:50Pretty good looking dude your dad, huh?
01:07:53No, he looks better.
01:07:54Really?
01:07:55Thanks.
01:07:57It's okay.
01:07:59I love you still.
01:08:01My parents found each other and they got married in Kompaki.
01:08:08And what I have here, which just shows you how much they were in love with,
01:08:13so this is a photo from the Tatras mountain range
01:08:17and my parents went there on their honeymoon.
01:08:20Have a look.
01:08:22This is post-war, with hair, just so, so very happy and in love.
01:08:31So I'm the result of one of the most amazing romances
01:08:37in the most horrific place that ever existed.
01:08:42I mean, even the fact that I'm around is also seriously good luck.
01:08:47Woo!
01:08:49It's amazing!
01:08:53I love it!
01:08:55I have two beautiful girls.
01:08:58They will be able to continue the story and that is my greatest happiness.
01:09:05Abba, go run!
01:09:07Go for a run!
01:09:08Get some exercise in!
01:09:10I love it!
01:09:11You!
01:09:12No...
01:09:13I love it!
01:09:14No...
01:09:15You!
01:09:16I'll take the right side to me!
01:09:17Do you want to keep it in the middle?
01:09:19No...
01:09:20No!
01:09:21I love it!
01:09:22I love it!
01:09:23Oh!
01:09:24Oh!
01:09:25I just love it!
01:09:26Oh, it's fun!
01:09:27I love it!
01:09:28You!
01:09:29I love it!
01:09:30And I love it!
01:09:31See?
01:09:32What a love!