This past Saturday (yes, I know, it’s been almost a week…sorry, turns out we are popular and people love inviting us out to dinner…which leaves little time for blogging) Anyway, this past Saturday, Judy Wrede and her husband, Brian, invited us to visit Flossenberg Concentration Camp with them. FLossenberg was a smaller, less well known camp started in 1938. The camp was built because it was the site of a rock quarry that mined granite. The Nazis needed granite, so Flossenberg was born. What made this trip special and very memorable, (if you can say such a thing about a trip to a concentration camp) was that a survivor, Jack Terry, was giving a personal tour to our group through the military. So, not only did we get to see a camp that most people don’t know about, we saw it through a survivor’s eyes.
Jack was 13 when he entered the camp, but could recall the details like it was yesterday. He told of Roll Call Square and standing naked in the cold, feeling like a possession rather than a person, and of the showers, where you could freeze in teh winter or watched as other prisoners were beat. He told of how the stench of sweat, rotting bread, and flesh filled the air when the creamatorium burned. He told his story of how he survived the death march because a kopo (soldier) told him to hide in the boiler room one night.
“I was hidden by a camp clerk called Milos Kucera. I was in a tunnel which led from the laundry to the kitchen, directly underneath the parade ground. I was lying on hot pipes and above me I heard shots, trampling, screaming. It was dark, I had nothing to eat and nothing to drink. “
Jack followed the directions and listened the next day as gunfire erupted above him. He was then moved to the typhoid wing of the hospital because Nazis wouldn’t risk getting typhoid to inspect the patients. Finally, the camp was liberated on April 23, 1945, and Jack, being the youngest survivor, was given the keys to the camp by the American commander.
“I was liberated – but I was not free. For the first time I was able to think beyond my hunger. For the first time I realized that now, at the age of 15, I was completely alone in the world. I no longer had any family, I had nothing. This is one of my memories of that day.”
Hearing him tell these stories was something I will NEVER forget. What stunned me most was the courage and brutal honesty he showed about it all. He did not sugar coat it like the tour guides. He lived through this, the least we could do is listen to the story. He tells his story so that everyone remembers people did not die at Flossenberg, “They were murdered“
I’ve added video of Jack speaking on the Video page, but you can also look at these other resources to learn his story:
Here is a great article that sums up Jack’s life and tells a little of his story. http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2006/04/27/news/community/thu03.txt
Jack also wrote a book entitled:
Jakub’s World: A Boy’s Story of Loss and Survival in the Holocaust
If you are at all interested in the Holocaust, I would HIGHLY recommend looking at this book. Jack, which he insisted on being called, is honest, realistic, and somehow, optimistic that people are still good at heart and this will never happen again as long as this story keeps being told! So, please, pass the story on!
