The Holocaust and My Father: Six Million and One

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

'This is my fourth attempt at writing.

'I hope that this time I have the strength not only to begin

'but to see through and leave some document behind as my legacy.

'I tried to convince myself that writing will set me free from

'the bitterness I felt ever since I was liberated from the camps.

'What I suffered was so overwhelming that I was always miserable.

'All I could do was bite my lip and carry on.

'Actually, my deterioration and insomnia began three years ago.

'The floodgates opened once the boys left home.

'Mali seems more free now, too.

'She sighs often and no longer worries

'that the kids might hear her.'

And so the children set off on their journey.

There was Esti, my older sister, I, the director of this film,

and our siblings, Gideon and Ronel.

Our youngest brother, Amnon, stayed at home.

We found Dad's diary after he died.

None of us even knew that he wrote it. 12 years have passed since then.

Some of my siblings refused to read it. Others simply couldn't.

I had no question that I would.

I dived right into it and haven't put it down since.

This isn't my first trip to Austria, either.

On page four, Dad writes...

.."One day in May 1944,

"we received orders to leave our home.

"It's hard to describe those final moments there, alone with my father.

"Dad took a knife, split open the quilts,

"and destroyed everything of value.

"I was petrified.

"He took the violin, removed the strings, and broke the bow.

"He destroyed the guitar, the bass, the drums. He acted with resolve.

"He didn't shed a tear. He just took a few minutes.

"I didn't ask him about it. I didn't say a thing.

"In retrospect,

"I realised that he felt like he was leaving home for good."

My father was a few days in Mauthausen,

and then he was sent to Gusen,

and at the end of the war, he was liberated from Gunskirchen.

-So, what's the name of your father?

-Joseph Fisher.

-He came from Auschwitz in May 1944.

-Right.

-In May 1944, he was transferred to Gusen.

-Right.

-So, 67656 would be the...

-His number?

-His number. If it's him, that'd be the number.

-67656.

-Exactly.

67656. Right.

When I realised how much I missed my father,

I decided to retrace his life through his memoir.

He talked to us about the Holocaust but only about the symbols.

The train, Auschwitz, Mengele and nothing else.

When I read his memoir,

I discovered that he spent just one week in Auschwitz.

Using laconic symbols for this,

he described life in camps that I'd never heard of.

I learned how difficult it was for him to write about the past.

There were three reasons he stopped writing for long periods of time.

The first was what he saw in Block 13 at the Gusen camp.

"On the day that I arrived in Gusen, I was sent to clean the sanatorium,

"a term that the Germans used for extermination block.

"At the end of the block was a tiny room they always kept locked.

"One day, I saw them drown a sick inmate in a cement tub.

"Other prisoners were lying there

"watching what would soon happen to them.

"They pleaded with their eyes for "ein Stuck Brot",

"a crust of bread.

"The inmates remained with me for the rest of my life.

"The next day, they tossed their bodies out the window,

"just like they would toss out beets.

"My hand shakes as I write these lines."

WOMAN: 'The place looks different now.

'The village, the land, this mill.

'Try following my steps exactly so that we can walk together.

'This is the landscape of my childhood.

'Nobody was really able to say where some of the buildings

'in Gusen and St Georgen had come from.

'What purpose did the underground system behind our church serve?

'It was called "Flieger Werk", aircraft factory.

'Do you see the big gate to the left...

'..with the granite wall?'

-MAN:

-'Well, this house is the most important place

'of the concentration camp Gusen.'

-WOMAN:

-'That was the Jew house.'

WOMAN: 'This building used to be the main entrance

'of the concentration camp Gusen I.'

-MAN:

-'The part below was the bunker where they take prisoners

'to interrogate...

'..and beat them...

'..the SS and the Gestapo.'

'More than 200 single-family homes

'and an industrial compound have taken the place

'of the 83 barracks and factory halls of the concentration camp.

'To the left, Block 2,

'to the right, Block 3.'

'Do you see the low, longish building with the grey roof?'

-MAN:

-'That is the brothel.'

-MAN:

-'This used to be...

'the joy house.

'Sometimes we saw those girls at the window.

'The SS forced them into prostitution.'

BRASS BAND PLAYS UPBEAT TUNE

"The Yom Kippur fast is over and I must keep writing.

"I spent the whole day in the synagogue as

"if I made some kind of commitment.

"The first time I didn't fast was in the Gusen quarries.

"I was so hungry that I didn't care if God would punish me

"and I will die, as long as I ate.

"I decided then that I would never fast again as long as I could eat

"so I always ate as usual on that day.

"Four years after the liberation, I was too poor to buy food

"and still I ate on Yom Kippur.

"Then my children were born and my wife convinced me

"to fast for their sake."

We are now in the big Gusen quarry.

One of the most cruel places that was part of Gusen I...

..where thousands of inmates were worked to death.

And the stone that was cut here

was used to build up the concentration camp in the first phase

and then it was shipped out to the Reich

for Hitler's high-flying building projects that he had.

You have to know that Hitler's favourite stone was granite,

because it symbolised eternity.

And what are the plans at the moment?

What would the owners like to do?

I have heard that there are plans to fill up the granite quarry

and change it into a housing project.

And actually, why not?

I think that...

..that there is a very sad history to this place.

Um...

And...

Sorry.

SHE SIGHS

I would consider it really tasteless

to change a place where thousands of people were cruelly murdered

and lost their lives,

to change into a housing project where normal life goes on.

Have you ever been down to the quarry?

It was a couple of years ago that I went down there.

But since...

..access to the quarry is not allowed,

usually, I keep at a safe distance,

also with visitors and groups of visitors.

Why is it not allowed?

Because it's private property, it's private.

SHE SIGHS

Oh, sorry, I can't stay

and I don't want to say that any longer, I can't.

Ask Martha, maybe she...she finds it easier to speak about that.

Because I just...

I can't put it into numbers, I mean...

Um...there is a feeling of support.

There are...people who tell me

and...express their support

and there is others and often it's a very vague feeling

where you know exactly they are not on your side,

they feel disturbed.

"We dug tunnels under a mountain using pickaxes and shovels.

"We dragged in building materials and poured cement

"It was always dark in there.

"What was it for? God only knows.

"The deeper we got, the more we felt

"like we were lost in a maze that we had built.

"And that soon we would be locked inside.

"I never thought I would come out alive."

'What I have found out is

'that it was one of the most modern and most completed plants

'of Nazi Germany at the end of the war.'

And it was designed to produce, per month,

1,250 fuselages for jet planes

and for a period of more than ten years.

What was the production volume of one inmate, like my father?

It depended on what construction detail

your father would have been in.

Digging and carrying stones on his back, this is what he did.

-All the time?

-All the time.

So it's really a miracle that your father survived.

It's really a miracle.

I'm convinced that your father had also other jobs,

because it's unbelievable that he would have survived

digging ten months here at Gusen II.

Just digging.

Because the average survival period of a Jew in Gusen II,

in Bergkristall, was one week.

And every survival period of a nonJew

was three to four months in average.

He was physically strong...

-Yes.

-..and he said that he was never beaten because he worked very good.

Yes, but, in this case,

you must...you must take into account

that your father was really an outstanding personality,

because when he was so strong to survive Bergkristall as a Jew

for a period of ten months, this is extraordinary.

Now, I really want to see it, Rudi.

What can your Committee actually do about it?

Our biggest target is

to get Bergkristall open to the public.

To give interested people the chance

to see why your father was sent to Gusen.

He was not sent to Gusen because of the stone quarry.

He was sent to Gusen to construct

one of the biggest and most important underground plants of Nazi Germany.

Here, at St Georgen.

This land...this...

Under this house, behind his house, the installations begin.

BRASS BAND PLAYING

"A scene I saw from my bed.

"Our block supervisor was a Polish dwarf,

"just one-and-a-half metres tall

"with crooked legs and a monkey face.

"He was a vicious anti-Semite.

"One night, he walked into our block

"and ordered someone to get out of bed and walk to the door.

"He jumped on him from behind, twisted a towel around his neck,

"kneed him in the back and sent him crashing to the floor.

"The dwarf then ordered a huge Jew

"to bring him a plank from his bed.

"He placed the plank on the man's chest

"and ordered the big Jew to stand on it till he died.

"I pretended to be asleep.

"We were not allowed to look.

"I thought about it for years

"and decided he was after the old Jew's gold teeth.

"We left Gusen in single file.

"Years later, I learnt that this was called a death march.

"We slept in the forest.

"Each morning, I chewed grass like an animal and collected snails.

"I ate some and saved the rest for later.

"I couldn't wait to eat them,

"which made what happened all the more disappointing.

"When we stopped at night,

"I discovered that the snails had escaped from my pocket.

"I was very sad.

"We reached the Gunskirchen camp the next day.

"It was supposed to be the last stop.

"I leaned against a tree and waited for the time to pass.

"I can't bring myself to write about what happened there

"until the Americans arrived."

# Gonna take A sentimental journey

# Gonna set my heart at ease

# Gonna take a sentimental journey

# To remember memories... #

# Got my bag, got my reservation

# Spent each dime I could afford

# Like a child in wild anticipation

# Long to hear that "All aboard"

# Seven

# That's the time we leave, at seven

# I'll be waiting up for heaven

# Counting every mile Of railroad track

# That takes me back

# Never knew my heart could be So yearning

# Why did I decide to roam?

# Gotta take that sentimental journey

# Sentimental journey home... #

"Austria, May 30th, 1945.

"Dear Mother and Dad..."

All mine were addressed Mother and Dad.

"Received a letter from you today.

"In this letter, you said that I might be in the hospital

"and can't write.

"No, I'm OK and having as good time as is possible over here."

And then, I'll go ahead and read it.

"The other day, we liberated a concentration camp.

"It was the most pitiful sight I've ever seen.

"I can't describe it in writing,

"so I'll just wait until I get home to tell you about it."

MOBILE PHONE RINGS

It might be Pat.

Hello?

Hey, Pat Waters.

This is General George Patton's grandson.

When you went into that camp, did they know you were coming?

No, they didn't know we were coming.

We didn't know what they were or who they were.

We'd never even heard about the camps.

Did you know about...?

Oh, you didn't know that they had those camps?

No, we haven't heard about any concentration camps.

The Lieutenant first saw all these thousands of people behind the wire

and he ordered to shoot the lock.

And when they opened the gates,

all these thousands of people came out and thronged around us,

hugging us, down to our knees

and climbing...clinging to us.

And speaking in languages that we didn't understand.

And so I heard some of them say, "Ich habe Hunger."

I knew enough German at that time to know that they were hungry.

So I told all the guys to go get the K-rations

and they ate everything.

-They ate all of this.

-The cigarettes?

The cigarettes.

We naturally expected them to ask us to light them for them,

but they ate them.

We were astounded to see them eating the cigarettes.

Paper and all, they ate.

Then Marvin and I and Lieutenant Burns walked on into the camp

and then we started seeing all these hundreds of dead bodies,

laying throughout the camp.

Now, when we looked at some over here,

and one might raise a finger

to indicate he's still got some movement.

Another one might blink his eyes,

but there was nothing we could do for them.

How long had they been there for?

About three months, some of them had been.

We did find out from some of them who were active

and more walking and talking that the procedure was...they had no food.

Evidently, they had just been put in there to starve to death.

It was like a concentration camp with no method of extermination.

I wrote home to my parents, who saved the letters...

I wrote describing all of this and I said,

"I regret... I'm sorry,

"I just don't have words to describe the horror here.

"I'll try to tell you when I get home." But...

You were trying to forget between then...

Yeah, I never did.

"I lay on a blanket I managed to obtain.

"Suddenly, I saw a German soldier leave the watchtower.

"Then I heard cries of joy and the rumble of American tanks.

"Bitsare was stronger than me.

"He ran over with some canned food and went to get more.

"His head was bleeding when he came back,

"so he asked me to pee on his wound.

"'Pisi, Joseph, pisi.'

"I knew that urine was a disinfectant, so I peed.

"We left the camp at dawn."

Pete!

-Pete Carnabuci.

-Hey. Hi.

How are you? Oh!

-It's you?

-It's me.

-It's you.

Your voice hasn't changed.

Why should my voice change?

How have you been?

Pete, I've been good.

-Good.

-How have you been?

-Oh, I'm doing OK so far, you know.

-Yeah.

I think I told you that I go for the VA

for this post-traumatic stress.

-But I'm coming along OK.

-Yeah.

And...

Well, Gunskirchen...

-..is a tough one.

-Yes, it is.

That...

you know...

..it's almost impossible...

..to explain and describe...

..that hour or so that happened to us

-at the gate of Gunskirchen Lager.

-Yes.

It's impossible to explain to people what inhuman...

how inhuman humans can be to other humans.

We saw the worst.

Got to be the worst.

I've never seen a horror movie that comes anywhere near...

..what we saw,

what we heard, what we smelled.

I know that you and I...

I believe you were there by the doorway.

We didn't go in.

And seeing these human living skeletons.

-And that really bothered me.

-Yeah.

We have to carry that with us,

but we can't let that make us the victims, Pete.

I know.

But...

-you try to forget, but it's too hard.

-It's hard.

I know it's hard.

The...

one of the hard parts beyond that is,

we gave them food.

And many of them ate and then died,

cos their stomachs, whatever they did, you know?

We didn't know that.

We didn't know that, you couldn't do that.

But I don't think we can, you know, lay a blame...

you can't lay a blame, because you gave these guys your C-rations

and they died within two hours.

That...that cannot be your blame.

You did what you could.

Some of them already start walking out of the camp.

And they were laying all over the woods and the meadows,

and the culverts along the road, on the road.

And I picked two of them up, one at a time.

They didn't weigh anything but 60, 70 pounds.

I grabbed them by the neck and tried to feed them, and they...

They just bent over and they died.

That really got me.

And the worst way, to me...

one of the worst ways to me is to die starving,

and I was there to visualise it,

what it felt like to be very hungry

where you can even eat human flesh.

HE SOBS QUIETLY

(That's all I have to say.)

Happy to see my friend Jucksch again.

And a few of the other fellas that are still living.

My father, he never talked about it during his lifetime.

The only time I actually understood

and found out what happened to him

was when I read his memoir...

..he wrote during the two years before he passed away.

I would suggest to you...

..that maybe you're better off not having heard the stories.

Can't you imagine...

how horrible it must have been,

lying in the squalor?

Who's got to pee next? Who's got to defecate next?

Where is he going to find a spot to defecate...

..that hasn't got a body on it?

How can he tell that story?

Maybe he had to fight one off to survive.

We are survivors.

You know, we're animals in the end.

We have this gene, or whatever it is

that makes us want to survive above all.

So...

..you could be proud of your father, that he somehow survived.

Survived enough to have children and raise a family.

That's good.

Be happy with that story.

"People tell me I'm sad, that I sink into melancholy.

"I know it's hard for people to accept me.

"My beloved children,

"I'm still trapped there, even in my happiest moments.

"I often regret having survived, and I ask, 'Why me of all people?'

"I am convinced that everyone like me feels the same way.

"We are all actors."

When I left the United States,

I realised that this was as far as I could go

in search of my father's memoir.

But one year later, I was informed

that the Austrians agreed to open the towers for me for a single day.

I knew I had to go, but this time,

I insisted that my brothers and sister come with me.

After all, the father that I had discovered was their father too.

I had another reason to get everyone together,

but I won't reveal it now.

Only Esti knows.

SPEAKS IN GERMAN

This was a barrack for those who were able to work.

They were strictly separated, as we told you before,

and so everybody who entered a barrack of this kind was able,

declared to be able to work.

GUIDE SPEAKS GERMAN

OK, so every barrack was separated in two parts - Room A, Room B.

We're now in Room B, and Room A is just a similar thing,

just mirrored.

Where is the gas chamber?

It's here?

That's where they kill...

That's the way the gas chambers...

We must see them. We must.

We must!

"My parents and brothers aren't really dead to me,

"because I didn't see them die.

"I still can't let go.

"Sometimes I imagine those last 10 minutes in the gas chamber,

"how they fought for every last breath of air.

"I can't stop thinking of that image,

"but I still fight on, every hour and every minute,

"so that I don't lose my sanity.

"Maybe it's my way of taking revenge.

"Maybe it is just a will to live."

-How many metres? How many kilometres are these tunnels?

-This is 7.5km.

So, basically, they built the aeroplanes over here?

All these tunnels.

-For the aeroplanes?

-Yes.

-And how many aeroplanes were built here?

-1,000.

-What?!

-1,000 aeroplanes.

"I remember a scene in the tunnel.

"Five Jews, including a father and son,

"were holding a log on their shoulders

"while a red-headed Polish Gentile whipped them like horses.

"When they put down the log, the Pole ordered the boy,

"who was about 16, my age, to slap his father.

"The boy refused.

"So the Pole slapped him and said, 'Hit him hard, like that.'

"But the boy still refused.

"His father pleaded with him in Hungarian, saying,

"'Slap me hard!'

"He wanted to stop the Pole from hitting his son.

"I wondered what I would have done in his place."

The colour you see, the black, is from the blasting, from the burning.

I'm just looking for... You see this?

It says, "Takt 29."

So this was a step of the production and the plane was on Takt 29.

For me, this place is so important and so amazing

because here you see how they built the tunnels.

And if you look up there,

you see a lot of scratches and, yeah,

you see that this is all made by hand.

And here, I feel, personally, like the workers,

they just have gone for lunch or whatever.

They were ten minutes away.

So this is the place, personally,

I feel, yeah...not very good here.

THEY CONTINUE ARGUING

THEY LAUGH

THEY LAUGH

SHE LAUGHS

CHOIR SINGS

"There were no roll calls in Gunskirchen.

"We were not afraid of beatings.

"We were not given any food.

"And we felt like no-one was interested in us.

"The barracks were filled with the living and the dead.

"There was no room for me, so I slept outside.

"My will to live was strong

"because I thought that we were the only Jews left.

"I was cold, so I snuck into a barracks

"and fell asleep beside someone who didn't throw me out.

"You can probably guess why.

"That's right.

"I'm not sure I would fight for my life like that now."

HE SIGHS AND SOBS QUIETLY

RONEL SIGHS

ESTI:

ESTI LAUGHS

ESTI LAUGHS

ESTI:

RONEL:

ESTI:

RONEL:

ESTI:

THEY LAUGH

ESTI:

ESTI:

GIDEON:

THEY LAUGH

"It was time to go home.

"I was overwhelmed by unspeakable pain.

"I tried to drown my bitterness in vodka,

"but soon realised that it was

"not the solution, because I would throw up after drinking a lot.

"Worst of all, no-one cared about me.

"I was so confused, I didn't know what I was doing.

"I felt guilty for surviving.

"I felt that way my entire life.

"I can't break free of it.

"That's also why I take breaks in my writing.

"Few people can really understand."

BEE BUZZES

ESTI:

DISTANT CHATTERING OF CHILDREN

"Today we had a wonderful day.

"All our boys came for lunch with

"their wives and our grandchildren.

"Yuval and Yael asked to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa.

"We'll take them home tomorrow.

"David told Mama how great it is

"that his children have grandparents.

"I want to tell you that when I heard this, I shed a tear."

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd