International Holocaust Day
צילום: עידו ארז
Memory of a tunnel
Noah Klieger survived the horrors of Nazis' Mittelbau-Dora labor camp – hunger, disease, beatings, and hangings; 62 years later, he returns to close the circle
I was 18 years old when I first entered the “Stollen”, the mountain tunnels where the Germans produced their secret weapons. Today, 62 years later, as I stand here again, it seems as if it was just yesterday that I left.
My mind is suddenly flooded with images from the past: The machines, the workers, and the SS men wandering among them. Whenever they would pass by, I would pretend to yell at the men – and sometimes even to slap them – because as an overseer, I was responsible for speed and efficiency. As soon as they moved on, we would all go back to making toast on the steel plates.
We were strangers. Fate had brought us together. I can probably count the number of survivors on my two hands. Some were hanged there in the camp; others died during the long march through the Harz Mountains. The rest have since succumbed to old age.
But I’ve returned to this accursed place - to the Mittelbau-Dora camp, where I had believed that I would meet my death. And I remember everything.
On the way to the memorial site, with its new, imposing permanent exhibit, my hosts - director Dr. Hans-Christian Wagner, who wrote his doctorate about the camp, and his assistant Dr. Regina Heubaum - ask me questions. I respond quickly and precisely, as if a file in my mind’s database was opened and the contents are being released.
How could I ever forget my months in hell?
Industrialized hangings
In this unique concentration camp in the Harz Mountains – the last concentration camp to be established in Germany – the Germans produced the secret weapons that were intended to determine the war’s outcome: the V-1 and V-2 rockets which were lobbed towards England.
Although Dora wasn’t officially an extermination camp – it was classified as a labor camp, instead – and didn’t have gas chambers, in practice, it resembled Auschwitz and Majdanek. The similarities extended to the horrible mistreatment of the prisoners, the cruel guards, the meager and pathetic sustenance provided to the inmates, the truly shocking labor conditions, and even the death rate.
It’s difficult to obtain an exact estimate of the number of Dora victims, because no records were kept of the thousands of prisoners who were sent to be murdered in several nearby camps. However, researchers believe that during the camp’s relatively short existence, approximately half of the camp’s 60,000 inmates were either murdered outright or died as a result of disease.
At least 10,000 prisoners died during construction of the so-called Stollen, the 15-kilometers-long mountain tunnels, where the bombs, the silos, and the launch pads were produced and assembled. It took several months to build this subterranean factory, and during that time, the inmates lived inside the tunnels under terrible conditions.
The prisoners worked two consecutive 12-hour shifts and then briefly slept on four-tiered bunks – without either ventilation, running water, or plumbing. They drank contaminated water that had been brought from outside and relieved themselves into uncovered buckets.
Dora opened in the spring of 1944, when it was already a foregone conclusion that Germany would be defeated; it was simply a matter of time. Furthermore, everyone knew that thousands of primitive missiles would be useless against the Allies, who had gained control of the European skies and had begun trouncing the Reich in both the East and the West.
Nevertheless, Hitler, together with his loyal and zealous henchmen, continued to dream of victory.
Due to Allied bombings, the secret munitions industry, which had been established in the northern city of Peenemünde in 1943, was relocated deep inside Mount Kohnstein, next to the town of Nordhausen. Previously, the Germans had built large oil storehouses inside the mountain, and these hidden depots were enlarged and refitted to serve as a secret munitions factory.
I arrived in that camp of horror on January 30, 1945, following a death march from Auschwitz and ten days in an open railcar. The Germans crammed around 150 prisoners into each car, and there wasn’t even enough room for everyone to stand.
As a result, those who were somewhat less weak stood on top of those who had fallen and died. At one point, a young prisoner with a Hungarian accent asked the rest of us to say Kaddish together with him for his father. In order to convince us, he offered each one of us a piece of bread which he had hidden in his pajamas.
We recited the Kaddish and swallowed the bread. Meanwhile, I asked the young fellow when had his father died and where was he. He died a few minutes ago, and we are sitting on him, he replied.
Twelve years later, after I had published an article about that journey, I discovered that the young Hungarian prisoner, Elazar Zelenfreund, had also survived and was living in Haifa.
When we reached Dora, the Germans registered us. I realized that, due to the utter chaos that had reigned in the assorted transports arriving from Auschwitz, the Germans didn’t have orderly records, and I was thus able to register myself as a French political prisoner.
The ruse saved my life twice, because several days later, the 3,000 Jewish prisoners were killed in the quarries of the Ulrich sub-camp. Thanks to a series of miracles, I became the overseer of a large commando in the Stollen, and I thus “enjoyed” somewhat better conditions, which enabled me to survive.
Surviving in Dora wasn’t simple. Although the laborers of the Sobatsky units (named after Alvin Sobatsky, director of planning) were relatively better off – their benefits included one portion of bread each day, a large cube of margarine, a few potatoes, and a short nap every two hours – they still had to sleep in the squalid and primitive huts next to the mountain. In addition, these “privileged” laborers weren’t immune from the public killings, which occurred several times a day, every day.
In fact, they were in even greater danger. As skilled mechanics and machine operators, they were constantly suspected of sabotage. Saboteurs were inevitably punished by hanging.
Hangings were an intrinsic part of life in Dora and executed with utmost efficiency. After waiting his turn next to the U-shaped gallows, which had five hooks and was strung with piano wire, the accused climbed on a bench, which the SS soldiers yanked from underneath his feet. The bodies were removed after only a few minutes, and the next batch of unfortunates moved on to the benches.
Despite German prodding, the prisoners didn’t hurry and actually worked very slowly when the guards weren’t around. In any case, most of the laborers weren’t adept at this type of production, and thus neither the pace nor the quality of the work met expectations.
A view from the bridge
Today, the well-planned exhibit emphasizes that Dora was founded only after it was clear that Germany was going to lose the war. Dr. Wagner notes that the Reich’s fanatical leaders were willing to sacrifice thousands of Germans in hopeless battles – to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of murdered Jews and the thousands of European political prisoners, who were coerced to work in labor camps for the German war effort.
Several of the tunnels have been cleared of the rocks and sand that accumulated following Soviet attempts at blowing up the entire site. Visitors walk along a bridge and can see where the Stollen laborers lived, the production halls, and the storehouses.
Entrance to the site is via the narrow opening, undetectable from the air, which we prisoners used on our way to work. We would always enter and exit in the dark – before dawn and after nightfall – so as not to reveal the entrance’s existence and location.
On April 3, 1945, when we left the Stollen, our hearts were filled with great joy. The nearby city of Nordhausen erupted in flames following an aerial attack.
The next day, the Germans forced us on yet another march. For ten days, we crossed the Harz Mountains to the Ravensbruck camp. This took place a mere month prior to the Germans’ final defeat.
The world just commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I, as a Holocaust survivor, have returned to the scene of the crime – not only as a victor but as an honored guest, meriting special treatment. They took care of me then, too, but, of course, it was completely different.
