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Her grandfather drove trains to Auschwitz. My great-grandmother was murdered there

67f09910 da73 11ef a37f eba91255dc3d 67f09910 da73 11ef a37f eba91255dc3d

grey placeholderAmy Lebowitz A woman with long dark hair smiles at the camera. She stands in front of a white background and wears red lipstick and a blue blouse.Amy Lebowitz

Amy Lebowitz never met her grandfather Ludwig, who survived the Holocaust, or his mother Rachel, who was tortured, gassed and murdered.

It doesn’t matter how much you prepare for it. It still takes you by surprise. As the granddaughter of a woman murdered in Auschwitz, I meet the granddaughter of the man who led Jews to their deaths. I’m lost for words.

I never got to meet my grandfather Ludwig, who survived the Holocaust, or his mother Rachel. They were put on a cattle car to the Auschwitz death camp in 1944. Ludwig, who was 15 at the time, was separated from his mother and sent to another concentration camp. But Rachel was tortured, gassed and killed.

I grew up hearing lots of stories about them, and spending time with other Holocaust survivors in my family in Australia. They were at the forefront of my thoughts when I found myself in Germany interviewing Cornelia Stiller.

Cornelia’s grandfather was the main breadwinner in a family with a very small income. He originally worked as a coal miner, but after a near-fatal accident left him trapped under coal for two days, he decided to do something else. Things turned around when he eventually got a job at the Deutsche Reichsbahn as a train driver. Cornelia’s mother spoke of this achievement with pride, saying that getting the job was “the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Initially it transported goods for the war effort. But it quickly turned into something more sinister. “I think my grandfather was a train driver, moving between death camps. He stayed in Legnitz, now Legnica, in a boarding school, so there was a certain separation from the family and from the death camps.”

Cornelia says that when her grandfather first started the business, he didn’t know what it would become. “I think my grandfather saw a lot of terrible things and didn’t know how to get out of it, and didn’t know how to deal with it.”

After training as a family therapist, she delved into her past and tried to understand it better. She told me she began to wonder: “At what stage was he the perpetrator? Was he an accomplice? When could he have left?”

At this point, my mouth is dry. My heart is racing. Listening to all of this feels like an out-of-body experience. All I can think of is how her grandfather drove the trains to Auschwitz, and that’s how my grandfather and great-grandmother ended up there. I think about all my other relatives – cousins ​​who I know existed but know nothing about – who were also killed at Auschwitz.

grey placeholderLiebowitz family studio portrait of four people - a man, a woman, a girl and a boy - smiling. It is in black and whiteLebowitz family

Amy’s grandfather Ludwig, a Holocaust survivor, pictured with Grandma Shirley, Mother Ruth and Uncle Simon (left to right)

“If I were younger, I think I would hate you so much,” I told her, fighting back tears. “But I don’t because saying all those things was really hard to admit.”

“Give me your hand,” Cornelia says as she explodes as well. “This is important. Your tears and your touch touch me… My grandfather was a train conductor in Auschwitz. What can I say? Nothing.”

She adds: “I cannot apologise, this is not possible,” indicating that the crime is very serious. “My grandfather felt so guilty, he died from his guilt.” Cornelia thanks me for my openness and says there is a need to reveal the full history.

Then she said something you might not expect: that some Germans from Schönwald, where her family came from, had reacted angrily to her research. The renamed Polish city of Bujkow, about 100 kilometers from Krakow, has not come to terms with its Nazi past.

Cornelia explains that the city was originally against the ideology of the Nazi Party, but over time, became consumed by it. Hitler saw Schönwald as a model village – an Aryan village in the land of the Slavs. He hoped that the “fifth column” of ethnic Germans there would become a useful aid in the army.

The site was the site of the Gleiwitz Incident, a false flag incident organized by Nazi Germany in 1939 to justify the invasion of Poland, one of the causes of World War II. In 1945, towards the end of the war, it was the first German village to be attacked by advancing Soviet forces.

But just before that, it was the scene of one of the Nazis’ alleged death marches.

grey placeholderThe Liebowitz Family A young girl sits next to an elderly woman wearing a pink jacket. They are at a party and are sitting at a dining table with other people standing behind themLebowitz family

Amy (right), grew up listening to the stories of her Aunt Gita, who survived Auschwitz

As the Soviets approached Auschwitz, Hitler’s elite guards, the SS, forced some 60,000 prisoners there – most of them Jews – to move west. Between 19 and 21 January 1945, one of these marches passed through Schönwald. In below-freezing temperatures, prisoners wore only their thin striped uniforms with only wooden shoes on their feet. Those who collapsed from hunger and exhaustion were shot.

Those who survived were placed on open cattle wagon trains headed west, usually to other concentration camps, such as Buchenwald. The Nazis wanted to hold onto their slave labor, and even at this point, some still believed in the Third Reich’s eventual victory.

My local history and religion teacher, Krzysztof Kruszynski, took me to the main street along which the death march passed. People waiting to board their bus outside the main church on Rolnikov Street – known as Bauerstrasse in German times. He pointed to the ground and told me that these were the original stones that the prisoners had to walk on.

“It is a silent witness to the death march,” he says. “But the stone cannot speak.”

grey placeholderJohn Murphy A man with short gray hair in a white and blue plaid shirt standing in front of a series of church plaques, a statue and some potted plants John Murphy

History teacher Krzysztof Kruseczynski says Boykov’s cobblestones are a ‘silent witness to the death march’

This history has been buried until now – partly because the Germans from Schönwald had to flee after the Soviet attack which came soon after and the Poles resettled the village. A German-Polish woman in her eighties, Ruta Kasubek, told me how drunken Soviet soldiers broke into her family home and killed her father. But there is another reason: the active repression of the past.

It did not surprise me that some Germans responded negatively to Cornelia’s research. Germany is proud of itself ErinnerungskulturOr The Culture of Remembering: Compulsory Holocaust Education, Museums and Memorials. But many believe that this is the task of the state and the government. Although they are happy enough to confront the past in the abstract, it is difficult to grapple with their family history, says Benjamin Fischer, a former Jewish student leader and political consultant. He calls it “the de-individuation of history.”

A Study at Bielefeld University It found that a third of Germans believe their family members helped save Jews during the Holocaust. Benjamin says this is “ridiculous” and “statistically impossible.”

On the ground in Boykov, 80 years after the Death March, things are beginning to change. Last week, a delegation of Germans, Jews and Poles, including local authorities, schools and emergency services, unveiled a new memorial to commemorate those who died in the city’s death march.

grey placeholderIPN K. Łojko A man and two women stand to the left of a large monument topped with shoe statues IPN K. Łojko

Cornelia, wearing a pink scarf, at the memorial in Bozhkov to mark the 80th anniversary of the death march

Cornelia and Krzysztof were there. For Cornelia, history is deeply personal. She is convinced that studying and remembering it is essential to understanding how society can change so quickly. And I’m grateful for that. Their work and passion give me hope in a world of rising anti-Semitism – as I try to keep alive the memory of how my family was murdered.

The people of Schönwald believe that their city lies at the pinnacle of high culture and spirituality. “Then it turned into debauchery,” Cornelia says. “This is a development that we have to understand… They are not just good or bad. People can go into jobs with good intentions but very quickly, [find themselves] On the wrong side.

“We can’t change the past. We can’t turn back time. But it’s important to talk about this, to remind people what happened, to remind people what human beings can do for each other.”

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2025-01-25 01:33:00

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