Holocaust survivor shares story at Briar Cliff

By JoANN AMMANN, Globe intern
Nov. 9, 2006

Briar Cliff University welcomed holocaust survivor Zev Kedem to campus Nov. 2. Nearly 400 people were on hand to listen to Kedem's story of survival through the holocaust and treatment at the concentration camps.

Zev Kedem was born in Poland in 1934. In 1939, at the time of the invasion, Kedem and his family were on vacation. The Kedems were from a comfortable family, and spoke German and Polish at home, rather than the traditional language, Yiddish.

Kedem continued to tell about how their lives were instantly changed. The train they were riding on was stopped in Krakow. Luckily for the Kedem family, they had grandparents that lived there.

"When we arrived at their house, three other families were already there," said Kedem. "Conditions were crowded, we were only allowed to bring what we could carry with us. Fortunately we found an apartment across the landing from my grandparents and shared it with two other families."

It was 1940, one year into the holocaust. At this point, none of the 3-4 million Jews in Poland were free; they were forced to live in ghettos, where they were surrounded by barbed wire, walls and were guarded.

"If a person went to buy a loaf of bread, he could be picked up by Germans and if he returned in the evening, there was a great deal of joy, because they had lost their sense of controlling their own destiny at this point," Kedem said. "Some did not return."

Germans soldiers were invading Jewish homes, pillaging and looting, collecting pieces out of the homes for themselves and also removing the Jews. When a soldier came to where the Kedem family was hiding in a room above their apartments. The soldier did not look up there, which saved Kedem and his family.

"Little did I know that this darkness would follow me for the next six and a half years," said Kedem. "It was open hunting season, we had no civil rights, when you have no civil rights anything can be done to you."

The Kedems realized at this point they would split up in order to try and survive. Kedem's mother instructed his grandparents and sister to collect loot for the Germans. When the wagon-master came, Kedem's mother negotiated and gave him her wedding ring before he agreed to smuggle Kedem into a concentration camp, hidden under the loot collected for the Germans. Kedem added that it was though that chance of survival was a little higher inside the camp, he was nine.

"At the camp, your hair was cutoff, you were not allowed to present yourself by name, it would only suggest your culture," said Kedem. "You were only allowed to speak when you were spoken too, and only identify yourself by number, a greater dehumanization I have not come across. Execution was as easy as swatting a fly by the Nazis."

At this camp, Kedem came close to death again. A German soldier came up to Kedem and Kedem thought that his time had come.

"When you have very little choice, one becomes inventive. I says 'Hi, isn't it a nice day, look I produce more than most others, I'm smaller so I eat least,'" said Kedem. "He had orders to kill anyone under the age of 13. I was convinced I had beaten the culture of death. Any day I stayed alive I was beating the culture of death system. I must confess to you, I never really was aware of suffering because I wasn't supposed to be alive. This went on for two more years."

Kedem then said, "Call it the direct hand of God, or even just a change of situation, the Russians had beaten the Germans at Stalingrad. This was 1944, five and half years into the holocaust."

The camp that Kedem was at was located about 40 miles away from Auschwitz. The central authorities in Berlin then decided to begin the Final Solution.

It was at this time Oscar Schindler became a very important name to Zev Kedem. Schindler was a German entrepreneur and knew that at this time the only way to be successful was to produce independently for the German army. Schindler found a company that produced pots and pans in Poland, where the cost of labor was the lowest and used 1,100 Jews to work for him; which became known as Schindler's List.

Kedem had found what was like an adoptive father, named Dr. Ross. Dr. Ross was needed as a doctor and could put names on Schindler's list. He somehow managed to put Kedem, his mother and sister on the list. Kedem was only on the list for a week when German soldiers found him and four other boys in the city. This was in November of 1944. It was decided that the five boys and their fathers would be sent to Auschwitz, where there was a train going to pick up women that Schindler had managed to release.

At Auschwitz, the Germans led the group around a silent camp of around 60,000 prisoners. After the war, Kedem found out that he was one of the last 10 numbers to be transported in.

"There were spotlights and machine guns on everyone, we walked around a couple miles of the camp to where the crematorium are. We went into a huge concrete hall, it was freezing cold with one light, and dark shadows," said Kedem. "We were ordered to strip naked. Auschwitz had become an industrialized scent of death where several million had perished until then. This is where I received my tattoo on my arm."

"It brought tears to my eye, partly because it was uncomfortable but more so I was happy because the German soldiers would never invest in the effort in giving us a number if they were going to put us in the gas chambers," said Kedem. "So, at least we lived again another day, all because of the number on the arm."

Hitler gave orders on Nov. 2 to destroy all gas chambers and crematoriums and didn't want the carnage to be discovered. The 10 in Kedem's group had arrived on Nov. 3.

At camp, Kedem saw the women who were selected by Schindler getting ready to be loaded on the train. Among these women, Kedem saw his mother and sister.

"You can imagine under those circumstances, you were 'hey, mom', but you had to communicate silently," said Kedem. "I tried to communicate to her that now I had a number, so I was finally legitimate, and there was nothing to worry about. I did not see my mother again for 40 years."

Kedem hid himself among thousands of Jews who were forced to walk seven days straight to another concentration camp. Kedem thought that by traveling with this group he would be closer to freedom. Only 15 percent of the group survived what is known as the "death walk." Kedem found that after the war he had actually prolonged his stay in concentration camps by nearly sixth months by walking with the group. Auschwitz was liberated shortly after he left. Kedem was finally freed at Mauthausen, on May 3, 1945, two weeks before Kedem's eleventh birthday.

"I noticed among the soldiers there was a black soldier, it slowly penetrated my mind that a black solider could not be a Nazi, and that it had to be the liberation, and the American soldiers had arrived," said Kedem. "I was given freedom at not yet eleven years old.

It was not until he appeared in Schindler's List and served as a consultant for the film that he began telling his experiences.

Tyler Schiltz, of Algona, was on hand to hear Kedem's presentation.

"All of the things he went through in life make you appreciate what you have a little bit more. You don't really know what you've got till it's gone," said Schiltz. "He went through a very horrible thing at a very young age, he went through things with a good attitude and never really felt down about life."

Matthew Gaul of Sheldon was also there for the presentation.

"I think Zev's experience was a real testament to the strength of the human spirit," said Gaul. "I think that for someone to go through such an experience like that and come and tell their story takes a lot of courage and strength to do."