Nightmares: Memoirs of the Years of Horror under Nazi Rule in Europe, 1939-1945When World War II erupted in Europe, Konrad Charmatz was a prospering businessman in Sosnowiec, Poland, a loving son, and an aspiring poet. For the next seven years he witnessed the Holocaust as it destroyed his family, his country, and his culture. In this astonishing story of suffering and survival, he gives his own personal account of the Warsaw ghetto, the death chambers at Auschwitz, the transport trains, the slave labor camps of Dachau, and the liberation. And from the perspective of the renowned journalist he later became, he also describes how the Holocaust was carried out, not only at the level of governments and their armies, but at the level of the individuals who took its orders. Few people survived the Holocaust from such close range or for so long, and few remembered it with the eye of a practiced journalist. |
Contents
Not God Not Man but the Devil Himself | 3 |
My First Contact with the Shtetl | 6 |
People on the Run | 8 |
The First Rosh Hashana under German Occupation | 10 |
Getting Used to the Troubles | 12 |
Sosnowiec | 14 |
Terror and Evil Decrees | 16 |
The Tricks of the Nazis | 18 |
The First Day Amongst the Wreckage in Warsaw | 112 |
Work in the Ruins | 116 |
Destiny Gives Me a Chance | 120 |
Relations Between the Camp Inmates and the Poles | 123 |
Belong to the Privileged Class | 124 |
Block Elders | 127 |
My Luck Runs Out | 132 |
The First Day in the Strafkommando | 137 |
The Judenrat | 20 |
The Problem of Shelter in the Ghetto | 23 |
A Jewish Café in the Ghetto | 26 |
Liquidations | 28 |
Labor Camps | 30 |
The First Transfer | 33 |
The Second Transfer | 38 |
The Third Mass Transfer | 41 |
The Mournful Mood in the Ghetto | 45 |
The Turn Comes to Liquidate the Workshops | 48 |
The Last Action | 50 |
The Liquidation of the Judenrat | 51 |
The Completion of the Liquidation | 53 |
PART | 55 |
My Personal Fate | 56 |
Fall into the Grasp of the Gestapo | 57 |
Those in the Prison | 61 |
A Cell of Jews Only | 66 |
My Mother Appears to Plead My Case | 68 |
The Noose Around My Neck Gets Tighter and Tighter | 70 |
If a Misfortune Is Destined It Will Come Right into the House | 74 |
Get a Notice to Report to the Dulag | 78 |
We Arrive at the Slave Labor Camp | 80 |
The Day Arrives | 84 |
The First Day in Hell | 87 |
Block Number 7 | 90 |
Life in the Block at Birkenau | 94 |
The Work in Birkenau Camp | 96 |
A Strange Meeting in Hell | 98 |
Break Down | 105 |
Warsaw | 109 |
Jews Bake Matzo in Hell | 141 |
Typhoid Breaks Out in the Camp | 144 |
After the Epidemic | 147 |
We Await Evacuation from Warsaw | 149 |
We March out of Warsaw | 154 |
The Second Day of the Death March from Warsaw to Dachau | 159 |
The Third Day of the March | 161 |
The Miracle of Water | 163 |
The Hellish Scenes in the Locked Train Wagons | 167 |
We Reach Dachau | 172 |
Mühldorf and Waldlager Forest Camp | 174 |
A New Trial | 177 |
Destiny Offers Me a New Chance | 179 |
The Klausenburg Rebbe | 184 |
The Good Germans | 188 |
The Last Winter in the Concentration Camp | 190 |
News from the Front | 193 |
The Rescue Operation to Munich | 196 |
Mercy or Fear for the Future | 199 |
The Front Gets Closer | 203 |
The Devil Trips Me Up | 207 |
My Last ChanceRun Away | 211 |
My Fate Hangs in the Balance | 221 |
The Downfall of the Third Reich | 228 |
Jewish Revenge | 239 |
The First Contacts with My Family | 248 |
Sosnowiec | 254 |
In the City of My Birth Ostrowiec | 263 |
Glossary | 272 |
Common terms and phrases
able Arbeitseinsatz arrived asked Auschwitz barracks beat became Bedzin began Birkenau blacksmith block elder clothes crematoria dead death destroyed door dragged Dulag Ernst eyes face felt forest friends front gas chambers Germans Gestapo ghetto going grab hands happened heard heart hide Hitler immediately Jewish Jewish communities Jews Judenrat Kapo knew Kommando Krakow labor camps later leave liquidated lived longer looked matzo Moishe Merin Mühldorf murderers Muselmänner Nazis neighbors never night Obersturmbannführer Olkusz once Ostrowiec piece of bread Poland Poles Polish prayer prison quickly rebbe returned roll call Russians sent shot shouted shtetl sick slave laborers Sochaczew someone soon Sosnowiec soup SS guards started streets Suchodolsky suffering tears tell told took tortured train transport tried turned victims Volksdeutsche wagon waiting Waldlager walked wanted Warsaw watched Wehrmacht woman Yiddish young