Ted Sears Memoir, part 4
A recent aerial photo of the picturesque Bavarian village of Seeshaupt with the church of St. Michael. By André Rühleia, via Wikimedia Commons.
Introduction: Leaving Mühldorf
We have posted three excerpts so far from the Holocaust Memoir written by our cousin, Ted Sears, born Tibor Schwartz in Debrecen, Hungary in 1929. This fourth excerpt recounts the first day of freedom for Ted and his brother.
On the morning of April 30, 1945, 15 year old Ted and his 17 year old brother, Mickey, woke in a freight car where they had spent three days without food or water. The freight train had stopped the day before about 150 kilometers from Mühldorf, where the two brothers had spent almost a year as slave laborers. Nazi leaders had decided to construct dozens of underground factories for the production of war material after Allied bombing grew intense in 1944. Mühldorf was one of those sites— intended for the assembly of Messerschmitt fighter planes.
The brothers had been in Mühldorf for almost a year when, at morning roll call on April 27, 1945, the prisoners were not divided up in the usual manner before being marched to work sites. Instead, the SS guards marched the few thousand surviving prisoners out as a single large group. Ted, remembers thinking that they were headed for a new work site and he wondered: "Maybe there will be some potatoes or sugar to be found there. If so, I am sure that I'll find a way to get some of it . . . ."
But the march did not end at the construction site.
. . . we were heading in an entirely different direction - an unfamiliar road, not traveled by me before. The guards seemed downcast and even a bit dejected and that made me feel good. They looked nervous like they did in Auschwitz the night we were shipped out to Mühldorf. The atmosphere however, looked less cruel. I sensed that the Kapos knew something but they weren’t talking.
In less than thirty minutes we arrived to a railroad terminal and without any explanation, all were ordered to board the freight cars that were sitting there with doors wide open. While nobody knew where we were going, it still looked like everybody except me was eager to board the train. Somehow to me boarding a train didn’t look like we were going somewhere where food can be found. But regardless how I assessed the situation it didn’t matter because whether I liked it or not, there was nothing I could do about it. . . .
The freight cars [at first] were moving at a pretty fast speed as if there was some urgency to get somewhere in a hurry. Of course, nobody inside the freight cars knew where we were going. It was just as well because I later learned that Hitler and his cohorts realized that the war was lost and ordered the execution of all the Jewish prisoners who were still alive and to dispose of them in an untraceable manner. The objective was to get rid of all evidence of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime against the Jewish people before the fast approaching allied army arrived.
During the first two days after the train left Mühldorf many prisoners died in the freight cars, victims of starvation, dehydration and strafing by allied aircraft. Then the train stopped and SS troops began leaving, telling prisoners the war was over and they were free to leave. But as more and more people left the open freight cars, the SS returned and killed the fleeing prisoners with machine gun fire. Those prisoners who survived, including Ted and his brother, jumped back into the freight cars and spent a night hiding silently among the dead.
In the early hours of April 30, 1945, Ted and his brother found the rail siding almost deserted — the SS had finally fled. And gradually, the remaining prisoners began to emerge cautiously and quietly from the freight cars.
The train had stopped in Seeshaupt, a picturesque village on the shore of Lake Starnberg.
Seeshaupt was peaceful, deserted, and undamaged by the war. It remains peaceful to this day. But for years after the war ended, town residents debated and rejected erecting a memorial to the Jews who died there in those freight cars and on the railroad siding. The debate over a memorial was not resolved until 50 years after the end of the war, in the mid 1990s, when a small memorial sculpture was erected in the town. The reason it had taken so long, according to the town website, was this:
The initiative was not uncontroversial at first, partly because many locals still remembered with horror the looting of some concentration camp inmates tolerated by the Americans.
Ted Sears was one of those “looters” — a hungry boy, 15 years old, who could not get his mind off his empty stomach.
This two meter high sculpture was finally erected in Seeshaupt in the mid 1990s. According to the town website: "The sculptor Jörg Kicherer has created the memorial - crowned with the words of Antigone: 'To love, not to hate I am.’"
Food, by Ted Sears
The date was April 30, 1945, almost exactly a year since my arrival in Auschwitz. This was the date when a handful of prisoners with the help of the American Army, beat all odds for survival. I later learned this date was also the day when Hitler committed suicide. It became the most important day of my past and I have silently celebrated it every year for the past fifty years, without any fanfare.
Seeshaupt, miles and miles away from the place where I was born, an ignoble and misery filled journey that began in the flatlands of Debrecen, Hungary, had taken me through so many mine-fields and finally ended here at a railroad station, somewhere in the foothills of the Alps. A little village named Seeshaupt.
This place that was supposed to have been my tomb-less grave, turned out to be the place of my resurrection. Instead of a mass graveyard it had become a place of survival. This quiet little village, hardly a speck on the map, turned out to be a place of great importance to me, a place where all the misery and torture of the past year finally came to an end. “An unbelievable and glorious escape from certain death,” I said to myself.
Seeshaupt...Seeshaupt. I shall always remember Seeshaupt. A name that sounds so sweet and melodic to me - even so many years later. And of course, I shall never forget General Patton and his Third army either. There are no words to express my gratitude to the great General.
The inferno - nightmare of the dark - the abominable carnage had finally come to an end. There were no more SS in sight but the war was still going on. We were free but Germany was still fighting the war. Sporadic sounds of gunfire were still to be heard and the hundreds and hundreds of military vehicles continued to roll forward with no end in sight.
"Go get them, Yankees. Give them hell" I shouted as I was prepared to leave the area.
Except for the weak and injured, most everybody left the wagons some time ago. Only a few were still hanging around when my brother and I finally departed for the village also.
The village was only a few minutes from the station. A typical small Tyrolian village with rows of neatly groomed homes. There was absolutely nothing in the village to indicate that there was a war going on. It wasn't touched by the years of fighting nor was there any sign of the years of bombing that took place during the war. All the homes were intact but completely deserted. Not a single resident was to be seen in the whole village. The only people moving about were blue striped clad freed prisoners, walking in groups of five or six, searching for food.
Mickey and I were tailing a large group who just passed a big building without paying any attention to it. There was nothing to indicate that it deserved any attention but we decided to check it out anyway. We crossed the street, tried the door and found it open. My brother and I entered the building quietly and were immediately followed by another group that was directly behind us.
As soon as I opened the door my eyes could not believe the treasure we happened to stumble upon. Cheese. The place was full of cheese. "FOOD! FOOD!" I yelled as I was running for the shelf. "Food, food" I screamed.
As luck would have it we happened to blunder into a cheese processing plant. The shelves were neatly stocked with freshly made cheese. Lots of cheese, all kinds of cheese, big slabs of it enough to feed an army. My eyes were bulging and my mind instructed me to hurry up. My mouth began to salivate and tasted the flavor of the cheese already.
Being first to enter the building, Mickey and I had no problem to pick and choose any of the exotic flavors but we were more interested in the size of the slab than in any particular taste of cheese. My arms felt as if they were ten feet long when I stretched out to grab the biggest slab on the shelf, which was a distance away from where I was standing.
With a big chunk of cheese in my hand and Mickey by my side, we sat down on the floor and began to eat ferociously. There was no knife to cut slices but that didn’t hinder me one iota. Like a cave man, I twisted off a chunk, shoved it into my mouth and with hardly any chewing of the food, I swallowed. I repeated the process over and over again, eating as fast as humanly possible.
But despite of all the food I was consuming my hunger wasn’t easing the slightest bit. Indeed, it was still so severe that I felt that all the food in the warehouse would not be enough to satisfy it.
I reached out for a couple of additional slabs, placed them by my side and began to eat faster. Shoved a big chunk into my mouth and before I swallowed it, I stuffed in more. Eventually my mouth became so full that I wasn’t able to swallow. I knew that in order to swallow I had to remove some of the food but my jaws wouldn’t let me. They locked tight and it put a halt to my feasting. Not until I assured myself that there was more than enough food in the warehouse and that I do not have to fear walking away hungry, did my jaws release. And only then did I begin to dine in a slow and normal manner.
Whereas all my other senses were totally missing the sense of taste was keener than ever. Never have I enjoyed the pleasure of eating more than I did while eating gobs and gobs of the cheese. It did not matter that there was only cheese and nothing else to eat, it still felt as if I was eating a most elaborate meal. A big complete meal; feasting on meat, vegetables, potatoes and all kind of exotic delicacies. It felt as if I was eating the most flavorful food ever prepared by the world's greatest chef.
There was no need to chew the food to release the hidden flavor it contained. Indeed, the rich aroma was present as soon as I deposited it into my famished mouth. And the bigger the chunk that I swallowed the better my starved stomach reacted to it. Even the tracks leading to my stomach participated in the concert. It felt, smelled and sounded like a perfect harmony. I imagined that I tasted the salt so distinctively that I could tell how many grains each bite contained. I could tell the richness of the milk used to process it. As if the cow that contributed it had known that it is for a special occasion. Additional holes were artificially injected into each slab to ease the chewing process. All care that normally is reserved for royalty had been given to prepare the meal. Even a special food-taster has been flown in to assure the flavor is of the best quality. And of course the creamy silky texture was not a coincidence. And the moisture and the freshness were also very important since the consumer of it may discard it if not easily digestible. Nothing of that carefully prepared meal was left to chance and the labor of it certainly was not wasted on me. I sensed every little detail that went into the preparation of that lavish meal.
I was in ecstasy.
“Am I dreaming? Am I going to wake up to find that this is all a dream?” I asked.
“No! This is real. It feels real” I answered.
As I continued my feast, tiny little morsels fell on the wooden floor and just like in the camp I kept picking up each and every bit of the fallen cheese, put it in my mouth to eat. With loads and loads of cheese sitting on the shelves, there was no need to pick up the fallen pieces, but the conditioning of the camp was embedded in my system so deeply that it took me months to break the habit.
It took a lot of eating before I could feel the hunger dwindling. I finally reached the point where I wasn't hungry anymore but I couldn’t stop eating. I reached for another slab and continued on. I asked the people around me if anybody else wanted a piece of my slab and when there was no response I realized how silly my question was, because the cheese was plentiful and available to everybody.
Still fearful of being interrupted by the machine-gun of the SS, I looked around to see if there was anything to be afraid of. I didn’t see anything. The building that was virtually empty when I first sat down to gorge myself was now filled beyond capacity, and everybody was eating the cheese without breathing, talking or pausing. There was only an occasional glance toward the shelves to check how much food was still left. It was a ceaseless non-stop orgy, as if everybody was assigned to eat all the cheese in the warehouse. It looked as if an order was given by the SS to consume every bit of it before the day was over. As if the only reason why we were brought there was to devour all the food in the warehouse. And if we wouldn't fulfill the order we would be shot on the spot.
It was a beautiful sight. It looked like an efficient eating factory: Like a well oiled machine, hands were reaching for cheese, placing food inside the mouth, consuming it and reaching for more. The proficiency in which the cheese was being consumed looked as if nobody was going to get shot.
I continued to eat more until I felt that I had enough. And just as I was ready to get up and leave, my urge to eat more, reappeared. I reached out for more and began to eat again, even more ferociously than before. I wanted to shout to the SS; "don't worry. I alone will finish it all. I'll see to it that not a morsel is left."
At last, I had so much to eat that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't possibly swallow another bite. Yet it still took a lot of effort to stop eating.
There was still lots of food left on the shelves but I didn't care anymore. I was totally satisfied. Feeling no hunger was a dream come true. Something I was dreaming about for almost a year. Just that morning, it seemed like an impossible dream, an unobtainable goal, and to see the dream materialize at last was something still beyond belief.
Mickey and I looked at each other and said "enough" and decided to leave.
Before leaving the building we filled our pockets with the variety of cheeses that was still plentiful. The big chunks were bulging from our pockets as we went looking for a safe place where we could spend the night.
On the way out I watched the other survivors, still eating ferociously, unable to stop. Many of them were so weak that they had difficulty swallowing the food. Others looked half dead but still wanting to eat, coughing and choking in the process. You could see the overwhelming desire they had to satisfy the hunger before death came calling. As if it was really easier to die with food inside the stomach - a contingency often contemplated by myself and gladly acceptable to me when ravaged by the hunger in Muhldorf.
Over-eating was another problem that many of us had to deal with. The body was weak and almost everything was life threatening. It didn’t give Mickey or me any problems but many became sick from eating too much. But even with a moderate amount of consumption, one still had to be careful. Not having eaten much over a long period of time caused everyone’s digestive system to be very delicate. The cheese was a perfect food for our first meal. To start with any other type of food, especially something hard to digest, could have caused major problems. Therefore the cheese we found was a Godsend, literally a lifesaver to many. In addition, the cheese was therapeutic also - a binding agent that helped people with dysentery.
“To have found a warehouse full of food so fast was extremely good luck, but to have found a warehouse that contained cheese was unbelievably good luck,” I said to Mickey as we left the building.
