Golda's
Stories of the Holocaust
By:
Golda Sandman
The
True Stories of a Holocaust Survivor who Survived
Six
Years in the Concentration Camps
Golda Sandman was born in the small
city of Strachovitsa in south Poland. At the beginning of World War II she was
a girl age eighteen. After the occupation by the Germans she was sent from the
ghetto to a work camp in the city. Later she was sent to Auschwitz Birkenau and
from there to Bergen-Belzen.
She spent totally six years in
concentration camps.
After the war ended she went to
Sweden, and from there immigrated to the Land of Israel in illegal immigrants'
ship. After hard years of absorption she established a family.
Golda's Stories has a plot which
sounds unbelievable. She decided not to surrender to evil and survived under
the harshest terms. She dealt with illegal commerce and smuggling, endangered
her life many times to save people, and acted intuitively opposite death many
times. Her physical and mental sufferings were unprecedented. She survived the death
camps barely alive and gained her health again.
She triumphed to bestow her memoirs
to the next generations, in memory of the heroism of the Jews that perished in
the holocaust.
Golda Sandman
The book defines new borders of
humanity, femininity and heroism, which reach in it heights that were
considered impossible up to here.
Although it's a personal memory, the
book can serve as an accurate, comprehensive presentation of the whole era,
because the stories extend from the 1930th to the 1950th.
The book combines the two points of
view of Golda's child. He listens to the stories of his mother eagerly and
believes her, but he lives in the reality of present day life, where the
stories sound imaginary.
The literary style maintains the
emotional connection between mother and son, and encounters it with the
unbelievable content.
Some chapters are available here for
reading, for anyone who is interested in the subject.
Index
Part I – Normal Time
1 – In the Town Strachovitsa
A. The house where I grew up
The family, friends and businesses
B. Our furniture shop and the
Antisemitism
A guy who bullies the Jewish shop
keepers learns a lesson from me.
C. Poland
in the Media coverage at that time.
Madam Bristol and Samson Breitbart.
The German spies.
D. My brother Benjamin escapes to
Russia.
The first days of the war. The
Germans shave my father's beard.
E. In the town Rozvadov.
I travel there to bring back my
sister and her family.
F. In the ferryboat that cross
the river.
I want to visit my sister but my
guide tells the Germans.
G. Our bakery is confiscated.
I hardly save our home from a
gentile who covets it.
H. In the town Drilch
I work for the Germans and bring
food home.
I. The pastry shop.
I sell in the black market and my
good customer is arrested.
J. On the road to the Gestapo
headquarters.
A Polish policeman helps me to show
a working card.
2 - Ghetto
A. A big diamond deal.
A couple of old people give me a
diamond for sale and regret.
B. The warehouse
I teach a gentile businessman to
trade with me.
A woman that I hide inside her home
helps me to escape through the window.
3 - The Working Camp
A. The construction of the camp.
The site's commander courts me.
B. The entering lineup
My sister Elka is murdered together
with her baby.
C. In the working camp
The good boss and his murderous
mistress.
D. Living graves
Lutz from the Gestapo buries six men
alive.
The hiding-place behinds the bakery
My brother-in-low loots our property
after his family is murdered.
E. Outside the working camp
I go out for operations at nights.
The Germans capture me, decide to
execute me and I trick them.
G. Outside the factory in the hardest
works
Our foreman makes my life miserable.
H. The working-camps' kitchens.
The supervisor steals our food and
prevents us from cooking.
I. My brother Meir works in the
ammunition factory.
I try to persuade a Gestapo man to
transfer my brother, but he almost kills me.
J. From the working-camp to
Auschwitz.
My brother run away and joins the partisans.
K. A partisan woman who lived among
the Russians
She got a venereal disease and could
not overcome it.
The tragic end of our Judenrat.
Part II - Amendment
1 – Auschwitz
A. The reception phase.
We pass the classification lineup
thanks to a recommendation letter.
B. The Kitchen's garbage
I find beet peels which I can eat.
C. The working commando
Everyday we march thirty-six
kilometers.
B. On the way to work
I collect beets from the fields.
C. Smugglings at the Gate
I hide brooms in the food
containers.
D. The doctor from Strachovitze
In spite of our acquaintanceship she
ignores me.
E. A general curfew
Eichman comes for an inspection.
F. The counting lineup
I am late once and my fate is
doomed.
G. The supervisor who immigrated to
Israel
She stands for a trail in an
unofficial court.
Mengele wants to pump out my blood.
I. The gas chamber
I escape from its front before being
pushed inside
J. The train to Bergen-Belzen
My sister and me go up and join sick
people.
2 – Bergen-Belzen
They are planned to cause us quick
death
B. Dysentery
Dying, I convince my sister to go to
work.
C. The food pot
My sister starts to bring food from
the kitchen.
D. The kitchen's cooks
They help us smuggle food in a coat's sleeves.
E. A faked medicine
My sister in law takes it and dies
F. The general food poisoning
The Germans put milled glass in all
the food.
G. The clinic
I buy for my sick sister a doctor's
visit.
H. In the lineup for coffee
A rifle's bullet wounds me in the
hand.
I. The margarine pack
I find enough food until the
release.
I find some clear water in a ditch.
K. The food warehouses
Many survivors eat too much and
their belly is torn.
L. The trucks to Sweden
A rescue team sends us to recover.
Part III -
Elevation
1 - Sweden
I recover among many survivors.
B. The lamps factory in Forshkava
I am an excellent worker and almost
become a Swedish citizen.
C. The immigrants' commune in
Norksheping
The hard existence conditions under
the messengers from Israel.
2 - Immigration to
Israel
A. The voyage in the ship 'Haim
Arlozorov'
The clandestine and troublesome sailing
They are thrown away to the sea together
with our entire luggage.
C. The battle against the
British destroyers
We see the Hoply Land but cannot
arrive at it.
D. Cyprus
Life in a detention camp. A love
affair.
3 - Israel
My crate saves the village from an
Arabs' attack.
B. A wedding
I marry with my friend from Cyprus.
C. The apartment in Haifa
Difficult employment conditions.
D. The furniture shop
I work and marry again.
Appendix
Map of South-East Poland
Map of Golda Sandman's course
Israel map
We apply to any Media Group that is
interested in an expanded publication of the stories to contact us.
