The Beliefs of Ariella Dressler

A young girl grows up and learns who she is and what she values. Living in Poland during the height of the German-nazi takeover, this Jewish girl must face challenges she never knew possible.

The Beliefs of Ariella Dressler

By Audrey Wilson

  

There are few beliefs I hold to be true in this world, these beliefs are not proved with science or the result of some psychological study. These are my thoughts and mine alone, the thoughts of Ariella Dressler.

1. Don’t ever focus on something you can’t change, you don’t like, or you can’t control. Only give energy to the things you love.  

2. Love never feels stronger or more exciting than when you are young and experiencing it for the first time.

3. In some situations the only thing you can do is wish for what you want, other times you have to work for what you want and do everything in your power to get it. But for the most part, if you want it enough you will automatically do anything to get it.

I am able to tell you my story because I was able to stick to my beliefs. They are why I was able to survive the darkest parts, in the darkest place in history. Poland, 1941-1945, the Nazi death camp, known as Auschwitz. I cannot tell you about the majority of my story, because living it once was more than enough. However, I will tell you the very beginning and the very end.

            My story starts in the streets of Krakow, Poland, once a beautiful city filled with laughing children and one smiling face after another. In the beginning of 1941 all of that was taken away, the German Nazi’s took our beautiful town and so much more. They ripped families out of their homes only to be shoved into dank apartments with complete strangers. Fathers and mothers were shot for trying to smuggle food in for their starving children. My family, the Dressler’s, consisted of my mother, father, my two twin sisters whom at the time where only two years old, and myself who in 1941 was fourteen. We were forced to live in a one-bedroom apartment with another family of five. This family, the Schwartz’s, had a mother, father, and three boys.

No one in their right mind would consider it lucky to be put in in an overcrowded apartment with strangers, but we were lucky to be with the Schwartz. Our two families got along quite well and made it as comfortable as possible. The three Schwartz boys, were Daniel who was five, Elijah nine, and Alexander fourteen, my age. Everyone was amicable, Mrs. Schwartz, Naomi, was sweeter than honey and was smart as whip. She became like a second mother to me. Naomi insisted that the children continue with their education. Naomi spoke German, French, and English so that is what we studied for at least an hour everyday, along with the occasional math lesson. It didn’t take long for Alexander and I to become friends. He was clever, charismatic, chivalrous, and very smart. (This was a dangerous combination; given that I quickly developed a huge crush on him.) However, given our current living situation, this was not the time to peruse a crush. Given that most of our conversations revolved around food and how hungry we were, I decided friends is would all we would ever be.

Life in the “ghetto”, as the Nazi’s called it, was hard to say the least. Food was scarce, disease was rampant, and even looking at the officer’s wrong could get you shot. In June 1942 my sisters and Elijah got typhus. My father was shot while trying to smuggle in medicine for them. After that my sisters and Elijah died within a week. Six months later, Mr. Schwartz was killed in a “work accident” November 1942. The details of his death were never clear, all that mattered was he was gone.The grieving period was short for we all had to keep going.  We said our Kaddish and moved on. Everyday our mothers would go and “work for the war” whatever that meant, and the children would either stand in line for food rations or go scavenge for food. It seemed to be that after my father’s death, Naomi and my mother became more like sister than roommates and we all became closer and functioned as one family unit. We lived in that cramped apartment for three years. It was highly unusual to last that long for most Jews in the ghetto were deported to “work camps”. My mother was exceptionally beautiful, which multiple Nazi officers had noticed. She very much used this to her advantage. I did not know what this meant at the time, but she was able to come home with extra food now and then. It could varied from a loaf of bread to a whole chicken. When I asked her where she got it, my mother would always say, “I will do anything to ease the suffering of the people I love”. I never questioned what she meant because I was too hungry to care. Looking back at it now I can only infer that she was pleasuring anyone who would help provide for her family. Sadly, this was quite common in the ghettos.  

Surviving this way came to an abrupt stop one day. Two years of harsh conditions had taken a toll on my mother's elegant features and she was worn down. Through the window of   our tiny apartment I saw my mother arguing with an officer. Intrigued and immediately alarmed, I opened the window to hear their conversation. The officer refused my mother's offer and said “You are worn and a worthless Jew. Your beauty has abandoned you. If you want my help I need something else for I no longer want you”. Then he looked up and saw me at the window. I didn’t even realize Alexander was by my side witnessing this argument as well. The officer said pointing at me, “I want her”. My mother immediately refused, saying it was completely out of the question, but the officer began to charge toward the building. My mother jumped on his back to stop him. He shoved her off and shot her point blank. He had no remorse, didn’t even blink, and just like that she was gone forever. I looked down at my mother, not moving.  I was sixteen years old and I had just witnessed my mother's murder. It was as if time stood still. I felt cold, there was no sound, no feeling, I was paralyzed.

As I stood motionless, Alexander began rushing around furiously. He pushed one of the two beds in front of the door, revealing four loose floorboards. This is where we hid what little valuables we owned. Our valuables consisted of a few jewels, smuggled food and medicine, and two torahs that were extremely forbidden in the ghetto. Alexander grabbed a handful of jewels, consisting of a pair of ruby earrings, my father's wedding band, and the diamond from my mother's engagement ring. Alexander grabbed my arm pulled me away from the window and told me to swallow the jewelry incase we need to trade them later. I did as he said obediently with no question, too much in shock to do anything else. He swallowed something as well but I don’t remember what it was. Alexander then told Daniel (who was at this time around eight), Alexander said to his kid brother, “Hide in the dugout under the bed until mother comes home, don’t make a sound, and under no circumstances do you come out from under that bed. Do you understand?”, Daniel shook his head in agreement. Alexander told his brother that he loved him and a single tear fell off Alexander’s cheek.  

After carefully securing Daniel in the dugout and repositioning the bed, Alexander grabbed two coats and shoved two loaves of bread in the pockets. Suddenly with a big crash, the officer kicked down the door and rushed in our tiny apartment. It seemed that the Nazi’s materialized out of nowhere. There were ten, maybe fifteen officers in that small apartment. They were searching for anything illegal, even moving the beds but luckily looking over the loosely placed floorboards. The whole apartment was in shambles so the loose floorboards didn’t look out of place. As the Nazi’s were pushing Alexander and I out the door they were shouting and yelling at us in German. From my teaching by Naomi I could for the most part understand them, they were saying “Get outside! You are going to work”. On the way out I grabbed a picture of my mother and father to bring with me, not knowing where on Earth I was going or when I was coming back. One of the officers slapped the picture out of my hand and it shattered on the ground. Alexander and I clutched together in fear that we would be separated. “Go to the tracks and wait with the others, the train will be here soon” said one of the Nazi’s. “Where are we going?” I asked. Instead of an answer I was slapped across the face and white hot pain erupted on my cheek and my freshly split lip began to bleed. Alexander, steaming with rage, struggled to get out of the tight grasp of the officer, only to be kicked in the knee falling to the ground in pain.

What seemed like moments later Alexander and I stood in the square along with about a hundred other people, primarily Jews. We knew we were waiting for a train but that was all. It was January 11, 1943 and little did I know that this would be the beginning of the worst two years of my life. Looking around I noticed something rather odd. I realized how much healthier Alexander and I looked compared to all the others. Granted we were both underweight but everyone else seemed frail and sickly. As if a strong gust of wind would all blow them all away. Had my mother's sacrifices really made that much of a difference? Did that one extra loaf of bread a week really make such an impact? I guess so.

Once the train arrived we all compacted into a single cart. Alexander never dared to let me go for we were both petrified of the situation. Shoved in the back corner of the cart standing shoulder to shoulder with complete strangers, we had no idea how long the train ride would last.  We never expected that it would take three days. So for three long days, there was no room to sit, nothing to eat, no place to relieve yourself, and nothing to help with the blistering cold. All there was to do was think about what was coming. At least we had the bread in our pockets which we very discreetly ate. Those three days on the train were nothing compared to what we had coming. That train transported us into a dark dimension where humanity no longer existed. The Nazi’s opened the train doors to hell.

As they forced us out of the car the Nazi’s were yelling and screaming “Get out! Move faster!”. All of us terrified, having no idea where we were or what was going on, everyone obeyed. Alexander and I moved as one unit. We held on to each other so tightly we looked like conjoined twins. The guards were very forcefully putting everyone in lines. Men and boys fourteen and older in one line, and women and children younger than fourteen in another. Since we refused to voluntarily separate from each other a Nazi guard pulled my hair, which was in a long braid, so it was unfortunately very effective, and another guard shoved a gun in Alexander’s chest motioning him to the men’s line. I was pulled again by my hair, and then the guard pushed me into the women’s line. I knocked down the woman I stood next to on the train. After brushing myself off I helped the other woman up and made sure she was okay. I took note of a bizarre sign that read “Arbeit Macht Frei”, or “Work makes you free”. I thought to myself what a stupid sign. After a few minutes of getting organized, the Nazi’s took count of how many men, women, and children there were and then they told us, “You are in Plaszow Labor Camp, and you are to work for the war effort”.

I told you at the beginning that I did not wish to share every chapter of my story, I will only share the ones that I want to, and since this is my story I can tell it however I please. The next thing you must know is that after being at Plaszow for six months, Alexander Schwartz was deported on July 9,1943, to another unknown location, and just like that he was completely gone. My best friend, the boy I was in love with, and the only person left in the world I cared about was taken away. I wept for his presence and to feel him pulling me close, whether or not he returned these feelings I have no idea. But regardless, he was gone and I was alone. I had no idea when I was going to see him again, but I knew that one day I would.

Over the course of two years I went through five different camps. I started in Plaszow, then to Soldau, Mittelsteine, Gross-Rosen, and finally Auschwitz.  So many innocent people were killed for no reason other than being Jewish, or Gypsy, gay, disabled, etc. Dozens were shot simply because they coughed or acted a certain way. After months of being in the camps it felt like everyone’s eyes skirted over me. It was a disadvantage to stand out in any way, if someone noticed you, then you died. In the camps many people just dropped dead, from exhaustion or starvation. I did not have the luxury of simply letting go, I had to hold on to the hope of one day seeing Alexander again. He was all I thought about and I had to get back to him. By some miracle I was able to keep up with the jewelry I had swallowed nearly two years ago. I had traded the silver setting from one of the ruby earrings to a guard to get a proper coat, for the one I had at the time only came down to the middle of my rib cage. But other than that, I had every other piece of jewelry and I intended to save it incase I needed it to help me find my way back to Alexander.

On November 13, 1944 I entered my last Nazi camp, this one called Auschwitz. It again had that stupid sign that read “Work will make you free”. I thought, yeah right, I’ve been doing your work for two damn years and I’m pretty sure my freedom is not under the rocks I chip away at for literally no reason. The sign should read “If you enter here it means that the German Nazi’s are trying to kill you and your entire race” but I guess that was too long to put on a sign. Auschwitz was massive, it seemed to go on forever, maybe hundreds of barracks, multiple gas chambers, and crematoriums. But Auschwitz was populated with thousands of prisoners, all of them either starving or freezing to death. One day about three weeks after arrival an officer yanked me out of the food line and told me that he was assigning me a job. My job was to cut the hair off the bodies of people who died in the gas chambers.  As horrific as the task was, it was the reason I was still alive. After doing this job for two weeks, cutting the hair off the dead, I came across a familiar face. It was Naomi and in her arms she was holding Daniel. There are no words to describe the emotions that swept over me.  Had they been at Auschwitz long? Did they even survive a night here? “Get back to work!” a guard screamed. I had to keep going for there was no time or energy to do anything else. As I gently cut their hair, I said Kaddish and moved on. Occasionally I would have to take a wheelbarrow full of bodies to the crematorium. As much as I hated cutting the hair off dead bodies, I was more comfortable with that than I would have been doing the job of putting the bodies in the oven.  

Days in the camps seemed to blend together, it's just one horrible day after another. It was January 21, 1945, and from what I could tell the war was coming to an end. More people were being killed than usual. As I was taking a load of bodies to the crematorium I saw him. Frail, emaciated, and completely demoralized, Alexander was standing there in front of me. I watched him as he placed a body on the slab and then enclosed it into the oven. Although I was in shock of sight of him I was able to get close enough to whisper, “Alexander? Is it really you?”. He looked up slowly almost bewildered by the sound of his own name. In the camps it was so rare for someone to really know your name, or for someone to have enough respect towards you to call you by your name. At Auschwitz you were a number, nothing more. But he looked at me, and in spite of the frigid winter, I felt a sense of warmth and reassurance I had not felt since the last time he held me. One year, six months, one week, and three days since I had looked into those eyes. He said in a sense of astonishment and in spite of everything that we had been through, he said with his same sassy attitude “You know Ariella, you’ve looked better”. I laughed for the first time in a very long time. There were no guards around and I couldn’t help myself, I walked over to him and put my hand on the side of his face and hugged him.

This lasted only a few moments for guards began yelling in the distance, “We are relocating, get in line we are going for a walk”. Alexander and I peeked around the corner and saw all the Jews that had been in the general vicinity, many too sick to move and just stayed in the barracks, but every guard in sight was by the front gate. The guards did not seem particularly concerned with how many prisoners were reporting for the “walk”, it seemed to me that they just wanted to leave the camp as soon as possible, and why was that? What was going on that required such a quick evacuation? A guard began to walk towards the crematorium, Alexander somehow mustered the strength and pushed the wheelbarrow next to the building wall and knocked it over on to its side, we crouched between the wheelbarrow and the wall for it was the only place to hide. Why Alexander thought we should hide I don’t know, but clever as he was I usually just listened to what he said. The guard was walking by and ordered any remaining prisoners to report to the front gate. He skirted right past us, he either didn’t notice the pile of bodies or didn’t care. We stayed in that spot for maybe two hours, not daring to move. The guards were frantically going through the buildings looking for people strong enough to walk and ignoring the ones who could barely move. Once they deemed everything left in the camp unworthy, the majority of the guards and thousands of prisoners left the camp. They were literally running away from camp. After they left it was so quiet. No prisoners in sight. They were all either gone, dead, or in their barracks dying. At one point we heard the few remaining guards saying “We must destroy the evidence after that we can go”, Alexander and I had no idea what that meant, but we did know that we could not stay in our hiding spot for much longer. At this point it had been nearly a day, and the supply room was in sight, maybe fifty yards away.

The guard towers were no longer patrolled at night for there were too few guards left to man them. At nightfall we planned that make a break for the supply room. Once it was dark enough and there were no guards in sight, we carefully and quietly came out from behind the dingy wheelbarrow and made our way to the supply room. Trying to be as inconspicuous as manner possible we walked those fifty or so yards completely undetected. Alexander pulled the door expecting it to be locked, but to his surprise it opened quickly, almost hitting him in the face. There was not a whole lot left in the room because the Nazi’s had either taken or used the majority of the camps supply. But the first thing we saw was a pile of blankets, both immediately grabbed one, and then we began to look for food. After pillaging through various boxes we found a box of crackers, a bag of coffee beans, three cans of sausage, and a sack of about eight potatoes. Neither of us had seen so much food in one place in a long time, our first instinct was to eat all we could, but we knew better. We had heard stories of a female prisoner who snuck into the supply room and took a can of sausage and half a loaf of bread. She sat in her bunk and ate all of it. Over the next few hours she moaned with severe stomach pains, vomited her food, and then died. I came to the conclusion that her body could not handle all that food at one time because we had been conditioned to survive on a miniscule amount of food. So with our best self-control, we only at three crackers and one section of sausage each. After that we made our way to the back of the supply room grabbing another blanket and an actual pillow we laid down side by side and for the first time in a long time we slept relatively comfortably.

It was on January 27, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops, and that was the beginning of the end. The months following liberation were in no way easy living, but there was no one threating to shoot you for no reason. Alexander and I never dared leave each others side. Within Auschwitz, the Soviets and Americans established a hospital to help rehabilitate the sick. They provided us with blankets and food. We still careful not to over eat. We stayed there for another few months because we had nowhere to go. The Soviets insisted that we stay, and we were too frail to do anything else. After regaining our strength and health, we begged an American soldier to take us to the nearest town and he agreed. We did not have much, but we had the clothes on our back, each other, and by some miracle we still had the majority of the original jewelry that we had swallowed in Krakow. In the town Jasny, about thirty miles east of Auschwitz, we traded the two rubies from the earring for money. That was enough money to by us train ticket to Vienna, to Zürich, to Paris, and then to Ghent. In Ghent using the diamond from my mothers ring, we bought two one way tickets to Boston, Massachusetts. America was the only reasonable option, we had nothing left in Krakow. We felt the only place to really start fresh and try and forget, was America.

On our voyage to America, Alexander confessed that he too shared my feeling of affection. After explain to him that I had been in love with him for years he said “Then my sweet Ariella we must be married”. He paused and grinned, “I mean I have no intention of ever letting you go, so it really is the only plausible solution”. We were eighteen years old, but after what we had seen and endured it was easy to forget that we were so young and we could do whatever we wanted. So that’s exactly what we did, once we were in Boston Alexander and I both got jobs in a sweets shop called Confectionaries. I was a cashier and Alexander helped the owner of the shop, Mr. Carmike bake pies and cakes. Mr. Carmike was a sweet old man who lived with his wife of fifty years. They had no children but they were very welcoming and enjoyed having us there. Since we had no more money and nothing left to trade, Mr. Carmike allowed us to stay in the attic of his apartment that was above the shop just until we were on our feet. We lived in that attic for ten months, Alexander got a second job with a local carpenter which paid much better than the bakery. Just a few streets over from Confectionaries, we rented a furnished one bedroom one bathroom ground level apartment, and that was the beginning of our new life together. Alexander and I got married on the front steps of the apartment building on the same day we moved in. Five years later we moved into a house on the outskirts of town and we had four children. Many people have asked me if I have forgiven the Nazi’s for what they did to me and my family? Well I really don’t know. I have given them zero energy since they stopped running my life, and that brings me to my original “beliefs”.

If you haven’t figured out how my “beliefs” helped me survive the hell I went through, well don’t worry I’ll tell you. The first one, Don’t ever focus on something you can’t change, you don’t like, or you can’t control. Only give energy to the things you love, I don’t even want to think about what happened to me during those awful times because it doesn’t matter anymore, I don’t wake up half freezing and starving to death in a wooden bunk at Auschwitz. I wake up next to my loving husband in my clean silk pajamas in my very plush warm bed with the smell of coffee brewing. The second thought I shared with you, love never feels stronger or more exciting than when you are young and experiencing it for the first time, being in love with Alexander was what kept me strong in the ghetto and in that first camp. The reason I was able to stay strong in the perilous months without Alexander, it was the hope of one day seeing him again. In some situations, the only thing you can do is wish for what you want, I wished and wanted so badly to have him in my life, other times you have to work for what you want and do everything in your power to get it. Staying alive was not easy, most times I just wanted to sit down when the work got too hard, I knew that if I did I either wouldn’t be able to get up or would be killed for stopping. I had to keep going because I had to get to Alexander. I had a goal and I did everything in my power to get it, and that’s true in so many things in life.  

  

 

 

Author's Note

A bit graphic in some parts, if you have any basic knowledge of the Holocaust that will help you understand the fundamentals of this story. If you believe I should expand this story, please comment below.

Reviews

[Adam Adams]

A very fair & fine story-write. Has my whole attention. You've, undoubtedly, "utilized" a plethora of your time in writing, creating & plotting this "worth-reading" write. What i like the most 'bout it is how creatively & fruitfully you decorated the scenes with the wand of your mighty (killer) words that directly hitting the wall of hearts...
Absolutely, a very graphical plot/scene i come to read through this panoramic port of your words, which's very sensuous & has power to make people turn-on, perhaps, it's all again... "worth--writing". Emotions, love, hate, mercy, no mercy, violence, cruelty, kindness, faith &, of course, a whole realm of "Manipulation" is all what's needed to be hooked all over with the palate of... whatever art you just bleed in. So i guess, graphical scene was "needed" making things clear around & injecting the injection of emotions in its depth to volume the fathom of your unfathomable words, on-wards. The ending's very well done as well. Reminds me: "the love never dies... what dies is people."

Liked reading it. And, now i would be looking forward to reading more. Yes, you should expand this story as a or in another chapter. Keep it continue writing the chain of your chapters linked to each other & make your readers-cum-lovers lost in your sadistically amazing vibes. Good luck. I've got eye on ya, Audrey.

Ps. You've got a very professional name: "Audrey Wilson". Sounds totally like a port of professionalism that's being resided deep in your name so well.

[Audrey Wilson]

Your review is greatly appreciated, and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to read my story. I am glad you enjoyed it. :)

[Nisreen]

Hitler was a completely horrible person
though i try to stay away from judging

but he was truly removed of all forms of emotions and common sense

your story is timeless

[Audrey Wilson]

He really was a horrible man. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story, I truly appreciate you!:)

[Nisreen]

that is such a sweet thing to say
thank you