15 feb. 2017
N.Y. / Region
Saved From Holocaust: ‘He Loved Me and He Wanted to Keep Me’
By COREY KILGANNON
February 14, 2017
On
Valentine’s Day, couples often reminisce about that moment they knew
they would stay together, whether during a vacation, a fancy dinner or,
perhaps, while meeting their future in-laws.
For
Isaac and Rosa Blum, who became teenage sweethearts 75 years ago in a
ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, that moment came as they and thousands
of other terrified Jews were being herded to a death camp by Nazi
soldiers.
“I saw her walking in front of me,” Mr.
Blum recalled. “I went up to the German and told him, ‘That’s my
sister,’ even though she was my girlfriend.”
Miraculously,
they were both pulled off the line and managed to survive the Holocaust
by working as slave laborers in a munitions factory. The following 70
years have been a cinch by comparison, the couple said on Monday in
their two-story house in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn.
He
is 94 and she is a year younger.
Asked to recount their lengthy love affair, they noted the absurdity of couching it — a romance incubated in the hell of the Holocaust — in the frilly trappings of Valentine’s Day.
Asked to recount their lengthy love affair, they noted the absurdity of couching it — a romance incubated in the hell of the Holocaust — in the frilly trappings of Valentine’s Day.
“You
have a mixed story here — you won’t be able to put them together,” Mr.
Blum said, even while acknowledging that, yes, it was young, bold love
that prodded him to stand up to a Nazi guard and save his sweetheart
from being sent to the Treblinka death camp.
A
hasty marriage followed and then a horrific honeymoon of sorts: stealing
glances and brief exchanges under the stern watch of armed guards.
By
1941, the Nazis had taken over the Polish city of Czestochowa and
established a ghetto of about 45,000 Jews. It was in this grim setting
that the two met, flirted, gathered with friends, played records and
danced together.
By autumn 1942, the Nazis were
rounding up Jews for extermination.
Mr. Blum was pulled from the line to work in the factory, while his family was pushed onward toward the trains bound for Treblinka.
He would never see them again.
Mr. Blum was pulled from the line to work in the factory, while his family was pushed onward toward the trains bound for Treblinka.
He would never see them again.
In
that chaotic, horrific moment, he spied Rosa, brazenly approached a
Nazi officer and tried to save the teenage girl up ahead walking with
her family.
A Nazi soldier grabbed her and asked if she was Isaac’s sister, as he had claimed. She said yes.
A Nazi soldier grabbed her and asked if she was Isaac’s sister, as he had claimed. She said yes.
“I was young and strong and able to work,” she said.
“He said, ‘Come with me,’ and I was pulled out of the line.”
“He said, ‘Come with me,’ and I was pulled out of the line.”
The
memories are still vivid and bitter today, but the silver lining is
that they still have each other to grow old with, living largely
independently and doting on each other.
He calls
her a Polish term of affection that translates to “old one.”
She calls him simply Blum, and makes his favorite soups every day.
She calls him simply Blum, and makes his favorite soups every day.
Mr. Blum is a no-nonsense type who considers holding hands silly and, truth be told, has little use for Valentine’s Day.
“He’s
not very romantic,” Mrs. Blum said, but his thoughtfulness reveals
itself in little gifts and almost begrudging acts of tenderness.
“We
have a different point of view, but somehow we’ve survived,” she said.
“What keeps us together are the quarrels.
That’s the cement of a marriage.”
“What keeps us together are the quarrels.
That’s the cement of a marriage.”
“I love him in spite of all his defects,” she said.
“It’s not so easy, but I wouldn’t change him for somebody else.”
“It’s not so easy, but I wouldn’t change him for somebody else.”
They
are both sharp and physically and socially active, even if they are no
longer the strapping youngsters who were selected for labor by the
Nazis.
With
their families sent to their deaths, they were placed in a smaller
ghetto of about 5,000 Jews and, the lie about being siblings never
detected, they were issued a marriage license so they could live briefly
in a residence for couples before being separated in different barracks
at the factory site, which was patrolled by armed guards.
They
toiled long hours, she as a welder and he as an electrician, which gave
him the chance to approach her workstation to share covert glances.
They treasured their few minutes of contact during “so-called lunch,” Mrs. Blum recalled.
They treasured their few minutes of contact during “so-called lunch,” Mrs. Blum recalled.
“We didn’t know if we were going to live so we wanted to be together,” he said.
When
word filtered out that most Jews were being killed at death camps, they
were incredulous, and counted themselves lucky despite their misery.
“We didn’t know you could build factories to kill people,” Mr. Blum said. “We didn’t want to believe it.”
As
Mrs. Blum fixed lunch for her husband on Monday, she said she still had
nightmares about the horrors, which included being strip-searched with a
group of women while German soldiers watched and laughed. And she was
in a medical ward after being pushed down some stairs by a Nazi. She
shared the ward with a young Jewish woman who tried to hide her
pregnancy from the Nazis. Jewish nurses drowned the newborn in a bucket,
fearing that the baby’s cries would doom them all.
After
being liberated by the Allies near the end of the war in 1945, the
couple stayed in a displaced persons camp and were married a second time
by a city official in Austria with borrowed rings.
Soon
after, they managed to buy their own rings with a silver coin they had
hidden for months. The two rings wore down over the years and the Blums
never replaced them.
They moved to Argentina and
were married a third time, in a more proper service. They had two
children and then moved in 1963 to New York City, where Mr. Blum opened a
furrier business, with Mrs. Blum doing much of the handiwork.
They
stay busy through programs for Holocaust survivors offered by Selfhelp
Community Services, which is partly financed by UJA-Federation of New
York and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Reflecting
on why he risked his life by approaching the Nazi soldier that day in
1942, Mr. Blum said simply, “I wanted to be with her.”
Then,
Mrs. Blum looked adoringly at her unromantic, 94-year-old savior and
said, “They could have killed him right away on the spot, but he loved
me and he wanted to keep me.”
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