'The Boy Who Survived Auschwitz': Levi's bravery as told by his great-niece

A second book was needed to understand the story, their story, reconstruct the past, and complete the Lerman family tree . A story of loss, pain, suffering, survival, and resilience after having endured the horror of the Holocaust . Like many families of Jewish origin and tradition.

In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Natalio Lerman was emptying the apartment of his father Salomón , who had died on June 4, 2002, at the age of 94. Suddenly, he found something unexpected: inside a display case he found the Yizkor book , a book containing stories from his father and other Shoah survivors in Yiddish , written in 1949.

There were also photographs and more than 100 documents in Yiddish, Polish, French, and Hebrew about the horrors he and his family experienced in Ostrewiec, the village where the Lermans lived in Poland, which was converted into a ghetto by the Nazis during World War II (1939-1945). Much of his family was murdered in the Treblinka concentration camps.

Adriana , Natalio's daughter, was tasked with decoding the documentation and began painstakingly researching every detail to piece together the story. In 2022, she published The Pain of Being Alive (Editorial El Ateneo), a book that tells the story of her grandfather Szlama (in Polish), Shlomo (in Yiddish), Simón, or Salomón, depending on the name he used at the time: he was a victim of pogroms and anti-Semitic attacks, how he escaped the war, how his family died, and how he arrived in Argentina to start a new life. The story of an anonymous hero that he never managed to tell his son or granddaughter out of modesty, because it was a taboo subject, or because he felt ashamed.

Part of the documentation also served to reconstruct a new story , that of Chil Majer (Salomon's brother) and his son Levi, the other members of the Lerman family who managed to survive the War.

In an interview with Clarín , Adriana Lerman , a pharmacist and Hebrew teacher (Mora) turned writer, tells how she narrated The Boy Who Survived Auschwitz (also from El Ateneo), the story of Levi, a 14-year-old boy born in Ostrewiec, like his uncle Salomón. Along with his father, he managed to survive five concentration camps , where he spent his adolescence and protected his father.

–Does your second book relate to the previous book ( The Pain of Being Alive ) or to all the documentation they found about your grandfather Shlomo?

–Absolutely. I had two parallel stories that were completely different: I had researched absolutely everything: what happened in Ostrowiec when the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the Ostrowiec ghetto and its subsequent liquidation, what happened to the family, the concentration camps, among other things. I remember when my father told me: “You have to publish this.” So I started writing, as if it were a book. We wanted this to be known and not just remain within our close family circle. Otherwise, it wouldn't transcend: only my relatives read it. It was just another story that was lost.

–You had two stories in one.

–That's right. Obviously, I started with my grandfather, with whom I lived. He was my closest person on a daily basis. Once I finished the first book, I never stopped investigating the other side, which is much more difficult to address. The part about my grandfather was a little softer, and there was little talk about it, about how the refugees suffered and how they escaped before the war and the enormous pain of having lost their family. But it was much harder to address the part about the relatives who were stranded or trapped in Europe and couldn't tell their story. Only my grandfather Chil Majer Lerman (his full name is Yekhiel Majer Lerman) and just one of his four sons were saved: Levi, the protagonist of my last book.

–Why is Levi the protagonist and did you decide to tell his story and not that of your grandfather's brother?

–When I wanted to tell the other story, that of the survivors of the European War, I first thought about doing it through the voice of the brother (Chil Majer Lerman), but it didn't work out. I couldn't find a way to tell it through my grandfather's brother. That's when I realized, perhaps because it was a song about a boy or because I knew him better. The memory I have is of Levi, León. I didn't get to know Chil Majer that well.

–Did you meet them both when your grandfather went to look for them in Uruguay?

–Exactly. He brought them here. He and my dad had a very close relationship, but I remember Levi the most, who would have been 100 years old today (he died on June 20, 2000). Chil Majer died on February 21, 1979. I was born in 1971, so I don't remember him as much. I felt like telling the story through the eyes of a young man. When Germany invaded Poland, Levi was 14. It was easier for me to identify and put myself in his story, to tell the story through the eyes of a young man and how the war practically robbed him of his adolescence. Levi is a boy without youth or adolescence: when he was 14, World War II caught him there for six years until April 15, 1945, when he was liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Levi grew from 14 to 20 years old during the middle of the war. He only managed to reach Argentina when he was rescued by my grandfather on September 3, 1947, with his father and his wife, Lola, another survivor, whom he married in Bergen-Belsen. From 1939 to 1947, he spent eight years in the midst of horror. That's why my second book was told through the eyes of a young boy.

–You narrated it in the first person: you are him. You also told it after meeting him.

–Like my grandfather, Levi never told his story. There are survivors who were able to talk because they felt it was a way to vent, but others were never able to. In the case of my great-uncle Chil Majer and his son Levi, it wasn't a topic of conversation. I remember talking to Levi's daughters, and they told me it was an impossible subject; it couldn't be discussed. However, Lola, Levi's wife and also a survivor whom he married in Bergen-Belsen after being in Auschwitz, was able to open up after many years and began to talk.

–When you came across the documents, did you have to sort through your grandfather's stories and separate them from those of Levi, his nephew?

–That's right. There were some gaps in the first and second stories. The ones who helped me fill in the gaps were Levi's daughters: Mary lives in Buenos Aires and Susi lives in Israel. They provided me with photos and documentation, because until the liberation, there's nothing. They didn't have any documentation because they spent the war there. I have some documents that were given to them at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp once they were liberated, since up until that point, they had no identity. The interesting thing about this is that these documents are what they claimed to be. In other words, they compiled documentation simply from what they said.

–They had lost everything: their home, their way of life, and even their identity to support them.

They had nothing; they were people who were wearing striped clothing and nothing else. This documentation was compiled by the International Red Cross in conjunction with international rescue organizations, who freed the surviving Jews and other survivors. They compiled this documentation and with it they could manage. They had absolutely nothing. They had been stripped of everything. This document reads as follows: "He or she (Lola or Levi) declares that he or she has never committed or been convicted of any crime and cannot present a marriage certificate, license, divorce, or police record, because they were confiscated in the concentration camps. This person, whose photo is detailed here, certifies that it is correct and declares that all these facts are true." All of this is published in my books; it's one of the things that impacted me the most. As a testimonial book, I find what I do in my first book and the second extremely important: everything I tell is all real events; everything is documented. Although it's written in the first person, everything in the book has its certification. This happened, and this is how it is.

–How long was Levi in ​​the concentration camp with his father and what tasks did they do?

Levi and his father lived in the Ostrowiec ghetto when it was established in 1941, where they performed forced labor. In 1942, they were transferred to the Czestocice concentration camp for forced labor. In 1944, they were transferred to the Auschwitz Birkenau extermination camp (Auschwitz II) and then to the Buna Monowitz concentration camp (Auschwitz III). In 1945, they were held in the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp and, finally, in the Bergen-Belsen camp, where they were liberated on April 15, 1945.

–Then comes the second stage for Levi and his father, after liberation: how to move forward as Holocaust survivors.

–Exactly. Once you're in the refugee camp, you think the war is over and that's it. It was extremely difficult; they had to return to the circle of life, start socializing, doing activities, learning how to get around, etc. In the book, I describe all their moves; it wasn't easy. They had to go through Munich and other cities in Germany to complete some paperwork to finally reach Montevideo. This was fully subsidized by the Joint Fund and international organizations.

–What conclusions can you draw from The Boy Who Survived Auschwitz , your second book?

–What struck me most was Levi and Chil Majer's courage and resilience. Their unbreakable will to live and move forward without ever giving up. Also, their desperation to stay together. This bond: it was the bond stronger than death. Levi's bravery, despite everything he had to go through, his determination, his courage, his unbreakable will to move forward, to protect his father, gave him the strength to survive.

–The three of them are the pride of your family, especially your grandfather Salomón for the legacy he left behind. You're living thanks to your grandfather, who built a new life in Argentina.

–Absolutely. I feel like he left a legacy to rescue everyone from oblivion. They couldn't tell it. Also, to rescue these stories. What they couldn't in life, today I become the voice of Levi, Chil Majer, or my grandfather to say: these are our stories. Now all of them, and all those who were murdered, can rest in peace. We can know what happened, and we were able to rescue everyone from this horror. It's paying them an honor, a respect. It's a tribute I'm leaving.

–Is there more material for a third book?

–With regard to family, with this book I feel like I've come full circle, I've completely closed the story. Both The Pain of Being Alive and The Boy Who Survived Auschwitz complement each other in what happened to a family that suffered and escaped before, what one had to endure as a refugee, and the pain they endured their entire lives without being able to talk about it like the people who were there. What I appreciate most is how they managed to move forward, the resilience of overcoming, creating new families, and continuing with a new life.

The boy who survived Auschwitz , by Adriana Lerman (Editorial El Ateneo).