Survival. Liberation.
A New Life in America
In this book, a story is told of how I have lived the past 76 years of my life. I grew up in a rich, affluent environment and after concentration camps, ended up starting a happy purposeful life in the United States of America. It is great to be an American.
The life is only unusual to the point that I was just a happy kid growing up, going to school, until the Germans marched into Prague (Praha) on March 15, 1939. This is when everything came to a screeching halt. The first thing they did, if you can imagine, was to change the traffic pattern, overnight, from driving on the left to driving on the right. The streetcars now had the doors on the wrong side, and the buses also had to be boarded from the other side. They did this overnight Thousands of German soldiers marched up and down the streets and created a lot of chaos, noise and drew little attention from the Czech people. I had no idea what was going on.
The next thing that happened was all "Jews" were advised of a curfew, which was after sundown; and before sunrise, no "Jew" was allowed on the streets of Praha. Fortunately, I spoke a fluent German, because of my parents who were raised in the old Austrian Empire. We were told to wear the yellow Star of David with the words "Jude" (Jew) on our outer garments. If the soldiers thought you were Jewish and were not wearing the star, you were beaten severely, or even shot and killed. My sister and I had no idea if we were Jewish; we had to ask our parents.
My life then took a twist. The next years, 1939 to 1945, were spent in horrific ways and times, inside the concentration camps. You will find out how I was able to be freed again, return to my homeland, and then immigrated to the United States and lived here since August 5, 1946.
I have no regrets about my life, I only wish that my family could have lived to an older age, and not have been slaughtered in the gas chambers
Klaus Pollak
September 2006
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