Holocaust survivor speaks
BY JASON COHEN
With so few survivors left
from the Holocaust, it is imperative
that those who alive
share their stories.
On April 26, the Bronx
Women’s Bar Association held
its 10th annual Holocaust Remembrance
event, where Samuel
Marder, author of “Devils
Among Angels,” spoke about
the perils of the shoah.
While Marder, 91, is an accomplished
and renowned musician,
his path to success began
decades ago but involves
sadness, death, evil and murder.
“The journey was much longer;
it would take many books,”
Marder told the attendees.
Marder was born in 1930
in Chernovitz, Romania, now
part of present-day Ukraine.
His parents, Berl and Esther
brought him and his sister Eva
up in a religious home.
His dad owned a grocery
store, so there was always food
on the table.
“My life as a child was normal,”
Marder recalled. “I had
a loving father and mother. He
always wanted to do everything
that was best for us.”
At age 4, he entered a private
Jewish school and two
years later began taking violin
lessons. Marder did not like his
teacher, but eventually went
to a local conservatory, and
at age 10, won a prize, which
made him eligible to study at
the Moscow Conservatory. He
never went to Moscow, because
it was so far from home.
Marder recalled his fi rst experience
with anti-Semitism
was at school when kids threw
rocks at him.
“I was shocked,” he said.
“I didn’t expect anything like
that.”
Then the war began.
According to Marder, word
came from Vienna, Austria
that Germans were shooting
and beating Jews, but his father
did not believe it.
“My father said it wasn’t
possible because the Germans
are a cultured people,” he commented.
The Nazis took over Czernowitz
and life was turned upside
down. Thousands of Jews
were killed in the fi rst days.
A ghetto was built and the
Marder family was deported
to a Nazi concentration camp
in Transnistria (Ukraine).
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They traveled part of the
distance in closed cattle cars
where many died and the rest
by foot, where more perished
as well. Then the Nazis forced
them to walk for days and anyone
that lagged behind was
shot.
“It was so painful I forgot I
was hungry, thirsty and cold,”
Marder said.
At 10, his family was living
in a ghetto surrounded by barb
wire. The conditions were horrid
and they could only go in
the street during certain hours
for food.
“We were like sardines,
we could only lie down on the
fl oor,” Marder recalled.
Berl always tried to keep
a positive outlook and never
thought things could be as bad
as they were.
“My father tried to still be
in his good mood,” Marder
said. “Maybe they are bringing
us here to do some agricultural
work he thought. Soon
we found out the real truth.”
The family spent 3 1/2 years
in Transnistria, where Berl
died from typhoid and starvation.
While in the ghetto, Jews
were summarily executed, and
Marder constantly heard bullets
fl ying.
Eventually, Marder, his
mother and sister, made it to
Fohrenwald, a Displaced Person’s
Camp in western Germany.
With a gun to his chest,
Marder lied and told a Nazi he
was Ukrainian. In fact, it was
there where a Nazi taught him
the violin.
At 19 they arrived in America
and for the fi rst time he felt
safe.
Holocaust survivor Samuel Marder Photo by Jason Cohen
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