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On 29 June 2022, Fliss was presented with the title of Honorary Citizen of the City of Iași, his hometown.
Survivors of the holocaust gathered in Johannesburg to remember those who died. Picture: Supplied
The South African Jewish community is on Thursday commemorating the lives of more than six million Jews who were brutally killed during the holocaust in Europe in the early 20th century.
The Holocaust was the systematic and state-sponsored killing of people of Jewish descent in several parts of Europe by Germany and its collaborators.
The Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust is an internationally observed week. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of more than 44,000 death camps, extermination and concentration camps, including forced labour camps and ghettos.
The relentless killing of Jews throughout Europe eventually led to some fleeing to other countries around the world, including South Africa.
Some have compared the brutal killing of Jews to apartheid since the Nazi’s described the Jewish people as being sub-human.
The holocaust is also a reminder of how men and women of Jewish descent were sent to gas chambers, executed like animals at gunpoint and subjected to live in harsh environments where they would die of diseases and malnourishment.
Lyonell Fliss, 90, survived the Jewish persecutions in Romania in the east of Europe.
He came to South Africa in 1975 and was among holocaust survivors who were gathered at the King David High School for the commemoration event on Thursday.
Fliss says he still remembers how he and his parents survived executions in his home town of Lasi.
He was just six years old at the time,
“German soldiers entered through the open door, turned the bed upside down, and exposed us lying on the floor.
“They injured my mom by pushing her over the stairs and ordered us to go onto the street. They marched us — hands-up — with an armed soldier behind us.”
According to Fliss, the German soldiers did not see him as a child because he was a Jew.
Begging for mercy
He said his and other Jewish families were rounded up and told to march to the police station, where they would be executed one by one.
“When we reached the gate of the police station courtyard, my mom realised a massacre had happened behind it.
‘Next to us was a young Romanian officer. She kneeled in front of him, kissed his hand and implored him to spare me and keep me outside the gate.”
Fliss believes that his mother’s pleas saved their lives, and they were then moved to the back of the execution line.
“Miraculously, he listened to her and took all three of us by hand to the end of the queue to give us another chance in life.
“This was a very risky gesture as he could bump into another officer who would ask him why he was taking us out of the massacre,” he said.
He said while waiting in the queue, an order came from the central government to seize the massacre.
Women and children were to return home, but the men were retained.
“Mom and Dad hugged and kissed each other and parted. He remained in the queue, and she held my hand as we went to my grandmother’s house.”
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How Fliss’ father survived death
Fliss says his father was released two days later.
He had luckily missed the death trains of Lasi, which carried 4 000 Jewish men to their deaths. At least 2 000 of the men on those trains died of suffocation and dehydration.
Fliss says he remembers the last three years of the holocaust being marred with more persecutions, displacements, and poverty for Jewish people around Europe.
“For me, the Holocaust was a one-day Holocaust, namely that Sunday when I matured from a little boy into a mature man, as I started to understand what is evil and what is good.
“The German troops who many saw as good may be evil, and something ordinary, like the Romanian officer, may be an angel.”
‘Why did the Romanian officer save us?’
Fliss said to this day he could not understand why the Romanian officer saved his family from death.
“I still couldn’t find an explanation for the extremely humanitarian and risky gesture of that officer, who was for us and we for him, total strangers, saving our lives without any benefit.
“I have not found any rational answers to this question; I considered it as an act of God,” he said.
He said that when he visited his birthplace in Romania three years ago, the small Jewish community asked him to tell his story to the younger generation.
“Most of them didn’t know what happened on the same streets where they are now walking every day.”
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