Holocaust survivor Irene Fainman at her home in Rosebank recently. Fainman remembers in intricate detail her experiences in the 1940s during the Holocaust. Picture: Michel Bega
Irene Fainman, born Krausz, is a survivor of the Holocaust.
Almost 89, she lives in Rosebank, Johannesburg. Immaculately groomed, the blue-eyed and fair-haired Irene’s razor-sharp memory belies her age.
Her easy recall of those terrible memories that scarred her childhood indicates their endless repetition – to herself and others – trying to make sense of the unimaginable.
Her early childhood memories were pleasant. Her lightly accented English is the only reminder of her mixed European heritage. Bela, her Hungarian father, was the grandson of a rabbi.
“My mother Rachel was English the daughter of Russians who had emigrated to London’s East End. She was an English teacher. They married in London and moved to Rotterdam.”
It was there that Fainman was born in October 1935. Their home language was Dutch.
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She remembers the constant bombing by the Royal Air Force.
“But we would go down to our cellar. I slept quite peacefully.”
She can even recall being happy. “Every Friday, we would keep Shabat with my father’s nine brothers, three of whom survived the Holocaust.”
Those idyllic days ended for the family on 16 September, 1942.
“My mother announced that neither my brother Don nor I were going to school that day.
“No Jewish children could go to school because of a Dutch Nazi Party ruling.”
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A 9pm curfew was imposed on all Jews and they were ordered to wear the Star of David. “Hungarian Jews were exempt. Perhaps because Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany.”
Irene remembers the notorious cartoon images of the caricatured “Eternal Jew” plastered on every wall. Her father would rip them off, stuff them into a bag and burn them at home.
One night, two Dutch Nazis banged on their door. They were ordered to pack a bag each and be ready to leave in 10 minutes.
The bags had already been packed. Rachel had known what was to come. The Nazis demanded all their money and gave them a receipt stamped “Protective Custody”.
Joined by other rounded up Jews they walked for miles in the bitter cold to a large warehouse. “People were lying all over the floor, some were crying.
“The next morning, we were marched to the railway station and ordered into a passenger train which took us to Westerbork, a huge transit and processing camp on the Holland/German border. Dutch Jews were transported in cattle cars.”
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At Westerbork, the camp in which Anne Frank and her family were also held prior to deportation to Bergen-Belsen, Fainman and her family were processed and joined hundreds of other inmates.
Don worked in the fields, her mother taught. Her sick father was often in the camp hospital.
The dread of the list posted nightly of the names of inmates to be deported the next day to camps in Germany or Poland hung over everyone. “And Auschwitz of course.”
Each morning those on the list would be forced into cattle cars and transported. “I remember screaming pregnant women and cripples in wheelchairs being thrown into these cattle cars.”
Inevitably, one day her family were on the list. Her father went to Buchenwald and her mother, brother and herself to Ravensbruck. The gates of hell had opened wide.
“We never saw my father again, he was murdered. Ravensbruck was a women’s camp so my 13-year-old brother was transferred to Sachsennhausen.”
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It was bitterly cold when they arrived at Ravensbruck. She remembers the shouting, swearing guards, searchlights and high walls. “There were attack dogs and they terrified all of us. Everyone was forced to strip and heads were shaved to look for lice.”
What followed was a nightmare where one horror memory blurred into another.
“We were ordered into the Hungarian barracks and when I saw the other women I started to scream. Eyes staring at me, hollowed cheeks, gaunt, filthy and stinking.
“They wanted to touch me, suffering from diarrhoea and the smell was terrible.
“The camp issued cotton striped clothing which we were forced to wear for three years. My mother would undress me, wash my clothes, wash me down and put my soaking wet clothes back on.
“We were allowed a cold shower every six months. They wanted to destroy our humanity.
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“At 7pm we were locked in our barracks in total darkness and awakened at 5am by screaming women SS officers.
“They were very cruel, forcing us to stand in squares of five for the morning roll call. They used horsehide whips on us and my mother would protect me by placing me in the centre.
“My mother was inspirational. Survivors remembered her reciting poetry and bringing some joy to their lives.”
Fainman remembers, too, her mother being drafted into forced labour for Siemens. “It was a 4km march there and back each morning and night. After a few days she took me with her.
“Then it was decided that the women would eat and sleep in the factory. There were thousands of prisoners pouring in all the time and every day the death trains left for Auschwitz.”
One day they were on the list, but Fainman fair hair and blue eyes saved them. Brutal camp commandant Fritz Suhren slowly drew back her blonde hair and exclaimed that she had Jewish ears. He was hanged after the war.
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Finally on 29 April, 1945 the nightmare ended. The Swedish Red Cross arrived in the wake of the Allied armies and Fainman and her mother walked out of Ravensbruck.
Today she remains uncrushed, “I do not hate the Germans but I will never forget or forgive.”
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