Text of a speech given by Bert at a book signing event 2002
Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Bert Lewyn and I am here today to talk about my book, On the Run in Nazi Berlin.
Much has been written about the phenomenon we call the Holocaust. This attempt at genocide is probably one of the best documented and most thoroughly studied crimes in history. My purpose today is not to attempt to teach you about this subject. What I would like to do is to talk to you about some of my own experiences during this period.
When I arrived in America in 1949, I had little interest in looking backwards. Germany was where I was born, but what happened there was mostly a bad memory. I had no desire to dwell on the past.
The United States was now my home and I was completely absorbed by my new American life, the present, the future and what I would make of it. The past was behind me, tragic, but something I decided to do my best to forget. I became a naturalized citizen as soon as possible. In retrospect, I have been a proud American citizen for the greatest part of my life, more than half a century.
My adopted country has been good to me. I have been able to educate myself, to develop my talents, build a successful business, marry my love of 50 years, raise five American children and now boast five grandchildren (so far.)
But things have not always been so good. I lived in Germany during the period when Adolf Hitler came to power. The German people had endured years of severe economic privation, brought on by a previous war. Even food and shelter were things not everyone could take for granted. This left many Germans desperate for a savior, a strong figure who could lead the Fatherland back to prosperity.
The reason for Germany's depressed state was, according to Hitler, “the Jews.” He used every means at his disposal to convince the German people that the country would be prosperous and healthy again, if only the Jews could be eliminated.
This propaganda foreshadowed a period of immense suffering for Germany's Jews. Many laws were passed to deprive the Jews of ordinary rights of citizenship. Jews could not own businesses or go to public schools. We were required not only to wear special badges, called Judenstern, or Jewish Stars, which identified us as Jews, but we also had to pay for the privilege.
Although I had long ago decided to put the past behind me, other members of my family felt differently. Both my cousin Dov Levin, who is a professor of Contemporary Jewish History and Director of the Oral History Department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and my daughter in law - Bev, felt strongly that I should record my wartime experiences. Nine years ago, with their help, I began putting my history down on paper. The result was, eventually, On the Run in Nazi Berlin.
Many people have asked “Why did the Jews not leave Germany when they had the chance?” The fact was that many did. In my case, although my father was extremely reluctant to leave the business he had worked so hard to build, he slowly became convinced that emigration would eventually be necessary.
But when he made inquiries at the consulates of various countries, he found that visas were not so easy to obtain. There was little demand for scholars. Immigrants with manual skills were needed.
With this in mind and still hoping to emigrate, my father enrolled me in a 3-1/2 year apprenticeship program that was organized by the Jewish community of Berlin and included training in machine building and metal-working. The course included practical as well as theoretical subjects.
Among the practical subjects was hand-filing in all its various forms. We were required to produce perfectly flat surfaces accurate to within 1/10th of a millimeter (about the thickness of a human hair) as well as undergoing many other exercises. At the conclusion of the course, each graduate was required to design and produce one manually operated machine and a complete lock with a set of keys.
I mention this because these skills eventually helped me to survive where others perished.
By 1942, rumors of persecution and deportation were flooding Berlin, rumors that few wanted to confront. But it soon became impossible to deny that conditions were rapidly deteriorating for the Jews of Germany. The noose around the collective necks of the Jews was getting tighter by the day. Laws had been passed which made it almost impossible for Jews to work, to earn money for day to day survival. The infamous Wannsee conference, at which the destruction of Europe's Jews was planned, led to the implementation of the Final Solution, as it became known. And while this solution envisioned the murder of every single Jewish man, woman and child throughout Europe, no group was targeted with more enthusiasm than the Jews of Berlin, Germany’s capital city.
My family experienced this targeting first-hand on March 27 of that year , when two Gestapo agents, the secret state police, knocked on our door. I will never forget one of them saying, "Herr Lewyn, we are here to assist you." This, I later learned, was a standard Gestapo tactic. Rather than upset their victims, the Gestapo would reassure them that they had their best interests at heart and wanted only to help them. They continued, "You need not worry Herr Lewyn. We're only relocating you. You, your wife & son have ten minutes. Each of you can take no more than one suitcase."
My mother became hysterical. She screamed "what is going to happen? Where are you taking us?" The agents stood mute, watching silently while she made frantic attempts to gather her belongings. Less than ten minutes passed when their patience became exhausted and both started shouting "Schnell! We must leave now!"
We descended the stairs of our apartment building, where we found an army truck waiting for us. Two SS guards, weapons ready, were at the tailgate, motioning us to get in. We joined ten other Jewish men, women and children in the truck. We were taken to a synagogue on Levetzowstrasse, where several hundred Jewish captives had already been gathered. We spent the night as best we could, sitting or lying on the floor. The next morning, the Gestapo and SS troopers began the process of sending us on to meet our respective fates.
When our names were called, my parents were told to go one way, and I was forced to go another. Although I did not know it then, this would be the last time I would see my parents. I refused to accept the possibility that I would never see them again, but it was nonetheless true.
This process was one that would be repeated thousands of times with thousands of families, until Berlin’s Jewish population had been decimated.
Because of my youth and my skills as a metalworker, the Gestapo decided that I would be assigned to work as a slave laborer. I was told to report to a Waffenfabrik (a weapons factory) in a suburb of Berlin. I worked there helping to manufacture machine guns for use by the German army until February 27, 1943.
Most supervisory positions were occupied by Germans, who generally avoided contact with the Jewish workers. There was one exception, an Aryan German named Heinrich, who was a parts inspector. Heinrich was handicapped. One of his legs was shorter than the other, which required him to wear a special shoe with a sole 3 inches thick. Because of his condition, he was considered something of a pariah by other Germans, and did not have much of a social life. Perhaps for this reason, he spent many an hour discussing the news of the day with me, a Jew.
One day, I was walking from the streetcar stop to the Waffenfabrik as was my routine. About halfway to the factory, I met Heinrich.
As I looked into his face, it was immediately obvious that something was wrong. He looked right, then left and said "Dagobert, turn around. I just finished my shift. They are loading the Jews onto trucks." Thinking that perhaps I had misunderstood, I asked "What did you say?" He repeated his words in a quiet tone of voice and then said “You must turn around and leave. Do not come back."
A day I had long dreaded had arrived at last. The Nazis had an official goal of making Germany’s cities Judenrein, or free of Jews. Although many of these were workers important to the war effort, the decision to eliminate all remaining Jews had now been made.
There would be no more delays, no reprieves. My time had come. Unless I made a decision to act, I was finished. Without saying a word, I turned and walked away.
After walking some little distance, I turned a corner into a nook behind a building and took out a pocket knife my father had given me for my birthday. As quickly as I could, I cut the thread loops attaching my Judenstern, the yellow badge that identified me as a Jew, to my jacket. Gradually, I was able to pull it off. I stuffed the star into my pocket.
I started walking again. Slowly, the significance of what I had done sank in. I was no longer marked. By simply removing a patch on my clothing, I was no longer pinpointed as an outcast, a Jew. I was now, at least outwardly, like everyone else. I would have expected to feel elated by this, but the truth was that I now felt even more desperate.
As long as I had worn the star, even though I was a despised member of a despised race, I was still part of the official establishment, part of the system. Now, by taking off the yellow star, I had become an outlaw, someone outside the bounds of society who would be ruthlessly hunted and, if caught, surely deported and likely murdered.
From that moment on, I was a nobody. I was on the run.
My main concern was now to avoid the secret police, the Gestapo. They had a special department staffed with agents trained to hunt down people like myself. They were quite efficient and managed to capture hundreds, possibly thousands of Jews who had fled for their lives.
Once caught, they were shipped to concentration or killing camps. From the moment I failed to show up for my next work shift, they would know that I was a fugitive and the hunt would begin.
My second problem was food. While I was listed on the official roles, I was entitled to a certain amount of rations, though the rations allocated to Jews were about ½ those given to Aryans. Now, I had no ration cards. I survived by buying them on the black market, which had become a thriving industry in Germany.
I was to spend the next two years as a fugitive, living wherever I could, however I could. I spent many nights sleeping in the ruins of bombed-out buildings, structures which had been devastated by countless British and American bombing raids. Large sections of Berlin were made uninhabitable and the ruins provided hiding places which SS patrols were unlikely to discover.
Days I spent riding the S-bahn and U-bahn, back and forth through the city. I had lots of time to kill. I also did a lot of walking, though I had to be careful. Any army patrol or Gestapo I came across would have been certain to ask for documents which I could not supply, which would have meant my immediate arrest.
There were times when I was hidden by a variety of Germans who, for one reason or another, were willing to take a risk. I spent some months with a blind communist who was opposed to Hitler on ideological grounds. I had several jobs in repair shops or manufacturing concerns who were made desperately short of skilled metal workers by the demands of the war. There was even a period when I, along with a co-conspirator, impersonated an SS officer.
But eventually I always seemed to end up back in a bombed-out building, making my bed with a variety of rats and insects.
My luck, however, was soon to take a turn for the worse. I had decided to escape Berlin and was spending my nights in a forested area outside the city. This turned out not to be as easy as I had hoped. I was eventually reduced to eating captured pigeons to keep from starving. One day, when I was splitting some firewood, I slipped and cut my hand. It was a bad wound which required medical attention. I made my way to the home of a family who had given me refuge in the past. They were kind enough to put me up again and helped me to care for my hand.
Somehow, the Gestapo got wind of my presence there. I had long ago resolved not to be taken alive, but one day in early 1945, they burst into the room where I was confined to bed. I had no chance to reach the weapons I had prepared and I was taken prisoner.
They lost no time in transporting me to the Gestapo prison in what had been the pathology building of the Jewish hospital of Berlin. I, along with about 15 other Jews, were kept in what was once the morgue. We were considered the hard-core, the most likely to try an escape.
One day, in one of the frequent bombing attacks by American planes, the building was hit by a large bomb. While there was damage to the structure itself, most of the harm was done to the surrounding grounds. All prisoners were put to work cleaning up the rubble and helping with repairs. It was clear it would take weeks or even months to complete this work.
As the debris was cleared away, I discovered a tunnel. It had been used to transfer corpses from the hospital to the morgue. I told two of my fellow prisoners about a gate located near the entrance to the tunnel. This gate was locked.
I told them that if the gate could be opened, it might be a possible escape route. By hook or crook, we managed to obtain a few basic tools and a piece of lead pipe, which I spent the next several months filing into a crude key.
After many days and innumerable attempts, the lock on the gate yielded to my makeshift key. In the darkness just before dawn, we made our escape. We felt our way along the walls of the unlighted tunnel and out into the hospital proper. Once out of the hospital complex, we split up and went our separate ways. I managed to make the long walk to the apartment of my friends, the Lebrechts.
I had worked with the Lebrecht brothers in the weapons factory before I had become a fugitive. They were hiding in a basement apartment with their mother and father.
When I arrived there, it was April 15th, 1945. The Russian artillery could be heard even though it was still some distance from Berlin. `We knew it would be only a short time before the Red Army arrived.
And so it was. A few days later, we heard small arms fire on the street. We remained in the apartment when suddenly the door was smashed open and four Russian soldiers stood there, pointing their machine guns at us.
All of us screamed "Wait, don't shoot, we're Jews." The soldiers shouted back in a confused babble of voices. To my surprise, I realized that I could understand one of them. He was speaking in what seemed to be broken German. It reminded me of the Yiddish language that my relatives spoke in Kovno, Lithuania. When I concentrated, I could just make him out.
He accused us of lying, saying that Hitler had already killed all the Jews.
There was some truth to his claim. Before Hitler came to power, Berlin had over 165,000 Jewish citizens. I later learned that, at the end of the war, only about 1400 remained alive.
At the top of my lungs I shouted, "No. It’s true. We're Jews." If we could not convince them of this, we were doomed. We all kept repeating over and over, "We are Jews."
At that moment, I suddenly remembered that one of my father's brothers lived in Moscow. Desperate to convince them, I shouted, "My uncle is a citizen of Moscow. He is Jewish."
I could see a slight interest growing on the face of one of the soldiers. He asked my uncle's name and profession. I told him that he was named Boris Levin and that he was an electrical engineer.
Once again, I saw the leader’s face change. He said "perhaps you're telling the truth. I remember studying from a book by a Boris Levin when I was training as an electrician in Moscow." He turned to me and said "I'm also a Jew." Relaxing now, he spoke for a few minutes about his life before the war. He talked about the German invasion and how their armies had brutalized his people, raping and killing countless numbers of Russians. Now, all they thought about was revenge.
"What is your name?" He asked.
"Dagobert Lewin." I reply.
"I am going to give you a paper, which you must present to any other Russian soldier you encounter. It will say that you are a victim of the Nazis and a friend of the Russian people."
The solider handed me a handwritten note, which I carried with me from then on, allowing me to travel through military checkpoints in Berlin.
The Lebrechts were still not entirely at ease with the presence of the Russian army. "When will the fighting stop?" Leo asked.
The soldier smiled and said "Nazis aus, Hitler kaput".
And with this prediction, the war ended for me, at least as far as a daily struggle for life went. By some miracle, I had survived.
But then, I was no stranger to miracles. Since the day Hitler came to power, my chances of living to see the end of the war had become miniscule. On three separate occasions, the odds dictated my death.
What were the odds that I would run across Heinrich on my way to the factory? Or that he would risk severe punishment by warning me that the Jewish workers at the Waffenfabrik were being gathered up and deported?
And what were the odds that, once I was finally arrested, I would be able to make a key to a prison gate? What were the odds that, once made, the key would work at all?
Finally, what were the odds that a Russian soldier would have studied a textbook written by my uncle? And that this soldier would, by chance, be Jewish and speak the Yiddish language, thereby allowing us to communicate?
The chances of any one of these three events occurring by itself was beyond my ability to calculate, but I knew that they must have been astronomical. For all three to occur could only be called miraculous.
In each of these instances, something which could certainly be called a miracle saved me.
Three miracles for three death sentences.
It would take a man far wiser than I to understand why I lived when so many others died. Was it fate, destiny, chance, or the Hand of God? Whatever the reason, if there was any reason at all, these three miracles saved me from the fate of millions of my fellow Jews. And for that, at least, I will be eternally grateful.
In closing, I would like to read a poem which I translated from the German, entitled Collective Guilt. I discovered this while researching Holocaust literature in Berlin and it seems to accurately reflect the way many Germans felt, at the end of the war, about the treatment of the Jews. With your indulgence, I would like to read this now.
While I have tried to give you a brief synopsis of my life underground, it is, of course, impossible to condense two years and 439 pages into a 30 minute speech.
For those who are interested in learning more about my life as a fugitive, I have attempted to provide as accurate a history as memory allows in On the Run in Nazi Berlin. I would like to thank all of you for your patience and kind attention. Thank you and Good Night.
