Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Ovadia Baruch
Ovadia Baruch was born in Salonika in 1922 to a family of eight children. They lived in the Jewish neighborhood of Baron Hirsch, and he and his sisters studied at a Hebrew school. In June 1942 Hitler's racial laws were applied to the Greek Jews and their neighborhood became a ghetto. On 15 March 1943, the ghetto residents were ordered to buy one-way train tickets to an unknown destination, and the following morning they were loaded onto cattle cars, 100 per compartment, without food, water, or amenities. Seven days later they arrived at their destination. The doors were flung open, and search lights were thrust into their faces. SS soldiers awaited the passengers shouting, whipping them, and throwing them onto the platform. In the confusion, Ovadia lost his family members and never saw them again. Initially — due to the language barrier and the uniforms worn by the inmates - the Salonika Jews thought they had been taken to a mental asylum, not Auschwitz. Following their arrival, Ovadia was among a group of young Greek men who passed Mengale's selection and were taken to Auschwitz I. They were immediately sent to work, but not knowing German, they had difficulty understanding instructions and were constantly beaten. Due to the hard labor, harsh conditions, and constant torture, only five of the group survived, and it was decided that they should be murdered. However a young, German-speaking Greek prisoner, Ya'akov Maestro, saved them, insisting that their professional <b>...</b>
Yad Vashem Yom Hashoah Torchlighters Holocaust Survivors Israel Ovadia Baruch
