Secret Lovers from Auschwitz: Meeting 72 Years Later

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

At the monument to those killed in Auschwitz, there is a memorial plate on which is carved: "May this place be for centuries a cry of despair and a warning for mankind, where the Nazis destroyed about one and a half million men, women and children, mostly Jews, from different countries of Europe." And staying in this terrible place on Earth, people found the strength not only to preserve their human appearance, but to show the highest degree of spirituality. People have not lost the main ability - the ability to love. After 72 years, two lovers reunited who had gone through this earthly hell, the most terrible death camp in history - Auschwitz.

It is hard to imagine how love flourishes in the Nazi camp of Auschwitz. But, as the poets say, any heart is obedient to love, no matter how terrible the circumstances are. It was a period of utter despair for thousands upon thousands of prisoners who passed through the infamous gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp, which they would never want to see again in their lives. Finding love was the last thing on their minds, their primary goal was simple survival.

The paradox of human nature is that everyone's heart needs love, this intimate close connection with another person. In this nightmare, only love could help not to go crazy, to comfort the wounded human souls. So it happened with the prisoners of the camp - Helen Spitzer and David Cherry. He was only 17, just a boy. She is 25 years old. As a slightly more experienced young woman, she herself needed comfort and was able to give it. Mrs Spitzer was one of the first Jewish women to arrive in Auschwitz in March 1942. She came from Slovakia, where she studied at a technical college. She was the first woman in the region to complete her training as an artist-designer. She arrived in Auschwitz with 2,000 unmarried women.

At first, she, along with other inmates, was engaged in the grueling work of demolishing buildings for the camp in Birkenau. She suffered from malnutrition and was constantly ill. Helen suffered from typhoid, malaria and dysentery. She continued to work until a pipe collapsed on her, injuring her back. Thanks to sheer luck, as well as her knowledge of German, her graphic design skills, Ms. Spitzer got an easier job in the office. She became a privileged prisoner who enjoyed some concessions.

Initially, Helen Spitzer was tasked with mixing red powder paint with varnish to paint a vertical stripe on the uniforms of female prisoners. Eventually, she began registering all women arriving at the camp. This is what Spitzer said in 1946. Her testimony was documented by psychologist David Boder. He was the person who recorded the first interviews with the survivors of Auschwitz after the war.

By the time Helen and David met, she was working in a shared office. Together with another Jewish prisoner, she was responsible for organizing Nazi documents. Spitzer drew up the camp's monthly workforce schedules.

Helen Spitzer was free to move around the camp. Sometimes she was even allowed to go outside. She showered regularly and was not required to wear a bandage. Helen used her extensive design knowledge to build a 3D model of the camp. Ms. Spitzer's privileges were such that she managed to correspond with her only surviving brother in Slovakia using coded postcards.

However, Helen Spitzer was never a Nazi employee or inmate capo assigned to oversee other prisoners. Rather, on the contrary, she used her position to help prisoners and allies. Helen used her knowledge and freedom to manipulate documents. With this, she was able to transfer prisoners to various jobs and barracks. She had access to the camp's official reports, which she shared with various resistance groups, says Konrad Quit, a professor at the University of Sydney.

David Cherry was assigned to the "corpse unit" when he arrived. His job was to collect the bodies of prisoners who committed suicide. They threw themselves at the electric fence surrounding the camp. David dragged these corpses to the barracks, then they were transferred to trucks and taken out. Later, the Nazis discovered that David Cherry is a very talented singer. And instead of collecting corpses, he began to engage in the fact that he entertained them with singing.

When David first spoke to Helen in 1943 outside the Auschwitz crematorium, he realized that she was not an ordinary prisoner. Zippy, as she was called, was clean, always neat. She was wearing a jacket and smelled good. They were introduced by a cellmate at Helen's request.

They began to meet in secret. Once a week. Several times Helen saved her beloved from being sent to dangerous places, actually saving David's life. David Cherry felt special. “She chose me,” he recalls. David's father was very fond of opera, it was he who inspired him to study singing. Father died with the rest of the Vyshnia family in the Warsaw ghetto. Helen Spitzer was also very fond of music - she played the piano and mandolin. She taught David Hungarian songs. While they played the music, their sympathetic prisoners stood guard, ready to warn them if an SS officer approached.

This went on for several months, but they realized that this could not last forever. Death was everywhere around them. However, the lovers were planning a life together, a future outside of Auschwitz. They knew they would be separated, but they had a plan to reunite after the end of the war. It took them a whole long 72 years.

Fate divorced the lovers to different places. During the offensive of the Soviet troops and allies, all the prisoners were released and taken to different refugee camps. David Vishnya went to the American military. According to him, he was practically adopted. “They fed me, gave me a uniform, a machine gun and taught me how to use it,” he recalls. After that, he did not recall the plan to meet with his Zippy in Warsaw. America became his dream. David dreamed of singing in New York. He even wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt asking for a visa.

After the war, David emigrated to the States. He originally lived in New York. Then at the wedding of his friend he met his future wife. Later, he and his family settled in Philadelphia. Trying to forget the horrors of the war and the camp, Helen ended up in the Feldafing Displaced Persons Camp. In September 1945, she married Erwin Tichauer. He served as the camp police chief and United Nations security officer. This allowed him to work closely with the American military. Once again Mrs. Spitzer, now known as Mrs. Tichauer, was in a privileged position. Although she and her husband were also displaced persons, the Tichauers lived outside the camp.

Helen and her husband have dedicated their entire lives to charity and humanitarian affairs. With the UN mission, they visited many countries where people needed help. In between trips, Dr. Tichauer taught bioengineering at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Helen has always helped others a lot. Especially pregnant women and women who have just given birth. She herself was never destined to become a mother.

David Vishnya, some time after the end of the war, from a mutual acquaintance from Auschwitz, learned about the fate of Helen. Although they both already had families, he still wanted to meet her, told his wife about it. With the help of his friend, he made an appointment with his Zippy. I waited for her for several hours, but she never showed up. Subsequently, Helen said that she did not think it was a good idea. For many years David followed the fate of Helen through mutual acquaintances, but they never met.

David wrote a memoir about his life. He also shared the story of his boyish love with his children and grandchildren. His son, who is now a rabbi, invited his father to arrange a meeting with his former lover. David agreed. Mrs. Tichauer was found, they talked to her and she agreed to meet with Cherry.

In August 2016, David Cherry took two of his grandchildren with him and went to meet Helen. He was silent the entire time they drove from Levittown to Manhattan. David didn't know what to expect. It has been 72 years since he last saw his former lover. He heard that she was in very poor health, that she was practically blind and deaf.

When David Cherry and his grandchildren arrived at Mrs. Tichauer's apartment, they found her lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by shelves of books. She has been alone since her husband died in 1996. An assistant looked after her, and the phone became her lifeline and her only connection with the world.

At first she did not recognize him. Then, as David leaned closer, “Her eyes widened as if life had returned to her,” said Cherry's 37-year-old granddaughter Avi Cherry. “It just dumbfounded us all.” Suddenly they spoke to each other at the same time and couldn't stop. Helen jokingly asked David if he told everything about their relationship to his wife? “She told me this right in front of my grandchildren,” recalls Mr. Cherry, chuckling and shaking his head. "I told her:" Zippy! " and threatened with a finger,”he laughs.

They shared their life stories. Both of them did not fully believe that they would still be able to meet. They talked for over two hours. At the end, Helen said in a low voice very seriously: "I was waiting for you." She said that she followed the plan they made. But he never came. "I loved you," Helen almost whispered. David, with tears, also said that he loved her. Before he left, Helen asked him to sing for her. David took her hand and sang the Hungarian song that she taught him. He wanted to show that he still remembers the words.

After this meeting, David and Helen never saw each other. Last year, at the age of 100, Helen passed away. David is still alive and is trying to do everything so that people do not forget about the Holocaust, about the horrors of Auschwitz, so that this will never happen again. the world's worst blood bank: Salaspils children's concentration camp.