Survivors of the Holocaust
Mr. Jacob Boehm
Anyone who has lived in Baltimore for a while remembers the familiar figure of Mr. Jacob Boehm in his white apron, hacking at the lettuces or working the deli in his store, the famous, Jack’s. The store, which the Boehms started not long after their arrival in Baltimore in 1948, was one of the only kosher groceries for a long time, and became a forerunner of Seven Mile Market. It was Mr. Boehm who first brought chalav Yisrael and other kosher products to Baltimore. Mr. Boehm was also very active in community endeavors, especially the establishment of Yeshivas Kochav Yitzchok which was known then as Shearis Hapleita. Here is his personal and very moving story.
WWW: Mr. Boehm, will you tell us a little about your family and what happened at the very beginning of the War?
JB: I’m originally from the lower part of Czechoslovakia, the Carpathian mountain region. I grew up in Voloska in a family of nine children. My father was a shochet, and he was considered a leader of the region, like a rabbi. People used to ask him shailas. When the Hungarians occupied our town in 1938, I was 16. I had about a year of yeshiva education before the yeshiva was closed down because of the War. The chadarim (elementary yeshivas) were also closed, but each village tried to keep a cheder going secretly. I was a teacher in it for a while. When they found out about it, I had to run away to avoid being beaten. In 1940, my father was put under house arrest. Since I was the oldest boy, I started black marketeering to support the family. I made enough to sustain us, but it was very dangerous. The house was searched almost weekly. Luckily I was never caught.
In 1943, I was drafted into the Hungarian army. After basic training, I was put into a labor camp. I spent 14 months doing hard labor, and then I was taken to concentration camp for the rest of the war. We worked 18- to 20-hour days. It was very hard, but the first year food was still available. I was in a group of 250 Jewish boys. About 25 of us decided we wouldn’t eat treife. For nine months I subsisted on bread and water.
WWW: Weren’t you afraid of getting sick?
JB: We were scared about losing our strength, and also we had to hide what we were doing from the authorities. They considered not eating to be sabotage, because they needed our labor. But I decided to go on as long as I could, and I never got caught.
WWW: What did you do about Shabbos and the holidays?
JB: On Shabbos, whatever I didn’t have to do, like carrying things in my pockets, I didn’t do. On Yom Kippur I was on the train, and we davened and fasted there. Succos we had to work. Pesach I received matzos from my parents, and I shared them with the other boys. We made a seder in the dark and recited whatever we remembered from the Haggadah.
Our first Tisha B’Av was very hard. It fell on a Sunday. Usually we got back to our bunks before nightfall on Shabbos. That Shabbos they kept us until 1 a.m., so we had no food before the fast started. On Sunday, they made us work again until l1 p.m. We didn’t eat until Monday morning.
On Rosh Hashanah, our commander, who was a Catholic, allowed us to daven one hour during lunch break. We even blew shofar. I managed to keep my siddur and tefilin with me during the entire War. In winter time, it was very hard at the workplace, because I had to undress to put them on. It was very cold and I had to be careful not to be seen. When we entered the concentration camp, I thought I would lose my tefilin, because they forced everyone to give up their possessions. But I was lucky again. I arranged with a friend of mine to catch my bundle when I threw it over the fence at a moment when the guards weren’t looking. I still use these tefilin today.
WWW: What happened to your family while you were in the labor camp?
JB: After the War, I found out that when the Nazis took everyone to the ghetto after Pesach, they escaped to a forest and hid. Two of my brothers would sneak into the village at night, and a friend of mine, a goy whom I had helped establish in business, gave them food. After Shavuos they were caught, betrayed by the local goyim. They were taken to Munkatch and from there to Auschwitz. None of them survived. Two weeks later, the Partisans came looking for them, but they were gone.
WWW: How did you end up in concentration camp?
JB: The hardest part of the War for me started in 1944. We were on the front, and we started retreating to the Austrian border. We dug trenches for the military, repaired railroads, all kinds of work. We handed ammunition to the German soldiers, and we lost a lot of boys. There was a period of about six weeks when we were on a mountain. It was very, very cold. They housed us in round cardboard tents with 10 people in each. The snow blew in constantly. We built a fire in the middle and slept with our feet to the fire. Our feet were warm, but we used to wake up with our hair frozen to the ground. Many times we slept outside on branches that we laid on the snow. Many boys froze.
Finally, the Hungarians were finished with us. Then the Germans took over and started marching us to the concentration camp, Mauthausen, in Austria. There was no food, and we literally lived on grass. Even that was hard to find. Once we had to march through a town, and the Nazis alerted the townspeople that we were vicious criminals so that they would stay away from us. When we got to the other end of the town, we camped there, and the local gendarmes asked us who we were. We told them we were just Jews going wherever they took us. They must have been kindly people, because in the middle of the night they brought two wagonloads of bread. They were afraid to awaken all of us and cause a lot of noise and excitement, so they woke up a row at a time and gave each person a half a loaf. They even apologized for not having more to give. That was the first time we ate in three weeks.
I was in Mauthausen and then in another camp in Austria. I was liberated on May 8, 1945. The SS guards had told us that they were planning to burn up the camp and the 12,000 prisoners in it that night. But, the camp commander informed the Americans to come quickly. He was not an SS man, and he probably wanted to save himself. A column of 15 American tanks came in that Friday evening. We left on Shabbos morning. I was in very bad shape from starvation. I had lost most of my sight and memory, but I knew enough to tie my tefilin to my body so I wouldn’t lose them. I walked a short way and then collapsed at the side of the road. My friends thought I was dead. Fortunately, an American truck came along and threw me on the back. They gave me immediate medical attention and I began to recover.
WWW: Mr. Boehm, what sustained you through all the suffering?
JB: Only the religion kept us going. We though Mashiach was coming and that was why we had to suffer. Those who had learned a little refused to be broken spiritually. Even the non-religious Jews did not want to deny their Jewishness. Once some missionaries came into our company and tried to get us to convert. They promised that those who converted would not have to leave Hungary. Out of 250 boys, only seven went forward to convert. All of them were from mixed marriages.
WWW: Did you ever have doubts about religion?
JB: After the war, I returned to my village and found out that my family was gone. Only seven or eight Jews from that village were left. That’s when I started having doubts.
WWW: Did you feel bitter?
JB: I was disappointed, but I was not bitter. I did not turn away from keeping the mitzvos.
WWW: Why do you think so many people did stop keeping the mitzvos?
JB: It went both ways. Some people, when they saw what was happening, gave up right away. Others didn’t keep anything at home and became very religious after the War. I think they figured that if they survived, there must be something there.
WWW: Do you still have doubts?
JB: I don’t say I have doubts, but it is hard to explain some things. For example, in the Haggadah, it says that many people have tried to destroy us, but G-d always saved us from their hands. Of course we believed that G-d saved us; there is no question. But, it is hard to understand.
WWW: To what do you attribute your survival?
JB: It was just a miracle. I also think my parents had something to do with it, where they were. They did not want the entire family to be wiped out.
WWW: Thank you Mr. Boehm, for sharing your experiences and thoughts with our readers. Your story will inspire people in Baltimore and beyond.
