We were then all convinced - absolutely,

that it was a very minor issue,

that the war will only last a few months.

And so, from month to month, everything fell apart. 

The outbreak of the War found Mosze Turbowicz in Łódź.

Defence: Mosze is part of an anti-aircraft team. In the first days of September, he goes onto the roof of a tenement building. He watches if something is coming. Something is coming and then he rushes to the shelters. Initially, everything happens quickly. The enthusiasm is palpable when England and France declare war. But on 8th September, German troops enter the city.

“And so, from month to month, everything was falling apart. And the biggest blow was the almost bloodless conquest of Paris, because that meant that there was no chance at all.”

Escape: There is a call for men to go to the east.

“My father would even have someone to go to in the east, since his whole family was in Kleck near Nieśwież. And it might even make sense that, if he went there, he would have his whole family and, for one or one and a half years, he would have a slightly calmer life.  But, no, my father was too weak from wounds which he suffered in World War I. He was too weak. My younger brother was then seven-years-old. My father would not go with me. We stayed and then there was nothing to think about, because the Germans had already arrived.”

And, so, we stayed, in our home, in our city.

“It was then that the obligation to wear armbands began. Niutek Radzyner, who was blonde with blue eyes, would take off his armband and go out. They told us to only walk on the cobblestones, not on the footpaths. At first, we were permitted to ride on the trams, but only in the second car. Then it became totally forbidden to ride on trams at all. Boys, let’s call them that - Christians, not Jews – threw me out of the line for bread. That time was about walking, standing in line, all sorts of things. There was an order to take off your cap whenever a German passed by.”

“And then I remember the march – packing up and marching off with your things. A wagon with bundles which we pushed towards the ghetto.”

In the ghetto

In February 1940, a directive was announced to establish a ghetto in Łódź. Thanks to acquaintances of Eliasz Turbowicz, Mosze’s father, the whole family rents a room in the apartment of a vegetable trader in a building on ul. Kościelna. The ghetto was closed off in April.

“We took one room – four people – my father, mother, me and my brother – all in one room. In the second room, there was a vegetable garden, which also had a four-member family – that of the owner. And my aunt lived in the kitchen with her little daughter, my cousin.”

“My father was a coal specialist and a well-known Zionist. Rumkowski, himself, considered himself a Zionist. A certain section of the Zionists filled the main positions. Therefore, my father became the manager of the coal yard on ul. Łagiewnicka. And thanks to this, on average, we were a little better off than everyone else. Why? The simple reason was that he had an official allocation of coal briquettes. The winters were hard. What did one need? Coal, fuel and food. There was no more food but, if you had coal, you could exchange it on the black market for something else. Therefore, in this respect, our situation was slightly better.”

Until 1941, Mosze continued to attend school, which was then closed. He then found employment with his father as an accountant in the coal yard’s administration office. For a short period, he managed to find a job in an abattoir operating in the ghetto:

“At the same time, I was tutoring those who had money. But who had money? These were such people who held important positions. One such was the head of the meat department called the Fleischabteilung – namely there, meat was distributed, mainly horse meat, which came to the ghetto and was then available for vouchers and for those at the top of the ghetto. Smallgoods were smoked there. It was very hard work but, thanks to the fact that I was tutoring the children of Mr. Rosenson, the Fleischabteilung Commissioner, he hired me to work there.”

“My work consisted of cutting up the horse meat, which was not fantastic because, you know, while you were not permitted to do this, but if you’re there, you could cut away a piece of fat to eat. It was then that I realised that horse fat is extremely delicate and very easy to digest, much more so than other types of fat. Especially if I was working with a knife, I could scrape it off. That period of two and a half months, when I was sixteen and a half, is a fantastic story. This is extremely important because, thanks to this, I did not have to eat a portion of the rations that were at home. I could pass them on to my family.”

“This only lasted for two and a half months, because then we were dispersed – that is, Rumkowski came and dispersed us. He said that we were having it too good, but I was working damn hard there. I was then sent to work in the Holzabteilung, the so-called timber department.”

In the ghetto, Mosze joins the underground Lewica Związkowa (Communist Party) organisation and begins to be increasingly influenced by communist ideas.

“I was not then yet in the organisation, but I was beginning to become influenced by these Marxist, communist ideas. Even then, others were supplying me with literature. I was reading a lot of works by Krachanow, Kałucki, some by Marx and Engels’ “Anti-Dühring”. I remember reading that. I remember it very well because I was brought up in a Zionist and rather anti-communist home. I remember that, in our home, we talked about the purges in Russian and those purges in Russia sat deeply within me and were the main obstacle to me succumbing to Marxist ideology – not so much Marxist, but communist.”

“Mama was also some sort of administrative clerk, but at a very low level. In fact, the most important thing was to be eligible for a food ration. That food allocation, of course, was for 200 or sometimes 250 grams of bread each day, that doughy bread, plus 100 grams of margarine each day plus 100 grams of sugar each day and an occasional voucher for vegetables. One time, they threw out potatoes, but they turned out to be rotten.”

“The staple food were swedes. Swedes were a staple, but noble food. Potato peelings were also extremely sought after. Over time, it was not permitted to throw them away, but were only given on vouchers for the sick. The peelings were washed, ground, mixed with saccharin and coffee grounds and it was cause for celebration, because it was a cake – a coffee cake - hulls, ground potato with saccharin and coffee grounds”.

In the summer, Mosze’s parents and brother are transported, from the ghetto, to Auschwitz. Of those three, only his mother will survive and will be sent to work in the Reich. He is alone. Two weeks after his parents’ deportation, in August 1944, he and his friends report to join the last transport from the ghetto. The leaders of the Lewica Związkowa organisation state that they believe the chances of survival are greater in the camp than during the potential liquidation of the ghetto.

“At the end of the ghetto, the organisation called us to enter the barracks, because we were counting on the fact that our organisation would continue to operate. Then, on the orders of the organisation, I left my family. These were the last weeks. We thought that we would survive in some bunker – if there was a Soviet offensive. But the offensive stalled due to the Warsaw Uprising. It was then decided that there was no chance of surviving where we were. However, there was a chance of survival in the camp, if we were young and healthy.”

“Since the war was already ending in Oświęcim, the leadership of the organisation decided that it would be safer and a greater chance of survival if we reported to the transport. And that was where I reported, together with half the barracks on that last day. I left the ghetto on the last transport.”

In the camp in Oświęcim, Mosze Turbowicz is registered with the number B9408, as “Maks Balsam”.

“People remaining after a selection, those “to live”, go to the Durchganglager, namely to quarantine – a kind of transit camp. I know that, from such a camp, my late mother, for example, was bought by a factory. There, we are exhibited at a slave market. Representatives of firms, companies and factories come, looking for workers to buy. They then pay the owner for these workers. A factory in northern Germany bought my mother, so that all evidence of her was removed. She was not at all entered into the Auschwitz records and was immediately entered into the Bergen-Belsen records. From there, she was transferred onto the Neuengamme records, also [to] northern Germany, towards Hanover.”

“We wanted to get out of quarantine, because I wanted to get away from the chimneys as soon as possible – there could be purges from time to time. They took those, who were there, to the gas in order to make room for newcomers. So, [I needed] to get to some work as soon as possible.

“So, at this slave market, we wondered to ourselves as to who would be called first? According to the alphabet[?] It would be best, therefore, to [have a name] starting with ‘A’, because they would be the first to be called for work. But you would never know if ‘A’ was good. It was better to see where they were taking [people] from. So we decided to take names strating with ‘B’, so that we would not be separated. We were convinced – although we did not know for certain – that we would be able to keep our names in the records. And so, my friend Sebek Wilner changed his name to ‘Bilner’, Rysiek Podlaski to ‘Bodlaski [aand] Lucek Dobroszewski to ‘Bobroszewski’. He changed it from Dobroszewski na ‘Bobroszewski’, he just changed the ‘D’ to a ‘B’.

“I thought to myself, ‘Should I change Turbowicz to ‘Burbowicz’?’ It sounded funny to me, weird. What sort of surname is ‘Burbowicz’???

“There was a symphony orchestra in the ghetto, [which played] at a high level. There was an excellent violinist – Rosztatówna – a very high-class European violinist. There were a few others. The leaders of my organisation believed that this was an attempt to distract people with revues, theatre and a symphony orchestra – they ordered that these be boycotted. From a distance, I can say that this was a wrong move – that’s what I think. Everything indicates that this was wrong. From all the diaries that were preserved, it appears that they played a positive [role]. Regardless of the fact that it was entertainment for the ghetto elite, for those who were walking by – it raised human dignity. We didn’t value it. But the need to listen to music is normal. So, we would meet at those who had record collections. Adam Lesman had a [large] record collection. I remember that the last thing I listened to was Beethoven’s Sonata performed by Artur Balsam. It was Balsam, the famous pianist. That’s also a story I can tell you one day, but it will be a total footnote to how I came to know Balsam after the War.

“And I took on the surname of ‘Balsam’. 

“So, as ‘Maks Balsam’ I am entered into the Auschwitz records. You can check there – No. B9408 Maks Balsam. But, of course, it was only token because, at that time, I was only a number. So, we all signed up together, supposedly, with names next to each other. But, in fact, we only had consecutive numbers next to each other.”

Death march

Mosze remains in the Brzezinka camp for a couple of weeks. He works in draining land and on road works. He goes to the sub-camp in Czechowice. He will survive the ‘death march’ from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, and then from Buchenwald to the Theresienstadt camp, which is where he will be liberated by American troops.

“During the second ‘death march’, from Buchenwald to Theresienstadt, our train was bombed by the Allies in order to stop us – in good measure and with good intentions. This was at the Reisenheim station, on the border of the Sudetes mountain range with Germany. From there, we began [walking] for twelve or thirteen days and, not once, did we receive any food. Along the way, I ate anything that was green. I swallowed grass and it was April, so barely anything was growing which could be eaten. I tried to dig up a potato, when we were approaching a farm of some Sudeten German. He came out and began beating me terribly. To this day, I have a scar on my back. I’m not surpsied, because hunger was common then. He had planted potatoes, which he believed would be the only meal for his children and for his grandchildren. He didn’t know that, anyway, they would deport him from these Sudetes. The Czechs [would remove the Germans] in two or three months. And here am I digging his potatoes out of the ground and eating them raw.

“We stopped during that march. We were marching, it was not that far. When we were heading east, there was news that the Russians were coming. They then took us on a zig-zag route to the west. The Americans were coming. They took us east again. We walked some 220 kilometres, because we were zigzagging, for a dozen or so days. We covered many, many kilometres and ended up in Chomutov - Komotau in German, Chomutov in Czech. I remember that we stopped once and someone threw some sort of cores to us. I was infected with typhus, so I was very weak. [Two weeks later, everyone in the march had typhus.] But then everyone rushed  [for the cores]. I didn’t have enough strength. Then I saw a dog gnawing on some sort of bone. I threw myself at it. I picked up the bone and began licking it. So, if someone ever asks me what hunger means, that’s it.”

Liberation

Following liberation, Mosze spends several months’ convalescing. He finds his mother. He involves himself in building Poland. He creates the first circle of the Fighting Youth Association (ZWM]. Over time, he becomes chairman of that organisation’s community board and, later, chairman of the ZWM’s district board in Wałbrzych. After the War, he does not return to his surname of “Turbowicz”, but adopts the surname “Turski”. During 1956-1957, he serves as editor-in-chief of “Sztandar Młodych”. From 1958, he manages the history department of the “Polityka” weekly. In 1965, he takes part in a march against racial segregation from Selma to Montgomery in the USA. During the events of March 1968, his critical attitude towards the political system in Poland begins. In 1985, he takes part in a convention of members of Lewica Związkowa. This when Marian Turski, for the first time, visits Israel. Together with Arnold Mostowicz, he establishes the Association of Jewish Combatants.

After the breakthrough of democracy in Poland, Marian Turski serves in many public positions – among them, as chairman of the Presidential Council for Polish-Jewish Relations, under President Lech Wałęsa, chairman of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute and as a member of the Auschwitz Council under Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. From 2009, he has served as chairman of the Council of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

Prepared by: Józef Markiewicz, based on an interview with Marian Turski in 2019, as part of the oral history program of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

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