TL:DR – “I Survived the Holocaust: My Memories of Loss and Survival | News World”
- Alfred Garwood, a Holocaust survivor, recounts his traumatic childhood at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
- Despite a lack of clear memories, bodily recollections of trauma resurfaced during his first visit in 1990.
- His family’s survival was largely due to his father’s bravery while facing immense adversity.
- Garwood later founded the Child Survivors Group of Great Britain, offering support to others with similar experiences.
- He aims to raise awareness of the hidden trauma that child Holocaust survivors endure.
I survived the Holocaust – all I remember is death | News World
My childhood was full of anguish (Picture: Sam Churchill / MOTL)
On Holocaust Memorial Day, one survivor shares his experience of his childhood memories of a concentration camp, and returning to the camp as an adult.
Walking along the dirt path in the early morning chill, my knees suddenly felt weak.
Within seconds, I was stuck just staring at the ground for what could’ve been 20 minutes. I was in fight or flight mode.
It was 1990 and I was 48 – and this was the first trip I’d taken back to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp since being detained there during the Holocaust.
I was a very young child back then and had experienced a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia. For me, this meant that my mind couldn’t form proper memories of my time in the camp, but my body clearly remembered the trauma – and it was all coming flooding back.
My childhood was full of anguish.
I was born in October 1942 in the Przemysl ghetto in southeastern Poland. My parents had my sister four years earlier.
(From left to right) Alfred, his father, sister and mother (Picture: Alfred Garwood)
By the time of my birth, anti-Jewish sentiment was rife and my family had been living in the ghetto for three months. Disease was common, food was scarce, and overcrowding exacerbated everything.
We had an extended family of around 60. But before I was even born, they faced extermination.
When Mum was six months pregnant with me, my family were forced to line up while Gestapo officers called out names. Among them were my aunt – my mother’s sister, who was also pregnant – and my maternal grandparents.
My grandfather was taken away and shot, while my aunt and grandmother were sent to gas chambers at the Belzec death camp. Mum was devastated and even tried to join them, but an officer yelled at her to get back in line.
Learn more about Holocaust Memorial Day
Holocaust Memorial Day is an international day of remembrance on 27th January, centred on remembering the six million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered – and the millions more who were murdered – under Nazi persecution.
The day marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.
For more information about Holocaust Memorial Day, visit the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s website here. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust encourages remembrance in a world scarred by prejudice and systematic, targeted persecution.
To this day, I don’t know why my family was spared when others weren’t so lucky. On top of that, my father’s mother – who lived in modern-day Lviv, Ukraine – was rounded up with other Jewish women, then locked in a synagogue while it was burnt to the ground.
My family survived in large part to my father’s bravery. He routinely risked his life to escape the ghetto to get food for us.
Then in June 1943 – when I was just eight months old – a notice went up in the ghetto urging anyone with allied or neutral ancestry to come forward because they might be useful for hostage exchanges.
A British soldier reads a billboard in 1945 posted at the entrance of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (Picture: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
My father was eligible because he was born in the UK, so we were later shipped off in a cramped cattle truck to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany. By July, we were placed in an area of the compound called Sternlager (meaning star camp).
Every morning, we’d have roll calls in the freezing cold outside. As for food, prisoners would get a slice of hard bread and a bowl of vegetable soup.
By April 1945, more than 100,000 people were held in Bergen-Belsen at some point during the war and at least 70,000 of them died. Towards the last few months, it was particularly hellish due to intense overcrowding, which caused the running of the camp to completely collapse.
People were dying at an extraordinary rate due to disease and starvation, but their bodies were just thrown into a pile. Cannibalism wasn’t unheard of.
The barracks of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in 1944 (Picture: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
A week before the camp was liberated, my family – along with around 7,500 other detainees – was ordered to board three trains bound for Terezin concentration camp.
We travelled for two weeks, but never made it because the Soviet army intercepted our train. Initially mistaking us for Germans, they shot at us, but it was my father – who could speak Russian – who explained that we were Jewish prisoners.
We were finally liberated. By this time, I was two and a half years old, malnourished, and severely underdeveloped.
After recovering for a short period in a nearby village, my parents decided to take us back to Przemysl. Devastatingly, this is when we found out that only two of our family members had survived by hiding in a cellar.
So out of 60 family members, there were only six survivors of the Holocaust. But my own immediate family had all made it, which felt like a miracle.
Even though the war was over, antisemitism in Poland was rampant so my parents decided to go to England.
After some hiccups, by January 1946, we came to London and I was brought up in the east end. My childhood was tough – especially because I was half the size I should’ve been.
The Holocaust has cast a shadow over the rest of my life but it was hard for me to connect with it because my memories were scant. I felt numb and disconnected.
I really wanted to help people (Picture: Simon Hill)
My mother would never talk about her experiences and at one point, she even banned us from speaking Polish.
I met my wife, Diana, in the mid-1960s when I was around 23.
We married in 1968 and had our two children, Anna and Catherine, in the mid-1970s. Throughout our marriage, Diana was my rock – especially supporting me through medical school.
A memorial at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (Picture: FOCKE STRANGMANN/AFP via Getty Images)
I really wanted to help people, particularly after everything my family had been through.
Unfortunately, in my final year of med school, Diana was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). By the late 1980s, her symptoms worsened – she lost so much weight that she looked skeletal, she was paralysed, deaf, and blind.
In March 1989, Diana died and I was devastated. From that moment on, I decided to throw myself into my work as a GP, as well as studying childhood trauma.
This led me to asking my parents and sister if we could all go back to the concentration camp as a way to heal from our collective pain.
Alfred Garwood with Prince William (Picture: Arthur Edwards – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
The very first day we were at Bergen-Belsen in 1990, I actually felt nothing. I was desensitised.
It wasn’t until I went back by myself the next morning that I had the visceral reaction I mentioned. I actually felt relief that I was beginning to open up to the trauma I had clearly been repressing for so long.
Around the same time, I longed to connect with other child survivors of the Holocaust, which is how I founded the Child Survivors Group of Great Britain. We’d meet every month for chats and I later became a psychiatrist and psychotherapist so I was able to offer them therapy.
I went on to remarry and have three more children, Aaron, Esther, and Joshua. I feel very lucky to have them – and my mother especially loved all her grandchildren.
Dad died in 1990 at 73, while Mum died at 92 in 2015.
Today, I have an MBE, I’ve published a biography, and I have been back to Bergen-Belsen six times.
Alfred with his MBE (Picture: ANDREW MATTHEWS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
At the end of the day, I want people to know that child Holocaust survivors may have been young, their memories may not be as clear, but their trauma is still valid. For us, liberation didn’t bring freedom from this anguish.
When I look back on my life, I feel proud. Despite all that’s happened, I can say I’ve been blessed – with my family, my work, and my achievements in life.
I like to think I’ve made the most of my life and that feels like such a gift I know many others never got.