On the 19th January, Ziggi Shipper, a Holocaust survivor who still works at the age of 76, came to speak. Arranged by the Jewish Society (JSOC) it was held in the lecture theatre and open to all. Around 250 students and teachers were present to listen to his story.
Born on 18th January 1930, Ziggi lived in Lodz, Poland. Here there was the second largest Jewish community in Poland with around 250,000 Jews. He experienced tough times as a young boy when in 1935, aged 6, his parents divorced. He remained with his father and grandparents as his mother left their home. To him he described the divorce as, “as bad as death”; with the explanation for this being that he never saw his mother and it was as if she didn’t exist.
His lifestyle was actually very reasonable. He attended a Jewish school and at home he had his own bedroom. Most of his friends had to share their bedrooms with other family members. What’s more they were also one of the few families to own a phone within their home. Shortly this would all change. In 1939 his father announced that he would have to leave for Russia as the Germans were coming for the Jews. The women and children would be taken first. By this time Jews had to walk in the middle of the road, not the pavement; wash the floors and pavements; not use the trams or go to school. Jewish Society
This continued as areas of Lodz were transformed into a ghetto. In April 1940 it was surrounded by barbed wire and the rules were no one in or out unless ordered. There were 70,000 people living inside the ghetto; the majority were Jews. Within the ghetto there was no running water, and one room per house. Ziggi shared the one room he had with his aunt and grandma. As food was scarce at the age of only ten and a half, Ziggi found he had to work for his rations. He worked in a metal factory, six days a week from seven to seven. The bonus to his job was that at lunch time he was given soup and in the evening a ration. Every few months people were taken away and never heard of again, it was a case of 10,000 out, a different 10,000 in. This continued through to 1942, until they decided to take people away every day for a week, 50,000 in total. Ziggi was one of the 50,000. However whilst trying to get on a lorry he ran and hid for the day. He wasn’t found and went back to Lodz were he returned to his normal life.
In July 1944 the Russians were getting nearer to Lodz and that meant freedom. So the Germans decided to liquefy the ghetto. Ziggi was moved to Auschwitz. He had only heard of it in a few conversations before but didn’t really know what it was like or what to expect. After three days in a cattle truck with no food or drink they arrived. It was mid-August and it was hot. Ziggi and all the other Jews were told to leave their luggage and they would be given it later on. Of course they never saw their possessions again.
As soon as they arrived, the selection process started. To the left went the fit men who showered, changed into a uniform and went on to their barracks. To the right went the women, the elderly, the children, the disabled and the sick. Within an hour those who went to the right were dead. Gassed and burnt. Ziggi described it as a miracle he didn’t go this way as he was only fifteen and still had features of a boy rather than a young man, so he half expected to go with the women. Within the camp, he volunteered for a job on the railways and found that his food went from awful to bad; however when he spend the night out it was warmer as he could sleep in the trucks. It was freezing by winter and everyone in their barracks would huddle together in what they called “the human oven”. Those in the middle were the warmest but it worked on a rotation system so everyone had a chance in the middle and likewise, although reluctantly, one on the edge where it was cold. Still, many people died from the freezing weather. As the Russians proceeded nearer to the camp the Germans became more ruthless. They didn’t want to leave anyone alive and so gassed thousands of people in a short space of time and left them out to rot, not having time to bury them.
They were only half a mile from the front. One morning they saw planes flying over. They left the barracks to find no guards. Taking advantage, Ziggi was able to leave on what to him seemed like a luxury coach and travelled to Dansig. He also travelled on barges, going for ten days without food or drink. He travelled and went through both Norway and Denmark, receiving food parcels as he went. A lot of the time the group of people he was with had to walk long distances. For Ziggi this was hard as he had earlier been shot.
The date he knew he was free from the Germans was the 3rd of May 1945. He saw British tanks and no Germans. Through the British troops he was able to get to a hospital where he spent three months recovering and learning how to walk again. He was also treated for malnutrition. Upon leaving hospital he was unsure where to go. He decided to avoid Poland as there was a lot of anti-Semitism. There was an offer for 1000 Jews to go to England, 1000 to Sweden and many more to Palestine. He wanted to go to Palestine, not England, so strangely instead he went to Hamburg in Germany. One day a letter arrived at his children’s home, from London. A lady claimed to have had a son who she believed to be Ziggi. If Ziggi was her son he would have a burn on his left wrist. He did. However the letter said he was born in 1931, when he was born in 1930. This could have just been an error, yet he still didn’t want to go to London.
He did eventually go and luckily his mother did survive the war and they were reunited. He found a job in England and soon he married a French lady, having two daughters. Today he has six grandchildren, two of whom went to Merchant Taylors’. This makes him very proud as his education stopped at the age of ten. One thing that made him upset was that he never had a barmitzvah, so when his first grandson reached the age of thirteen, Ziggi had a joint barmitzvah with him in what was a very moving and emotional ceremony. He told of his respect for the British as they liberated him, but says Britain is not perfect as there is anti-Semitism everywhere. His message at this point was quite fitting. In the lecture theatre there were people from many religions and backgrounds and Ziggi stressed that no one should hate another human being, but we must live together and get on together. Every year he goes to his non-Jewish friends at Christmas and likewise they come to him at the Jewish festivals.
Regarding his father, the last thing he knew was his father was in Warsaw in 1941, yet he knows nothing about where or when his father died. He never spoke about his experiences for twenty five years, but now he tells everyone he meets. He feels we must learn from the past and not let it happen again. He recently visited Auschwitz again with one of his grandsons. Ziggi Shipper is clearly a remarkable person and we feel very lucky that he agreed to speak to us. I would like to end with a moment of his life that stands out; on one of his visits to Auschwitz he stood beneath the famous arch and said:
“After all Hitler tried to do, he didn’t succeed, for I am still here!”
Doron Salomon, JSOC Committee
