An eight-year-old boy, who has not seen his parents for nearly three months, is escorted by a stranger into a barn. He is instructed to dig into a pile of hay in order to find his new hiding place. He approaches the large haystack in the middle of the barn and begins to dig. He finds a trap door and lifts it up, to reveal a dark, narrow space. As he slides down into the hole, he has no idea where he is, what he is doing, or when he will next see the light of day. He cannot even begin to fathom what is to become of him over the next year and a half of his life.
Karl Schapiro was born in the town of Kalush, Poland in 1934, into a world that was about to change forever. The town consisted of 15,000 people, which included Poles, Ukrainians and about 5,500 Jews, who lived integrated into the same neighborhoods. The town was equipped with electricity, sewers, water and some paved streets. The town profited from a large salt mine, which employed Poles and Ukrainians, only. Jews were excluded from this business, and instead, were active as small business owners, tradesmen, craftsmen and farmers.
Before the war broke out, Karl was too young to notice any of the anti-Semitism in the world around him. His Hebrew name, Chaim, could have symbolized the pleasant life and loving family which surrounded him. He said, “I had friends, I played games, life was fun and I was a spoiled only child.” Karl’s father was born in 1903, and visited Belgium, Germany, Holland, and France in search for work. When he returned from his travels, he married Karl’s mother and settled down in Kalush, where the couple opened a haberdashery, or a clothing store. It was an expensive and exclusive store, which sold mostly to the better off Christians and the intelligentsia. As a result, the Schapiros were considered to be wealthy people by the town’s standards and could afford more than most. Karl said, “ Being the only child, I was tortured by my grandmother; every time I opened my mouth, strawberries and cherries would fly into it!”
Life suddenly changed in 1939, when the Russians invaded Kalush as part of the partition of Poland. They branded Karl’s father a kulak, or a capitalist exploiter, and confiscated his store. Karl’s father learned a worker’s trade — he went to work in a factory to learn the skill of leather crafting. Little did he know that this skill, along with his knowledge of many languages, would later help save the family.
In June 1941, when Karl was only seven years old, the situation became even graver. The Germans launched the blitzkrieg against Russia and invaded the town, organizing a police force and issuing several mandates. Firstly, they ordered that all Jews had to register their names with the Gestapo. Karl said, “It was a small town and everyone knew everyone else—there was nowhere to hide.” Secondly, the Germans ordered that Jews give up all of their personal possessions, including jewelry, silverware, expensive clothing and other family valuables. Thirdly, all Jews had to wear a Star of David, although Karl did not have to wear one because he was very young. Fourthly, and most drastic of all, the Jews had to move from their homes into the ghetto, the poorest section of town. Failure to comply with these orders would result in immediate death.
Karl still remembers the first thing his father said to him upon moving into the ghetto, where the family moved into a small house with three other families. He said, “You cannot go out to play anymore.” This was followed by the order; “do not make any trouble for us.” Karl was shocked: he said, “I was only ten years old and I couldn’t go outside to play.” Despite his disappointment, Karl obeyed his father. He said, “I assumed a role of watcher of what was going on around me and did not ask for anything—I didn’t make any trouble.” It was not until later on that Karl was able to understand why his father curtailed his outdoor excursions: there were no barbed wires or guards to isolate the ghetto from the rest of town. With only an invisible border existing between the ghetto and the rest of Klaus, a small Jewish boy could easily wander off and find himself in the realm of hateful Poles and Ukrainians, who took pleasure in beating up Jews and bring them to the Gestapo. When asked why the family couldn’t just run away from the ghetto, Karl replied, “It’s hard to explain the feeling of desperation and helplessness when there’s no place to escape — where everyone is your enemy and you have no place to hide.”
While living in the ghetto, word got out that the Germans needed a translator/bookkeeper —since Eastern Poland was known as the “breadbasket of Europe,” and the Germans confiscated and shipped grain back to Germany. This is where Karl’s father’s lingual and leather-crafting skills came in handy. He was hired by the SS as a translator and a worker, and was protected from being shipped away to a labor or extermination camp.
Life in the ghetto continued for a long fifteen months. Karl and his parents watched as people were carted away to German labor camps, as children died of malnutrition, as adults vanished and as disease plagued the ghetto. By September 1942, Karl’s parents had come to the realization that the Germans were out to kill all the Jews – not just use them for work. The Jews were already accustomed to pogroms, as horrible as they were, which had been occurring in Europe throughout history. Therefore, at the beginning, it was thought that this was just another type of pogrom as those had preceded it in the past 2,000 years. No one would have ever believed that the Germans, who were such civilized people, would attempt to wipe out the entire Jewish population. However, as time moved on, the Germans’ intention was becoming a reality for the Jews. Karl was only eight years old, and his parents feared for his life as well as their own. To plan an escape from the ghetto, his parents decided to ship him out to a nearby German labor camp where his aunt and uncle and their sons were working.
Karl remembers a Polish youngster coming to escort him to the labor camp, where he moved into a barrack with his aunts family and 20 other slave laborers. From seven in the morning until seven at night, Karl’s aunt and uncle went off to work. During this time, they hid Karl in a corner of the barrack with a slice of bread, a potty and water. They instructed him to never leave the corner, for if he did, he would be killed. For two or three months, Karl spent twelve long hours a day hidden in the corner by himself. He was only able to emerge when his aunt and uncle returned at the end of the day. He said, “My life was look, keep silent but do not talk.” When asked how he managed to go on like this day after day, he said, “I do not remember—I just did.” It would turn out that this long period in hiding would serve as “training” for what was to come.
One day, a young Polish man came into the camp looking for Karl and his aunt and uncle. He told them to follow him. Karl’s aunt and uncle refused to go, and remained in the work camp, where the Nazis eventually murdered them. Young Karl went with the man and was taken to a farmhouse, where a Polish farmer greeted him.
The farmer told Karl to walk into the barn, to the center of the haystack. There, he was to remove a handful of straw and locate a small trap door. Karl followed his directions, opened the door, and slid into a small, dark space. He said, “it was pitch black and I couldn’t stand up, but my eyes eventually acclimatized to the dark and I saw my parents crawling over to me.” Karl and his parents had been united and they hugged and kissed.
Karl’s initial excitement at being reunited with his parents was diminished as he began to take note of his surroundings. The height of the hole was only about as tall as a kitchen table and it was impossible to stand upright. The floor consisted of bare soil and was covered with straw and some rags. Wood planks supported the soil above the hiding place. A narrow pipe ran down from the top of the haystack and into the hole, which served to bring in some fresh air and oxygen. Seventeen people were packed into this small hiding space, Karl being the only child. They had to lay down next to each other all day long, like sardines packaged in a can. Talking had to be limited to a mere whisper. Karl said, “There was very little oxygen and we were always sleepy and groggy. We would lay next to each other all day, and if we got tired of who we were next to, we changed places.”
For 23 hours each day, the Jews would remain lying in the hole under the haystack. Under the dim light of two kerosene lamps, Karl’s father taught him some basic arithmetic and the alphabet. They would also play chess, checkers, cards, and another pastime, which they invented themselves. Lice in the hole were rampant. Karl noted, “After they sucked your blood, they grew bigger and bigger, like sesame seeds!” A game was invented in which the lice were popped—“Whoever’s lice made the loudest noise would win the round,” Karl explained. Despite the amusement the lice provided, they were also quite damaging. They caused infections and ate away so much of the flesh on Karl’s thigh that to this day, he has a bullet sized indentation.
The most anticipated time of day was the one hour in the middle of the night, when the Jews would emerge from the hole, up into the barn. They were able to walk around in the barn and get some fresh air and exercise. It was also their only chance each day to urinate and defecate. Since they did not eat or drink very much, this was not a great problem. They would also be able to check to see what food the farmer had left for them, which he brought into the barn by hiding food under buckets of animal feed, in the corner of the barn. There were usually one half to two slices of bread per person each day and once a week, there would be soup, and on another day, a baked potato. One time, Karl remembers eating a piece of meat. The farmer asked him how he liked it and Karl enthusiastically replied, “yes!” When the farmer told Karl that it had been horsemeat, Karl, who ate kosher food his entire life, vomited!
The farmer also managed to smuggle in about one or two quarts of water per person each day. This was for both drinking and bathing. Only a small amount was used to rinse the hands and the face, and the rest was used as much-needed drinking water. For a full year and a half, the Jews went on this way, living on bread, potatoes, and water. There was no fruit or any other source of vitamins. Karl said, “When we were liberated, not only were we very thin, but malnourished. We would have died if we had to hide there any longer than we did.” Despite the poor nutrition, everyone managed to survive, except for an infant who had to be suffocated by its mother because it made too much noise. Also, despite the filth and poor conditions, surprisingly, no one ever became sick. Karl said, “In that year and a half, I never even caught a cold.”
Karl still remembers the first sign of hope that the Jews received, in January or February 1943. The farmer delivered them a copy of a local newspaper. The headlines reported that the Germans had lost 200,000 soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad; they had not been prepared to fight in the cold Russian winter. The Jews knew that the Germans were growing weaker and hoped that the end was near. Alas, it took another 1.5 years until they were liberated.
As liberation day drew closer and closer, the sounds of cannons resonated in the air above the barn. Finally, after several days, things began to quiet down. The farmer told them that it was safe to come out of the barn. Karl and his parents and another two dozen Jews were the only survivors in this area that had once contained 5,500.
It would not be until he was older that Karl would learn what led his family to that barn and who was responsible for their survival. During the German occupation of Kalush, although Karl’s father had been protected since he was working for the Germans, Karl’s mother and her parents were not. The Nazis were about to cart her off to a concentration camp, but she saved herself by burrowing under a fence and hiding in an outhouse. When she was reunited with her husband, the two knew they had to leave the ghetto or else meet with death. It was December 1942, and a cold Polish winter had left four to five feet of snow piled up on the ground. All night long, for four or five nights in a row, Karl’s parents would walk away from the ghetto. During the daytime, tall snow banks would serve as their hiding place. Finally, they came upon a Polish farmer who agreed to hide them, along with the others.
The farmer had been considered the “riff-raff” in the town, since he was a petty thief and a bully. The farmer’s wife had been a Jew, but converted to Christianity. The Jews hiding underground called her “Idzia, the Machshefah”, due to her bossy personality. Karl said, “She had come from the low class, but now, she was living in the house and we were the underdogs living in a hole.” Karl is extremely grateful to the farmer and his wife. He said, “They were very poor and I still don’t know why they saved us. It took two families out of 9,000 Poles and Ukrainians who lived in this area, to save us.”
Karl learned that the poor farmer and his wife were not the only people responsible for saving his family. When his father was the haberdashery owner, he had befriended a Polish man named Zacharjusz Plaksey, who was a mining engineer in the salt mines. Although Zacharjusz was Catholic, he liked Karl’s father because he was not like the other small town Jews — due to his travels, he was far worldlier. Somehow, Zacharjusz and his wife, Bronislawa, found out where the Schapiros were hiding. They sold their personal possessions so that they could send money to the Polish farmer to support Karl’s family. Although they could not physically hide the Schapiros since they lived in the center of town, they financially supported their survival for about 1.5 years. Karl said, “My parents and I never forgot what that family did for us. They were true heroes.” When the Schapiros came to the United States, they made sure to send the Plakseys, on a monthly basis, CARE packages, Mont Blanc pens, eyeglasses and other items, which could be traded for food on the “black market”. Today, Karl is in contact with the Plaksey’s daughter, who is seventy-five years of age. He sends her quarterly checks, which he said, “Is nothing in comparison to what they sacrificed for us”.
Now that the war was over and their lives had been saved, for the first time in a year and a half, Karl and his parents stepped out into the daylight. A young and optimistic Karl believed that everything would change. He had dreamed of this day, without sharing it with his parents, for so long and now that it had come, he expected to be welcomed and admired by the rest of the world—he had survived. He said, “I dreamed that liberation would bring us a better, freer and tolerant world.” Karl’s fantasy was quickly shattered when the family was greeted by the Jewish Russian soldier who liberated them. The first words out of his mouth were, “shut up and don’t tell anyone you’re Jewish!” Even though the war was over, Poles and Ukrainians were still after and were prepared to kill Jews.
Karl was extremely disappointed. He said, “This welcome will always stick in my mind.” As they drove away from the farm in an army truck, Karl remembers passing by dead horses, their legs dangling in the air, and munition boxes scattered in the fields. His family returned to Kalush in search of other survivors but instead they were greeted by their former neighbors with, “Why are you still alive?”
From 1944 to about 1946, the Schapiros moved from town to town, living in Kracow and Breslau for several months each. In Breslau, the 11 year old Karl scavenged war-damaged buildings, where he collected trinkets and ornaments and then sold on the street.
Eventually, when Karl was 12, the Schapiros entered a Displaced Persons (DP) Camp, in the American demilitarized zone of Germany. Six to seven hundred Jews were staying the camp, which Karl compared to a hotel. He said, “I had a fantastic time there.” During the day, he went to school with all of the other children and learned Hebrew and the Bible. After school, the children played soccer and went “fishing” for the goldfish in the town’s decorative ponds. Karl also belonged to a Zionist youth group called Hanoar Hatzioni. This was a boy scout group where Karl learned about Palestine and dreamed of going back to the Jewish homeland
Karl even had his Bar Mitzvah at the camp. He went with his father to shul in the morning for the ceremony. He said, “I had an aliyah and I got a shot of whiskey and a fountain pen. Then, that afternoon, I went back to school.” Karl considers his true Bar Mitzvah gift his little sister, Mina, whom his mother became pregnant with while at the camp.
After two years in the DP camp, in March 1948, the Schapiros came to the United States aboard the S.S. Marine Fletcher. After a 14-day trip, they arrived in New York. One of Karl’s first views of America from the ship was that of the Belt Parkway. He could not believe how many cars were going by that night! A U.S. customs agent processed the Schapiros while they were on the ship, where his immigration papers showed his American name, Karl Chaim Schapiro. A bus transported the family to the Hotel Marseilles located on 103rd Street and Broadway in Manhattan, where the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society paid for their room and board for the next five months. After five months, the agency found an apartment for them in Greenpoint, where they moved in and from that point on they were on their own.
Karl first taste of a normal classroom was that in the 8th grade of Yeshivah Torah v’Daath, and even though he was Jewish, he was “treated like an alien.” He found work in a candy store, where he made soda and learned to speak English at the same time. Karl’s motto has always been, “learn and you will know,” which enabled him to tackle the many challenges of starting anew. He pushed himself to learn whenever he could. While working at the soda fountain, he listened to the “Dick Tracy” show on the radio, memorized words from “30 Days to a Better Vocabulary,” and indulged in comic books, which at that time cost ten cents. At the Yeshiva, he was known as the “Joke Book King,” because he bought up used comic books at 2 cents each, and after reading them, resold them for 3 cents. All on his own, Karl learned to speak and read English.
Karl’s dream was to become an engineer and set his heart on attending Brooklyn Tech High School in Brooklyn. He went to the school, passed the test, and was accepted without getting the Principal’s recommendation. He worked extremely hard, teaching himself everything. Karl earned his membership in ARISTA, the honor society, and graduated in the top 10 percent of his class. He did not have any extra help, ESL, or counseling—Karl did it all on his own. He said, “I did it purely by hard work—if there is nobody to help you, you just do it yourself.”
Karl was kept very busy during his high school years. He went to public school during the day and went to Hebrew school three times a week (about 14 hours total each week). On Fridays, he was active in a Jewish boy scout group called Habonim. On Saturdays, he continued to work in the candy store. He rarely spent any time at home. He said, “I did not make any friends in school because we lived in different worlds—school and work, school and work—that was it for me. On top of this, it was depressing to be at home with my parents. They mourned for their murdered family members and were psychologically broken.”
After graduating from Brooklyn Tech, Karl went to The Cooper Union for his Bachelor’s and to Columbia University for his Masters in civil engineering. He designed navy ships and submarines, worked for AT&T, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Hospital of St. Raphael, SUNY Downstate Medical Center and other institutions. When he was thirty-one, he met his wife, Sima, a Harvard-Radcliffe graduate. Sima was American born and the daughter of a rabbi. Karl said, “Her heart was always in Jewish life and in education.” They have three children, currently aged 31, 34, and 35. They live in Queens and Karl worked at Queens College until his retirement in 1996.
Karl currently speaks to about 25-30 groups of students in all grade levels each year. He has given talks to groups as diverse as Cardozo High School, City College, Catholic parochial school students in Brooklyn and Queens, and even a confirmation class for adults at Holy Cross Church in Queens. Karl has not always been so open about his experiences, however. His children were afraid to ask him about the Holocaust and since “they didn’t ask, I didn’t tell,” he said.
It was eight years ago, in 1995, when Karl realized it was time to tell his life story. He was working at Queens College, a institution with a faculty and staff of over 1,300, and a student body of 17,000, four thousand of which were Jewish. A man wanted to place an ad in the college newspaper to discuss whether the Holocaust ever took place. Karl, and other faculty members, who were survivors and never talked about it, were infuriated. Karl said, “It took this man [the Holocaust denier] to wake me up.” Karl and 3 other survivors were interviewed by reporter Mike Wallace. The Holocaust-denier was uncovered and he was not permitted to speak on campus. Karl said, “The day I was interviewed was the day I ‘came out of the closet.’” Ever since, Karl has been very active in sharing his experiences with students and with adults. In order to achieve his aims: “to do everything possible to protect the Jewish people, to support Israel, to expose senseless hatred and to promote tolerance”, Karl will travel wherever people have open minds and are willing listen.
One of Karl’s mantras is by an English poet John Donne, “Never send for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee . . .”
NOTE: this biography was written by Carly Seidman, a senior in a Long Island high school. |