Geriatrics patient interviews: Holocaust survivor

The purpose of this afternoon's interviews with geriatric patients was presumably to teach us how to evaluate activities of daily living (independent or otherwise) and to impress on us how difficult it can be to manage the medications of a geriatric patient. I was unprepared, however, for the real lesson.

One of our geriatric patients was a remarkable 97 year-old man who is essentially still living independently (i.e. he buys his own groceries, makes his own food, pays his own bills). He is sharp as a tack cognitively, and he exercises almost every day. When he pulled out his bag of medications, the whole group laughed because they were all vitamins and supplements (B12, D3, glucosamine, etc...) plus some Tylenol for general aches and pains. He also uses an albuterol nebulizer to help him "feel young again," and he takes a very low dose of Coumadin because of a minor heart attack that he suffered before I was even born. Taking so few medications is exceedingly rare for a man of his age.

But that's not why this man is so special. It turns out that he is the oldest Holocaust survivor living in Colorado. I grew up listening to Holocaust survivors talk of their trials, but it has been such a long time since I've heard one talk because there simply aren't that many of them still with us. This man's story affected me profoundly. Rather than recapitulate it myself, I want to share what a classmate of mine wrote, who was similarly affected by this remarkable man:

Today I heard a story that has compelled me to relate it to the rest of the group. My group, and 3 others I would guess, had an opportunity to listen to the story of a 97 year-old Holocaust survivor. This gentleman was the only member out of 10 in his family to survive the Holocaust. He related that he had spent time in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, and Theresienstadt. From his story it sounded like he was in the Polish army during the invasion of Poland by the Nazis. After the Polish defeat he was then sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where he was a janitor for the barracks and a few other places.

The last time he saw his brother was through a barbed wire fence. His brother was a Sonderkommando, one of the prisoners that cleaned out the crematoria and gas chambers. His brother was aware that he was to be executed the next day, which happened roughly every 6 months to the Sonderkommando. His brother told him to "Tell the world what happened here." The next day his brother and a bunch of other Sonderkommando blew up one of the crematoria and unfortunately died during the explosion. ecause of the explosion a great many of the prisoners were sent to Theresienstadt where the crematoria were smaller and the killing was slower.

He [recently] took his family [back] to Theresienstadt, and the tour guide related this story to the group. After the group had moved on, he went up to her and told her that his brother was involved in the destruction of the crematoria, and he rolled up his sleeve to show her his prisoner ID number, and she hugged him and told him "thank you."

As part of his cleaning duties, our patient had to clean up the hospital where Josef Mengele experimented on people. He told us that upon one trip through the hospital he and his work partner, a physician from Romania, came upon a woman on a bunk who had both her hands and feet tied. He told us that she cried out to them to help her but they were too afraid to do anything for her. On subsequent visits, they found out that she was pregnant and gave birth. The woman had her breasts covered so she couldn't feed her baby. The baby died a couple of days later at which time they killed the woman.

This man, who had survived so much, broke down in front of 10 strangers when he described how he and his partner had to take a wheelbarrow and haul the woman and her baby out to be buried. The image of the babies face haunts him to this day. After he was liberated, he was able to find his wife, and they immigrated in 1949 to Denver.

I hope that my relation of this story has not offended anyone, but it struck me today that those who had survived this atrocity are slowly reaching their eternal rest and won't be around to tell us their stories. I fear that in this world of fast-moving media and 24-hour news, the stories of the past - not just this one - will be lost.

When I entered into that room this afternoon, I thought I would hear a story similar to my grandmother's, but instead I was reminded that there is something to be learned from every interaction with another person.

- Ryan F.