The Story of Ernie Gross
Ernie was only seven years old when his story begins. With his father announcing that he would be leaving their home in Romania for four years, leaving Ernie’s mother to raise seven children. Because of this, Ernie had to grow up faster than most children that age.
At such a young age Ernie faced many things that no child should ever experience. In school teachers were very hard on him because he was Jewish, and he was bullied by the other children in class. They would take bacon from their lunches and rub it on Ernie’s lips because they knew he could not eat it since he was Jewish. He faced cruelty in school but was too ashamed to ever speak of it to his family.
On April 15th, 1944, the holiday of Passover had just come to an end. Fifteen year old Ernie and his family went to bed that night after a week of celebrating the Jews escaping slavery, never knowing what was to come. “We went to sleep in freedom.”, he said.
The next morning Ernie was woken by his mother before the sun had even risen into the sky. Ernie would be the one to help her make bread. But before they could begin, two Hungarian soldiers came banging on their door, informing them that they were all to go to the synagogue in town. The soldiers told them to leave and precious goods and money they had on the table, and to leave the front door unlocked. When they arrived to the synagogue they found themselves together with all the other Jews in town. They were then locked inside of the synagogue for three days with no food, no water, and absolutely no idea what was happening.
Ernie spoke about how it became difficult to breath inside because the stench of urine and body odor grew so strong. And that on the third day when the soldiers finally opened the doors, they all rushed out to breathe in the fresh air. But they were only given a moment before they were ushered onto carts, being told that if anyone were to try to escape or jump from the carts they would be shot.
They were transported to Hungary and put into a ghetto that had been liquidated not long before they had arrived. There they stayed for three weeks, still wondering what was happening to them, and what was next. At the end of their time in the ghetto, a train arrived and they were pushed into box cars and from there travelled to one of the most infamous camps known today: Auschwitz-Birkenau.
When they arrived they were shoved out of the cars. Ernie and his two older brothers, Abram and David were together but they could not see their parents and siblings any longer. A prisoner who had the job of emptying luggage from the cars snuck away while no one was looking and came over to Ernie and his brothers. He told them that their parents were gone, that because they had young children with them they would be sent immediately to the gas chambers and killed. When the prisoner asked Ernie how old he was, he replied that he was fifteen. The prisoner shook his head and told him that when he faced Dr. Mengele that he was to say that he was seventeen.
The three boys waited in line together as Dr. Mengele judged who would live and who would die with only a turn of his wrist. His thumb either pointing you to the right or left. When Abram and David reached the doctor, they were sent to the right to work in labor camps. As Ernie came face to face with Mengele, he said that he shook so badly that when the doctor asked his age he wasn’t able to understand him because Ernie’s voice trembled as much as his body did. When the doctor asked him a second time, “Wie alt sind Sie?”, Ernie puffed out his chest and made himself as tall as he could and he shouted out “Seventeen!”. Dr. Mengele sent him to the right to join his brothers. Ernie was only in Auschwitz for a few days, and even though he did not receive a tattoo he still was given a number: 71366.
Ernie was sent away from Auschwitz and into a network of labor camps. Where the single thing known what that you never wanted to end up in camp seven.
He lived his life one day at a time, just trying to survive to the next one. Until one night during Passover, 1945, a prisoner approached Ernie while he was eating dinner and told him that when he finished he was to go to Barrack 10 because there was a rabbi and they were going to hold a seder. Ernie was confused on why he would be asked to join, until he realized that he was the youngest in the camp. He was being asked to chant the four questions. At first Ernie was hesitant, why should he go and celebrate the Jews freedom from slavery when they were slaves now? But a voice in his head told him to go, because this could save his life.
Just a few weeks later, on April 27th, Ernie and his cousin who he had found in the camp were sent to camp seven because they had not done enough work that day. They were left there with no food or water. And in the morning Ernie said that he and his cousin were so hungry that his cousin reached down and ripped a handful of grass out of the ground and ate it. Stating that if the Nazis would treat him like an animal, then he would act like one. Ernie told me that he tried to eat the grass like his cousin, but that the taste was so bad he couldn’t.
One day later, on April 29th, 1945; they were taken with other prisoners to Dachau, knowing fully that they were being sent to their deaths. But Ernie did not go in fear, he went in happiness. He would no longer be hungry or tired or cold, his suffering would soon be over.
Looking ahead of himself he could tell that he had no more than half an hour before it would all be over. Then the most shocking thing happened, the soldiers that stood guiding the line threw their guns to the ground and began running away. The camp was being liberated by the Americans. The prisoner stood still in awe, none of them knowing what to do.
When the Americans came, they took the prisoners who looked smaller and more weak to immediate medical help, and one of those prisoners was Ernie. He said that if he hadn’t been taken right away he might have died from food poisoning like so many did in the days that followed from eating too much.
Ernie stayed in a displaced persons home afterwards, and would pray each morning in the room designated for services. One of these mornings, the doors opened and in the doorway stood his brother Abram, who told him that his brother David had died from starvation weeks before. Together they went home and found another brother and their sister.
They tried to stay in their home in Romania but the people in the village were still cruel and hated the Jews, so they left their home. Abram and his sister went to Israel, his other brother went to Belgium, and because Ernie was the only one who was underage he was allowed to come to America.
When he arrive a social worker brought him to a boarding house and gave him a bit of money. He went to a diner and ordered the only thing he knew how to say in English, ice cream. From there he went to school for four months and got a job that he loved in a deli.
Ernie eventually married and had three sons, but he and his wife who was also a survivor never spoke about their experiences, until his wife passed. He realized that he didn’t even know what camp she had been in, and from then on Ernie made it his goal to tell his story, to make sure that it lives on.
