Esther Schwimmer

Elizabeth/Esther Schwimmer is a petite elderly woman, silver-haired and kind-faced. Her speech is seasoned with a thick Hungarian accent, and her smile radiates the warmth of an authentic Jewish bubby. My brother and I meet her and daughter Deirdre in their New Jersey home. At first glance, when taking in her bright eyes and gentle grin, it’d be difficult to fathom the things she’d seen and endured. But the remarkable story she carries, related in a bundle of emotion and pain, and, at some moments, tears, makes her smile all the more resilient, a true survivor in every sense of the word.

Growing Up in Munkatch

Esther was born in 1926, in Munkatch, Czechoslovakia. In 1939, Munkatch was occupied by the Hungarian government, and was later dissolved as part of the Hungarian empire. She describes Munkatch as “almost a Jewish city,” since as many Jews lived there as non-Jews. She and her 10 siblings were raised Orthodox, but their family didn’t belong to any of the Chasidic groups in the region, her father being a strictly observant Jewish businessman. Her mother gave birth to thirteen children, but only ten survived past birth: five girls and five boys. Out of those ten children, as well as her parents, only five survived the concentration camps.

At home, they spoke Yiddish, and Russian with their two Russian servants. Esther’s father was exceedingly generous, helping out other families in the community with their monetary needs, Jews and non-Jews alike. He was very close with the head Rabbi of Carpathia, Rabbi Shapiro. He and Mr. Schwimmer would study together for several hours every Sunday. The esteemed rabbi attended Esther’s brother’s circumcision, and the child even took the rabbi’s own father’s name. Esther is proud to say that she was as well educated as any Jewish boy, often assisting her brothers with their biblical and Talmudic studies.

Relationship with Non-Jews

Even before the war, the Jews of Hungary experienced plenty of anti-Semitism. Esther had one non-Jewish friend, who was forced to keep their relationship a secret because her parents would never tolerate association with a Jew. Esther had to walk her brothers to school and pick them up, because non-Jews would harass them, pulling on their sidelocks and beating them up. When the Nazis began their takeover of Munkatch, many of the gentile Hungarians whom Mr. Schwimmer had helped prior to the outbreak of the war were the first to turn on the family.

Nazi Invasion

It began in 1943. At the start of WWII, Germany and Hungary, both fascist nations, made an agreement which allowed for German occupation. Discriminative restrictions for Jews began. Esther’s father was still able to manage his business, but by the end of 1943, everything was taken from the Jews of Hungary, and they were relocated to a ghetto. There were regular visits from Nazi soldiers, coming to take their pleasure by abusing the Jewish residents. Her family was lucky, comparatively. They had relatives already living in the ghetto, so they moved into their dwellings. All twelve of them lived in one room, which had to be kept locked from the outside and could only be opened by one of the relatives living there. They lived there for 2-3 months.

April 14, 1944

The Hungarians took the Jews from the ghetto to a brick factory on the outskirts of the city. They gathered all of the Jews of Carpathia and held them there for several days. Then they were crowded into cattle cars, with enough room for standing only. They traveled non-stop for three days, without food or water, bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Upon arrival, the Hungarian Jews were separated into two groups. Those who were well and able to work were sent to labor. The other, to the crematorium. Upon arrival, Esther’s brother was holding his sister’s baby, and was told to give the baby back to its mother, or he’d be sent straight to the crematorium. From all of the members of Esther’s family, her mother, three of her younger brothers, her pregnant older sister, and her five-year-old niece were sent to the crematorium. Esther and her sisters were chosen for labor.

The notorious Dr. Joseph Mengele was a regular at Auschwitz-Birkenau at the time of Esther’s family’s arrival, and he would regularly scout out human subjects for his experiments. He was particularly fascinated by twins or those with physical disabilities or birth defects. On three occasions, Esther saved her younger sister from being chosen. Every morning, prisoners in the camp were made to stand naked for examination, in the rain or snow or freezing weather. Her sister’s thin, frail physique made her a candidate for experimentation rather than labor.

The men’s and women’s camps were divided by a fence of electric wire, but occasionally the male prisoners were marched through the women’s side. On one of these marches, Esther’s father noticed his daughter on the females’ side. He called out to her, “Esther, take care of your sisters.” From then on, she did everything she could to protect them. When her sister was taken by Mengele, Esther raced to where the experiment subjects were being held. While the doctor was occupied examining another prisoner, Esther grabbed her sister and pulled her away. She was screaming out, crying that she didn’t want to go, that she’d rather die than continue living. She’d been suicidal for some time in the camps, and Esther had to keep her from taking her own life by touching the electric fence.

One of the Kapos (particularly strong Jewish inmates chosen to police the other prisoners) noticed the commotion. She seized Esther’s hair and began to beat her. Esther managed to convince her sister to run, by reminding her of what her father had said. She got a beating, but succeeded in saving her sister. About this incident, Esther says, “Hashem was watching.” Her belief in G-d never faltered because of her upbringing by honorable, G-d-fearing parents. She points out that although her father wasn’t a Chassidic man, didn’t wear the garb of an Eastern-European Jew, and worked as a businessman, he instilled in them a sense of ‘ehrlichkeit’ – of honorable behavior.

Liberation

The British arrived at the camps first. They were passing through the area, fighting their way through Europe. The prisoners begged them to liberate the camps, but they cited their duties to finishing the war. The Russians came next, but the cruel acts they committed there Esther wouldn’t even name. They left after a few days as well. Then the Americans came. They made arrangements for the Jews to leave to displaced persons camps in Germany. The liberated inmates walked the entire journey, in their weakened and starving state.

It was in the DP camp that Esther met the man who would become her husband, Moshe Zev/Michael, or “Mickey.” She found out that he and her father had been together in Auschwitz.. She made his acquaintance to inquire about what became of her father, and learned that he had perished from pneumonia. Her future husband had many relatives in America, and decided that he would make the United States his post-war destination. He wanted Esther to come with him, though she had at first been set on Israel. Their relationship made her hesitant to go through with the immigration, and in a clever move that Esther refers to as a sort of “trick,” he prepared all of the paperwork necessary for passage to the US and had her sign it. She arrived in America six months earlier than her husband, with just one older sister. The young girl whom she’d saved from Mengele had immigrated to Israel.

In total, Esther spent four years in two DP camps, two years in each. Initially, her immigration papers were approved before her sister’s. However, she went to Munich herself to extend her time in Germany to care for her sister, who had recently married and given birth. She was hospitalized, yet the staff’s treatment of patients was horrible and blatantly anti-semitic. About her decision to stay, she says, “Everybody thought that I was nuts!” The Jewish embassy worker she encountered was shocked, claiming people would give their right arm to be allowed to leave even a week earlier. But Esther stated simply that she had to take care of her sister.

Esther’s daughter Deirdre related a fascinating anecdote about a trip she took with her father to Europe. She was obsessed with photography at the time, and as they traveled across the continent, she collected roll upon roll of film documenting her trip. She was meticulously careful about preserving and packing the photos, but when she returned to America, there was one missing. Eerily enough, it contained all of the photos she had taken in Germany, the ones most precious to her and her father.

America

They came to America by boat in February of 1949. They were met by her father’s cousin, whom they affectionately called Aunt Bessie. She sponsored their coming to America and was like a mother to Esther, taking her into her Westchester home for several years and arranging her wedding on the Lower East Side.

Esther and Mickey shared an apartment with a Jewish widow after they married, until they had enough money to rent an apartment of their own. She lived and raised her children in a two-room apartment in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. Now close to the popular hipster hub of Williamsburg, the area at the time was a notoriously dangerous neighborhood.

At first, Mickey worked as a deliveryman at a small deli. Esther had befriended a man in the DP camps who promised to help her get a job at an upholstery business. She began working for 80 cents an hour; after over a year she had worked her wages up to a dollar. Finally the couple found work at Castro Convertibles, a business renowned for their furniture, in particular for their convertible sofa/bed. There was just one catch: the company didn’t hire Jews. In fact the business’s storefront even boasted a sign that read, “Jews and dogs not allowed.” But a Jewish father figure in Esther’s life, an agent of the upholstery union, was able to secure a position for her, by telling business owner Castro that she was Italian. She was treated well at her new workplace until Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, came around. She told the foreman, who had taken a liking to her diligent work, that she needed two days off. When he asked if she was sick, she responded no, that it was her holiday, admitting her Jewish identity. The foreman was in shock, nearly uttering that, “It couldn’t be [that you’re Jewish], you’re so nice!” She kept her job there and even secured jobs for her husband and brother, but after the shop was unionized, she was forced to leave.

Up until just seven years ago, the family lived in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn, when Esther and her husband moved to New Jersey with their daughter Deirdre. Her husband passed away at the age of 85, just six months after buying their new home in New Jersey.

Throughout the incomprehensible trauma and suffering she endured, Esther attributed her resilient sense of integrity and responsibility to her father. A final story she shared epitomized her strong character. A labor camp in which she was interred was home to an ammunition factory where Jewish women were put to work. When one laborer caught typhoid, the officers killed them all. The workforce needed replenishing, so Esther and her group stood naked for eight hours, waiting to be chosen for labor. Esther and her sister were deemed too thin for work, and therefore were bound for death. A Jewish woman, whom Esther’s father had been very good to, saved her from the line for the death camps, taking a chance with her own life. Esther refused, knowing she would be replaced by someone else who would lose their own life. The woman smacked her, telling her, “Wake up! You are risking my life. Keep quiet from now on.” She snuck her and her sister into the labor camp line. Though Esther’s protests came to no avail, as always, even at death’s door, she thought first of her responsibility to another, and not to herself. She not only survived with her integrity, but helped so many others to live on as well.