then released. The next time a man escaped, the procedure was repeated. After three days, when he hadn’t turned
himself in, his mother, sister, niece, sister-in-law, and a neighbour’s child were shot to death. After that, escape attempts were few.
Toward the end of 1941, by coincidence, Simon and Cyla Wiesenthal were both transferred to a special forced labour camp near the Lemberg railyards. A satellite of
Janowskà, it lodged prisoners serving the Eastern Railroad Repair Works. Cyla was sent to the locomotive workshop to polish brass and nickel. For a while, she saw Simon daily, for he was put
to work painting swastikas on captured Russian locomotives. When he was promoted to sign-painter for the entire Eastern Works, she saw less of him, but his new job won him a mobility that would
later save their lives.
Wiesenthal’s work – and the man himself – caught the eye of the Eastern Works’ head railwayman, Heinrich Günthert, a civilian, ‘because he always walked with
his head up and looked me straight in the eye.’ Günthert subsequently told Wiesenthal’s postwar Boswell, the late Joseph Wechsberg: ‘The SS men said that Wiesenthal was
impertinent. I didn’t argue with them, but I admit that I was impressed by the man’s erect bearing. He had a thoughtful expression in his eyes, as though he knew that we Germans might
one day have to account for all this.’ With God on leave and His anointed deputy, Pope Pius XII, strangely silent, it seemed as ifSimon, little thinking he would ever
survive the war, had already stepped into the shoes of Deputy for the Dead.
Upon learning that Wiesenthal was a licensed architect, Günthert – a Nazi who’d already had trouble with the SS guards for treating his Jewish labourers humanely – gave
him work as a technician and draughtsman. Günthert’s deputy, Adolf Kohlrautz, also a Nazi, not only shared his chief’s attitudes, but was immensely grateful for the praise and
promotions that came his way thanks to Simon’s technical drawings, which were submitted under Kohlrautz’s name. Kohlrautz would tell Simon the news he’d risked his neck to hear
over the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and smuggle food to Simon’s mother in the ghetto.
The ghetto, not the Janowskà camp, felt die first wave of organized deportations to unknown destinations; in Janowskà, you generally finished your life there, sooner or later.
Those ‘privileged’ to remain in the ghetto were mothers and children as well as older people. The more able-bodied among them, however, were forced to labour outside the ghetto by day,
during which SS body-snatchers would raid the compound to relieve it of ‘non-working, useless mouths’. A woman might return home from a hard day’s slavery to find her children
gone forever. After desperate mothers managed to conceal their children in stoves and closets or behind false walls, the SS police chief of Lemberg, Friedrich Katzmann, tried another tactic. He
announced a relaxation of discipline and, as a token of good faith, he opened a kindergarten for ghetto children. It offered extra rations of milk and cocoa.
The mothers watched warily, but first their hungry children and then their own aspirations for the next generation got the better of them. One afternoon, however, the kindergarten was closed
forever. Three SS trucks had taken the class on an outing from which it would never return.
Next to be weeded out as ‘useless’ were ageing women. Working in the railway yards in the summer of 1942, Simon Wiesenthal watched helplessly as the SS crammed elderly Jewish women
into a freight train – one hundred to the car – and then let it stand for three days in the blazing sun while the women begged for water. Hearing their cries, he could only pray that
his mother was not among them, but God was on leave and Rosa Wiesenthal was aboard that train.
‘My mother was in August 1942 taken by a Ukrainian policeman,’ Simon says,
himself in, his mother, sister, niece, sister-in-law, and a neighbour’s child were shot to death. After that, escape attempts were few.
Toward the end of 1941, by coincidence, Simon and Cyla Wiesenthal were both transferred to a special forced labour camp near the Lemberg railyards. A satellite of
Janowskà, it lodged prisoners serving the Eastern Railroad Repair Works. Cyla was sent to the locomotive workshop to polish brass and nickel. For a while, she saw Simon daily, for he was put
to work painting swastikas on captured Russian locomotives. When he was promoted to sign-painter for the entire Eastern Works, she saw less of him, but his new job won him a mobility that would
later save their lives.
Wiesenthal’s work – and the man himself – caught the eye of the Eastern Works’ head railwayman, Heinrich Günthert, a civilian, ‘because he always walked with
his head up and looked me straight in the eye.’ Günthert subsequently told Wiesenthal’s postwar Boswell, the late Joseph Wechsberg: ‘The SS men said that Wiesenthal was
impertinent. I didn’t argue with them, but I admit that I was impressed by the man’s erect bearing. He had a thoughtful expression in his eyes, as though he knew that we Germans might
one day have to account for all this.’ With God on leave and His anointed deputy, Pope Pius XII, strangely silent, it seemed as ifSimon, little thinking he would ever
survive the war, had already stepped into the shoes of Deputy for the Dead.
Upon learning that Wiesenthal was a licensed architect, Günthert – a Nazi who’d already had trouble with the SS guards for treating his Jewish labourers humanely – gave
him work as a technician and draughtsman. Günthert’s deputy, Adolf Kohlrautz, also a Nazi, not only shared his chief’s attitudes, but was immensely grateful for the praise and
promotions that came his way thanks to Simon’s technical drawings, which were submitted under Kohlrautz’s name. Kohlrautz would tell Simon the news he’d risked his neck to hear
over the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and smuggle food to Simon’s mother in the ghetto.
The ghetto, not the Janowskà camp, felt die first wave of organized deportations to unknown destinations; in Janowskà, you generally finished your life there, sooner or later.
Those ‘privileged’ to remain in the ghetto were mothers and children as well as older people. The more able-bodied among them, however, were forced to labour outside the ghetto by day,
during which SS body-snatchers would raid the compound to relieve it of ‘non-working, useless mouths’. A woman might return home from a hard day’s slavery to find her children
gone forever. After desperate mothers managed to conceal their children in stoves and closets or behind false walls, the SS police chief of Lemberg, Friedrich Katzmann, tried another tactic. He
announced a relaxation of discipline and, as a token of good faith, he opened a kindergarten for ghetto children. It offered extra rations of milk and cocoa.
The mothers watched warily, but first their hungry children and then their own aspirations for the next generation got the better of them. One afternoon, however, the kindergarten was closed
forever. Three SS trucks had taken the class on an outing from which it would never return.
Next to be weeded out as ‘useless’ were ageing women. Working in the railway yards in the summer of 1942, Simon Wiesenthal watched helplessly as the SS crammed elderly Jewish women
into a freight train – one hundred to the car – and then let it stand for three days in the blazing sun while the women begged for water. Hearing their cries, he could only pray that
his mother was not among them, but God was on leave and Rosa Wiesenthal was aboard that train.
‘My mother was in August 1942 taken by a Ukrainian policeman,’ Simon says,
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