By Joel A Moskowitz, M D
LA JOLLA, California– Survivors, trauma, psychological effects, memories, depressive disorder, OCD (obsessive compulsive), bitterness, deniers, and more recently PTSD (a term which is much overused) and rarely victory” These words have been associated with victims of the Holocaust.
On assignment recently to cover the Seacrest Village gala for San Diego Jewish World, my wife and I chanced to meet a delightful couple, Estelle and Lou Dunst. Getting to know people is one of the human delights. It has been said that every person’s story is a novel. What a find the Dunsts have been.
It turns out that Lou Israel Dunst is a much sought after speaker – his audiences range from interested military groups to Christian universities. My professional experience led me to be chosen by the German government to be part of the Wiedergutmachung – reparations for victims of the Holocaust. In that role, I was given the privilege to help (from a psychiatric and human point of view), individuals and families who ‘survived’ the Holocaust. I dealt with such issues as the traumatic effects of one’s life having been destroyed; having being near death, and how that experience penetrated to the second generation (children of Holocaust survivors) and beyond.
Lou Dunst is a special person. He is an eloquent living historian and historical subject. Lou lent us a video. What follows is a my transcription of his August 2011 talk, [1] which I am reproducing with permission from GLC — God’s Learning Channel. It is not complete – words alone cannot communicate the emotions which are a vital part of Lou’s story. Perhaps you will invite Lou Dunst to tell how he turned personal disaster into not only being a ‘survivor’ but also into victory and a determination to spread the message that the survival of The State of Israel is necessary for the survival of all good people. For that, you will have to see/hear Lou Dunst in person.
My notes on the interview on God’s Learning Channel, August 2011 follows: Words alone cannot convey the spirit of Lou, his charm, and his conquering psychology. For that and the second hour of the DVD, readers may have to invite Lou Dunst to tell his story in person.
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Al and Tommie Cooper, GLC Founders, express their thrill of meeting Lou Dunst: “Blessed to have a Holocaust survivor here.” Lou Dunst affirmatively responded: “It’s a blessing to be here.”
All present agreed that it was “a story that needs to be told – time and time again.”z
Rick B. Wadge, the religious leader of ‘The Well’ in Poway, California, who brought Lou Dunst to the attention of the Coopers and God’s Learning Channel said he feels that his duty is “ to reach out to the Jewish community.”
Al Cooper reveals that he had an office in Germany in the ’60s and fell in love with the German people. “”I didn’t know anything about the Holocaust.”
Lou Dunst begins : “I am obligated to do this. Six million including 1.5 million children, were tortured, starved, and burnt and made into fertilizer and soap…also made tattoos into lamp shades…They also made gloves out of skin, viewed in museum in Ukraine. This was done by Nazi’s and their helpers, and they had many helpers by the ‘free world who did nothing’.
Born in Czechoslovakia, he is the youngest of three children. He speaks with his brother almost daily. His sister never got over the trauma – and he refers to her as though she is ‘dead’. He emphasizes the unity of his family. At age four, he started ‘cheder.’ One room in a private home. They didn’t have electricity or running water. They were short of books, and the books would be passed around the table. His instructor was deaf but he read Lou’s lips.
He recalls that his father took him on a bicycle (they were rich in that way) to a synagogue being built nearby; he placed a brick in the construction as did his father, and they donated money.
His mother prepared food for those who didn’t have enough He was told that he should not hurt the feelings of those who have less. He feigned that he was not hungry and they should take his food.
In 1935, Hitler was on the ascendancy. He enacted the Nuremberg Laws. At that time, his town was occupied by the Hungarians who were allied with the Nazis. In his town, the regime changed six times – under various invaders. The Aryan Laws considered the Jews ‘untermenschen’ – sub human, even though Jews had been living there for many generations. Professionals, doctors and lawyers, were not allowed to practice. Jews were not afforded an education. The Nuremberg Laws were executed with sadism. Under the theory of race contamination, the ‘pure Nordics’ were not allowed to mix with the Jews. The Nazis violated their own theory, because they used Jewish blood to transfuse.
Anschluss came in 1938 when the Nazis moved into Austria with a welcome which included kisses and flowers. Jews were made to scrub streets; were spit upon and experienced other hostilities.
Kristallnacht; Jewish homes were desecrated; synagogues burned; books were made into a bonfire. Several days later Hitler made a speech and was cheered. Financially and economically it was very good for the looters – they took over the Jewish homes and businesses. Nobody questioned these aggressive acts. Hitler was encouraged and started to negotiate for lebensraum, “living space”.
Dr Edvard Benes, was, at that time, the head of Czechoslovakia. When that country was confiscated, part was given to the Ukrainians – and they had lists (including Lou’s father) of Jews who were to be killed.
What was the response of the Jewish community? Lou responded, they were “used” to pogroms and it was nothing new. They rationalized ‘they (the pogromers) were “drunk.” They prayed to G-d that there be nothing worse. “We were born with fear and they were born with anti-Semitism”.
In 1939, close to his bar mitzvah, Lou’s family worried they would not be able to do it at the right time. So they did it before time. He recalls his teacher taught him the aleph bet and he still practices the prayers. His teacher was killed in Auschwitz. The Nazis next rounded up the Jewish men for slave labor and had them march through the mine fields so they could be blown up with no Nazi losses. He was 14 when he was put into slave labor. He told of beatings, being extremely cold, and starved. He recalls the Nazis bringing in box cars filled with people of all ages, including newborns, well and sick, and all in pain.
Unloaded from the box cars, some would be put on trucks and others marched. If they could not walk, they would be shot or left on the roadside to die. First. of course, they would extract all the money, gold teeth and gold fillings. Because of little ammunition, the Nazis sometimes would tie their victims’ hands and feet and throw them into the cold river. Perhaps the relatives would be working alongside of the river and they would recognize their wives and daughters and sons floating there dead. One girl, who was a championship swimmer, was able to survive. He doesn’t know what became of her.
There were three Torahs in their synagogue – his father and he brought the Torahs to their home and Lou, sobbing, recalled the last time he saw those Torahs. All the Jews were chased downtown into the local theater and those who did not fit stayed in the rain and the cold. Ultimately, they were marched to the Jewish cemetery and were told they would be machine gunned to death. Each prayed according to his preference.
Alternatively, the Nazis would chase Jewish residents into synagogues and they would throw grenades into the synagogue. In Estonia they were proud to announce , there were no more Jews. Ultimately, the Jews of his town were marched into box cars – doors locked from the outside….no room, no toilet facilities…no food. The trains would stop to hook up other box cars. At a stop in Hungary, they were packed into a dense ghetto and he recalls a Nazi with a machine gun draped over his chest who also had a stick with a nail at the end with which he would poke anyone he liked.
Again into the box car which now had detritus of human waste. There was no way to look out of the box cars to see which way they are going. Stopped at a place called Auschwitz, they were told ‘shnell, shnell’ everything ‘quick quick’. The greeters were 97% Jewish inmates. They moved hesitantly under threat of punishment and were told that their fate would be to burned and killed. They didn’t believe it because they were, they knew, decent citizens. Doctor Josef Mengele was there to choose his subjects for twin ‘research’. Lou’s two female cousins were victims. They survived the war but they were never the same again. They never spoke about what was done to them.
The last time he saw his mother was at the separation of women from the men. His father didn’t survive. His brother and he were marched on a mound of clothing and commanded to undress. What became of the owners of the clothing? ‘They rose to heaven’. Naked they could be evaluated as young strong guys capable of being zondercommando , those who worked at the crematoria or the gas chambers.
It was always uncertain how long they would live. His job was to drag the gassed dead bodies into the huge fire pits. At that time, they were killing 10,000 to 12,000 people in 24 hours. They took about 2,000 persons at a time and dropped Zyklon B and they were dead in 15 minutes. Killing was rapid and easy but disposing of the bodies was arduous.
HIs group was naked and all the hair was shaved off. ‘We knew that we were going to the gas chambers because we were not tattooed…they saved the ink.” They were in quarantine and didn’t know what to worry about first – being beaten, being killed, or being tortured.
Again into box cars, but different that there were no women, no children, no elderly. Stopped at Mauthausen, where they experienced torture, sexual sadism – unmentionable things. Today, observed Dunst “it is a gold mine for the Austrian government from the sightseers that come to see.”
He recalls that they would be forced to run up a series of steps – being poked with rifles. In the barracks, they found no place to sleep – but the German officer instructed them to lie down as Portuguese sardines, cramped, noses to toes. They slept due to exhaustion. In the morning, they were chased into the gas chambers, where there was not enough air to breathe. Released, they were forced to go to the central square, the commanding officer telling them the fuel to burn their bodies was too costly. As identification, he wore a piece of metal numbered 68122 and the number is in the Washington D C Holocaust Museum.
Again to the rail road, his fourth trip, in box cars. Mauthausen had 30 subcamps. His ultimate camp before liberation had more miseries. It was called Ebensee
Working day and night, in underground factories, with no food, to manufacture ammunition with which Germans planned to shell New York City. Werner von Braun visited to inspect. The area he worked in had a full sized railroad. During the day, he worked in the stone quarry and at night he had other tasks. The bottom of his feet became frost bitten as he wore only wooden clogs. The chill was a killer; another killer was working day and night. Beatings were unmerciful and for ‘no reason’. He worked for Siemens, a company which still exists today.
Inmate commanders were called “kapos” and his ‘kapo’ was a non-Jew, a German. The inmates would retaliate, in the quarry, by dropping stones “accidentally.” The camp commander’s trained dogs’ would be released to tear the flesh of inmates or chase the inmates into the woods and pretend like he was hunting. The commandment was Anton Ganz.
Cannibalism was prevalent among the Russian prisoners. Lou Dunst doesn’t know if he ate any human flesh. His arms and legs were atrophic. He couldn’t walk any more and he was led to the crematoria where there were dead bodies and he was thrown down among them.
Because the commandment said he feared the bombing of the U.S. planes, he invited the local town folk with rifles to push the inmates into the underground factories. But he didn’t tell them that the mines were laced with explosives and he could explode the mines at any time. This was never done.
He was liberated by Bob Personger with the U S Army. It was not until his Lou’s 80th birthday that they met again. They cried.
“If Israel had existed with secure borders, there would not be a Holocaust!” Lou emphasizes.
Lou Dunst is a living testimony to the human ability to survive.
[1] Those interested in obtaining the video for themselves may contact Light of the Southwest, www.glc.us.com, Address: P O Box 61000, Midland, Texas 79711-1000; Bookstore: 432 563 5200; 866 846 5200
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Moskowitz is a freelance writer based in La Jolla. He may be contacted at joel.moskowitz@sdjewishworld.com