Holocaust survivor shares WWII memories

JACKSONVILLE — A Holocaust survivor shared his tragic memories of genocide at Auschwitz — a Nazi concentration camp — at the Naval Hospital aboard Camp Lejeune last week.

“I was the youngest of four children,” said Morris Glass, 85. “I was brought up in a conservative Jewish family. … I had a very great childhood but that all came to an end when World War II started.”

Glass lives with his wife Carol, who he married in 1960 and with whom he eventually raised seven children. They retired to Raleigh where Glass wrote a book named “Chosen for Destruction: The Story of a Holocaust Survivor.”

More than 100 active duty, civilians and dependents were in attendance as Glass told his story of suffering and strength from his years in ghettos and numerous concentration camps during his teens. The presentation was hosted by the diversity committee at the Naval Hospital as part of their monthly series.

“The first thing (the Nazi’s) did was burn down our beautiful synagogue,” Glass said. “We were then forced to give up all of our possessions.”

Born on April 3, 1928, Glass was brought to work in ghettos and make supplies for the Nazis during his teenage years. He said he will never forget the day he arrived to the ghettos: It was the last time he would see his mother Esther and his sisters Rozka and Bluma.

“There was a pile of babies, seven or eight high — crying their eyes out,” said Glass, who told a story of a Nazi throwing a newborn against a concrete wall, killing it instantly. “This was the sadistic and sad way of the storm troopers.”

Glass described horrific living conditions in the ghettos with barely any food.

“Every 50 or 60 feet there was a storm trooper watching us,” he said. “And hunger — true hunger is almost impossible to describe.”

So many people died in the ghettos due to hunger and sickness that they could not keep up with the individual graves, so the Nazis forced the Jews to bury their dead in unmarked mass graves.

After spending four and a half years in ghettos, he was transferred with his father to Auschwitz.

“I cannot even describe the conditions of the cattle cars,” he said of the ride to the concentration camp. “They shaved our heads when we got there. ... My father was right next to me and I didn’t recognize him. He had aged 30 years in a matter of hours.”

At Auschwitz, the able-bodied men were sent to work while the sick and old were killed, Glass said.

“Auschwitz had four crematoriums that ran 24 hours a day,” he said. “As I watched the smoke coming out, I wondered who was next, my sister, my mother, my aunt.”

It wasn’t just the crematoriums that scarred Glass at Auschwitz. The experiments the Nazis did on people were inhuman, he said.

Glass’ father became sick shortly after entering Auschwitz. He would be killed by the storm troopers, but before his burial, they pulled out his teeth that had gold fillings, said Glass, who volunteered for the burial detail in order to honor his father, which got him 25 lashes from the guards.

Soon after his father’s death, Glass was loaded onto a cattle car and transferred to Dachau, another German concentration camp.

“I looked around (the cattle car) and these people were half dead,” he said. “I thought it was the end for me.”

Finally, on April 28, 1945 Glass saw the first American tank coming down the street. After years of suffering and losing nearly all of his family, he was being liberated.

“It was the happiest day of my life,” Glass said.

You can reach Thomas Brennan at 910-219-8453 or thomas.brennan@jdnews.com.