Leon Jolson
Author: Leon Jolson
Publisher: Makor at Lamm Jewish Library
Place of publication: Caulfield South, VIC.
Year of Publication: 2020
Location of Book: Lamm Jewish Library, State Library of Victoria and National Library of Australia.
Cities/town/camps: Poland: Auschwitz, Bełchatów, Fürstengrube, Gutenbrunn, Posen-Dembsen, Zbąszyń; Germany: Gleiwitz, Kiel, Madgeburg, Mittelbau-Dora, Neustadt; Landsberg, Turmalin; France: Paris; Australia: Sydney, Melbourne.
Note: those cities/towns/camps underlined are those which are most central to the narrative
Genre: Memoir
Key events/experiences: concentration camp; death march.
Leon Jolson’s memoir is a detailed chronicle of his time in various concentration and labour camps, as well his miraculous survival of the bombing of the German ship, Cap Arcona, which took the lives of over 4,000 Jewish camp prisoners. The memoir was written in 2000, however, the author passed away in 2001. His memoir was finally published in 2020 by the Makor Jewish Community Library as part of the “Write Your Story” Collection.
Pages 1-21 cover the author’s upbringing in pre-war with the bulk of the memoir (pages 22-79) recounts his experiences in various forced labour and concentration camps across Poland. Pages 68-89 describes the ‘death march’ from Fürstengrube to the German port-city of Neustadt where Jolson endured the bombing of the Cap Arcona before being liberated by the British army. The latter half of the memoir recounts the immediate post-war period in Germany and Paris, Leon’s search for surviving family (pages 90-112), his attempts to leave Europe and his eventual emigration to Australia, with accompanying photographs (pages 113-40). Finally, pages 141-58 recount the author’s return to Poland in 1990, and pages 159-200 include reflections by his son and his grandson, with family photographs interspersed throughout.
Laibusz Działowski (later Leon Jolson) was born on 3 November 1923, in a small Polish town, Bełchatów. He and his two older sisters, Etka and Eva, were raised in a strict Orthodox, Yiddish-speaking home. In September 1939, invaded and occupied Bełchatów. Leon, and other able-bodied Jews, were forced to perform hard labour and the town’s residents were terrorized by German soldiers. On Yom Kippur, 23 September 1939, the Germans looted Jewish homes and burned the local synagogue. In August 1940, Jolson (with the rest of Bełchatow’s able-bodied Jewish men) was forced to board a truck bound for the forced labour camps. This was the last time he saw his parents.
After several days aboard crammed trucks and trains, Leon eventually arrived at the forced labour camp Posen-Dembsen (otherwise known as the Posen-Eichwald or Poznań Dębiec in Polish) where he was forced to perform hard labour in brutal winter conditions with minimal provisions. For three years, Leon endured starvation and hard labour in several forced labour camps near Poznan; first, building a railway in the Polish-German border town Zbąszyń and later, in the Gutenbrunn concentration camp. In Gutenbrunn, prisoners were routinely hanged and subject to fortnightly selections to Auschwitz. In September 1943, Leon was deported to Auschwitz. After one week, he was transferred to the satellite camp, Fürstengrube, where he toiled in harrowing conditions under the reign of the brutal Commandant Otto Moll.
On 19 January 1945, Leon was forced on a death march from Fürstengrube to Gleiwitz in brutal conditions. From Gleiwitz, they marched onwards to Mittelbau-Dora. From there they were driven to the Turmalin forced labour camp in the Herz mountains, where they were forced to dig underground tunnels. In the second week of April, Leon was sent to Madgeburg concentration camp and then onto the northern German port-city of Kiel, where the prisoners were forced to work on a farm owned by a member of the Fürstengrube personnel. On 2 May 1945, they were marched again to Neustadt. There, they were forced to board the Cap Arcona, a German ship, which was subsequently bombed by the Allied forces. Though exhausted from years of starvation, abuse and hard labour, Leon managed to pull himself onto the burning deck and, with the help of another prisoner, snatch a rubber dinghy from a German soldier, paddling ashore with their bare hands. On shore, he was greeted by British soldiers. He was one of only 350 of the 4,500 prisoners aboard the Cap Arcona to survive the sinking of the ship.
After liberation, Leon spent several weeks recovering in Neustadt before he began searching for his sisters, who had survived Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen. Leon travelled to the Belsen DP camp where he met his future wife, Lola. The two were married in Landsberg DP camp soon after Leon was reunited with his two sisters. After the wedding, Lola Uncle’s, who had emigrated to Australia, sent the couple a landing permit. Poor and desperate to leave Germany, the couple lived in Pairs with surviving relatives and, in late 1946, finally secured passage to Australia with the help of the American Joint Distribution Committee. In March 1947, they arrived in Sydney. Their son, Henry was born in Melbourne a month later. The couple soon had another child, Sandra. In 1990, Leon returned to Poland to recite Kaddish at his hometown and at the many murder sites across Poland. He returned again with his grandson, Stephen, in 1995.
Leon Jolson’s memoir is a remarkably rich account of one man’s wartime experiences. It does not cover the author’s life in Australia but principally describes daily life in the concentration camp system and post-war Europe. It provides detailed descriptions of the range of behaviour, both ruthless and altruistic, displayed by Holocaust perpetrators as well as the prisoners of various camps. It is also a valuable resource on camp culture and prison relations. Pages 37-40, provide the original Yiddish and Polish lyrics, as well as the English translation, of “The Gutenbrunn Song” sung by the inmates of the Gutenbrunn forced labour camp.