“I feel no guilt for surviving,” said Holocaust Survivor Margot Dewilde. “I knew I would survive and get out of there alone, even as I stepped off the train at Auschwitz. I had a vision and the place seemed familiar to me. I felt like I had been there before and I knew I would be okay.”
At 91 years old and wheelchair bound, Margot seemed quite harmless and reserved, which contrasted with the middle school aged audience she was addressing. But as soon as she spoke these words, her strongly accented voice captured the attention of the energetic crowd, as well as myself.
As Margot continued to speak, it was obvious that she had told this story many times to a variety of different types of people. It had become routine for her to go through the series of events that took place in her life and that over time she had been able to remove much of the emotion from her accounts.
“I began telling my story in 1969, twenty years after World War Two ended,” said Margot. “At first it was extremely difficult, but I knew it was worthwhile to tell because I my hope is to prevent something like this from happening again.”
Margot was born in 1921 in Berlin, Germany and lived with her mother,father, and brother in an apartment. Through her childhood Margot’s family struggled financially. Her grandfather lost his department store and her father could not keep a steady job. Eventually, her family moved to Holland where her uncle lived. While living in Holland they moved often as an effort to save money.
In 1933, Hitler rose to power in Germany and made life for the Jewish people impossible. All Jewish families were required to register all their belongings and leave them behind if they wanted any chance to flee from Germany. During this time, Margot was twelve years old and was staying in a Jewish hotel in Holland with her family. There, she met the man she married five years later.
While Margot spoke of her late husband, a hurt expression crossed her face and her voice faded to a softer volume. He had died when they became separated at a later date and it didn’t seem as if she wanted to share many details. She mentioned him few times throughout the time she spoke, and instead stuck to facts rather than details.
“I remember on May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded Holland,” said Margot. “They came in the sky at 4 o’clock in the morning. Some were in uniforms, others were in civilian clothes. They started bombing and Holland surrendered right away, which meant we were under German Law.”
The Germans made all people in Holland carry an I.D. that included a picture, thumbprint, and mark of the city. It also included personal information and a big J if the person was Jewish. Next, the Germans forced all Jews to wear a yellow star that became known as The Star of David. They were not allowed to attend school, use public transportation, or attend any form of entertainment. It was at this point that they began to move some families to ghettos.
“After all these laws were forced upon us, my in-laws decided we should try to leave Holland,” said Margot. “They tried to find a connection to some high level Germans who could be bribed. Eventually they found someone, but we had to wait for our immigration papers before we could go to Switzerland. During this time I got married because the Germans had said that they would keep families together.”
At this point, I realized the extent of how completely the Holocaust affected people’s lives, even before they were forced from their homes to be put unwillingly into camps. Love was no longer the only reason two people got married. Instead, they rushed marriage because they were promised that they would be kept together and would have a familiar face by their side in the months to come.
“In 1943 we were notified that we should be ready to leave for Switzerland,” said Margot. “We were each allowed one suitcase. I noticed that my husband was overdressed and asked him why. His response was that we never know. I think we suspected something at that point, but we didn’t want to see the signs.”
Margot, her husband, and her in-laws were escorted to the train station and put on a train with another group of people. After the train ride, which they believed was taking them to Switzerland so they could escape, they were arrested on the grounds of “attempting to smuggle valuables.” They were sent to Berlin and put in a collection camp in a school where they were housed on the floor with straw.
“During this time I came down with a sore throat,” said Margot. “I was put in a Jewish hospital and put in isolation. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. After 6 weeks I was sent back to the school and only my husband was there. He had been told to wait for me. We were loaded onto a train and it was a long ride with no windows. When we stopped and got off, there was a German officer outside the train. They separated men, women, elders, and children. Everyone was in a trance. I am convinced that we were hypnotized because we followed any order that was given.”
Up until this statement, Margot’s face had been blank and emotionless. But when she made the comment about being hypnotized, she seemed sad, like her mind was elsewhere. She never stated it, but the train ride she spoke of was the ride to Auschwitz and it was the last time she ever saw her husband.
“Young married women like me were taken in a truck to a building with a huge shower stall,” said Margot. “We had heard slight rumors about gassing being done there. We were all shaved head to toe and given different clothing. The soap they gave us to use, if I remember right, it said RIF which meant Rest in Freedom. We were told that it had been made from the ashes of the people who had been killed.”
Another realization dawned as Margot explained about the soap. Not only did these people have to come to terms with the fact that friends and family were being killed, but they basically had it thrown right in front of them with actions like these. It seemed like a warning about what could happen and what the Germans were capable of.
“After showering, we were given tatoos,” said Margot. “They used glass with a metal pen to print a number above a triangle on all of us. We were no longer people, but numbers. I tried to rub mine out with dirt, but they they went over it again. Through this time I just didn’t know what was happening. At one point I was unconscious for 12 days.”
Through her time at Auschwitz, Margot lived through other people’s deaths and horrors.
“Even now when my neighbor burns garbage, I smell burning bodies,” said Margot. “I always douse his fire with a hose. He just doesn’t understand.”
In January of 1945, she was woken up and told to stand outside with many others. Everyone got a coat and was marked with a red X. They were put into lines of 5 and walked for 2 days and 3 nights, then were loaded into box cars and taken to a labor camp.
“In the morning when we woke, there was a commotion,” said Margot. “There were no Germans around and I saw an American with a flag. I was told I was free and to go West because the Russians were coming from the East with a lot of Germans. We walked and walked and ended up sleeping in a chicken coop and eating raw eggs, which made us sick. We then continued to walk until we reached a city and were put in a house. The Red Cross came by. We were taken care of and bunked by the British, who gave us tea.”
In the following weeks, Margot tried to reach her family. She found her parents and brother, who were all alive. She took a train to Amsterdam where her father lived close to their old house. She stayed there, where she met another man that she hoped to marry but couldn’t because she didn’t have a death certificate from her previous husband. After 13 years, she moved to Minneapolis where her brother lived. She married and lived in Richfield for 40 years, until her husband died.
Listening to Margot’s story, there was a rush of emotions and reactions. Before Margot began to speak the students had been talkative and fidgety but as she neared the end of her story, the atmosphere had changed. The students were quiet and seemed to have a new respect for Margot after hearing her story. Her strength, composure, and confidence were incredible for a person who had witnessed the events that she had.
“I like to say I had a guardian angel through those years,” said Margot.
