Peace shall reign in this city

Justin Sonder

He has told his life story many times. For 30 years, Justin Sonder has been going into schools and recounting the worst days of his life in the Auschwitz concentration camp. As one of the few Auschwitz survivors, he is fighting against oblivion. Two books document his experiences. In 2008, he was awarded the Chemnitz Peace Prize in honour. And in recent days, many journalists and reporters have taken a seat on his yellow sofa and listened to his vivid words. Today, the city of Chemnitz is awarding him honorary citizenship.

At your advanced age, you go into schools and tell pupils about your life. How do the young people react to your stories?
Justin Sonder: They are attentive. They ask a lot of questions. But of course they find it hard to imagine how bad it actually was.

What interests the young people?
There are different questions. With topical references. Whether I had friends in the concentration camp. How I survived it all. Whether I had thoughts about escaping.

When did you realise that National Socialism was dangerous?
That was in 1936, when the Olympic Games were just around the corner. And the schools were organising competitions. I was a good sportsman and made the football team. Our team was 3:0 down. I summoned up all my strength and gave it my all. In the end it was 4:1 - in favour of the others. The other team's two-goal scorer was cheered. But our disappointment quickly evaporated. "We've got a goalscorer too," shouted the boys from our team and lifted me onto their shoulders. The headmaster, a staunch Nazi, didn't like that at all. He insulted and belittled not only me, but the whole class - I can't even tell you that. That was my first experience in which I directly felt the anti-Semitism.

Did you yourself understand why you were marginalised?
No. And it wasn't so obvious at first. Two boys went to an extended school after the fourth grade. I was also a good pupil and wanted to go. But I wasn't allowed to. My mum said: We don't have any money. That was also true. But the real reason was kept quiet.

Justin Sonder was born in Chemnitz on 18 October 1925. He went to nursery school in the Silbersaal in Bernsdorf. He started school at the Bernsdorf school. He later attended the orphanage school. "As a schoolchild, I witnessed how the Nazis searched the flats of the well-known communists Sindermann and Janka in what was then Grenadierstraße, now Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße. My father was also an SPD man. That's why they also searched our flat, but found nothing," says the 91-year-old. "Where they did find something, they took the people to an old hotel, called Hansa-Haus, and beat the men until they were ready for hospitalisation, or took them to the nearby Sachsenburg concentration camp, which had been provisionally set up."

During the pogrom night on 9 November 1938, the hatred became obvious. How did you experience it?
We lived in Lindenstraße at the time, not far from the Schocken department stores'. There was a terrible commotion in the streets that night from 9 to 10 November. It woke me up and I opened the window. The large shop windows were smashed and shattered. I saw SS and SA men running around wildly. My father went out into the street and said: "All hell has broken loose in Chemnitz." He told me that the Jewish department stores Tietz and Schocken had been destroyed, many Jewish shops had been vandalised and the synagogue on Kaßberg was on fire. We were shocked. My father left the city, hid with friends in Saxon Switzerland and only returned after Christmas. We told the Gestapo, who were looking for him, that he had travelled to Franconia to see his sick father.
Then the ghettoisation began. We were thrown out of our flat and moved to a so-called Jews' house. Ours was on Zschopauer Straße. There are said to have been about 20 such houses. Only one room for the whole family. The Gestapo carried out house searches whenever they wanted. In May 1942, my parents were taken away and sent to a concentration camp. From then on, I was on my own. I lived in a room with a boy of almost the same age. There were no more stamps for meat and butter. When I left, my mother told me to go to the shops where she was a regular customer. And I did indeed get something from the butcher and dairy owner from time to time if no one else saw it.

Justin Sonder was arrested in February 1943 and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. He took part in three trials that were intended to shed light on the crimes committed by the SS in the concentration camps. At the last trial in Detmold, a judge asked him: "Can you describe what a selection is?" He remembers his answer perfectly and struggles to decide whether he should continue: "I survived 17 selections and I'm not proficient enough in German to describe it." It goes without saying that he is not able to talk about his memories. For a long time after his return, he didn't say a word about his experiences. Sometimes he still struggles to find the words today. But then it bubbles out of him. He vividly describes details, lists names and places.
"The selections were the worst," he emphasises, trying to answer the difficult question himself. "In the early hours of the morning, an SS man shouted one word into the barracks: 'Selection'. That was the order to undress and wait naked. At least 30 minutes - up to four hours. The thoughts: Will I get away with it again? Can I remain a labour slave? The SS came in and the prisoner had to march past. If the prisoner's gait was sluggish and his whole posture was that of a sick person, the SS mocked these prisoners as "Muselmänner" (Muslim men). The SS doctor decided life and death at that moment." Justin Sonder points his thumb downwards and remains silent.

You did forced labour in the concentration camp. What exactly did you do?
There was no easy labour. The camp I was in, Auschwitz III, was still being built. With more than 10,000 labour slaves. A large IG Farben chemical combine, the Buna-Werke, was to be built. One job I can still remember was carrying sacks of cement. 50 to 60 metres from the wagon to the warehouse. That was doable for a 17-year-old boy like me if he was well fed. But we were malnourished and this work was torture. And then there was the harassment - the SS shouted: 'On the run'. The prisoners fell down and were beaten. It was terrible. Auschwitz didn't need a locomotive either. Prisoners pushed and braked the goods wagons.

How did you find the strength to survive the many selections and the difficult time?
I didn't inherit anything from my parents, just one thing: both my mother and my father had an incredibly iron will.

How were you liberated?
I was liberated by the Americans in a small village in Bavaria between Cham and Roding. The Nazis had sent us on this huge death march. Only 40 prisoners were liberated, including me. All the others were shot or beaten to death on the death march. That was terrible.
I knew two of the 40 prisoners who were in Auschwitz with me. One of them offered to come with me to Paris. He asked: "Why do you want to stay here? This is where the crimes began. The murderers who did the worst to us live here. Go to Paris with me." My answer was: "I'm not going to Paris. Despite everything that has happened. I'm going to my hometown of Chemnitz." Fate was kind to me: I ran off and met my father in the area around Hof. He had been liberated in Dachau concentration camp. We arrived back in Chemnitz together on 19 June 1945.

How did you feel when you returned to Chemnitz?
I was totally sad. What it looked like here. It was a terminally ill city. Where I had once lived with my parents in peaceful days, there was sheer devastation.

How did you find your way back to life?
I joined other young people my age. We were equipped with spades and hoes. We organised our first work assignment in a ruined plot of land in Brückenstraße, on the other side of the Straße der Nationen. The response was huge. "Chemnitz is rebuilding" was the slogan. A rubble railway was built to the south of the city. This work overcame the paralysis.

You also found your personal happiness again in Chemnitz.
That's true. I got to know my wife. She worked in the town hall and was responsible for the equipment and staff in the kindergartens. I myself became a criminalist. We got married. Three children were born in Chemnitz. Four of our six grandchildren were also born in Chemnitz. And once a year, the whole extended family gets together here in Chemnitz.

Are young people fit enough to learn from history?
On the whole, yes. Germany is a great country. You can feel at home here. You can work here. There are many reasons to find happiness here. I tell young people in school classes not to listen to the populists and the shrill tones. The language is treacherous. Nobody who goes to school today and tries to understand the history of the country is to blame for what happened. But of course they should learn from it and do everything they can to ensure that it doesn't happen again. And we should be aware that every war begins with the weapons with which the old one ended. The dropping of the atomic bomb showed what mankind is capable of. We have to do everything we can to keep the peace.

What do you wish for the future?
My wish for Chemnitz is that peace should reign in this city. There is no place here for racism, xenophobia or anti-Semitism. I call out to it: Chemnitz, you shall flourish and prosper.