From Holocaust to Innovation

From Holocaust To Innovation

By David Klayman

Published by David Klayman at Smashwords

Copyright © 2007 Klayman David

All rights reserved. No part of this publication

may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic, or otherwise, without

permission in writing from the copyright holders.

ISBN: 978-1-4581-9088-8

Table of Contents

Introduction

Heroism

Chapter 1: My Childhood Home

Chapter 2: Go To Palestine, Jew!

Chapter 3: The Factory That Saved My Life

Chapter 4: The Ghetto Bunker

Chapter 5: The Sacrifice Of David

Chapter 6: The Liquidation Of Będzin Ghetto

Chapter 7: Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp

Chapter 8: The Siemens-Schuckert Factory Commando

Chapter 9: Escape From The Death March

Chapter 10: Return To Będzin

Chapter 11: A Grave For My Brother Abraham

Chapter 12: Marriage And Departure

Chapter 13: The Journey To Israel

Chapter 14: Founding ‘Meteor’ Factory In Tel-Aviv

Chapter 15: Fire In The Factory

Chapter 16: Founding ‘Meteor’ In Petach Tikva, Israel

Epilogue: A Living Enterprise

To my wife and children –

Thank you for your support and help in publishing this book.

Special thanks to my son Avi for his patience and the many hours spent editing and preparing the material for printing.

David Klayman, 2007

Introduction

"The German officer stood me in front of the machine gun and decreed that I was to be shot to death. He turned to my family, grabbed my father by his suit collar, shoved a spade at him and said: 'Dig a grave.' I stood alone by the machine gun, waiting for the shot from behind. Before me stretched a field, crisscrossed by paths. I considered making a run for it, but I was scared they would shoot me and harm my father, so I resigned myself to my fate.

The German officer kept circling the group of Jews, beating them mercilessly. At the side stood our sixty-year-old neighbor Batya, still wearing her nightgown because she had no time to dress when the Germans burst into the bunker. The officer approached her, hoisted her nightgown and 7 stared at her nakedness. Then he turned to the others, saying: Look at the whore, look at her. I wanted to kill him, but feared for my parents. The German approached my father and struck him in the back. Why aren't you digging the grave? he asked.

These words are taken from the chilling testimony of David Klayman. His informative story, presented here, encompasses the full meaning of the words Holocaust and Revival. Klayman, a successful industrialist, describes the development of anti- Semitism in Poland before the outbreak of the Second World War, the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust, their defeat, the moment of liberation, and his homecoming.

Klayman's own survival bears witness to his inner strength and his ability to act with determination and resourcefulness, under almost impossible conditions.

The first factory he founded, in his hometown Będzin in Poland, actually saved his family during the early years of the war. Because it was a vital industrial unit, the family was issued work permits, postponing their deportation to work camps and death camps. The importance of the factory was tested when the Commissar who had been placed in charge was informed that the three siblings would stop work unless he acted to save their parents, who were slated for deportation to Auschwitz. The parents were rescued, for the time being. Klayman always thought several steps ahead. When his family was sent to live in the ghetto, all six of them in one room, he used the bricks of the fireplace to build a carefully camouflaged bunker, anticipating that some day it would be needed. In the end, the bunker served all twenty-four residents of the building for nine whole days. The same resourcefulness saved him when he stood in front of the machine gun while his father was forced to dig his grave; when he volunteered to prepare a straight path, and did it precisely. Not all of his attempts to escape were carried out, but they were all inspired. He succeeded, for example, in hiding several hundred dollars in his shoes after camp residents were forced to hand over their possessions; he managed to have his photograph taken, and obtained passport pictures outside the ghetto for a work permit; there was the tunnel he dug with two friends in Auschwitz, and so much more, as this book will show.

This demonstration of resourcefulness was what brought him, after enduring the Death March (alongside Simone Veill, who later became a Minister in the French Parliament) back to his hometown in Poland. Several years later he made Aliyah to Israel, where he established a home and a successful factory. This was his revival. This was, in fact, the revival of the Jewish People returning to its Land. David returned to Auschwitz sixty years after liberation, accompanied by his soldier granddaughter Emily. He was a member of the Prime Ministerial delegation at the 2005 Memorial Ceremonies.

And yet, the memories will not let go. The pain and anger remains nestled deep in the soul of David Klayman. The loss of his brothers and sister - his parents and dear ones - they will burn within him until he draws his final breath. This book is written for remembering them, and for all those who died in the Holocaust.

Heroism

My 80th birthday party was held in the Sharon Hotel, Herzliya. It was attended by about sixty family members and close friends. Although several decades have passed since I experienced the events of the Holocaust, there is no event, no moment of my life that is not linked to those dark days. They have left me with indelible scars.

Some of the guests at my birthday party were friends who were with me in Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Siemens factory. For this reason, my children asked the guests not to bring gifts, but instead to donate to the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet Le-Israel). My family added their own donation, and a new forest will be planted in the Modiin area, near Jerusalem at the memorial commemorating the Jews of the Zaglęmbia region in Poland, where I was born. The Contribution Certificate hangs in my workroom. It is my pride and joy.

David Klayman celebrates his 80th birthday, 1998

I made a speech at the party. It was really a summary of my life story, which you will read in these pages. This is what I said:

I bless my dear wife, my children, grandchildren, relatives and friends, who have come to celebrate my eightieth birthday with me. This is a very happy day for me. Firstly I want to thank my wife for her patience and faith in me throughout our years together. When I came back from the Holocaust I was an orphan, alone in the world. We were a family of six, but everyone perished, aside from me. May their memory be a blessing.

When I married Shulamith in Poland I began to feel happiness. Once again I knew the warmth of a family, something I missed in the years after the War. I joined the wellrespected Sternfeld family, and on Shulamith's mother's side the Tropauers, a family known for its generosity. The Tropauers made many contributions to Keren Hayesod and Keren Kayemet. Whenever emissaries came from Israel they stayed with grandfather Abraham Tropauer, whose villa stood opposite the train station. Their monogram can still be seen at the villa in Będzin, composed of the initials A.T. - Abraham Tropauer.

Two weeks after our wedding, my wife Shulamith left Poland with her parents. It took two and a half years for me to obtain my laissez-passer from Poland. I arrived in Israel on the eve of Passover 1953. It was the first Seder I conducted after my wedding. Six weeks after arriving in Israel I opened an industrial plant on the Exhibition Grounds in Tel Aviv. Some years later I enrolled in the Institute for Labor Productivity and studied modern industrial management, continuing the studies which began at the Technical College in Gliwice (as Gleiwitz was known during the German Occupation) in Poland. During those three years I only came home three times a week, late at night. Weekends were spent preparing lessons and studying for exams.

My wife supported me patiently throughout those years. She raised our children, educating them in the values that influence our grandchildren today. At six every morning I opened the factory for the workers, and every day for nine years I was in the car at half past seven, waiting to drive the children to the Alliance High School in Ramat Aviv, one and a half kilometers from our house. During the journey the children told me all about school: the teachers, the children, their friends. I followed the course of their lives with joy and helped a great deal with practical matters.

I look back to the days of my youth, to the time when I realized what kind of world I was living in, the evil and hardships human beings were forced to contend with. Before the war Europe and America faced world crisis. Many people had no means of sustenance. Then Hitler came to power, promising work by manufacturing armaments.

We young people sought a new way. We joined the Zionist Movement. We wanted to topple the socialist pyramid on which Jewish society was based. Many Jews were merchants but we wanted Jewish society to become more productive. So we joined the Zionist Movement to be trained before making Aliyah to Israel. I could have studied at the Fürstenberg Gymnasium in Będzin. Some of my friends were preparing for their matriculation, but at that time the 'numerus clausus' (quota restriction for Jews) was in effect. The Jews had no more than a three percent chance of being accepted at institutes of higher learning.

Knowing that I was technically inclined, I began studying at the Institute of Technology and Industry, hoping to become productive and obtain an engineering degree. I completed my studies with distinction. We were only two Jews in a student body of 750, and we suffered severe humiliation due to rampant anti-Semitism. Nevertheless I enjoyed my studies. They opened a window to the world, pointing me in the direction I still love to this day. In those days we absorbed the ideas of Marx, Engels and Hegel. We also learned about the German philosopher Malthus who claimed that the world was suffering from a population explosion and the earth could not support 700 million people. There was not enough bread, cotton and wool, basically, not enough food. The solution he proposed was to wage wars from time to time in order to thin out the world's population.

Malthus's theory was refuted a long time ago. The world's population stands today at six billion, ten times more than it was in his day, and there is an abundance of everything - bread, clothing, high quality synthetic leather for shoes, plastics such as nylon and polyurethane, petroleum-based products. The earth is extremely prolific thanks to advanced agricultural methods. Our family plant, in collaboration with Machon Vulcani in Bet Dagan, continues to manufacture items designed for the protection of agricultural crops, increasing the per dunam (approximately one quarter of an acre) yield sevenfold compared to one decade ago. We were the first in the world to develop a technique of insect repellent that does not involve harmful and poisonous pesticides. We feel we have found our niche, successfully improving the quality of life for humankind. It is true that not everything depends on man himself. It is said that everyone has his own destiny. We are doing everything we possibly can. Every day I feel I have completed my economic activities and I take pleasure in my children.

I wish everyone much health and happiness. May we meet on happy occasions for many more years.

David Klayman, December 11th, 1998

Sharon Hotel, Herzliya, Israel

Chapter 1: My Childhood Home

Seven years have passed since that birthday party, and I am now eighty-seven. I never planned on writing down my memoirs, but my grandchildren insisted. Grandpa, they said, we want to know all about your life and our roots. We want to know the history of the family. I was touched. The truth is I'm also interested in discovering what I remember of my childhood; my earliest recollections go back to when I was three or four years old. My memories are like drawers that were locked for more than eighty years. Through this book I will try to unlock the drawers.

I was born on December 11th, 1918 in the town of Będzin in the region of Upper

Silesia (Gorny Slask) in the southwest of Poland, some 12 kilometers from the German border.

It is a region filled with coal and metal mines and large factories. Coal was extensively mined from the earth, and in its place came sand, carried by streams of water. Outside