BOOK

Because of Romek:  A Holocaust Survivor’s Memoir

 

Faber, David.  Because of Romek:  A Holocaust Survivor’s Memoir.  San Diego:  Vincent Press Publishing Company, 1997.  215 pages.  ISBN:  0972807705.

 

REVIEW

 

I had the unparalleled privilege of hearing Holocaust survivor David Faber’s presentation of his story, during his visit to the high school where I teach.  Mr. Faber spent the week of February 7, 2005 in our community, a guest of one of our local elementary school districts.

 

To hear David Faber speak is to be in the presence of living history.  A survivor of eight concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Faber was also the witness to the murder of his parents, his brother, and five of his six sisters.  Beginning at the age of 13, Faber participated in events and deeds that no human being should ever have to endure.  And still he has the strength to travel and speak about it.  My students were at complete attention during his 70-minute lecture, and had the opportunity to greet Mr. Faber afterward.  They came away fully impressed with not only his story, but of his kindness, the softness of his voice, and a demeanor that seemed to thank us for listening to him – we should be the ones thanking him for his courage in telling of his life’s circumstances.

 

Because of Romek is a history of David Faber’s life, largely during the years after the German invasion of his native Poland through his liberation.  There are few details about his earliest years, nor are there many stories of his life after he was freed from Bergen-Belsen.  It is my understanding that Faber is considering working on communicating his post-war years, a memoir that will include among other things time he spent as a pastry chef in the House of Commons and encounters with Sir Winston Churchill.  Nonetheless, Because of Romek is a gripping account of an incredible journey through the depths of Nazi hell.  Disbelieving readers of this tale (“How could anyone not only have all of these experiences, but live to tell of them??”) will take comfort in the “References and Notes” section of the book – scholars from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as other historians have corroborated particulars of Faber’s story, filling in and correcting dates, etc. when needed.  Even when I heard Faber tell his tale in person, I still could not fathom that all of it happened to one man…

 

Faber’s book reads more like a novel than a personal history.  He has worked hard to create dialogue from the many incidents of his life, and having done so plunges the reader into the tale as if he or she were actually there.  From the accounts of the murders of his father and brother, to the times when Faber’s own life was nearly lost (when his mother and sisters were killed, and as he stood virtually next in line for the gas chamber), there is a suspense and a longing to get to the next page.  Chapters are relatively short and read quickly. 

 

Faber begins by painting us a picture of his life as a youth in the Polish city of Katowice and how that calm existence was disrupted with the news that the family would have to relocate from the Polish border in order to stay ahead of the advancing Germans.  Faber’s older brother, Abraham (aka Romek) was at this time a prisoner of war at Buchenwald; the Faber parents had some idea of the approaching darkness.  The first several chapters are a series of adventures as the family seeks to hide and stay ahead of the Nazis.  Faber recounts his memories with a fluidity and suspensefulness that belies a first-time writer.  The reader is often left on the edge of the seat as the jackboots pound on the pavement, or up the stairs toward a hiding place.  The first time David is captured, by a German patrol evoking the image of a dogcatcher, sadness engulfs.  And when tragedy after tragedy is meted out upon David Faber and his family, the suffering causes the reader internal turmoil.  We are brought along as reluctant companions on Faber’s tour of the Nazi camp nightmare.

 

PASSAGE/QUOTE FOR CLASSROOM USAGE

 

I use Chapter 15 (pages 127-136) for a classroom activity.  Please see the Study Questions/Discussion Guide section of not only this review, but of Primo Levi’s Survival In Auschwitz.

 

RATIONALE FOR USAGE/UNIT RELEVANCE

 

Faber’s autobiography works in any of the following discussions: on the upheaval of Jewish life following the German invasion of Poland, perpetrator behavior/activities, hiding, children in the Holocaust, victims, camps, liberation, and survivor testimony.  Supporting video might include the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s film “Liberation 1945:  Testimony”.

 

CLASSROOM METHOD OF USAGE

 

As this book is very easy to read, short passages can be chosen to emphasize a particular topic from the above list of relevant topics.  Additionally, a classroom set would be a wise investment for any school district.  I know that one of our local elementary districts purchased a copy of the book for each homeroom teacher, and junior high students were able to listen to its reading in the weeks prior to Faber’s visit to our community.  For the activity below, students will need to have access to Chapter 15 of the book.

 

STUDY QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION GUIDE

 

Assuming students have access to Chapter 15 from Faber’s book, as well as Chapter 9 from Levi’s book, have students complete the following activity.  Group work would be encouraged for this, as discussion of the issues will be helpful.

 

Reading Guide*

(Please write the page number and paragraph number next to each note)

[Information from other parts of the book is provided to you]

 

Auschwitz	Faber	Reference	Levi	Reference
Arrival Date	November 5, 1943	128/11;212, 2nd note	End of Feb, 1944	14/3
Tattoo number	#161051	129/8	#174517	27/3
Age at entry	~17	Deduced	24	13/1
Work detail	Sonderkommando	135/4	Chemical Kommando	101/1
Subsection	Birkenau	130/1	Monowitz (Buna)	25/3
Execution forms	Murder by kapo	131/3	Gas chambers	90/1
	Gas vans	131/15	Killed by circumstances	88-89/3
	Gas chambers	131/15
	Burning alive in ditch	134/1
Key figures	Dr. Josef Mengele	131/16	None mentioned	---
	Col. Adolf Eichmann	136/5
Key events	Women’s orchestra	132/7	Camp enclosed in barbed wire	87/3
	Men looking like “musselmanner”	132/1	Men looking like “musselmanner”	88/2
	Collective responsibility for stealing	133/13	Kommando work where one can profit	88-89/3
	Collective responsibility for not using latrine	134/5	Jews in 1944 Auschwitz – of #’s less than 150000, only doctors, tailors, cooks, cobblers, musicians, young attractive gays, and friends/compatriots of camp authorities were still alive	89/1
	Baby put alive into oven	135/14	No one could survive more than 3 months under “normal” work, rations, and discipline	90/1
	Handing Zyklon B to Eichmann to administer to gas chambers	136/2	The need to learn German, and the do’s and don’ts of the camp	90/1
	Suicides on electric fences	134/2	Thought that Aryan prisoners might have been chosen from German prisons to be camp supts. over Jews	91/4
	People struck with cables, rubber hoses, bats	127/3	Floggings	93/2
	Selections	128/7	Organizing goods for extra rations	93/1, 94/1, 99/1
Time in Auschwitz	3-4 months (11/43- 3 or 4/44)	Deduced	Liberated January 27, 1945 (~11 months)	172/7

 

*Answers have been included in blue ink.

 

Questions – After reading each selection, answer the following questions (points per response are in parentheses):

 

1. What seems to be the focal point of Faber’s writing of his time in Auschwitz (2)?
2. In one sentence, summarize Faber’s arrival to Auschwitz (1).
3. Levi seems to have a different focus in his selection.  Can you give two general comparisons and make two general contrasts to Faber (4)? 

 

Levi gives this account of being tattooed with his camp number:

 

Haftling*:  I have learnt that I am Haftling.  My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die. 

            The operation was slightly painful and extraordinarily rapid:  they placed us all in a row, and one by one, according to the alphabetical order of our names, we filed past a skilful official, armed with a sort of pointed tool with a very short needle.  It seems that this is the real, true initiation:  only by ‘showing one’s number’ can one get bread and soup.  Several days passed, and not a few cuffs and punches, before we became used to showing our number promptly enough not to disorder the daily operation of food-distribution weeks and months were needed to learn its sound in the German language.  And for many days, while the habits of freedom still led me to look for the time on my wristwatch, my new name ironically appeared instead, a number tattooed in bluish characters under the skin.

 

* prisoner (Levi 27-28)

 

4.      What is the most important effect to each man (1)?

5.      How do their accounts differ (1)?

6.      To become a number and not a name, what would you give up?  That is, what do you think your name or being represents when heard or seen by others (4)?

7.      Levi speaks of death, but Faber dwells constantly on events that brought him within inches of the Grim Reaper on several occasions.  Differentiate between each author’s sense of the immediacy of death… that is, while it is important to any man, these two writers give us a separate impression of their mortality (2).

8.      Whether in the Chemical Kommando or a Sonderkommando unit, both men were forced to work under the command of the Nazis.  In your opinion, were there certain kinds of work less desirable than others?  Can you speak to the end results being the same, or do you sense that there are degrees inherent in the sins of this work -- were there kinds of forced labor less morally compromising than others?  Be sure to fully express your opinions (5).

9.      Both authors write of the Musselmanner.  From the two writings, assemble a portrait in word pictures of a Musselmanner (4).

10.  Levi paints descriptions of several Haftlings that were known to him.  How would these men fit into Faber’s Auschwitz (2)?

11.  Can we speak to differences in the authors’ story more to their experiences, or perhaps to the fact that they were in different parts of Auschwitz?  How much of a factor do you think each man’s age at the time of their experience had on their reporting (4)?