Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust

The Boot

54 First Name: Gitta Also Known As: Gisele Daveaux, Gisela Kantor Last Name: Fajerstein Maiden Name: Horowitz Date of Birth: December 21, 1930 City of Birth: Berlin Country of Birth: Germany The Boot Gitta Horowitz Fajerstein My mother, my sister Chaya, age five, and I, age nine, had been on the run the entire war, in hiding and trudging throughout Europe, beginning with being smuggled out of Germany after the Nazis murdered our father. In December 1939, we went to Holland and then Belgium, and after many difficulties we arrived in the south of France in the spring of 1942. On September 8, 1943, the Allied forces landed in Salerno, in southern Italy. Hoping to speed up our liberation, approximately eight hundred Jews crossed the border through the French-Italian Alps into Italy. Members of the Fourth Italian Army were also on the run; they feared that the Nazis would arrest them as traitors. For the Jews, though helped by some of the Italian soldiers, it was an arduous journey of about three long and difficult days. Arriving across the border in the village of Valdieri, we were greeted by the Germans. The Nazis immediately set out to pick up the Jews who had escaped. Exhausted, demoralized, and unable to continue their escape, about three hundred fifty Jews were arrested, incarcerated at the Borgo San Dalmazzo Concentration Camp, and eventually sent to Auschwitz. When our mother realized that the Germans were waiting in the valley below to round up as many Jews as possible, she made our group—consisting of Mother, Chaya, our uncle, another family of three, and me—run back into the mountains. Andreina, a good-hearted and courageous Italian woman, at great risk to herself, allowed us to stay in her cava (shack). It was one of the coldest and most biting winters the inhabitants had known. On the Run 55 Figure 18. Gitta Horowitz’s first day at school in Berlin, Germany, 1937. She holds a package filled with candy. 56 Out of Chaos In early spring of 1944, the Germans stepped up their patrols in the mountains, searching for Jews, Italian deserters, and members of the Italian Resistance. It was becoming increasingly dangerous to stay there in those mountains. Our mother felt that it was again time to move to a safer place and decided that she, my sister, and I would try to get away from the mountains, travel to Turin, and from there attempt to escape to Rome, hoping to be liberated by the Allies. We made it to Turin and waited in vain for a train. The rails, however, had been bombarded and no train arrived. Meanwhile, the Germans were patrolling the train station. Because we feared being arrested, we returned to the mountains. Upon our return, we learned that the rest of our group had moved to another mountain for safety reasons. Andreina and her daughter suggested that because I had run numerous errands from our hideout in the cava down to the village of Valdieri, I should go up first and alert our family and friends of our return. Wearing only a sweater, blouse, short skirt, kneesocks, and dilapidated boots, I ventured up a narrow path, walking for an hour or two. It seemed like an eternity. Suddenly the sun set, it became very dark, and the temperature dropped abruptly. I saw flickering lights in the distance, but the closer I got, the farther and farther the lights seemed to be. I continued walking, but the path became a sheet of ice; I was slipping, sliding , and terrified of falling. On one side of me loomed the mountain and on the other side was a sheer drop into the valley below. I tried stepping on the side of the path where there were deep snowbanks. I went in knee-deep, and as I was trying to get my foot out of the snow, my foot came out without my boot. I struggled to recover my boot. I dug in the snow with my bare frozen hands and finally dug out the two halves of my boot, which had come apart. I sat down on the frozen path. Everything seemed so peaceful and quiet. Numb and afraid of falling asleep, all I wanted to do was close my eyes and just stay there. I don’t know what kept me from giving up; maybe it was the thought of...