Chaim Ferster: A Man Who Escaped Death

Chaim Ferster is not a celebrity or a well-known artist. Nevertheless, this 94-year-old man, who is the image of health and worked until he was 92 years old, is someone we can all look up to. He managed to defeat the Nazis and escape from their clutches not once, but eight different times.

Despite the fact that Chaim Ferster spent most of his childhood surviving the horrors of war, these experiences had no emotional impact on him.

That may be his biggest win. He survived not to be obsessed with the pain and humiliation he and his family had to endure, but to live his life again and move on without the dark shadows of his past.

Today Chaim Ferster is a sweet, grateful and wise man. He has told his story hundreds of times because he is one of the few surviving inmates of the Nazi concentration camps who can talk firsthand about what happened to him.

He is also a great-grandfather, was happily married for 65 years and founded a successful business that allowed him to thrive.

A dark time

Chaim Ferster was born on July 18, 1922 in the city of Sosnowiec in Poland, into an Orthodox Jewish family. At that time, 21% of the population of this city was made up of Orthodox Jews. He recalls how his entire community watched in fear as the Nazis came to power in Germany.

They had every reason to be concerned. In 1939 his city was invaded by the Nazis. World War II began and anti-Semitism reigned. First of all, it was the yellow star on their clothes, discrimination on the street and uncertainty about what was to come.

The first Jewish ghettos were then established. Even though Chaim Ferster was only 17 years old, he still remembers the fear during these terrible years.

The year 1942 changed Ferster’s life forever. His father died of pneumonia because basic medicines were not available in the ghetto. He and his family were starving due to extremely limited access to food.

That same year, the Gestapo ordered Ferster’s mother and sister to report to the authorities. He never heard from them again after that.

tragedy and hope

Chaim Ferster and the other Jews soon learned that when the Gestapo arrested someone, they were never heard from or seen again. People still didn’t know much about the concentration camps back then.

The information they had was based on rumors and whispers. It was then that one of Ferster’s uncles gave him advice that would save his life. His uncle told him that he had to learn to do something that would be useful to the Germans.

Chaim decided to learn to become a sewing machine mechanic in the ghetto. This was an excellent decision. His time came in 1943. The Gestapo summoned him and sent him to a concentration camp.

In the beginning life was very difficult. He was in the Oswiecim, Graditz and Niederorschel camps. Ferster recalls that the Nazis had the prisoners repair a road when the temperature was 25 degrees below zero.

However, the Nazis found out about his technical skills and gave him more bearable work. This was undoubtedly the key to his survival. In Graditz there was an outbreak of typhus and Fester fell ill. He recalls a morbid image: the perfectly organized bodies of the people who had died from this virus.

Liberation of Chaim Ferster

At the end of 1944, Chaim Ferster was transferred to Auschwitz. He arrived at midnight and he says the silence was terrifying. There they tattooed a code on his skin and he had some terrible experiences here.

Two months later, however, he was transferred again to Niederorschel because they needed technicians there. For Fester, it was like entering a vocational school.

As the Allies advanced into Germany, Niederorschel was forced to close in 1945. All the prisoners were sent to Buchenwald, a notorious camp where they carried out mass executions every day. By this time, because the Nazis knew they would lose the war, they wanted to kill as many Jews as possible.

Chaim Ferster was about to be executed when the Allies stormed the camp and freed all the prisoners. He escaped death again, but the cruel reality soon became clear to him: more than 30 members of his family had been exterminated.

One of his surviving uncles had escaped to Manchester and Ferster set out to find him. There he could make a new start in his life. In the end Ferster defeated the Nazis, because he lived a long and happy life.