A Lucky Lie

There were both Jews and non-Jews living in the village where David Wolnerman was growing up when World War II broke out. Then life got more and more difficult for the Jews. Anti-Semitism was a problem and as Nazi soldiers came often, violence increased. Soldiers came looking for Jewish workers so at age thirteen, David made a decision to go with them. "They told me if I came to work, my family would be spared." He was taken to a camp called Auschwitz, just five kilometers from the village. Upon arrival, he saw a man separating the people into two lines, one to the left and one to the right. "I saw the people that went left. They were older, crippled, or with young children. I just knew that if I went left it wasn't good." David walked up to the man who was making the decisions. That man was the evil Dr. Joseph Mengele. He asked, "Wie alt bist du?" (How old are you?) David told him, "I am eighteen." What allowed David to lie about his age at that moment he doesn't know. "God told me something. I went right. If not, I would have been sent to my death," he recalls. "There was nothing in the camps," "No water, no food, no washing, no medicine, nothing." He worked hard labor jobs. Because of many miracles, he survived and came to America. Many years later, he told two Jewish girls from Des Moines, Iowa about his life during the war.