John

=__Marion Blumenthal__=

Though her body was malnourished and her will shaken, Marion Blumenthal survived the torture of the Nazi camps, the constant threat of illness and death, and even the Death Train.



=__Young Marion__= Marion Blumenthal Lazan was born on December 20, 1934,in the town of Hoya, Germany. Marion lived in the small town of Hoya for four years. Her mother had originally lived in Tilsit, Prussia. Hoya was much smaller than Tilsit and had a population of three thousand, of which, only forty-four were Jews. Marion's mother met her husband while working in the Blumenthal family shoe store. Soon after they met, they married. On October 11, 1932, Albert, their first child was born. Two years after that, on December 20, 1934, Marion was born.

The family lived in a three-floored building with the family store on the first floor, Marion's grandparents on the second, and Marion and her parents and brother on the third. Marion's Oma and Opa played as large a part in her early life as her parents.Marion's father and Opa worked the store selling shoes and mens clothing while her mother worked as the bookkeeper. Oma would prepare the meals and babysit the children.

=Jewish Persecution= On April 1, 1933, a nation wide boycott of all Jewish owned businesses began. Enforcing this law were the Nazi storm troopers. Marion's father Walter, a decorated German soldier, meant nothing to Germany now. To Germany, he was just a Jew. His business began to lose customers because of the boycott. Since there were only forty four Jews in the town of Hoya, they needed the non-Jewish population to continue the store. Walter started to make deliveries from his car to some of his old customers who were afraid to come to the store because of the boycott. By now, Walter was ready to leave Germany. The only thing holding him back were Marion's grandparents who were old and frail.

Soon afterwards, Hitler instituted the Nuremberg Laws. The Nuremberg Laws robbed the Jews of their rights. For example, it became illegal for a Jew to marry a non-Jew, and all Jews lost their citizenship. German business owners were strongly urged to fire any Jewish employees. Even schools integrated the swastika into their uniforms and taught the Nazi ways.

At the start of 1938, Oma, at the age of seventy-two, died. A few weeks later, Opa died of a heart attack. Within months of Opa's death, the Blumenthals sold the store and its merchandise for a fraction of its worth. In the spring of 1938, the Blumenthals left Hoya for Hanover.

In Hanover, the family started work on acquiring papers to leave for America. In 1938, the United States planned to accept only 27,000 German and Austrian immigrants. Anyone hoping to immigrate had to first get an [|affidavit]. An affidavit was a written document from a friend or relative stating that the family would be cared for financially and would cooperate with United States laws. The immigrant also needed to obtain a visa. A visa was a document that gave permission to enter the country.

The Blumenthals got the affidavit from Tante (Aunt) Clara, Walter's sister in New York. Now all the family needed was their visa. If they were lucky, they would receive it within a year.

In the summer of 1938, the Nazis burned down many synagogues in Nuremberg and Munich. Hitler began new laws to further isolate Jews. Now all passports had to be marked with a large //J//. All Jewish women had to take the middle name Sarah and the men, Israel.They needed to put their names on all existing documents.

One night in November 1938, around midnight, the family heardmarching and shouting and gun shots and the breaking of glass. That night would come to be known as "Kristallnacht ", the night of broken glass. Nintey-one Jews were killed. Thirty thousand Jewish men were taken to concentration camps.

It was around 5:00a.m. that same morning when the Blumenthals heard the Gestapo calling Mr. Blumenthals name. As Marion's father dressed, the Gestapo searched the apartment. They took her father and his car was never seen again. On November 18, Marion's mother received a postcard from her husband from Buchenwald concentration camp. Late on November 21, Ruth Blumenthal answered the door and to her surprise, Walter was standing at the door in the clothes he was taken away in. The only thing Walter said was that he signed a paper saying he was "correctly treated" and that his signing meant that the family had to leave Germany in three months.

On November 12, the government pushed a 1 billion mark fine on the already impoverished Jews. The real reason behind the fine was so that no Jew could collect insurance money. The family began packing to leave for Tante Rosi's home in Holland. All items that were packed were to go through //Zollfahndungs Stelle//, a customs agency designated to take all valuable goods. But the customs agency took more than any jewelry or silver. The family was only allowed to keep one blanket and coat for each of them.

Leaving with only ten marks, the family got onto the train and headed to Holland. When they first arrived in Holland, they were moved from one camp to another. These camps were very crowded with men and women sleeping separately. Then, about three months after first moving to Holland, the family had a chance to move to a camp for child refugees. Though they had to work hard, at least they could live a somewhat normal family lifestyle. In 1939, the government of Holland set up Westerbork as the new permanent camp for refugees. Marion and her family were then sent to Westerbork.

=__Marion in the Holocaust__=

__Westerbork__
When Marion and her family finally got to Westerbork, they moved into a so-called "little house". This house had a kitchen with a sink and burner, a bathroom with neither a tub nor a shower, and a small area for sleeping. Marion's parents were put to work like all the adults in the camp. Her mother worked in the dining hall while Walter worked in the shoe repair shop.

While at Westerbork, the Blumenthals received the visa for the United States. They were scheduled to leave in March 1940. However, because the demand was so high on the ship //Nieuw Amsterdam//, their voyage to the U.S. was postponed until June 1940. On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded the countries of Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Within days, the Dutch Royal Family fled to England, and the Nazis took The Netherlands. The family soon realized that the //Nieuw Amsterdam// would not take them to America. They would be staying at Westerbork.

The Nazis began their plan to degrade the Jews. May 1942 was the start of the required sewing of the Star of David onto the coats. Westerbork became a transit camp where many were taken in while waiting for one of the many concentration camps. One way to possibly avoid being sent to Auschwitz was to apply to the Palestine Exchange Program. For every Jew that qualified, the British-controlled Palestine would release one Nazi.

On August 26, 1943, Papa registered the family for the exchange program. Then, on January 13, 1944, the Blumenthals got permission to leave for the camp of Celle, where they would await a ship for Palestine. In February 1944, the family boarded the train to Celle; but as the family boarded their "special" train car, they got a feeling of unease. The Blumenthals were heading for the camp of Bergen-Belsen, not Celle.

__Bergen-Belsen__
Bergen-Belsen was built as a prisoner of war camp, but more sections were built to house the different groups held there. The section that the exchange Jews were placed in was called the "Sternlager," or Star Camp. In May, the names for the first exchange for Palestine were listed; however, the Blumenthals were not on the list. As Walter approached a guard to ask about the list, he was beaten across the back.

Marion Blumenthal slept in her mother's arms in one of the three-tiered bunks in the wooden barracks at Bergen-Belsen. When Marion woke up each day, she heard the moans of the women and children and the creaks of the cots. On most mornings, some of the prisoners would die because of the terrible living conditions. The dead were taken from their beds to crematories or mass graves.

Marion had to put up with two evils: her empty stomach and the bitter cold of winter. Her stomach had become accustomed to her minuscule ration of bread. It was the German winter that ravaged Marion's poor body. Once Marion thought she saw a wagon full of wood to feed the fire in the barracks. As the wagon passed, however, she saw the naked sticklike bodies of the dead prisoners. In the winter, Marion would sleep in almost all the clothes she owned. Her coat was used as a blanket. In the mornings, before role call, Marion and her mother needed to find a way to relieve themselves. There was a camp outhouse, which was nearly a block away. Sometimes they would have to use the drinking cups to relieve themselves. There were the same items that they would then use to receive their daily rations. The prisoners also needed to sweep the floor and make their beds, all before roll call. If the beds were not made to specification, that person would lose his day's bread.

Very few prisoners tried to escape from the camp. The few that tried to escape were generally caught or killed by the electric fence.

The prisoners had roll call at six in the morning and when the prisoners returned from work detail. Roll call was held in every kind of weather. And when even one person was absent because of anything from an escape attempt, illness, or even death, the whole group had to stand at attention for many hours. Sometimes, the prisoners were forced to stand at attention for an entire day without food, water, or a way to relieve themselves. Marion always hoped that roll call would be short so that she could see her father and brother who lived in another barracks.

At Bergen-Belsen, the most terrifying part was the monthly showers where prisoners would be taken to the shower house, but the prisoners were never sure if water would come from the shower heads or the poisonous Zyklon B gas. This gas could kill a person in less than fifteen minutes. After the gassing, other prisoners were forced to remove all of the gold teeth, rings, and women's hair from the dead. After the removal, the bodies were then taken to a crematorium. As the camp became overcrowded, the dead were burned in mass pits or even seen lying on the ground around the camp.

The diet at Bergen-Belsen consisted of cabbage-flavored water and moldy bread. As the end of winter approached, an outbreak of typhus also struck many of the prisoners. of the 60,000 prisoners, 35,000 died mostly of typhus. While imprisoned, Marion began to collect pebbles to represent her family. She found three pebbles of the same shape and size, but could not find a fourth one at first. Marion thought that if she got hold of four pebbles of relatively the same size and shape, then the Blumenthals would make it through Bergen-Belsen and maybe even the Nazis. This gave her a purpose, a reason to live. She tried many times to collect these four pebbles, each time, failing to find the fourth pebble. Marion searched for her pebbles while her mother was on work detail.

On April 9, 1945, the prisoners from Bergen-Belsen were put onto cattle cars. They thought they were being sent to Auschwitz. The prisoners did not know that Auschwitz had been liberated in January of that year.

On April 15, 1945, Britain reached Bergen-Belsen and liberated the camp with the commandant, Josef Kramer, giving up without a fight. The train the Blumenthals had boarded was the last one to leave the camp of Bergen-Belsen. As night fell on the second day, the train started to move, reaching only fifteen miles from Bergen-Belsen. The next morning, the guards called for the dead, and the surviving prisoners were forced to dig shallow graves.

After a week, the capital city of Berlin was in sight, but it took two days to reach because of the damage to the railway. Then one day, the railcar doors opened, but the men were no the S.S. They were the Allied soldiers. The Blumenthals were free. The day of the Blumenthals liberation was April 23, 1945. On May 7,1945, the prisoners learned of Germany's surrender.

=__After the Holocaust__= As June approached, so did a Typhus epidemic. This time, Mr. Blumenthal got it and died with Albert at his side. Mr. Blumenthal was buried outside of Trobitz.

The family then headed back to Holland. After moving around Europe, they finally left for America. They lived in New York for a while and then moved to Peoria, Illinois. Marion got a job at a store in town. Marion Blumenthal married Nathan Lazan on August 2, 1953.

Today, Marion give talks about the Holocaust. She has also taken a trip to Europe to visit Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen, and her father's grave. Marion Blumenthal survived the Holocaust when others, including her father, were not so lucky.

=Citation=

Perl, Lila, and Marion Blumenthal. Lazan. //Four Perfect Pebbles: a Holocaust Story//. New York: Greenwillow, 1996. Print.