Dan Carmel (Weinreich)

RelatioNet  DA VI 25 VI AU

Interviewer:
Yuval Shaia yuvalshaia@walla.com
Shoham Nakash shohamn81@walla.com





Survivor:Code: RelatioNet DA VI 25 VI AU
Family Name: Weinreich Carmel
First Name: Dan
Father Name: Moshe
Mother Name: Gizela
Birth Date: 19\7\1925
Town In Holocaust: Vienna
Country In Holocaust: Austria 
Address Today: Lives in Beit Ha'Shita, Israel


Relatives:
Siblings
Family Name: Weinreich  
First Name: Alfred 
Status (Today): Dead
Death Place: Los Angeles-USA
Death Year: 1994



First Name:  Gusti
Status (Today): Dead
Death Place:  New York-USA
Death Year: 2010

First Name: Lea
Last Name: Kohn
Birth Year: 1920 in Vienna, Austria
Death Year: 1941 in Belgarde, Yugoslavia

Family Name: Weinreich  
First Name: Moshe
Birth Year: 1885 in Chrzenow, Austria
Death Year: 1943 in Auschwitz 
Relationship (to Survivor): Father
Country In Holocaust: Poland
Status (Today): Dead


Family Name: Kohn Weinreich
First Name: Gisela
Birth Year: 1886 in Strijod, Austria
Death Year: 1943 in Auschwitz
Relationship (to Survivor): Mother
Country In Holocaust: Poland
Status (Today): Dead

Interview 

Dan's Story

I, Dan Carmel, was born in Vienna on 19/7/1925. I lived in Vienna, Austria's capital city, with my family in the center of the city in a big building that my parents owned. Most of the apartments were rented in an Arian neighborhood. My home wasn't religious. I took a part in a Jewish youth movement "Hakoah Vienna". I was in this youth movement until the day I was banished from Vienna. I was born to my mother but my father had two other kids from another woman and their names were Gusti and Alfred. My mother's name was Gisela and my father's name was Moshe.

I was a free, happy, thirteen year old kid with a very good economic status, a bright pupil and sportsman. My parents had a lot of friends and everything was fine. In one moment the whole situation changed and it became inhuman. I was scared all the time. I was not allowed to walk on the sidewalk, I was afraid that the school would be closed and the youth group closed. In restaurants it was said:" Jews and dogs are not allowed in". My father collected all our savings and my mother began to worry. My family and I were surrounded by many problems, for example, we were not allowed to ride on the public transportation, we were not allowed to watch movies in the cinema and we were not even allowed to sit on a bench in the park.

I learnt in a Jewish school. All the teachers in this school were Jewish except for the sport's teacher who came to school one day in an S.A. uniform. At school we felt very scared.

There were many things that changed with the rise of the Nazis. For instance,   near school there was a public garden, there we played with the public school children. Every day another pupil disappeared, he was taken to a concentration camp or he escaped out of the country. We were not allowed to meet in the park or in the cinema, therefore we just met in the underground youth movement "Hashomer Hatzair" but without a uniform. In the youth movement we had lectures, dances and singing. We sang Zionist songs and we heard stories about Israel. We could talk about immigration to Israel because the Nazis allowed it. It was not allowed to talk about socialism.

My sister, Gusti, owned a fashion shop. We all rode the public transport, but she rode to work in a taxi. People were jealous of her. Before the Nazis' rise to power, the Fascist government decided to hold a referendum on whether to join with Germany. "Red, White and red to the death" was the slogan against joining Germany. The German forced Gusti to stand of all fours and clean off this slogan using a toothbrush. Gentiles stood around laughing. Two days later Gusti escaped to a farm and hid there.

My father was a flour agent. He bought flour and distributed it to bakers. One of the rules was that an Aryan could not owe money to a Jew. All the obligations of the customers were deleted but his obligation to the mill reminded. A year after the Nazis came we were banished to another apartment. A neighbor came and said he wanted our apartment. My mother laughed and then two Nazis held her by the hands outside of the window and told her she heavy, so she said she would sell the apartment for 10 schilling (approximately 1 dollar). My uncle Michael was the chairman of the Jewish community in Vienna after the war. He wanted to return to the apartment but the neighbor indicated the signed agreement from the court and he had to leave.

We got coupons for shopping and there was a law that Jews could only buy on Fridays in order not to mix with the Aryans and not to pollute the Aryans. On Fridays the stores were empty of food. Therefore my brother's girlfriend, Gartel, went to buy food for us, with the coupons in the middle of the week, she risked her life. My brother, Alfred, was in the social militia which revolted against the government. When the revolt failed, he escaped to America before the Nazis took control in Germany.

One time, when I got back from school I walked on the sidewalk although it was not allowed, and then one boy from the "Hitler-Jugend" pushed me - "Dirty Jew" he shouted at me. I punched him. The day after he waited for me with two of his friends who beat me with belts, because I had dared to touch an Aryan. That taught me a lesson, not to walk on the sidewalk.

I felt like the world had sunken into a hole. When all good ended on March 13, it went into terror. We wanted to emigrant with my family. We didn’t believe that the situation would change. We thought that this was our life from now. My father believed that the German people were philosophers and they wouldn’t do such horrible things. Our gold and jewelry were thrown into the Donau's river so the Germans wouldn’t find them in our home. We burnt all our books. After we "sold" our apartment we moved to my friend's house Frintz Linder. He lived only with his mother and my mother and I got a room and we lived with them. My father was arrested after the murder of Grinshpen Fon Ra't, the German ambassador in France. My father had beaten by the Germans and released only after he signed a paper that he would leave Austria. He moved through Czechoslovakia to Poland in 1938. It was the last time I ever saw him. When they took my mother to a transport to "Lodsz", she ran away and joined him in Chrzanov in Poland. In 1943 the Germans took all Chrzanov's Jews to Auschwitz. The last time I saw my mother was on December 30, 1939 at the train station when I made my illegal alya to Israel.

In December 1939, Ehud Avreil the head of the Jewish community in Vienna organized transport permissions for all the members of the youth movements and others on a train that went from Vienna to Bratislava and then we went on a ship called "Donau" until the Romanian border (the city of Turno-Severin). The goal was to get to the city of Solina through the Black Sea in Romania and there we would get on a ship to Israel. However, because the ship never came the Romanians blocked the way until the ship came. We stayed on the Romanian border in a transport camp for a year and a half in the city of Shabatz in Yugoslavia. Before that we spent a whole winter on the ship "Donau" which was stuck on the frozen river in Shavetz. In 1941, Ruth Kliger got permission for all the kids under 15 to go to Israel. My cousin, Lea who was older than me and didn’t get permission, stayed at the camp in Yugoslavia and was murdered. In March 1941, we traveled on the train through Yugoslavia and Greece to Turkey, Istanbul. We stayed in Istanbul for a few weeks. We got an allowance and stayed in a fancy hotel which we found out later, was because the agency couldn’t find rooms in a regular hotel, so they found a rich Jew who was an owner of a prostitute house who moved the prostitutes out of the house and we stayed there instead. From Turkey we moved by train to Syria, from there we took another train to Beirut and then we took a bus to Haifa. From Haifa we moved to a camp in Atlit.

When I was in Israel in the beginning I still got letters which were limited to 25 words, from my mother through the Red Cross. In March 1943, I got the last letter from my mother from Chrzanov. Then I understood that I would never see them again. Only when I visited Auschwitz did I understand what had happened to them when I saw the picture the Nazi's had taken of the evacuation of Chrzanov by train to Auschwitz.

When I got to Israel, I felt awful and very lonely. I knew basic Hebrew from the youth movements and from my time spent in the camp in Yugoslavia. I was confused about what I felt when I got to Israel. On the one hand I was happy that I had been rescued and was safe from the war. However, on the other hand, I felt guilty that I couldn’t save my cousin and my mother. Till today I feel like I abandoned them and that I should have tried to stay with them and find a way to save them as I was saved. 

Town:

Vienna History

In the 9 th century, Vienna became the capital city of the first Austrian republic. From the late 19^th century to 1938, the city was a centre of high culture and modernism - world capital of music, hosting composers such as Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Johann Strauss, Mozart, Beethoven and Shubert.

Austria was seen as a centre of socialism and for which it was sometime referred to as Red Vienna.

In 1938 Austria voted to annex Austria with Germany, and the German troops marched into Vienna. The annex was announced by Adolf Hitler in a speech he made from the balcony of the Neue Burg, a part of the Heldenplatz to the Austrian people. Between 1938 and the end of the World War II, Vienna lost its status as a capital to Berlin, the capital of Germany. Until 2^nd of April 1945 Vienna didn't get bombed. But then, Soviets, British and American air raids and artillery attacks between the Wermacht and the Soviet Red Army destroyed and damaged thousands of public and private buildings. Vienna fell two weeks later. Vienna was bombed 52 times and 87,000 houses were destroyed, which was 20% of the entire city. 270,000 people were left homeless.

After the battles against the Soviets in 1945 the situation in Vienna was difficult. Buildings were destroyed and the people were left with no water, electricity or gas. However, some of the buildings were rebuilt, for example, the Schwarzenberg palace. In addition, the rich Austrian helped poor people and supplied them with food.

The Jews were, of course, affected because of the war. In March 1938 Austria annexed by Nazi Germany, the Anschluss. Following the annexation Jews were chased through the streets, were forced to scrub the sidewalks and Jewish stores and apartments were pledged. Due to Nurnberg racial laws the Jews lost nearly all of their civil liberties. Many Jewish stores, factories and buildings were destroyed during the Kristallnacht. Almost all the synagogues were ruined. Before the war 130,000 Jews left Austria. The remaining Jews were killed or sent to concentration camps. From the 65,000 Jews who were deported to concentration camps only 2,000 survived. About 800 Jews, who managed to hide, survived the war.

 In the late 1980's the Austrian government began reexamining their roll in the Holocaust. In July 1991 the Austrian government finally admitted their part in the crimes which were done by the 3^rd Reich.