The Story of Eli Bar-Levi (Frankel)

I was born in 1926 in the City of Lodz, Poland, to Moshe and Leah Frankel – the elder boy of a traditional-religious family and, in 1930, when my sister Deborah was born, the family was extended to four members.
Economically speaking, the family was established, so our standard of living was above average. Until the 1st of September 1939 my life was routine, i.e. until lunchtime I had attended the Itzhak Katzenelson School, and twice to three times a week I had taken religious studies with a private tutor at home during the afternoon hours. The City of Lodz, in which I was born and raised, was conquered within a week by the Germans, who immediately enacted decrees that applied exclusively to the Jews.

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Eli as a child with his father - Moshe	Dvora - Eli's little sister

Our address at that time was 14 Gdanska St. Our school was immediately seized to house the Gestapo Headquarters. We the pupils were temporarily relocated to a girls' school nearby the City's central synagogue. I recall the day in which Itzhak Katzenelson had gathered us around the window to witness the synagogue going up in flames. In a chocking voice he defined what we saw: "children, this is the third destruction of the Temple", following which we had immediately dispersed and went home.

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Mother - Lea Frenkel	Mother - Lea Frenkel - on right

The next decree: concentration of all the Jews in one quarter and establishment of the Ghetto. We where housed (the entire family) in one room, without water and toilets. Our address in the Ghetto was 30 Ciesielska St. My dad got a job as a porter in a coal warehouse, my mum at the sewing workshop, and I was sent to be an assistant in a metal factory. At this stage my sister had stayed home. Since she did not go to work, she did not receive the portion of soup we received in our workplace, and so we had no other option but to share with her the portions the three of us got. We lived like this until 1942.

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Aunt Rachel Diamant Lodz resident	Uncles & cousins - Diamant family Only Chayim - second left survived

On the eve of Rosh Hashana, 11 September 1942, our parents were taken from us to our bewilderment. This was the last day I had seen my parents. My sister did not make it to the courtyard where we were sorted and selected, thus at this stage she remained in the Ghetto with a few more lonely children. I continued to work and my sister was also given a job. At this time, three cousins were directed to share the apartment (room) with us. My sister would only work half a day and during the other half she would run the "household".
In August 1944 a decision was made to abolish the Ghetto. We were gathered at our workplaces, and I was ordered to take my sister with me. One day Hans Bibow appeared and ordered to line-up everybody in a row and the selection was once again carried out. When my turn arrived to pass-by Bibow, he had directed me to the side that was designated to relocate with the factory to Germany. He was not willing to let my sister come along with me. At this stage, in a thousandth of a second, I decided not to abandon my sister and I moved to her side. We were loaded on boxcars without knowing where we were heading to. After several days of travel, we had arrived to "Birkenau". We were immediately taken out of the boxcars, women and children were separated and within seconds the selection had commenced, and I was separated from my sister, whom I have not seen since. After several days in Birkenau, I was transferred to "Aushwitz" camp to work in a factory that manufactures grenades.

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liberation certificats of Gusen & Mauthausen concentration camps

I had worked as a metal turner until the 18th of January 1945. On this day it was decided to evacuate the Camp since the Red Army was closing in.
The three weeks-long "walk of death" to Mauthausen had begun, in the course of which more than half of the walkers perished, froze to death or died of exhaustion. A week later, a small group of us were relocated to a concentration camp called Ebense, where I had worked at quarrying tunnels through the mountains. This was the most terrible camp I had experienced in the Holocaust, and from there I was transferred to Gusen. In Gusen I worked as a metal turner of gun barrels until the 5th of May 1945. on this day the Holocaust ended and the migration between the different countries had begun, until my arrival to Israel, via Cyprus, on the 15th of May 1947. 

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Migration certificat to Palestine	Permition to enter Palestine
	British I.D card
	From Holocaust to Revival Lieutenant-Colonel Eli Bar-Levi	active in "hagana"

Note: this is a summary of the experiences I had undergone from 01 September 1939 to 05 May 1945; events that left such scars on me that will never heal and perhaps had even molded my personality, and they are a "lamp unto my feet" to wherever I may turn, and in every decision I have made in my life to this very day and, insofar as it is up to me, also in the future.

Eli Bar Levi past away on the 10th September 2009. Blessed his memory.