The Letters My Grandmother Received From Auschwitz

Meanwhile, Avram’s letters slowed and then stopped. Fernande waited anxiously. She knew Blechhammer had been liberated. She watched other neighbors return. Still, no word.

It turns out Avram had survived not only Blechhammer but a two-week death march through the German winter. He passed through Gross-Rosen, then Buchenwald, and finally arrived at Ohrdruf, a subcamp where they were building a grand underground bunker system to hide the Fuhrer. There, Avram’s number was recorded on an infirmary card, just days before American troops liberated the camp.

Ohrdruf was the first Nazi camp encountered by General Eisenhower. When he saw it, he summoned the press. “I made the visit deliberately,” he wrote, “in order to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.”

Avram didn’t make it. As the Americans approached, SS guards lined up the prisoners and opened fire. Some survived by falling to the ground. But he was killed.