"I survived the war living as a Nazi"
We had just viewed the 1990 feature film ‘Europa Europa’ and were fascinated to meet its main character. In September of 2019 Perry and I, along with friends Shifra Horn and Peter Bolot, met Shlomo Perl in his Givat Ayim home. What we heard was not only an incredible tale of survival but also a fitting tribute to the establishment of the state of Israel. After the war Shlomo travelled from Munich to Jerusalem, joining the Haganah and fighting in the War of Independence. His story was also a compelling example of difficult choices made in complex and perilous times.
After a happy childhood in Germany, Shlomo’s family moved in 1935 to Lodz, Poland, following Hitler’s rise to power. He was fourteen when World War Two began. A few short months into the German occupation of Poland, Jews were forced into ghettos. Shlomo’s parents decided that he and his older brother Isaac would not enter the ghetto but would try to escape to Grodno in Eastern Poland, then ruled by the Soviets. There he lived in a Soviet orphanage.
Shlomo tells of a pivotal ‘life or death’ moment where his instinct for survival took over:
I was in the orphanage from 1939 until 1941. There was a selecting process there. The Germans gathered all of us and selected the Jews and told us where to go. They had orders not to take any Jews as war prisoners. The Jews were taken to the forest and shot. This was in Minsk.
I stood in one of the queues, where there were many thousands of Jews. I chose the longest line in order to gain some time. In the mean time I buried all of my Jewish documents. I walked step by step. My mind stopped working. My instincts were very vivid. I was sure that I would die any second.
All of a sudden I heard a German order, ‘hands up!’ - I lifted my hands. I shivered all over. I said, ‘Mummy, daddy, I don’t want to die!’ The German soldier asked me, ‘Are you a Jew?’. I remembered the farewell words of my father to me before I left home. My father said to me after praying, ‘Whatever will happen, stay Jewish and continue believing in God and God will keep you. Don’t forget who you are.’ But my mother said to me, ‘Shlomo, you have to live’.
And I recalled those memories when I stood there. To stay Jewish all the time otherwise God would desert you.
If I told him that I was Jewish, the German would shoot me. I had to choose a very fateful decision. Deciding between life and death. Deciding between the words of my father and my mother. I could choose only one. I knew I was going to die. I heard my mother’s voice, ‘Shlomo, you have to live!’ and the fear left me. I felt very secure and sure. And I said to the German, ‘I’m not a Jew. I’m an ethnic German’. He believed me.
Having convinced the Germans that he was a Russian-born German, Shlomo became a translator for a German Army unit. They gave him the nick-name Yoop. The commander adopted him as his son and Shlomo returned to Germany for training at a Hitler Youth barracks.
For three and a half years he was indoctrinated with Nazi theories which seeped into his being. He described his situation as a type of schizophrenia. ‘It was as if I was a traitor and a victim in one body’. In order to survive he had to forget that he was a Jew and he became an enthusiastic member of Hitler Youth.
He lived with the continual fear of being discovered because of his circumcision. On one occasion a German doctor who was a homosexual tried to rape him but was shocked to discover that Shlomo was Jewish. He didn’t disclose Shlomo’s secret because the revelation of his own secret would have led to certain death. They became friends.
Towards the end of the war Shlomo was mobilised to the army and sent to the war front. He became a prisoner of war to the Americans but was freed at the end of the war. He was reunited with his brother who had been in Dachau. His parents died in Lodz Ghetto and his sister died on a death march.
In Munich, an office had opened to recruit Jews for for the Haganah. Shlomo signed up. He arrived in Tel Aviv a few days after Ben Gurion’s 14 May 1948 Declaration of Statehood. He took the dusty and dangerous supply road to Jerusalem, which was under siege by the Jordanians and there fought in the War of Independence.
Many years later, Shlomo re-established contact with some of his Nazi Youth friends. He revealed that even now, when he sees the Nazi swastika and flag something of his Hitler Youth remains in him. ‘At that moment I put Shlomo aside and I become Yoop’.
