Jakub Schreiber 1894 - 1945

Born 24.3.1894 in Brzesko
Died 3.2.1945 in Gusen

Biography

Janek (Jakub) Schreiber was a middle-class businessman who had a small shop in Kraków, where he sold leather and shoe supplies. He and his cherished wife, Adela Finder Schreiber (who also perished at the hands of the Nazis), lived in a modest but comfortable apartment on Kazimierz in the Jewish section of the city with Sonia and her older sister Blanca. Sonia noted: "My father and his family were city people - beautiful, sophisticated, and elegant."

In 1940, midst growing concerns, the Schreibers left Kraków for Tarnów, where part of Jakub's family lived. Eventually, most of his family was killed in Tarnów, including his four brothers and their spouses, nieces, nephews, and his mother Rachael. One family member was hacked to death in a public square.

In March 1941, Jakub and his family returned to Kraków, only to be forced into the ghetto. In October 1942, Jakub's wife Adela, battling bad health, was selected for the transports. Although a clever plan almost saved her, soon after, Adela Finder Schreiber was placed on a transport. She was taken to Belzec and did not survive.

Jakub then became father and mother to his daughters, especially his younger daughter Sonia.

In March, 1943, Jakub, Sonia, Blanca, and Blanca's husband Norbert were forced into Plaszów. Although separated into men's and women's quarters, Sonia often snuck in to see her dear father Jakub. In a particularly haunting poem, 'Victory,' she described her experience of dancing with her father in his barracks as a teenaged boy defied the odds and played a forbidden harmonica. She wrote:

I danced with you that one time only.
How sad you were, how tired, lonely...
You knew that they would 'take' you soon...
So when your bunk mate played a tune
You whispered: "little one, let us dance,
We may not have another chance."

To grasp his moment... sense the mood;
Your arms around me felt so good...
The ugly barracks disappeared
There was no hunger... and no fear.
Oh what a sight, just you and I,
My lovely father (once big and strong)
And me, a child... condemned to die.

I thought: how long
before the song
must end

There are no tools
to measure love
and only fools

Would fail
to scale
your victory.

Sonia and Blanca were then sent to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Venusberg, also surviving multiple Death Marches and cattle car transports. In April, 1945, both battling typhus, the two sisters ended up in Mauthausen.

May 1945 brought the liberation of Mauthausen. After liberation, their horrified realization of being staatenlos was tempered by being reunited with Blanca's husband, Norbert, at the displaced persons camp, Camp Hart, near Linz.

Norbert was forced to break the news that he and Jakub had both been in Mauthausen. However, several weeks before its liberation, approximately the same time that Sonia and Blanca arrived, Jakub Schreiber was beaten by a Ukrainian Kapo, who was infuriated that Jakub had been unable to work. One day, this particular Kapo beat Jakub savagely with a chair until he was unconscious. Then, determined to make sure of Jakob's death, he threw Sonia and Blanca's beloved father into a barrel of water.

Although liberation had finally come, for Jakub and countless other innocent humans, it was not soon enough.

From:

'I Promised I Would Tell' by Sonia Schreiber Weitz, Facing History; Facing Ourselves, 2004.

Jakub Schreiber 1894 - 1945

Biography

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