The Life of Srulek "Jack" Feldman

I was born on January 1,1926 in Skarzysko-Kamienna, Poland to Szaja Feldman and Matla (nee Cukier) Feldman.show me
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Shortly after my birth, my parents, sister and I moved to Sosnowiec Poland.
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My father was a cap maker and owned a store in our home on Modrzejowska street at the corner of Dekarta in Sosnowiec.show me
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I had a younger brother Szulim Hersh and an older sister Sura Laja. My father was one of seven children. My paternal grandparents and all of my father’s siblings and their families lived in Skaryzsko-Kamienna.show me

My parents believed strongly in education.
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Therefore, I attended school each day and following school, I had an English tutor, a German tutor and a Hebrew tutor who came to the house.
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I lived a very comfortable life and remember having a maid that helped us around the house. I loved to play soccer with my friends.

I attended Shul on Dekarta street and had my Bar Mitzvah there before the war broke out.The Shul (Synagogue) was right on our street. We could walk to it and we went every Friday and Saturday. My mom would light candles and bake a challah for Shabbat. She would always cook a meal of fish, soup and chicken. We would help other people who did not have food. We would build a Sukkah each year and invite guests to join us. On Hannukah we placed a menorah in our window. On the High Holidays, we dressed up nice and went to temple. On Passover, we had about 25 family members join us for a seder. 
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My favorite place to visit before the war was Skarzysko.
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I was visiting my aunts and uncles and cousins in Skarzysko-Kamienna when war broke out in 1939.
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I was staying with my Aunt Merle (nee Feldman) and Uncle Mozek Cukier and cousins, Nuchym, Esther, and Sura Laja.
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I remember my aunt Merle Cukier taking the handle off her door and hiding diamonds, from her store, in it.
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Eventually I was able to safely make my way back to my home in Sosnowiec. However, everything started to change, and I could no longer attend school because I was Jewish. I had to wear a Jewish Star. In the 1940's, the Ukrainians came into our home and took jewelry , money, china and anything they wanted. I remember my dad sending money to my Aunt Merle Cukier in Skarzysko- Kamienna because Skarzysko was a smaller town and my dad thought it would be safer to hide our money there.

On April 1, 1940, my father’s cap business was taken over by a German Trueshandler. The Nazi’s forced my dad and me to work for my dad’s cap company now taken over by Nazi’s- and for no pay.
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When Germans occupied Sosnowiec, they appointed trustees (Trueshandlers) to take over an operate Jewish businesses. Often times, the Jewish business owners became employed by the Trueshandlers for no pay. The Trueshandlers instead paid money to the Jewish Judenrat, which in turn was supposed to use this to support the employees with food rations. show me

Eventually, my family was forced to leave our beautiful home and move to a one room apartment with 15 other people in the Ghetto in Sosnowiec. The Nazi’s issued an order that forced my family (Rachmil,Szaja, Matle, Israel (me) and my brother Shulim Hersz to move out of our beautiful home at 27 Modrzejowska to the Ghetto to 3 Holzzelle to a one room apartment with 15 other people. show meask jack

One day when I was in the Ghetto and walking with some boys, a wagon pulled up and grabbed me and took me away. I was thrown into a basement of a building and locked up to await transport to a series of Nazi labor and death camps.
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I remember that my father came to the window in the room I was locked in and told me “you are young, you will survive, you can work. We don’t know what will happen to us.” And he was right, I never saw my parents and siblings again.
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I was 14 years old. I was sent to Bergen Belsen, Buchenwald, Annaberg, Fallsbruck, Gleiwitz, Ludwigsdorf and ultimately Auschwitz Birkenau.  I remember digging holes at these various camps. I don’t know what we were digging for but we were forced to dig holes.
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In Fallsbruck, I received a package from my dad containing a hat.ask jack

My dad did a lot of business with the German people before the war and had some connections and this is how I think I was probably able to receive the package.
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I knew that there was a secret spot in the brim of the hat that my dad had sewed money into, as I saw my dad do this for other people early on in the war. I opened the brim of the hat and took out the money and gave it to the head man, who gave me extra food. This extra food helped me survive.

Once the Ludwigsdorf Mens concentration camp shut down, the Nazis sent me on a cattle car to Auschwitz.
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I arrived at Auschwitz on July 23, 1944.
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I arrived in a transport full of 455 men. 370 men from the transport were sent directly to the gas chambers. 85 men were admitted to the camp and tattooed numbers A-17592 through 17676 on their arms.

When I got off the train, Mengele pointed for me to go into the line for the gas chambers but a Kapo (who happen to be a man who worked for my father at the hat company before the war) pulled me out of the gas chamber line and sent me to the work line. show me
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I was admitted to Auschwitz-Birkenau and the number A-17606 was tattooed onto my arm.
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The Kapo who pulled me out of line also assigned me an extra job at Auschwitz-Birkenau of cleaning the Block Elders room. The block elder was a non Jewish pole who was a political prisoner and from Krakow originally. I believe this extra job saved my life as I was able to eat the extra scraps of food he found while cleaning the Block Elders room. 

The Kapo at my block always brought back a lot of diamonds and jewelry from “Canada” and hid them under the stove in our Block.
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One day at Auschwitz I was very sick and was sent to the infirmary. I appeared on the register of prisoners hospital in Birkenau BII, Block 15 on September 28, 1944. Miraculously, my father’s friend who was a Kapo at Auschwitz pulled me out of the hospital and saved me from being sent to the gas chamber. show me

I was never liberated from Auschwitz-Birkenau. On January 17, 1945, as the Russians were approaching Auschwitz, I, along with the other prisoners, were forced on a death march. I marched through the winter of 1945 from January 17 until May 5, from Poland to Germany.
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During the death march, the Block Elder made me carry the bag of jewels he had stolen from prisoners sent to the gas chambers.
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I don’t know where he disappeared to after the war, but the Block Elder did survive.

I was liberated on May 5, 1945 in Germany. By then, I was 19 years old. In those teenage years, I witnessed some of the worst atrocities perpetrated by mankind. 
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After liberation I made my way back to my hometown only to learn that none of the members of my immediate family survived. I tried to get into my old house to collect any of my belongings if they were still there but the residents living in the house did not allow me to take anything.
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I did find a friend, Heime Rappaport and his wife Fela, who let me stay with them in Sosnowiec. Heime’s wife didn’t look Jewish and she worked as a housekeeper for a Nazi during the war and hid Heime in the attic of the house. Once the war was over, the Nazi fled and Heime and Fela lived in the house. show me

I then went to Skarzysko-Kamiena to inquire whether any of my extended family had survived. I found my cousins Charlie, Esther and Sara and my future bride Sala.

After a pogrom, I decided to sell my future bride Sally Herszenfus' home and move to the displaced person camp. We sold the home for the equivalent of $300.

Afterwards, my relatives and I made our way to Germany to the Feldafing displaced persons “DP” camp. show me

In the DP camp, I fell in love and married Sally in October of 1945. My cousin Esther Feldman and Hannah Wandersman’s brother in law organized the wedding for us. A person from my hometown organized the wine at the wedding and we had three Rabbis marry us.

Shortly after my wedding, my best friend Maury Morgan and I climbed over the alps into Italy and bought a lot of watches and came back to sell them on the black market. I would also buy old Mercedes with Maury and we would fix them up and sell them. Maury and I were very successful and had so much fun together at this time. show me

While living in Germany, my wife and I had a son and we named him after our parents Szaja Haskiel.
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We lived in Waiblingen at 40 Christofstr. We lived in Dr. Sinn’s house show me

In 1949, I brought my wife and son to the USA on the Marine Flasher. We were sponsored by Moniek Berkowitz and his brother. show me ask jack

We settled in Rochester, New York. In Rochester, my wife and I gave birth to two additional children, Irving and Rochelle.

We opened a fish market.
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Several people would come into the market saying that they were starving and didn’t have any money to pay for the fish. Because, I knew what hunger was, I would feed anyone who needed food for free. The community loved me.
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In 1961 in Israel, Adolf Eichmann was tried on 15 counts including crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and membership in a hostile organization. This was the first trial to be videotaped and as such brought the Nazi atrocities to the forefront of world news. To that end, my wife Sally and I and other Rochester Holocaust Survivors were interviewed about our experiences and feelings during the Eichmann trial. show me

During the 1964 race riots in downtown Rochester, Jack’s Fish Market was one of the only stores left untouched. The community protected my store because I was so good to the community. show me ask jack

In 2006, I was shot during a robbery at the Fish Market. However, I was once again resilient and continued to give to the community. show me

In 2015 I was invited by President Obama to attend the White House Hannukah party with my granddaughter Stacey Saiontz.
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In 2019, I was asked by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to light a candle in honor of the six million during the annual Days of Remembrance Ceremony in the US Capitol. show me

HBO created a documentary on my story of survival entitled “The Number on Great Grandpa’s Arm.” show me

I am the proud father of three children, grandfather of six grandchildren, and great-grandfather of eight great-grandchildren. show me

Just 10 days before his 96th birthday, Jack passed away after enjoying his last meal of fish show me