Disrupted Childhood

“My family lived in Poland, in a city called Sandomierz,” Dr. Nusbaum relates. “In Yiddish, it was called ‘Tzoizmer.’”  Around 25 percent of Sandomierz’s population of 10,000 was Jewish and the community’s origins go all the way back to the 13th century. “It was a substantial community,” Dr. Nusbaum comments, “and the Nussbaum family was one of its prominent members.” (The name was Nussbaum then. Later, Dr. Nusbaum dropped an “s.”) Dr. Nusbaum’s father and grandfather were community leaders. “They would sit at the front of the shul,” he recalls.

Dr. Nusbaum’s father, Mr. Avrohom (Avrumche) Nussbaum, ran several businesses, including an electrical company which held contracts with the Polish military.

Ultimately, the stature of leadership would work against them. Shloimeleh Nussbaum, as Dr. Nusbaum was known then, was only four years old when the world turned upside down.

“The Germans occupied Tzoizmer some two or three weeks after invading Poland. The most immediate threat was to the more prominent members of the community because the Nazis’ philosophy was ‘get rid of the leaders first.’ That way,” he says, “there would be less likelihood of resistance.”

In April of 1940, as Avrumche Nussbaum was on his way home from shul along with two other community members, he was arrested and taken to the local prison. But it wasn’t yet a final goodbye. For the initial few weeks of his imprisonment, Mr. Nussbaum was allowed to see visitors.

“My brother and I were allowed to see my father in jail,” Dr. Nusbaum recalls. “We would bring him kosher food to eat.” But that was short-lived. “Shortly thereafter, he was taken to a concentration camp. I don’t know recall the name, but he would send us letters and they were stamped ‘Ravensbrück’.  [Ravensbrück was a concentration camp in Northern Germany, exclusively for women. The camp Dr. Nusbaum’s father was in must have been a sub-camp of Ravensbrück.] And then, somewhat later, he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp.”

Some months later, a letter came in the mail, addressed to Mrs. Nussbaum. “We regret to inform you,” it stated in German, “that Mr. Nussbaum has succumbed to his illness.” Along with the letter came some of Avrohom Nussbaum’s clothing, his watch, and some other personal belongings.

“In the fall of 1942, we saw that the Germans were building a ghetto in Tzoizmer,” Dr. Nusbaum recalls. “We could see the writing on the wall. We knew we had to leave.”

Because their father had extensive business dealings, the Nussbaums had numerous non-Jewish connections. “Through my father’s business relationships, and notwithstanding his absence, we were able to arrange a hideout in the home of a family living on the Aryan side of Warsaw.” The hideout would be limited to a secret room, hidden behind a clothing closet. It was approximately six feet wide and 15 feet long. “Seven people hid in that room. My mother, my brother, me, an aunt, uncle, and cousin, along with a seventh person, whose name I don’t recall.”

Dr. Nusbaum is forever grateful to the family who housed them, as it came with great sacrifice. “Had the Germans found out, the family wouldn’t simply have gotten a fine. The entire building would have been razed and all of its residents killed.”

That said, the stay wasn’t free of charge. “They charged us rent, and that rent would go up as the danger increased.”

Obviously, Mrs. Nussbaum didn’t have any flow of income at that time and so she came up with a creative method of making the monthly payments. “My mother had a diamond necklace hidden in the heel of her shoe. Each month, she would break off a diamond and hand it over to the landlords. That’s how we paid the rent.”

There’s not much Dr. Nusbaum remembers from the months in the cramped room – there was nothing to do and nowhere to go – but the one thing he does recall is the fear.

“There was constant fear of being found. If we had to cough, we would cover our mouths with a pillow. The room we were in wasn’t by any means soundproof and, if the neighboring Poles suspected that Jews were hiding nearby, they would be more than happy to report us to the Germans. In fact, they would be rewarded for doing so.”

At night, the group was allowed to exit the false room and quietly creep toward a nearby window, heads ducked low so as not to be seen from the outside, to get some fresh air.

And then came the night when the air was no longer fresh. “We saw the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto,” says Dr. Nusbaum. “We were just a few kilometers away. From April 19 until May 16, 1943, we could see the flames, hear the cannon fire and smell the awful scent of burning buildings.”

Dr. Nusbaum and his family were privy to various news updates. “I had an aunt, Frumche, who was blonde and blue-eyed. She could pass as a Pole and so was free to walk the streets. Periodically, at night, she would secretly visit us and inform us of what was going on.”

After the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, the news went from bad to terrible. At this point, the family would do anything, at any cost, for a chance of survival. One day, they learned of a rumor that was spreading through the hidden community of Jews secreted in Aryan Warsaw. In an effort to free Germans trapped in foreign countries, the Nazis wished to identify foreign nationals located in Germany whom they could use as pawns for a prisoner swap. To make matters more efficient, the Germans were selling foreign passports to anyone interested in buying them – even Jews. “The Nazis’ reasoning was that, once you had a passport of a foreign country, be it Great Britain, Uruguay, Honduras, or Palestine, they could use you for a prisoner exchange for German citizens trapped in those respective countries. These exchanged Germans could then join the Nazis and help with the war effort.”

The beleaguered Jews didn’t know what to think. It seemed like a ray of hope and a possible chance at survival, but was it too good to be true?

“It didn’t make any sense,” Dr. Nusbaum reflects. “On the one hand, they’re killing Jews everywhere, while on the other hand, they’re willing to hand out passports that would grant Jews freedom and entry into foreign countries.”

The Nussbaums knew that the risk was enormous, but there seemed to be little alternative. “Things were getting so bad; we felt we had no choice,” Dr. Nusbaum explains.

The rumor was that the passports were being sold in the Hotel Polski located at 29 Długa Street. And so, after an approximate seven months in the stifling hideout, the Nussbaum family bid their rescuers farewell and headed for the Hotel Polski.

“When we got there, pandemonium reigned,” Dr. Nusbaum describes. “Hundreds of people were clambering to purchase passports. And there was a hierarchy of passports based on the safety of the country it displayed. Latin American passports were considered to be the best, and British ones were very good as well.”

The Nussbaums managed to purchase passports into Palestine. “Passports into Palestine were the cheapest as they were considered to hold the least value. As it turned out, they ended up having more value than any other,” says Dr. Nusbaum.

The passports came from varying sources.

“Many of the passports being sold were fake, particularly the Latin American ones.  These had been sent by Holocaust rescuers who were working to send falsified papers to help Jews escape occupied Europe. I assume the Nazis were initially fooled into thinking they were real. However, the Palestinian ones were real, bona fide, passports.”

These passports contained photo identification but, miraculously, this turned out not to be a problem. “One passport contained a picture of a woman whose name was Mrs. Helene Moskowitz. Remarkably, she looked very much like my mother. The other was a passport of her son who looked very much like me.”

The first name of the boy depicted in the passport was “Marek.”

“I took on that name, and that’s how I became Mark,” says Dr. Nusbaum.

Alternate Reality

The Nussbaums now held the coveted passports that would miraculously lead them away from the evolving peril. According to the original plan, the Nazis should have shipped the Nussbaums off to Palestine in exchange for trapped Germans but, bewilderingly, that never happened. “The Nazis placed us on a train – not a cattle car but an actual passenger train – and sent us off to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, although we initially did not know where we were going.”

It was now the summer of 1943. There were thousands of prisoners being held in Bergen-Belsen, but the Nussbaums, along with the others on the train, were led to a segregated area, surrounded by its own double-layered barbed-wire fence. The group wouldn’t have known it but this, in fact, was the initial purpose of Bergen- Belsen’s construction. Established in April of 1943, it was originally intended to hold hostages of the SS in exchange for German citizens being held abroad.

“We could tell that we were being treated differently,” Dr. Nusbaum remembers. “We weren’t made to wear the usual striped uniform nor did we have to work.” But they were well aware of what went on beyond their own enclosure of barbed wire. “We could see piles of emaciated corpses and, when the wind would blow in our direction, there would be a terrible stench.”

While they weren’t subject to forced labor, their living conditions were harsh, and they were always hungry. The Nazis would hold frequent appels, lineups for the Jews to be counted, both in blazing hot weather as well as the frigid cold.

Dr. Nusbaum does recall some respite from the suffering. “Because we had ‘special status,’ the Red Cross – I am unsure if it was Swiss or Swedish – once came to check up on us. The Nazis wanted to present us as being well looked after and so, prior to the visit, they gave us chocolate, candies, and blankets. Interestingly, they didn’t confiscate them once the visit was over.”

There were several thousand people kept in this designated section of Bergen-Belsen but Dr. Nusbaum recalls how that number could drop in an instant.

“The Nazis would walk in, select a specific group of people and have them taken away. Most likely these were holders of fake South American passports. The Nazis somehow found out that these were false and therefore would no longer accommodate them as viable subjects for a prisoner swap. I don’t know where they were taken to, but presumably it was Auschwitz.”

Since they did not have to work, they had plenty of time on their hands. “Clubs were formed,” says Dr. Nusbaum. “There was an economic club, a political club, a literature club, and several others.”

The children had their own way of keeping busy. “We played soccer, marbles, hop scotch, and hurdles (jumping over the head of the one bent over in front of you).”

Dr. Nusbaum’s mother would tutor him, in a morbid “homeschooling” of sorts. “My mother a”h would read to me and teach me basic math,” he says. “It was very much a labor of love.

“I would also make drawings,” Dr. Nusbaum recalls. “I once drew a picture of one of the guards that actually looked like him. I thought I could become a great artist, but it turned out to be a fluke – I couldn’t repeat my masterpiece.”

While their conditions didn’t seem life-threatening, the worst was always on their mind.

“My mother would constantly remind me, ‘Remember. You have two uncles in Toronto, Pinchas and Sam Landau. They live at 452 Euclid Avenue. If anything happens to me, go to your uncles in Toronto.’”

The group’s insular camp was surrounded by two separate barbed-wire fences, some ten to 15 feet apart. Nazi soldiers would walk between them, holding vicious dogs on leashes. I assume this was to ensure we didn’t escape, or perhaps simply to intimidate us.”

There was a building nearby with a chimney but, when asked, Dr. Nusbaum’s mother would never tell him what it was – nor would she explain the source of the smoke emanating from it. But explanations weren’t necessary. “There were piles of skeletons right outside our perimeter, which at times decreased in size,” Dr. Nusbaum says, “but we had very little to do with the larger Bergen-Belsen camp. We were just able to see that we were a lot better off than they were.”

Danger and Rescue

The frigid winter of 1945 dragged on, but even if they couldn’t see it, the people sensed that something was changing. “We noticed that the Nazis were being generally less ruthless,” says Dr. Nusbaum. But the first real signal of change was when an American fighter plane somehow managed to damage  the chimney of the crematorium, rendering it useless.

On April 6th, 1945, an order was issued. All the members of the isolated camp where the Nussbaums were kept had to line up and board a train.

“We didn’t know where we were being taken to,” Dr. Nusbaum recalls, “but we followed orders. We packed some of our belongings and began filing out toward the nearby Celle Railroad station. There were some who couldn’t make it, and the Nazis disposed of them.”

The train whisked the approximate 2,500 passengers away to an unknown destination – which they later learned was likely Theresienstadt, a concentration camp located in the northwest region of Bohemia.

“We were being guarded by some dozen Nazi soldiers,” Dr. Nusbaum recalls. “Interestingly, they seemed much older than the Nazis we were accustomed to seeing. Their rifles seemed older as well. It seemed that these were German soldiers who had fought in World War I and were recruited to join in the military mission.”

The soldier in charge was somewhat younger and seemed to be an officer. “He wore a pristine light blue SS Air Force uniform bedecked with gold epaulets, and he had tall, shiny black boots,” recalls Dr. Nusbaum.

The train traveled for several days. “We knew neither the purpose nor direction of our journey,” Dr. Nusbaum reflects, “but what we did see was that, for some reason, our train took precedence over every other German train – even military trains transporting weapons or wounded soldiers. Our train was given preference over all of them.”

Then, on the night of April 12th, the train stopped. “We were in a valley and the night was lit up by a barrage of artillery fire. American troops had confronted the German troops stationed nearby, and they fought through the night.”

The fighting ultimately stilled and dawn broke with an eerie silence.

“The next morning, all was quiet,” Dr. Nusbaum continues. “The Nazis ordered us out of the train and lined us up. They began to count us. Our group didn’t understand what was transpiring, but later we learned of their diabolical orders and intentions.”

After hearing of the confrontation with US troops, some of the older Nazis fled while the ones who remained had apparently been ordered not to continue their journey to Theresienstadt. Rather, in a final attempt to carry out their barbarous objective, they were to take the Jews to the Elbe River.

“The river was a few kilometers away from where we were,” Dr. Nusbaum explains. “Their orders were to take us there, shoot us, and drown us. And you know, we were some 2,500 and we were being led by some dozen middle-aged soldiers. We surely could have overcome them. But no one thought of rebelling. It was a true slave mentality.

“We were being lined up, counted, and about to head toward the Elbe River, when, suddenly, a US tank arrived. American soldiers appeared, and suddenly, we were liberated. The euphoria that broke out was unbelievable. Some of the Nazi soldiers quickly surrendered, while some ran away, and others changed into civilian clothing. With their World War I rifles, they were no match for a US tank.

“As soon as we were liberated, a few of the younger men grabbed some shovels and sticks and tried to attack the Nazi officer in charge – the one in the light blue uniform. But the older men held them back. ‘This is not the way we act,’ they insisted.”

Dr. Nusbaum recalls how the American troops informed them that, the night prior, President Roosevelt had passed away. “We were under the impression that he was our friend. Some even cried upon hearing the news.

“Later,” says Dr. Nusbaum, “I heard that one American tank commander named Sgt. Abe Cohen revealed a Magen Dovid necklace and showed it to the newly liberated Jews as he cried out, ‘Ich bin oichet a Yid – I am also a Jew!’”

The Americans began handing out chocolates and chewing gum. “We didn’t know what to do with the gum,” Dr. Nusbaum laughs, “and they had to demonstrate by chomping their jaws.” The generous gesture had some negative results. “Many got sick, as their digestive systems were not used to the new diet.”

On Safer Shores

It’s been many years since that fateful train ride but, on August 2, 2023, it all came back to life. “The video was made known to me by a former patient, Mr. Noam Goodman,” Dr. Nusbaum says. “I was hit with a flood of memories, both good and bad. But I was also hit with a sense of hakaras hatov that we were saved just in the nick of time. I had hakaras hatov to Sergeant Abe Cohen and the US platoon but, above all, to the Ribbono shel Olam for the kindness He bestowed upon me and, indeed, on all 2,500 of us.”

The Jews were freed, but their journey was not over – they were still in the valley with nowhere to go.

“The Americans forcibly requisitioned a nearby town called Hillersleben, which was where many German military personnel lived. The residents were evicted, and we took over their apartments. They were like palaces compared to what we had just gone through.

“The children of the German families had tremendous toys,” Dr. Nusbaum recalls. “They had German lead soldiers, tanks, and planes. There was a hierarchy of soldiers and officers. Goering and Himmler were very valuable, but Hitler was, naturally, the most so. You would need to exchange 20 or 30 high-ranking German officers for one Hitler.”

A few months passed. Having been endowed with the gift of freedom, the 2,500 Jews began to go their separate ways to pursue new lives with invigorated hopes.

“The older boys within our group joined the Hachshara [a youth aliyah movement] and went to Palestine, my brother Aaron among them,” Dr. Nusbaum says.

Dr. Nusbaum and his mother were sent off to Antwerp, Belgium, where his mother enrolled him in the Tachkemoni Hebrew school, located on 22 Langeleim Strasse.

By this point, Dr. Nusbaum had seen his fair share of miracles, but he now experienced a personal one. “I was learning Flemish and Lashon Hakodesh along with a smattering of French, but my mother wanted me to learn French quickly and well,” he says, “and so she sent me to a French summer camp in Knokke which was located by the North Sea.” One day, the instructor said something in French, and all the children raised their hands. Young Mark (his name switched from “Marek” to “Mark” upon arriving in Belgium) didn’t want to stand out, so he raised his hand as well. The instructor nodded and began to lead the group to a pier by the sea. “Then I understood – he was asking if we knew how to swim. They all apparently did but I did not!”

The group stood huddled together on the pier but a strong wind came and swept Mark off. “I was drowning but, for some reason, stuck out my hand — out of sheer desperation, I guess. Out of nowhere, a hand grabbed me and pulled me out.”

Dr. Nusbaum doesn’t know whose hand it was – but, in a way, he does. He points upward. “It was surely the Hand of the Ribbono shel Olam,” he says. “That was my ‘French immersion course.’”

While in Antwerp, Mrs. Nussbaum was introduced to a fine gentleman and fellow Bergen-Belsen survivor named Yechiel Elbaum, and the two were soon married. But, as a condition of their marriage, Mrs. Nussbaum stipulated that when the opportunity arose, they would move to Toronto where her two brothers lived.

Mark’s two Toronto uncles were eventually able to arrange for the proper papers to be issued, and soon Mark, along with his mother and stepfather, took a boat from Belgium to Southampton, a port city on England’s south coast. From there, they boarded an ocean liner “Ascania,” which had formerly been a military transport boat, and headed due west toward Canada.

“We arrived in Halifax on May 15, 1948. My two uncles were there to greet us. They were holding a big sign stating, “The State of Israel is born.” This was the day following Israel’s declaration of independence. From Halifax, they took a night train to Toronto.

Finding Peace

The years passed. Mark learned English and excelled in school and in sports, as well as attending the Brunswick Talmud Torah. Upon graduating high school, he decided to pursue dentistry as a career, applying to the University of Toronto and receiving one of its limited slots for Jewish students.

“I really wanted to become an aeronautical engineer,” says Dr. Nusbaum, “but my mother pointed out how keeping Shabbos would be a great challenge in any aeronautics position.”

While in university, he was introduced to a young lady named Edith Judah and, on June 28, 1960, the two were married. They settled in Toronto where Dr. Nusbaum obtained a position working as an associate for a local shomer Shabbos dentist, Dr. Norman Shaul. The Nusbaums went on to raise four children.

In terms of his profession, Dr. Nusbaum’s trajectory took a spin.

His wife’s brother, Arthur Judah, initially formed a company called Continental Watch Importing Co. But, in 1970, he passed away suddenly at the young age of 39, leaving the thriving business in need of new leadership. After some deliberation, Dr. Nusbaum decided to limit his dentistry to part-time, treating patients two days a week, while working at Continental Watch for the other three. Over time, the business grew, and eventually the name was changed to Continental-Wide Enterprises Ltd. In 2000, Dr. Nusbaum retired from dentistry and dedicated himself entirely to the business, although he kept up a relationship with the world of dentistry by delivering lectures in business at the Faculty of Dentistry in the University of Toronto.

In January of 2015, Mrs. Edith Nusbaum (called “Butzi” by the grandchildren) passed away, leaving behind a legacy of personal accomplishments and loving descendants.

Some 16 months later, on March 6th, 2016, Dr. Nusbaum married Mrs. Janine Weinstock (née Kuhl) – a former dental patient. (“I knew her inside-out,” Dr. Nusbaum laughs, “I had her dental X-rays.”)

His current wife is the daughter of Dr. Julius Kuhl, a legendary Holocaust rescue hero who had worked as consul in the Legation of Free Poland in Switzerland. He used his political connections to procure false Latin American passports to help rescue hundreds, possibly thousands, of Jews trapped in occupied Europe.

“Who knows,” says Dr. Nusbaum, “perhaps some of those passports were those being sold at the Hotel Polski.”

Nothing for Granted

For Dr. Nusbaum, his family is part of the journey, a chapter of pride and joy in a book which has told of so much pain.

Now, something flickers in Dr. Nusbaum’s eye. He points to a family picture on his desk – Dr. Nusbaum along with too many people to identify; his wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

“Hitler would be turning in his grave if he could see this,” he says. “My children and grandchildren are all shomer Shabbos. They all went to various yeshivos, either in Canada, the US, or Israel.” Some of the Nusbaum grandchildren, such as Ariel, and his younger brother, Adin, joined a hesder yeshivah and are serving in the IDF.

Several other Nusbaum descendants have gone into dentistry or other areas of medicine.

Dr. Nusbaum doesn’t take these blessings for granted; looking at the familiar black-and-white images depicted on the silent screen, he now sees the glimmers of hope and Providence interlaced throughout.

I think back to the moment Ariel entered the office.

Those tears were some 80 years in the making.

The love comes from the conquest of those who know only hatred.

And today he blesses the grandson who never would have come to be.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 993)