"I often used to wake the children in the middle of the night, to check if they remembered their new names even when half asleep. I would repeat over and over again that no one could know that we were Jewish." Branda Pluczenik-Schor
Originally from Krakow, Branda Pluczenik-Schor survived the Holocaust living under a false identity in Budapest together with her husband and daughters. Brenda's parents were murdered. The story of the Pluczenik-Schor family is just one of the many stories presented in a new online exhibition, entitled "Remember Your New Name: Surviving the Holocaust Under a False Identity."
Throughout the Holocaust period, in the shadow of persecution at the hands of the Nazi regime, many Jews tried to save themselves and their families using forged papers that provided them with false identities.
These were, in the main, Jews who were fluent and accurate in the range of dialects, culture and customs of the area in which they were trying to survive. Sometimes they chose names close to their original one, and occasionally they acquired already existing identities. They had to practice their new names and back stories until they were perfect, and in particular, to conceal their terror and pain.
The Jews with assumed identities took refuge on the "Aryan side," in basements and in attics, in labor camps, on agricultural estates and in factories that labored for the German war effort. Some remained in their places of birth, and others stole across foreign borders where they presented themselves as refugees or seeking work.
One of the narratives in the exhibition tells the tragic tale of Ida Krayz (Pinkert). Her young son Welwele was murdered together with his grandmother in Babi Yar in September 1941. Ida wandered alone, brokenhearted, between villages and towns under an assumed Ukrainian identity. She was in perpetual danger of being discovered, and turned over to the Germans. Once she posed as a doctor; another time as a seamstress. "My bedding was the field and the forest," she related in her testimony, "and my sustenance consisted of sorrow and lice." On one occasion, she was caught and sent to a camp where she received a document testifying to her status as a POW by the name of Lidia Wladimirowna Tyszczenko. She joined the partisans, and managed to cross enemy lines into the Soviet Union. Her husband was killed fighting in the Red Army.
For many Jews living under assumed identities, this was a daily battle for survival in a hostile environment, which required resourcefulness and the ability to adjust to constantly shifting circumstances. They lived in perpetual fear of all people and places, and made every effort to make themselves invisible. Mistakes were not an option.
They memorized the Christian prayers, and were forced to renounce their religion and mother-tongue, often changing their hair color and trying to erase all signs of Jewish identity.
In many cases, they were helped by non-Jews, some of whom were paid for their services. There were those who took advantage of their situation and blackmailed them. Some offered them assistance without knowing they were Jewish, while others knew they were Jews and helped them anyway for no monetary gain and at risk to their own lives (these were eventually recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations).
Jews under assumed identities were also helped by members of Jewish underground movements, who worked tirelessly on behalf of their brethren, finding them hiding places and food, and equipping them with forged documents, including ID cards, birth certificates, food coupons and travel permits. The owners of assumed identities did not always make it until liberation, and often certain family members were discovered while others survived.
One example of this is the heartbreaking story of Isaac and Ida (née Yacoel) Angel and their two sons, Raymond and Eric. Hailing from Thessaloniki, the family spent the war years living under assumed identities in a number of locations across Athens. Ida and nine-year-old Eric were arrested after an informant betrayed them to the Gestapo. After Ida was brutally tortured, they were sent to the Haidari transit camp, and from there deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in April 1944. Eric was murdered on arrival; Ida survived and was eventually liberated in Bergen-Belsen. After she recuperated, she returned to Greece, where she was reunited with Isaac and Raymond.
All the stories in the exhibition are based on documents from the Yad Vashem Archives, and material from Yad Vashem's various databases and collections: personal documents, testimonies, photographs, Pages of Testimony, artworks, archival footage, and more. The forged documents were donated to Yad Vashem by survivors and their families, and bring to light incredible stories of survival under unimaginable conditions, through an astonishing display of sheer determination, creativity, resourcefulness, courage and sacrifice.
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 97.
