by Danny Kuhn

​In researching his own family history, Hi’s Eye staffer Danny Kuhn met with Ernest Michel, a holocaust survivor and prominent Jewish reporter. A friend of Kuhn’s great uncle, Michel provided Hi’s Eye with his perspectives and experiences.

Six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Mr. Ernest Michel was a Jewish teenager who grew up in Germany and was able to escape with his life during the Holocaust, but not from the horrors he witnessed or from the pain of losing loved ones. Now 90 years old, he reflected on his life and his impact on the Jewish community.

Michel said: “My father, my mother, my aunts — all killed. I was lucky to survive. How? Nobody knows…That anybody survived is a miracle. An absolute miracle.”

The Holocaust

Michel remembers being in school when Hitler came to power in 1933. He was only a 10-year-old boy and had no understanding of what Hitler’s rise meant or what was to come. “Hitler said the Jews would never be able to go to school again,” said Michel.

According to Michel, the changes occurred instantly. Michel said: “I used to play soccer with my two best friends, both whom were not Jewish. One day, I saw them wearing Hitler Youth uniforms and they wouldn’t talk to me anymore.”

In his book, Promises to Keep, he writes that at age 15, he was forced by the Nazis to enter a work camp and clean sewers. A year later, he arrived in Auschwitz, where a Nazi soldier separated the Jews into two lines. Women, children, the elderly and the sick were immediately sent “up the chimney”, whereas men who were healthy enough were sent to work in the camp.

Michel was able to endure three years in the camp because on the brink of death, a German officer realized he had great handwriting (he had learned calligraphy earlier). This meant that he was able to keep records of the number of deaths in the camp.

The Nuremberg Trials

After World War II came to a close, Nazi war criminals were put on trial for crimes against humanity. These trials were known as the Nuremberg Trials. Michel was the only Jewish reporter at the Nuremberg Trials; something he called a “great honor.”

His strongest memory at the Nuremberg Trials was that of Herman Göring, second only to Hitler in command of the Nazi regime. Göring requested to see Michel while he awaited trial. As Michel was walking towards him to see what he had to say, Göring stuck out his hand for a handshake. Michel realized that he could not bring himself to shake the man’s hand.

He said: “I immediately turned around [without shaking his hand], and walked back the way I came from. I asked myself: what the hell am I doing?” Whatever Göring could say, Michel realized that it would not change the way he would feel about him.

Reflections

Michel said he no longer holds resentment against Germany. In his book, Michel expressed that he did want to return to Germany out of anger for what happened to his family and the Jewish community. He said, “I think Germany has become a great country, and I have actually applied for German citizenship.”

Despite the horrors Michel witnessed, and the adversity that he was forced to overcome, he still has a positive outlook on life. “I have had a great life. I have been a very fortunate man.”