Every Day We Survived, We Beat Hitler

An Interview with Allan Hall

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Narration: Today, I’m in the heart of South Beach to meet with Allan. He was born in Poland, just like my entire family, so I’ve cooked up a little surprise for him.

Allan: Welcome. Interviewer: Hi. So nice to have you here. I’m Leslie. Allan: Nice to meet you. My wife, Lori. Lori: So nice to meet you. Interviewer: How are you? Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me here. I brought you a little… it’s a Laker. It’s a famous cake from Poland, Polish people. My grandma taught me how to do that. Allan: Really? I want to see it. My goodness. Interviewer: So, your ancestry is from Poland? Allan: Yes. My parents were born in Poland. Interviewer: Thank you so much. Allan: Please come in. Interviewer: That is a great view. Allan: This is all the way from South Beach. And if you look on a clear day, yeah, you can see pieces of the ocean. Interviewer: And so here you have downtown? Allan: Downtown Miami. Interviewer: Such a nice view.

Early Life & Occupied Kraków

Narration: Allan was born in Kraków in 1935 into a comfortable middle-class Jewish family. The first years of his life were a great deal of happiness. His father, who was highly educated and had studied in Vienna, spoke fluent German and worked for an Italian insurance company. His mother was a violinist. They spent the entire war in Poland, where the risk of death was constant.

Allan: One thing my mother used to say over and over again: every day we survived, we beat Hitler. We win. That day we won. And the next day we won. And the next day we won, for four years.

Narration: Allan was four and a half when the war broke out.

Allan: The first thing that happened was, I went with my nanny to the park. And there were lots of women and children there. Some of the children occasionally would pick a flower. We all knew you’re not supposed to pick a flower. There was just this one rose that spoke to me, and I had to bring it to my mom. And as soon as they slipped it off, there was a heavy hand on my shoulder. It was a police officer who dragged me home. And my mother was very smart, very quick-witted. And she knew this was an anti-Semite. And she said, “Thank you for teaching my son what he should not do.” And the way she handled it totally defused the situation. And he went away.

The Walk to Lviv

Narration: His father managed to convince his mother to leave occupied Kraków and travel to Lviv, which was under Soviet control. They set out on foot to cover the 220 miles that separated the two cities.

Allan: And we started walking. We walked all day and nighttime. We came to a farmhouse, knocked on the door. We did that night after night. I had an infected foot, and my toe was badly swollen, pus and the whole bit. We could not go to a doctor. We couldn’t even, most of the time, get stuff in a pharmacy. So you just had to hope it gets better, or otherwise… whatever happens, happens. My mother said to me, “If you limp, people will notice you. Please try not to limp.” I walked out two or three miles, or whatever it was, got to the other place. And taking the boot off was excruciating. But when we finally got the boot off, it was filled with blood and pus. But I never once limped, because I wanted to live.

The Ghetto in Lviv

Narration: After four weeks of walking, they managed to reach Lviv, where his paternal grandmother lived, and found some respite.

Allan: In June of ’41, the Nazis attacked, and Lvov, now Lviv, is almost at the border. So very quickly the Nazis overtook the city where we were. We got a notice, a little piece of paper, maybe three by five, saying you have to leave everything in the apartment. You can take one suitcase with you, and you have to move to an apartment across town. Well, we were given no choice. Once we went to that other apartment, we were so surprised, we were shocked, because there was already another family living there. And we couldn’t understand why they would want two families in the same apartment. And while we were trying to figure out what was happening, a third family showed up. And once we were in the, now what we know to be the ghetto, terrible things started happening. People were getting beaten, shot on the street. People were being hung. There was almost no food brought in. Shortly afterwards, the Nazis began deporting children. They grabbed me first. I was the first kid grabbed, put me on a truck, and then they fanned out into the apartment buildings, people begging and crying and screaming as their children were being ripped away from them. And the truck drove off. They offloaded us in a corral, and I thought it was a police station, but now I’m beginning to think that it was probably a concentration camp. And I was so pleased, so happy, when I saw my dad walk in. And so he saw me, our eyes locked. And he just went on to talk to the head Nazi, the person in charge. They talked briefly, and then he walked out without even looking at me. At that point, I thought he abandoned me, and there was no hope. But several hours later, he came back a second time. Saw me again. This time there was no joy for me. And he went to talk to a Nazi. And the Nazi spun around on his heel and walked off. My dad looked at me and went just like this. And I knew exactly what he was saying. I walked out of there. I was probably the only survivor of the several hundred children that were corralled.

Warsaw & the Trains to Treblinka

Narration: His father obtained Allan’s release in exchange for jewelry. They then managed to escape from the ghetto. The family lived in hiding, moving from place to place until they reached Warsaw, where they were arrested.

Allan: The cops took us to the Gestapo headquarters that was on the edge of Warsaw Ghetto. All the trains at that time went to Treblinka. Now, I just missed, by minutes, a train that must have gone to Treblinka. We were there for two and a half days, which is odd, because from that train station, anywhere between one and three trains went to Treblinka every day. And I was there for two and a half days. I subsequently learned that the only reason I’m alive from that incident is what happened in Treblinka. The gas chambers were so productive that they put up so many more bodies than the burial brigade could bury, that the bodies started heaping up in mounds and then little hills and then much bigger hills. And of course, human bodies then degenerate very quickly. And so the commandant was afraid of the liquids and gases coming out of these bodies. And he stopped the trains for five days. This happened only one time. And during those five days, they buried and cleaned up the camp. Treblinka was a death camp. And then the trains resumed. Meanwhile, at the end of two and a half days, I was taken to an orphanage with some other children.

Narration: The parents miraculously managed to escape and found their son again, trying to get him out of the ghetto.

Allan: A trolley car conductor went into the ghetto, got me, put a cap on my head, and walked me out from the ghetto right under the Nazis’ noses, delivered me to my parents, and disappeared. Never thanked him. And even if he did it for a fee, it made no difference. He saved my life.

A New Face, A New Name

Narration: The Warsaw Ghetto was destroyed in 1943 following an uprising by its Jewish population. Of the 380,000 inhabitants, only 40,000 survived. His father, willing to do anything to save his family, came up with a new scheme.

Allan: So my dad gets this idea of wanting to get a rhinoplasty. He goes to a physician he knows very well. I assume they were friends. And he says, “This is my death warrant. Give me a nose job.” Cosmetically, it was a flop. Because until my dad died, this part of the nose, instead of being up, was flat. This part was splayed out. And he looked more like an old retired boxer than a Jew, which is perfect. Because then my dad decided that if women can dye their hair, so can he. Went in a bathroom as a brunette, came out as a blonde.

Two Years in a Closet

Narration: He pretended to be a German and even managed to work for the Nazis. He hid Allan and his mother in a building two floors below the Nazi Air Force headquarters in Warsaw.

Allan: And for the next two years, my mother and I sat in that closet, surrounded by people working. Interviewer: So you were hidden in a closet with your mom. For two years. How big was the closet? Allan: It was about, I would say, 30 inches, less than a meter wide, by probably 60 inches, or five feet. Interviewer: Were you able to sit? Allan: We sat, yes. We sat. We had two pillows, but we never once sat on the pillow. I sat parked against one wall. My mother’s back was against the opposite wall. We had a potty in the middle if we had to relieve ourselves. If I had to make noise, I’d just clear my throat, head into the pillow to absorb the sound. And that was about the only thing we could do.

Narration: It was in this building that Allan’s mother miraculously gave birth to a second son.

Allan: So after several days, the baby did not die. Doctors and physicians would come and look at this miraculous baby, because he was the only baby being born at that time in this area. Doctors realizing the problem that we have with no IDs, et cetera, he wrapped up my mother’s face as though she was hit by shrapnel, which was common during that time. And she’s got this newborn baby. And he authorized us to go on a hospital train. Now, hospital trains did not have IDs. There were no IDs required. And so this newborn baby that I thought was going to be the cause of our death, my death, his survival actually caused our survival. And the train wound up going right back where we came from, to Kraków.

From Darkness to Light

Narration: They survived and made their way to America.

Allan: We flew into New York on American Airlines, and here it was the middle of the night, you know, like 9, 10 at night, in the winter. And I look out the window, and it’s pretty light, more so than during daytime. And so I drove over this poor person, just literally draped over him or her, and I had my nose pasted to the window. And that was my introduction to New York and to the United States. I came from the darkness to light.

A Message for Posterity

Narration: Decades later, Allan reflects on the pain he carries and on what his survival taught him.

Allan: Not that the pain stopped, I just got used to the pain. And I can tell you, it’s still, now, when I think about that small bedroom with the bed on the floor, and the ghetto, it hurts. But they survived. They made it. And so maybe they taught me. And I worked very, very hard for my survival. So after that, any other work is a piece of cake. I was so happy when you called me, because let people see what can happen to anybody, anywhere in the world. Let’s inoculate everybody, so it does not happen again. Interviewer: I will. I will do my best. Thank you. Allan: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything. Interviewer: Thank you. Bye-bye. Allan: Bye. So long.