vladek is now fighting on the front lines how frightening especially since he's only had a few days of official training how can he survive as a soldier isn't he just a textile salesman fortunately for vladic this isn't his first time in the Army when vladic was a young man his father did all he could to keep him out of the army you see in Poland at the time when a man turned 21 he had to do compulsory Army service vladek's father thought that being in the Army was a fate worse than death he even pulled
out 14 of his own teeth to avoid it there was only one way to avoid being conscripted and that was to fail the Army medical exam 3 months before his exam vladek's father put his plan into action it was brutal vladic could only sleep 3 hours per night eat salted Herring and drink coffee he wasn't even allowed to drink water by the end of it vladic was a caffeinated skeleton no wonder he failed the exam but the doctor told him to come back next year to be reviewed again vladic couldn't endure that crash diet all
over again so in 1922 he joined the army hey team just a reminder if you like this video please hit the Subscribe button and ring the notification Bell it really helps the channel out and our next upload could be on something taught in your next class thanks and back to the video but this didn't mean vladic was a fighting machine far from it he didn't even know what to shoot at let alone how to dig a trench properly when vladic began shooting or all he could see was a tree but then he noticed that the
tree was moving vladic kept shooting at it until the tree stopped moving lo and behold a German soldier had been using it as cover after 2 hours of fighting the Germans overwhelmed the Polish forces oh no what would happen to vladic he and the other polish soldiers were marched at gunpoint to the German side of the river they were now prisoners of war and their job was to retrieve the dead and injured German soldiers after that they were all taken to a place near nurmberg it was a nightmare the place was crowded and the Jewish
soldiers were separated from everyone else of course the Jewish prisoners had it far tougher than anyone else in the camp the German officers set work with imp possible deadlines just so they could pun punish them a few weeks later vladic was transferred to a bigger camp to cope with the hardships of being a prisoner of war vladek had to distract himself he survived for 6 weeks in these camps until a call was put out for volunteers to replace German Workers who'd been called to the front meals and proper housing would be provided this was an
offer vladic couldn't refuse soon enough he and his comrades were staying in wooden houses with real beds a far cry from the camp tents what they didn't know was that the work was brutal they literally had to move mountains one night vladic was so exhausted that he had a strange dream his dead grandfather was speaking to him he said that vladic would be free on the day of paras's true tumor the voice was so real that vladek couldn't ignore it pasas truma was a day on which they would read a certain section of the Torah
the Jewish holy text but that was 3 months away an eternity in the camps vladic waited and waited and to everyone's amazement his dream came true the next morning vladic and his comrades were loaded onto a train headed for Poland finally he would be reunited with Ana and richu or so he thought why was the train steaming past snitz you see the Nazis had divided Poland into two zones protectorate and Reich this train would only stop in the protectorate snitz was in the Reich vladek ended up far away from snitz in a city called Lublin
what a nasty trick this wasn't the first time the Nazis had redirected prisoners of War to Lublin 2 days prior the last group were taken into the woods and shot 600 people were killed was vladek next luckily the German officials in Lublin were corrupt local Jewish leaders bribe the Germans into classifying prisoners like vladic as relatives of local Jews even better vladic had a friend from his army training days in Lublin named Orbach he pretended that vladic was his cousin vladic was safe but after a few days at orbach's vladic became Restless he had to
get back to his family but how could he cross the border fortunately the guard at the train station was polish and despised the Nazis without too much trouble he smuggled vladic onto the train thanks to that polish train guard vladek made it home first stop was to see his parents but when he arrived he got a nasty shock the Nazis had shaved off his father's beard as a form of public humiliation but that wasn't the only bad news his mother's cancer was getting worse as much as he would have liked to vladic couldn't stay long
he had to be quick if he wanted to see Ana and Ru at 7:00 p.m. there was a curfew and all Jews had to be at home with the lights out fortunately it was only a short journey and vladic Ana and Ru were soon in each other's arms at last from vladek's First Impressions it looked as if nothing had changed at Ana's family home though no matter how rich the zilberberg were no one escaped the high hardship of the war there were now 12 members of their family staying with vladek's in-laws imagine all the crowded
dinners on top of this there was a shortage of food and the Nazis gave Jews next to nothing officially they could only get food with coupons however Mr zilberberg was an important man and influential with the Ginder the Jewish Community organization so they got a little extra but it still wasn't enough to live on the Jews had to find other ways to survive so a black market emerged there money could buy you anything but the risk was enormous to add to these problems the zilberberg were short of money their factories had been stolen and they
were now living off their savings but they remained optimistic believing that the war would be over soon vladic was not so naive he knew he had to make money to survive so vladek went back to what he knew best textiles he went to one of his old customers Mr IL Zeki a tailor to get some materials he was now trading textiles without coupons this was dangerous then things took a turn for the worse the zilberberg Des for income tried to sell their Furniture the Nazis caught wind of this and simply took their furniture without paying
it was Daylight robbery in late 1941 vladic was still trading textiles one day he went to see Mr ili as usual but he almost didn't make it vladek stumbled into the middle of a Nazi Rampage they were beating and shooting Jews whether they had papers or not there was nowhere to hide thankfully Mr ili spotted him and whisked him to the safety of his house whilst hiding vladek and Mr eki began chatting they both had little boys the same age so Mr ili suggested that vladek give reichu to one of his friends to protect him
when Vlad brought this up at home it caused a huge fuss Ana and her parents were dead against it so vladek relented it was a decision he would later regret ili son survived the war Ru did not at the end of 1941 all Jews in snitz were rounded up and relocated to another part of the city all 12 of them now had to cram into two and a half small rooms the kicker was that non-jews got to move move into their house it was so unfair eventually after a couple of months vladek's business came to
a halt the Nazis had arrested the shop owners he traded with for dealing Goods without coupons not only that but the Nazis hanged them and left their bodies on public display for a full week for days vladic was too frightened to go outside he couldn't bear to look at them knowing he was partly responsible it still makes Vlad cry to think about it little did he know that this was only the beginning of such Horrors in 1942 another announcement came all Jews over the age of 70 were to be transferred to teresian this was in
Czechoslovakia in the propaganda photos the place looked like a community for retirees but everyone had their susp ions what would happen to Ana's grandparents Mr and Mrs Caro they were over 90 years old they had to hide them but the Jewish police were getting suspicious that's right there was a Jewish police force that helped the Nazis these Jews thought they could save themselves and others by working with the Nazis but in reality the Nazis had started sending Jews to die in aitz a death camp in southern Poland Ana's Grandparents were no exception a few months
passed then the Ginder made another announcement all Jews had to register at the local Stadium to get their documents checked everyone was worried but they figured that not going was as bad as going on the day de stadium was packed with almost 30,000 Jews the officials divided the crowd down the middle on the left were old people families with lots of kids and people without work cards on the right were those who could work and their families only the people on the right got their papers stamped fortunately the spiegelman were sent to the right those
moved to the left were destined for aitz never to be seen Again by the end of the day snitz was a ghost town only onethird of the city's Jews remained the spiegelman were safe for now but what would the Nazis have in store for them down the track stay tuned for chapters 5 and six to find out we hope you enjoyed this schooling online production for more easy lessons check out our other videos
