Mordechai Miller Holocaust Survivor story

John Mitty Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Commack, New York – January 29, 2013 - Mordechai Miller spoke to seventh grade students at Temple Beth David on Tuesday night.  He called himself “a hidden child” and his story is one of incredible luck and determination to survive as a Jew in Poland during World War II.

In 1939, eight-year-old Mordechai was living with his parents and his brother in occupied Poland, only 7 ½ miles outside of Warsaw.  That same year, there was a proclamation that Jewish children could not attend school and all Jews had to be moved into a Ghetto.

Jewish families had to endure “contribution days” when they were forced to pay the authorities in gold and other possessions. Food was gotten with a barter system under threat of death for leaving the Ghetto.  Hunger was their constant companion.  They supplemented their meager portions with whatever they could grow in small gardens.  “Thank goodness for the onions,” said Mordechai to the children. “If you brown them in a pan, at least there was something to taste, some flavor”. 

Mordecai told a story of how the soldiers would taunt the Jewish women as they walked to get food for their families.  One day his mother was sneaking out of the Ghetto to get some food and was stopped by soldiers who beat her and told her to run.  “Hearing shots, she couldn’t believe that she was still running and still alive”, he said.  In a second incident when she bartered clothing for roughly 50 pounds of potatoes, some Polish thugs chased her.  She fell and injured her knee but she continued to run with the potatoes until she got back to the ghetto. Her knee swelled and was badly black and blue. The doctor that was in the Ghetto wasn’t a surgeon and didn’t know what to do for her. Mordechai’s father asked the doctor if he knew a surgeon outside of the Ghetto and he said there was a Russian refugee who was surgeon.  He risked his life to get in touch with the doctor who at first didn’t want to risk his own life to come to the Ghetto. But he changed his mind and told Mordechai’s father that when he took an oath to become a doctor, he could not pay attention to his personal comfort. This profound act of courage and rare act of kindness saved Mordechai and his family because two weeks after his mother’s surgery, in October 1942, the Ghetto was liquidated and she would not have been able to go into hiding without that surgery.  Thus began their 27 ½ months of hiding.

The Miller family hid in various places and always for a price.  No one would take a chance hiding Jews without compensation.  While in hiding, they managed to observe the holy day of Yom Kippur.  Since they had no calendar, they picked a day and fasted by skipping their daily meal of a slice of bread.

jmitty@longislandyellowpages.com

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