Holocaust Survivor: Larry's story

Pray that as you journey through this life, you are never part of a story someone else is crafting that threatens to swallow you up in its cruel nightmare.

I met one of the most charming gentlemen of my life 8 years ago, Larry Wilkowsky. His stepdaughter Joy contacted me re him being a part of my personal ongoing portrait project called “People of Intrigue”. She hoped against hope, that perhaps her step dad Larry might finally share his experience as a child of the Holocaust.

Larry is a man whose razor-sharp mind refuses to let him forget the horrors of the Holocaust he lived through. He has carried the yoke of his stolen childhood, offered up on the altar of a psychopath’s dream, for almost 80 years. In all those 80 years, he has been unable to loose the stories bound up in him.

Larry’s family has been trying to coax the stories out of him for as long as they can remember. He is fully aware that his story is missing in the collective retelling, but he cannot bring himself to open the vault he has sealed.

Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation requested his story, but Larry could not bear to speak the words that would remind him of all he had lost. Why keep it all locked up inside? Because he wanted to save his loved ones the pain he knew would come tumbling out. Why should they share in the nightmare he’s been burdened by his entire life?

This was all about to change. It was time for Larry to tell his story and for reasons only God knows, I was the one he told. Joy heard about my “People of Intrigue” personal project via a Baltimore Sun article 8 years ago. She shared my project with Larry, hoping he would agree to participate. However, she was not surprised when he gently told her no. His son Leon attempted as well and was met with a no as well.

Lo and behold, to everyone’s astonishment, the 80-year-old fortress holding back Larry’s stories began to crumble. Larry agreed to talk on the phone with me, which led to a 90-minute conversation about his experiences. Joy wept in gratitude as Larry finally opened to shed a bit of the weight he carried for almost 80 years.

Then to all our surprise, Larry agreed to join me at my studio the next day, with Joy, to continue his story sharing and sit for his portrait. I was immediately surprised by how agile and quick Larry carried himself. This far along in life and his only major health issue was glaucoma which was making him almost blind. We started with a continuation of his story. Joy joined us for this time and was compelled to leave the room several times, to ensure her weeping would not derail Larry from sharing the hell he endured.

During our time together, it became quickly apparent that Larry is a quiet, kind and gentle soul who speaks of the good of humanity, despite the brutalities he suffered. He is quick to laugh and make jokes. His intelligence and wit are quickly evidenced by the 5 languages he speaks and his expansive knowledge of world cultures.

As we unfurl Larry’s story, I will weave in historical context assuming most readers may be largely unaware of what was going on through the Holocaust. That’s the former history teacher in me, wanting to make sure the stage is set to give the story context. Full disclaimer—the historical context was pulled from many sources that I unfortunately was not great about documenting as I worked on this piece over the course of several years, in snippets of time between raising a family and running a business. I regret this, but alas, the story must be shared. This story was 8 years in the making because we agreed it would be shared posthumously. Sadly, Larry passed away last winter. I was honored to attend is funeral to celebrate his life.

You’ll want a large cup of coffee and a big space of time to read this. One man's brutally honest story that we can all learn from.

May we always remember, those who fail to learn from their history are doomed to repeat it. May we never forget these atrocities. May we remember that evil men rise to power on the fears of desperate men. May we remember hatreds are fueled by hopes of gain…but there’s always someone losing in this insatiable greed.

Larry’s Story

Larry was a child in Poland at the worst possible time in history. Prior to the war 240,000 Jews called the city Lodz their home, which was about one third of the city’s population. By 1940, the increasing brutalities directed against Jews caused over one third to flee their homes. In January 1940, the 160,000 Jews that remained were herded into a cordoned off area of the city that would be called the Lodz ghetto. Lodz was a far too small an area to contain the large concentration of mothers, fathers and children held in with barbed wire and armed guards.

Here, Larry and his family tried to make normalcy out of situations that steadily increased in horror as time passed. Running water and a functioning sewer system was deemed unnecessary for most of the residents of Lodz. Food, heat, water, medicine, farmland and clothing—bare necessities of life became luxuries that most could not afford.

The absence of these basic needs resulted in the rampant spread of dysentery, tb, and typhus. This rampant disease meant 1 out of every 5 residents would perish within this barb wired ghetto. For perspective, the death rate was 26x higher than it has been among Jews living in Lodz in just 1936.

The inmates tried to make normalcy of what was anything but normal. Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, chairman of the Jewish council in the Lodz ghetto, hoped to prevent the destruction of the ghetto by making it as productive as possible. He gambled that Jewish labor essential to German factories would spare Jews from eventual deportation and preserve the Lodz ghetto until the end of the war.

Mordechai petitioned the Nazi party to allow the factories to be installed in exchange for food and money. The Nazis accepted this proposal, but only in exchange for food. The issue arose in that the amount of food was never made clear.

The Lodz ghetto became a powerhouse for the Nazis in the production of textiles, especially uniforms for the German army. Between 1940-1942 almost 100 factories were built. Larry, as a child, was one of the forced laborers who supplied the German army with uniforms from the manufacturing factory he worked in. Larry is a one of the children in this photograph below.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005071 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-lodz-ghetto

As Larry shared his story, there were plenty of quiet pauses to collect his courage and loosen the tie that bound his story for so many years. His time in the ghetto was one in which he was unable to share much detail. It’s where his mother, his father and his older brother were taken from him on transports…never to be seen by him again. He was 12 and in essence, an orphan.

***Beginning on January 6, 1942, those who had received the summons for deportations were required for transport. Approximately one thousand people per day left on the trains. These people were taken to the Chelmno death camp and gassed by carbon monoxide in trucks. By January 19, 1942, 10,003 people had been deported. Over the next 10 months the

population of the ghetto decreased from 162,681 to 89,446 because of mass murder. The deportations then stopped for the next 2 years as the Nazis were desperate for the munitions being produced in the ghetto.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-lodz-ghetto

However, as the war heated up and the tide was turning against Germany, the desire to take care of the ‘Jewish problem’ increased. In August of 1944, Larry was one of the last transports out of the ghetto. He was told he was going to a “work camp”. He begged his two older sisters, “please can we hide so we don’t have to go?” No, they assured him the risks of being found out and shot were too great.

Larry and his sisters were herded into a cattle car too jam packed with people for anyone to even be able to sit down. For 3 days they stood, and journeyed, without food…without water…without toilet facilities. Not everyone who began the journey completed it alive.

Larry shared, “When the cattle car door opened at Birkenau, which was a camp connected to Auschwitz, it was like being on a different world planet. When the doors opened, I am sure you are familiar with Dante’s Inferno? It was like you could not believe you were on planet earth. It felt like a nightmare, but I was awake. You really must have an imagination to describe it.”

“We were told to stand in a line. Mengelev stood there with one foot on a stool and a cigarette in his hand. He called out “right” and“left.” I did not know what that meant at the time. I would come to know that we were being divided for the crematorium or the camp. This was the last time I would see my sisters. Looking back, I’m so grateful my grandmother died in ghetto. I just wish parents had as well.”

“I was in Birkenau for about 7 days. I received a piece of bread everyday sometimes with a very thin marmalade on it and a bowl of watery broth. I learned quickly that when the watery marmalade dripped off your bread you would be hit with a baton for being ‘dirty swine’ that dirtied the floor. Yet if you licked it off the floor in your starving state, you’d be hit in the head again for being dirty swine that ate off the floor. So I was quick to lick it off my hands.”

“Prisoners were told that work would be the key to their freedom. We realized quickly "la commedia fineta” is an Italian phrase meaning “the farce is over.”

Larry reflected on his experience, “I fear in a little while people will forget what has happened to us here. They will say, ‘oh it’s just the death that comes with war.’ This is not the killing of war…this was murder. In Hebrew we know you shall not murder, but there is a difference, this was killing!”

Below Larry is holding the lone surviving photograph of his family. The only reason he has this is because his mother sent a copy to a relative living in America prior to the war. He would one day receive this as the sole legacy of his family.

“About a week into my stay, my number, 8116, was called. I, along with the other 12-15 year old children were sent to Auschwitz only a kilometer away. We found a very different world. It was like a Hilton stay compared to our stay at Birkenau.”

Larry extolled the luxuries of Auschwitz: he had a bunk to sleep on, albeit shared. He had occasional access to toilets and showers. This was a labor camp with a crematorium. If they didn’t have the crematoriums many people would have lived. He had a job working in the dog kennel every day, which meant he could sometimes share in the dogs’ biscuits, which “were quite good.”

“As the Russian border was weakening, the Germans wanted to empty the camps to avoid the prisoners being freed. So I was moved to crematorium side of the camp. My barrack mates and I knew what was happening there. We all agreed if they sent us to the crematorium we would not go down without a fight. Instead, we would die attacking the guards.”

“Instead, all the surviving children were transported again. We were on an open train car in January, retreating to Germany. Upon arrival, those who survived the brutal winter train ride were forced on a death march of about 45 miles to Liebenrosa.”

“This was the 2^nd worst camp experience of the 6 camps I was in. If someone’s strength was failing, we tried to hold each other up. If you fell, you were shot. When we arrived at the Liebenrosa we were taken deep into the forest to work. 40 inmates would go out to work with 2 or 3 guards and every day a few less inmates would return. We stayed here 2-3 weeks.”

Larry, with the other survivors, next walked to Sachsenhausen. This camp also held Russian POW’s. Larry remembered the work and standing in lines for never ending hours. However, it was better than Liebenrosa. One of his jobs was to break in the shoes for the German soldiers. He received the same diet, one piece of bread and watery soup daily.

Larry’s memory refuses to forget the screams of the inmates that echoed through the camp. He remembers the Russian POWs who suffered under the Nazis as well.

“This is very difficult to describe and for you to understand. No normal person can imagine these horrors; only a psychopath can imagine these unbelievable acts against innocent people. People whose only crime is being born Jewish.”

The Germans continued to empty concentration camps to avoid an Allied prisoner released. As this was going on, Larry and the other survivors were forced on another death march. This time to Mauthausen which had awful conditions. It was late February and as the prisoners arrived, they were hosed down in freezing temperatures. Drenched in freezing water, they were offered no towels. Many died that night from the extreme conditions.

Before entering the shower, Larry and his friends saw Lieutenant Herr Coddell who they remembered from Auschwitz. They called to him, "remember our hard work at Auschwitz for you!” They were his maulaschuller (laborers). He called back to them, “maulaschuller get out.”

This simple reminder saved Larry and his group from the February night time cold water hosing. He credits this act of mercy as one that saved his life. Why did Herr Coddell offer them this reprieve? Larry can only surmise.

“Perhaps Herr Coddell wanted to be credited with offering a mercy that saved lives because he knew the war was not looking favorable for Germany?

Mauthausen was not a work camp, it was just a camp to die.

Mauthausen was bombed while I was there. It held a lot of Hungarian Jews whose job it was to walk behind the lines of the German soldiers to care for their needs. The desperate starvation of the prisoners led to cannibalism of those killed in the bombing. After the watery soup diet, having meat was like having a filet mignon.”

“And then there was another camp liquidation in April. This next forced death march was to Gunzkierchen, a camp deep in the forest of Austria. This is where my worst nightmares originated.”

“The mud was deep and just getting my feet to cooperate for each next step was a challenge. My skeletal frame struggled tremendously.”

“We were herded into a barrack in which there was no room to move. More and more people were forced in with each passing day. There was no place to stand, to sit, to crawl. Moving to go find a toilet was impossible.”

"There was no option to remove those who died. Corpses became our pillows and mattresses. There was nowhere to go as urine and feces fell upon you. There was nowhere to go to flee the lice that feasted on your emaciated body. My barrack was built to hold 300 and the Nazis placed 3000 inmates inside.”

Larry struggled to relay the horror that Gunzkierchen was. It was clearly the most difficult for him to relay. An American solider who was part of the Allied liberation force had this to say, “Each day that dawned meant that you would be faced with dead in front of you, behind you and on you. They slept three deep in the muddy floor barrack. The thousands of prisoners had been crammed into a few low, one-story, frame buildings with sloppy, muddy floors. Those who were able had come out of the buildings, but there were hundreds left in them - the dead, the near-dead, and those too weak to move. Sometimes, my guide said, it was so crowded in the buildings that people slept three-deep on the floor, one on top of the other. Often, a man would awake in the morning and find the person under him dead. Too weak to move even the pathetically light bodies of their comrades, the living continued sleeping on them.”

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/liberation-of-gunskirchen-lager

Larry continued to share, “Soup was delivered at one point, but not enough for everyone. Hungarians were stronger and fought to get theirs first. The soup was poisoned, but not with the full strength that was ordered. The SS agent in charge said this was his mercy for them…that he didn’t deliver enough poison to kill everyone who ate it. He knew the Americans were coming and it appears he was trying to show his humanity.”

"The camp was littered with bodies. Since the Germans had left, the inmates had been unable to cope with the swiftly mounting death rate. While the SS were in charge, they made the stronger inmates dig crude pits and bury the dead, not for sanitary reasons, but in an attempt to hide some of the evidence of the inhuman treatment given their prisoners.”

"For the thousands of prisoners in Gunskirchen, there was one 20-hole latrine. The rule of the SS was to shoot on sight anyone seen relieving himself in any place but the latrine. Many of the persons in the camp had diarrhea. There were always long lines at the latrine, and it was often impossible for many to reach it in time because of hours spent waiting. Naturally, many were sho who could not wait in line. Their bodies were still lying there in their own filth. The stench was unbelievable.”

Pletcher marveled at how the survivors had lasted. How brilliant and educated men were reduced to primitive animal-like responses because of the utter despair of their situation. Any animal that was able to be brought into the camp, be it a cow or horse, it did not matter…was torn apart by emaciated men eager to live and eaten raw. If the animal was killed by shell fire, be it newly dead or dead several days, it was torn apart by hands and eaten raw.

“I felt, the day I saw Gunskirchen Lager, that I finally knew what I was fighting for, what the war was all about,” Pletcher shared.

As strong as the words in these eyewitness accounts may be, as gruesome as the photographs and paintings may seem, they fall far short of expressing the horror that was Gunskirchen - a horror that no words or pictures could fully show.

One American soldier, PFC Norman Nichols, was part of the Allied liberation. Norma was an artist and found it essential to record the scene they encountered at the liberation.

American soldiers reported being able to smell the camp from 3 miles away. The stench permeated their nostrils and is something they would never forget long after leaving. The smell of wet mud, foul body order, urine, feces, open wounds, german tobacco and death.

The American GI’s were desperate to bring relief and supplies to the walking skeletons who had last rec’d food or water 5 days prior. They quickly offered up any ration and cigarettes they had and watched as they were scarfed down, including the cigarettes as food.

"The German soldiers who were forced to carry out the living, bury the dead and clean up the buildings denied any connection with the camp", artist Nichols said. "They said, ‘it was another SS mess.’

The half-crazed, starving Jews were so glad to see the Americans they kissed the hands of embarrassed, nauseated Yanks who came away from the scenes of Nazi horror with an almost irresistible desire to shoot every German soldier on sight.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/liberation-of-gunskirchen-lager

When troops of the 71st entered the camp, they learned that the SS guards had fled the corpse-littered camp days before. Some 15,000 prisoners were still in the camp.

In the months following the liberation, some 1,500 former prisoners died because of their mistreatment by the Nazis. One member of the 71st Infantry recounted his first impressions of Gunskirchen:

“As we entered the camp, the living skeletons still able to walk crowded around us and, though we wanted to drive farther into the place, the milling, pressing crowd wouldn't let us. It is not an exaggeration to say that almost every inmate was insane with hunger. Just the sight of an American brought cheers, groans and shrieks. People crowded around to touch an American, to touch the jeep, to kiss our arms—perhaps just to make sure that it was true. The people who couldn't walk crawled out toward our jeep. Those who couldn't even crawl, propped themselves up on an elbow, and somehow, through all their pain and suffering, revealed through their eyes the gratitude, the joy they felt at the arrival of Americans,” Capt. J. D. Pletcher.^[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunskirchen

Major Cameron Coffman shared his reaction to Gunskierchen,

“To call the camp a pigsty would be doing injustice to a self-respecting pig. A lieutenant stooped to feed one creature a bit of chocolate. The man died in his arms. That lieutenant, formerly an officer in the Czech Army, fingered his pistol nervously as he eyed a group of German soldiers forcibly digging a grave outside. I also pumped a cartridge in my automatic. As I left him there were tears streaming down his face. His mother was last reported in a concentration camp "somewhere in Germany. An unforgettable drama was enacted when a sergeant of our group of five raced out of one building, his face flaming with rage. The sergeant, a Jewish boy of Polish descent, had found three of his relatives lying in the filth of that barracks.”

Larry knows that it was only a matter of hours between liberation and death for almost all the residents of Gunskierchen. Larry was unable to share what he remembered of his own liberation from Gunskierchen. He just expressed his undying gratitude for the American GI’s who took him to an American hospital where he was restored to life slowly over the coming weeks via IV foods. He is forever grateful to the Californian sergeant who tried to bridge their language barrier with reassuring “ok”s and pats to his head assuring him he’d be ok, he would make it.

Larry’s only regret concerning the Allied liberation of Gunskierchen is that the Yanks could not have arrived sooner to save more lives.

Larry shared, “A majority of people are good and I want to believe that. It’s a minority that are evil.” From his 5 years under Nazi oppression in camps, Larry learned to be strong. He learned not to rely on others to take care of him…which is a lesson forced upon a 12 year old who has had his parents, his grandmother who he loved liked a mother, his two sisters and a brother all ripped from him.

When Larry considers his experience, he has one wish. He wishes for his grandchildren to always be free and never have to know and experience slavery.

After Larry regained his strength, he went to Italy with a Jewish brigade fighter in the English army and they cared for him after liberation. He’s not sure, but thinks the American army may have tried to help hook him in to this assistance. People from Israel and the United States came as well to help care for him and other recuperating Jews. He was then housed in Austria, then Italy. His last stop before journeying to America was Israel.

Larry reflected on his time in America, “I wanted to live quietly. I had a great marriage to my first wife, may she rest in peace. And I had a great marriage to Joy’s mother also, may she rest in peace.” When I asked Larry how long it had been since his wife passed away, he looked down slowly and hesitated…then raised his head slowly and said, “10 months.”

Larry gained entry to the US because his mother had one sister living in Massachusetts. His sole surviving relative secured his passage to the United States, however, she died the week before he arrived. He was 19 and officially had no living family anywhere in the world. “So as you can see, I do not have good luck,” Larry said.

He worked very hard in the clothing district and made a very good living for himself. After 1 ½ years he was making 3-4x what a postman made then. He rose daily at 4:45 to begin his workday.

Larry worked in manufacturing of men’s clothing, something he drew upon from his days of forced labor in the Lodz ghetto. His success was something he celebrated with his employees by gifting them each with what they called a “Larry tuxedo”. Over 500 people received this gift from him.

Larry met and married his first wife, Leon’s mom, when she was 21. “She died unexpectedly when our Leon was 2 years old. She was just 29 years old.”

Prior to his wife’s death, Larry had purchased a 3 family home in Brooklyn. He rented out two parts and likes to say, “I lived for free in the third.”

What has Larry passed on to his children and grandchildren? Here’s his legacy for them:

Belief in a loving God.
Belief in the goodness of most people.
Hard work ethic is essential to provide for your family.
You must be willing to start at the bottom if you want to rise.
Life requires 90% perspiration and 10% intelligence.
Don’t make big decisions when healing from a trauma, wait till your head is clear.
Everyone is entitled to be a jackass, to speak their mind, but when they begin to act on it, you must fight back harder than they ever expected.
Pick yourself up with what you accomplish in life, but never by degrading someone else.
Repay those who have helped you.
Can’t cure stupidity. “You have to learn in life, you cannot look at people as bad people.”

Larry shared that he was 86. However, there’s more to the story. He also says, ‘the Germans took 5 years of my life and I’m taking them back.” So it appears Larry was actually 91 at the time of this interview.

“You are the first that I talked to. You are the first and the last person I will tell my story to. Somehow you can tell when someone is bluffing or when someone is a good person and you are a very good person,” Larry said to close our time together.

I spoke with Larry a few times over the last 8 years, just to check in and see how he was doing. I ended every time with a smile, which is pretty much what everyone who knows Larry says. The historian part of me wanted to fill in a bit of the story gaps when we spoke, but I sensed Larry was done. I wanted to honor our time and his sharing without placing undue burden.

Joy messaged me last winter to share that Larry had passed away, at 97. I attended his grave side burial on a blustery February day. Larry was surrounded by a much larger crowd than was expected on such a cold day. His family and friends shared stories of his humor, his kindness and his generosity. They were all so grateful that Larry had shared his experience and welcomed me with open arms. It was clear his impact on countless people through this life was marked. Larry’s experience could have easily resulted in a life full of bitterness, anger and distrust. Instead, he would not allow himself to remain a prisoner any longer than his 5 years of captivity. What resiliency and joy he radiated! It was an honor to record his story.

6 Comments

Feb 2, 2026, 12:31:34 PM

Jennifer DiDio - Thank you for your thoughts and so glad it was impactful for you!

Jan 31, 2026, 2:53:47 PM

Judy Myers - What a sad, unbelievable story yet one of survival, a heart still open, of love and perseverance. You did Larry’s story honor. Knowing there are so many things in his story we will never know, or be able to understand we are left with a sense of “it’s ok, we understand and there’s no need for more”. I only hope through his story and words we learn how to stand up for what’s right, the knowledge we are all deserving of so much more regardless of who we are. Don’t let history keep repeating itself. So proud of your approach and kindness with Larry.

Jan 28, 2026, 8:50:24 AM

Sara Butler - So awesome that you read this and I think it's so important for people of faith to tell the stories that define us.

Jan 27, 2026, 10:30:13 PM

Toni Steigerwald - Well done good and faithful servant! My heart and gut are always affected after reading such stories. Thank you for sharing Larry’s important interview of his years during the holocaust. We must never forget and also learn from this that he went on to live a fruitful life after those 5 years of horror. What an honor Jennifer!

Jan 27, 2026, 10:38:21 AM

Sara Butler - I'm glad that you have his story and it was my honor to hear and record it. What an amazing man your grandpa is.

Jan 26, 2026, 9:06:58 AM

Helaine Wilkowsky - Thank you so much for documenting my Grandpa's journey. I only ever heard bits and pieces growing up. This made me tear up and I am eternally grateful.

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