Dan Snow's History Hit - The Boy Who Survived Auschwitz

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

Thomas Geve was just 15 years old when he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp on 11 April 1945. It was the third concentration camp he had survived. During the 22 months he was imprisoned, he was forced to observe first-hand the inhumane world of Nazi concentration camps. On his eventual release, Thomas felt compelled to capture daily life in the death camps in more than eighty profoundly moving drawings. He detailed this dark period of history with remarkable accuracy.Despite the unspeakable events he experienced, Thomas decided to become an active witness and tell the truth about life in the camps. He has spoken to audiences from around the world and joins Dan on the podcast for Holocaust Memorial Day. They discuss Thomas’ rare living testimony, how as a child he had the unique ability to document the details around him, and his book ‘The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz: A Powerful True Story of Hope and Survival’.Thomas’ daughter Yifat, also kindly shares with Dan the lasting impact of her father’s experiences.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. This podcast is first broadcast on Holocaust Memorial Day 2022. It's the day on which we remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust under Nazi persecution. It's the day on which the camp of Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. I've been lucky enough, if that's the right word, to talk to some incredible survivors over the years, people who have survived the Holocaust. I remember Max Eisen in his apartment in Toronto telling me what it was like at Auschwitz, showing me his tattoos that remain to this day. But I've also met wonderful historians who've been able to give me an overview. For example, Professor Mary Fulbrook, such a memorable chat I had with her

about the strategic overview of the Holocaust. And also people like Jack Fairweather, who wrote about Witold Pelecki, who was an extraordinarily brave Pole who volunteered to go into Auschwitz so he could bring reports from the heart of the Nazi death machine to the rest of the world.

In this episode, I am privileged enough to be speaking to another survivor, a man called Thomas Jeeve. That's a pseudonym. It's a pseudonym he gave himself during his experiences in the Nazi camps. And he felt that he could move on with the rest of his life if he gave that boy, his younger self, a name different to his real name. He was separated from his mother on the infamous platform at Auschwitz. He never saw her again. She didn't survive the war. His father had escaped and was a refugee in Britain at the time.

And after all, he was reunited with his father. And rather than talk about his experiences, he decided to draw them. And so we have this remarkable collection of drawings of Auschwitz. This is the Holocaust as you've never, well, literally never seen it, visualised it before through the drawings of a boy. He actually started drawing and sketching inside the camp. He did it for the purposes of resistance, helping those who were planning on trying to escape or rising up against the German guards. Those sketches don't survive, sadly. What do survive is the sketches he made just after the war, an early form of art therapy, not then an established, recognised part of therapy,

but one that Thomas embraced and pioneered in many ways. It is extraordinary talking to him. It was a difficult conversation, to be honest. He's in Israel in the nursing home. We talked through his brilliant daughter. If at, in the end, the biggest technical problem seemed to be my Wi-Fi. They could hardly hear me. However, I think it is still worth bringing you this podcast because it was a conversation with a very, very special man. He also was a bit unwilling to talk about his experiences. One of the reasons

he drew his experiences is because they're too painful to talk about. So you'll have to forgive me if I don't seem to press for answers like I usually do. The last thing, this man, deep into his 90s needs, a survivor of the Holocaust, a man still living with that trauma, is pestering questions from me. So I hope you understand, which I'm sure we all do, that he wasn't sometimes too willing to give the fullest of answers. If you wish to go and buy his book, please do so. It's The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz. I'm showing parts of it to my kids at the moment, and it is extraordinarily compelling.

And thank you again to Ifat, his daughter, and the fact she let me ask her a few questions at the end to fill in some of the gaps. So here is Thomas Jeeve. Hi, Thomas. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up, your early life? Oh yes, I was born in Stettin, which is now Poland, but I don't remember. I only remember a world of oppression and persecution under Hitler.

And then we moved to Boynton, East Germany, and in the late 38, I moved to Berlin, and I lived with my mother. I went to Switzerland to stay for half a year, then I joined my father in England, and I studied matriculations, and I studied building engineering at college. And then in 1950, against the will of my father, he didn't give permission. I wasn't 21 yet until he didn't give permission, but I still left for Israel because I was not his only child anymore. He had remarried and he had a baby daughter,

so I thought I could leave him and left for Israel in 1950. And I lived ever since. And now I'm I thought I could leave him. I left for Israel in 1950, and I lived ever since. And now I'm 92, and I'm still here. I can still see, and I'm getting on. And, of course, my publication started very early. The first thing was in 1946. My father took the drawings. I made these drawings in Buchenwald for my father, 80 drawings he took them to a world

known publisher and he said what you think, your son isn't Picasso, we don't have the money to make colour pictures and so the pictures rested in a bank safe in England and they were saved because there were watercolours and the bank

had air condition. And that saved all these drawings. And in 1985, I handed them over to Yad Vashem Museum, which I didn't know. Nobody else had drawn such a complete cycle of life in the camps. The children had made drawings of trees and birds and things like that. But nobody had actually chronicled all the life in the camps, three different camps. And that was a unique and one-time document, and it still is. Can you tell me about the sketches you did when you were actually in Auschwitz? Yes, Maps of the camps and the surroundings,

that there were three possibilities. Or there would be a revolt, or they want to liquidate it, or the Russians would come to liberate it, and then there would be a fight, and we would have to escape somewhere, and we would have known where to go, and we would have certainly to know where the fences are and where the watchtowers are.

That had to be recorded. And as I worked on the building side, the cement sacks had seven layers of grey paper. So I had plenty of paper. And I hid them in my cycle of straw. They were hidden. But then we were evacuated unexpectedly and they were left behind. As a young child, that's very important work. It's very clever of you to do that. How did you know you should sketch what was going on around you?

I just occurred to me, and people may have told me. I had nothing else to do because I was sick. I couldn't walk. My toenails had gone. I couldn't get out of the barracks. I sat there drawing all during the day and people of course helped me. They brought me, first I did it in pencil, then I went with coloured pencil over it and some time later somebody brought me watercolours and I put in watercolours. You kept sketching for a long time. It must have been hard to do that. What kept you going? My father. I would do it for my father. Thomas, do you hard to do that. What kept you going? My father. So George for my father. Thomas, do you still draw now?

Have you drawn anything since? No, no. The answer is simple. I have no talent for drawing. And I know people in the camp, in the block, they came in the evening to look at my drawings and they helped me to draw. They told me what to draw, how to draw.

I have no special talent for that. There may be four drawings which seem artistic with colour schemes. The others are just documentations, lists of songs and lists of blocks and lists of things. Now that you're one of the last survivors, do you feel you have a big responsibility to speak out, to tell people what happened? survivors. Do you feel you have a big responsibility to speak out, to tell people what happened? People ask me if I'm happy about my new book. The answer is there is nothing happy about the past, but it is good that the 40 prisoners who helped me survive two years of concentration camps have all become alive again all over the world. So it was in June 1981, you were in Jerusalem with thousands of other Holocaust survivors at a big

gathering. Prior to that event, you hadn't really been active in speaking out. What changed after that? I had an exhibition that went around the world, and I accompanied it. And later there was a book, an album of pictures also, books. So I accompanied it. For 20 years I went all over Europe to schools and other institutions to accompany the exhibitions, to accompany the books, and the film. There was also film about me. And with the filmmaker, we went for 20 years to schools all over the world.

But now I'm not active anymore. That is my daughter, Yifat, who does it. I don't even have electronic devices or electronic telephones. That is all that my daughter, Yifat, is doing. I'm very glad of it. And it's become very rare. And finally, at my age, my secret weapon, of course, is that I'm still alive to see it and hear all that. That it's become worldwide. Was it too painful to speak out before?

My best friends knew I was going to Germany to give lectures about the Hitler time, but they didn't know that I myself was in the camps for two years. That was a secret. Of course, I've got the number tattooed on my arm, but that I could always come up and show it to people. I don't show it very much. I don't want people to ask me. It's a different story.

It's very complex. It's very sad.. It's very complex, it's very sad, and my pictures are very sad. Of course the saddest picture is the one where people arrive and Auschwitz are being sorted out, working men separately, working women separately, and the middle often forgotten are the children, the old, and the invalids, and they didn't see the next day anymore. And that is the saddest picture of modern history in my opinion. And I did find recognition for it, very big recognition. At the Auschwitz Museum, they decided to engrave it in special ink, or into a white memorial wall at the museum. Why do you think you survived Auschwitz when so many didn't?

That's a good question. I had it yesterday by somebody. And he asked, do you think it's a combination of lucky events? Well, the answer is, a lucky event is in life when you win in the lottery. That's lucky. All the other things are just happening in life. And of course you can't survive two years of hard labor in the camp just being lucky. Well, the camp management estimated that prisoners wouldn't live longer than three to six months. Why six months? Because in six months, the hard Polish winter would start with illnesses, colds, and undernourishments,

and they wouldn't survive that. And I have a good immune system. I can also prove it that after the war, during the winters, I had the error of catching COVID. And that saved me. The immune system, that saved me. And of course, I had a very special position in the camp. In Auschwitz No. 1, the main camp, administration camp, had 18,000 men prisoners. At that time, in June of 43, I was the third youngest. I was quite tall. But people knew I was the third youngest,

and the others, they couldn't speak German, so there was nothing to talk about. They couldn't talk to them. But to me, they could talk, and they also knew as a young boy I wouldn't be a spy for the Germans. Lots of prisoners, to make themselves a better position, went to spy to the Nazis,

to the SS, and told them this man is talking about Russia, this one is talking about resistance. They did spy, but for me, people were confident and in a way, of course they were sorry for me all these years. Can you tell me about one of your

drawings in particular? I'm very struck by the drawing of liberation. Well, of course the fences are exactly next to the main building. The main building is drawn smaller than in reality, but the main entrance to the towers is like reality. And when I came to Buchenwald after the war for the first time in 1995, in the manager of Buchenwald, we were surprised that ten items on this picture were exactly true to historic facts. First of all, the way the tower is drawn.

Secondly, there's a tower that's a clock. The clock on the tower is still there, and it stays at a quarter past three. Quarter past three, the liberation moment in 11 April 1945. That's where it stands. That's where I drew it. And of course, the white flag of liberation is still not flying there, but I drew it in reality. Now, the fence goes through the right direction just outside the fence very starkly the three tanks of course you do realize a girl would notice it the american the german tanks were gray and the russian tanks were gray the american tanks were

brown so i drew them brown three, with a big American flag on outside the camp. That's where they passed. And the moment they passed, there was a revolt inside the camp. And as you can see, there's S-men with their arms up, people pointing their guns at them very accurately. And of course, not everybody has a gun. One has, it looks like a Spain, but it's not a Spain. It's a German-type hand grenade that's holding up. And the other one only got a stick. That is a famous liberation picture. And of course, in 1995, when they had the exhibition in Buchenwald,

that poster was up for three months all over Weimar town because it's a historic picture regarding to Buchenwald. And what about that machine gun? Oh yes of course I forgot that is the only machine gun we had captured and there are six different versions of liberation all of them of course wrong no only one is right but I have my own version. We had one machine gun, but my own version is because I've been a lot in the army in Israel, no one is

checked. It is when the SS, some of the SS of course fled, but there was still SS in the watchtowers. So when the SS in the watchtowers suddenly had a machine gun inside the camp, they thought the Americans had

entered the camp. It didn't occur that we would have a machine gun. So they also ran away. That is one of my theories made up, is true. So that is liberation. Let's see. That was fantastic, Thomas. Thank you so much.

You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. More from Thomas and his daughter coming up. How can toilet training cows help save the planet? Should we start renting our clothes? And why on earth is beds from the Happy Mondays now keeping bees? I'm Jimmy Doherty, TV presenter, farmer and conservationist, and these are just a few of the questions we'll be answering on my new podcast on Jimmy's Farm from History Hit.

Join me on the farm to hear from the likes of the founder of the Eden Project, Sir Tim Smith. It is only people who don't know what they're doing that can do marvellous things in some areas because received wisdom will sometimes sometimes you'll talk yourself out of it if you've got lots of people who've done it before professor dita helm on how to stop climate change there may be all sorts of products like avocados and everything will have palm oil in it etc and these have not just long distances involved in but they're not actually producing what could be produced on the land and the frame that it's set.

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In fact, thank you for coming on and answering a few questions. Firstly, how were these pictures received by your grandfather, Thomas's dad? It must have been so hard for him to look at his son's pictures and realise the trauma that he'd been through. It's interesting because Thomas wrote the second book about his experiences after the war. So the chapter when he speaks about meeting his father, we have in our mind when a boy after such experience meets his father, they probably fall into each other's arms and catch up all those years.

But the meeting, it was very emotional, of course, and they quite soon after realized that his mother did not survive. And there were a bit of time that they kind of absorbed this idea that they're alone in the world now. And the drawings, as far as I know, as far as what he wrote about it, they never went through the drawings really. I think it was not with words. I think he just gave it to his father.

His father put it in a safe, and they never spoke about it, you know, officially, for a few reasons. I think, one, they both understood that it's very sensitive. I'm not sure how my father was in those years with expressing his emotions

and history. He's very good about explaining the technical issues and the history, but not too much about what his personal experience is. He wrote them amazingly. When you read the book, there's so much there, but not as he speaks about it. So with his father also, since Thomas was nine, he didn't see his father. And also, until he was nine, he was born in Germany. And 90 years ago, the interaction between parents and children was not like these days. So they were not really talking to their emotions and sharing so much. They were more like educating their children.

And so the connection with his father was not by speaking. So I think both the idea that they haven't seen each other for so many years and Thomas grew up on his own most of his life. So the connection was not of so much of talking and emotion and so, but they shared a little bit of this time, but I don't think they ever sat and went through the drawings and he told the story. At least he didn't tell us that he did so, and he didn't write about that. Your father obviously finds some of these things too painful to talk about. For example, what happened to his mother.

As a man deep in his 90s, how does he still cope with that trauma? It has been always a very sensitive thing to speak about his family. In the past, he would not answer it at all. And nowadays, he says something general. But he kind of separates his past life. So as I said, when he arrived to England, he would start to be asked about his past life. And he decided he put that life under pseudonym. So Thomas Jeeve is a story of the boy in the Holocaust. But he kept his real name as he grew up. And everyone knew him by his real name. And many Holocaust survivors did the opposite, left their real name behind with their memories

and chose a new name for the new life. And that's an interesting choice that he did the other way. And I think it's a very healthy choice because he feels he was a boy, he was growing up to become a certain kind of a man. And the years of persecution and war and camps was a completely different world. He was not meant to live through that world. And once he did, for him, his recovery was to go back to his origins, to the kind of person he was meant to be,

and not letting those years of persecution and horrors and seeing a horrible world around him, he did not want to let that kind of world affect who he is. He chose to go back to his origins and become a decent person, a person that changed the world, affected the world in his best way, and be positive about people and be positive about life and keep on his belief that the future holds a better life. So in that way, I think Thomas' character is very unique,

and I think that's why his testimony is different. He had a unique character. And one of the things that, besides being very friendly and open, he was respecting people, and he was very good with connection with anyone. people and he was very good with connection with anyone he did not judge people by their look or by their nation or the age or anything so being such a person i believe attracted people to him because he was surrounded by people who were his friends and many has helped him. And that's very unique in a concentration camp. And I believe he had something in his way of treating others that made others want to help him, not just being young. As you said, that's one thing, of course.

But it's still hard for him to go into those years because he's been through a huge trauma. But the drawing was a therapy. And he did talk about it sometimes. Not today, but it was therapeutic. huge trauma but the joint was a therapy and he did talk about it sometimes it's not today but it was therapeutic in fact we've now learned so much about the multi-generational impact of the holocaust i'm sure it's very difficult for you and i'm sure you don't want to compare what you've been through to the suffering of your father and his generation but how has it been for you how

have these events affected your life even though they occurred years before you were born it's interesting there has been a research and a book written about this. There are many ways to cope, same as many survivors cope differently with their experiences. So the second and third generation has different ways of coping with this. Some Holocaust survivors felt more victimized. They couldn't do much to help themselves. and there were others who were more active to help themselves and that changed their life so my father is one of these who were active even though he could have been a victim he decided to become an active and actively change his destiny and the events that happens to him so that's the kind of person he is. So after the war, after being released from the camps, he decided that his life in camp would stay as something that he wanted to talk about to

people who know that it happened, but he would not let that affect him, drag him backwards. He always looked forward to the future and what can he do and what can he do better. and what can he do and what can he do better. So I think that went on to our genes as well. And all of us, my brother and sister and our children as well, we do everything we can to help to make a better place, a better world, to help people, to heal things, to heal the world. Some of us in education, some of us in social work, some of us in education, some of us in social work, some of us in therapeutic

occupation, some of us just connecting people. Everyone found his own way to do it, but we all step in his footsteps of doing good and understanding the bad things that people can do, and we should choose differently and enlarge the good things in the world of light opposed to the darkness that we've seen. So many people think that the past is a dark past. It is a dark past but we don't want to be under the darkness of it. We want to make it as a memory how dark dark it could be, but we need to have lighthouses. As a lighthouse to remind us we should hold the life that people deserve and the dignity and respect to each other.

That's our way to remember the past, not as a trauma. It is a trauma, but you can grow out of traumas to become a better person and help others to grow through their traumas as well. a better person and help others to grow through their traumas as well. And I believe his drawings did that as well. For many other boys, by the way, when they arrived to Switzerland, other boys saw his drawings and the teachers encouraged everyone to draw their experiences. So many of them did that. And no one thought those days about art therapy.

They just did it. And that was his idea. And he just didn't know. He would never say he did that but he actually did and i believe when you help yourself look it's just an example how it helps the others around you that's part of thomas testimony is to make us think about those things as well thank you that was wonderful thank you so much for coming on thank you so much dan thank you all the best thanks folks you've reached the end of our episode hope you're still awake appreciate your loyalty

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