ERNEST W. MICHEL
THE MIRACLE AND POWER OF THE PEN:
by Jeanette Friedman.

When Ernie Michel was 13 years old, he was kicked out of school in his hometown of Mannheim, Germany for being Jewish. As a result, Ernie never made it past the 6th grade. Then two years later, on the night of November 9, 1938, the German government sanctioned the first official acts of physical violence against Jewish people and burned their synagogues, looted their shops and homes, breaking windows everywhere.

Ernie was in a suburb that night and watched the local synagogue burn to ash as everyone just stood around doing nothing That night he barely escaped being arrested by the Gestapo. Grabbing the first train back to Mannheim, he found that his father, a tobacconist whose cigar factory was confiscated by the Nazis, had been arrested and that the family home was ransacked. His father came home two days later, a broken man.

Yet in the spring of 1939, because Ernie had nothing to do, his father insisted that he study calligraphy, the art of handwriting. Ernie couldn’t understand it, but his father was adamant. He told his son: "You never know when it might come in handy, and in the meantime, it will keep you busy."

On September 3, 1939, the Gestapo arrested Ernie and ordered him to show up at the train station at 6 a.m. the next morning with no more than one suitcase and 50 Deutsche Marks. He was pressed into slave labor at a nobleman’s estate near Berlin, and was able to keep in touch with his parents until they were deported on two hours notice to Gurs, a notorious French concentration camp. After the war he learned they were murdered in Auschwitz.

In March 1943, Ernie was himself brutally welcomed to Auschwitz, where he and some of his fellow survivors were assigned to build the rubber factory at Auschwitz-Buna. One of the first things he and his friends learned was that if you were injured or ill you avoided the infirmary, because it was usually a one-way ticket to the next world.

In late summer of 1943, a Nazi guard hit him in the head with his rifle butt. Ernie was knocked out by the blow, soon developed an infection and could barely work. Half-dead, he consented to go to the infirmary, where he knew his chances of survival would be slim to none.

After waiting more than an hour, an important prisoner, Stefan Heyman, asked if anyone had a legible handwriting. Ernie hesitated for a moment, wondering if there was a catch. But as the man turned to leave, he raised his hand and said, "I do."

By that time Ernie felt he had nothing to lose. Perhaps they would give him an extra piece of bread in exchange for his work. "I studied calligraphy at home," he said.

Heyman handed Ernie a pen and a piece of paper. "Write down the Auschwitz number and the word Koerperschwaeche (weakness of the body) and Herzansshlag (heart attack)." He watched for a few moments as Ernie relearned how to hold a pen and began writing the words he was ordered to write. Then Heyman said, "You'll do."

Before he began his task, Ernie pointed to his wound and asked if he could get some help. Within minutes, his head was cleaned and bandaged. Heyman arranged for him to stay in the infirmary overnight. After a few days, Ernie went to work in the infirmary first as clerk and then as an orderly and was given extra food. After the war, Heyman, the man who saved him, became the first minister of the interior for Eastern Germany.

Ernie helped save many lives by bringing some of this food to people he knew were starving.

Two years later, Auschwitz was evacuated, as the Russians moved west. Ernie and 60,000 Aushwitz inmate were led out on a death march that ended in Buchenwald. Then he was sent on a final death march from the camp Berga, and managed to escape with two of his friends in April 1945.

At the end of the war, he made his way back to Mannheim, and discovered he was the first Holocaust survivor to get there. He was taken under the wing of Rabbi Abraham Haselkorn, a chaplain in the U.S. Army. Haselkorn introduced him to Lt. Al Hutler, an American officer who worked with Displaced Persons in that region, both of them were also involved with UJA in America. Ernie managed to locate his sister in Israel.

Seven months after he escaped, Ernie became a special correspondent for DANA, the German news agency, where he was assigned to cover the Nuremberg war crimes trials for all German newspapers. His byline read Ernst Michel, Auschwitz Number 104995, special DANA correspondant in Nuremberg. Afterward, Ernie came to New York aboard the USS Marine Flasher, one of the first Holocaust survivors to come to the United States in early 1946.

He began his American life as a journalist in Port Huron, Michigan, and then in 1947 became a professional at the United Jewish Appeal, and looks back at 62 years of dedicated service. Working with his colleagues at UJA, he raised money for Israel and Jewish causes. Eventually he became executive vice-president of UJA/FedNY, one of the largest charitable organizations in the world.

Although retired, he retains his title as executive vice president emeritus and goes to his office daily.

When he wrote his book, Promises to Keep, he gave all the profits to charity and was awarded honorary doctorates from Lehman College of the City University of New York and Yeshiva University.

While in Auschwitz, Ernie and his friends conceived of the idea that ultimately became the World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Jerusalem in June 1981. Thousands of survivors and their families came from all over the world for this once in a lifetime event. Ernie and other survivor leaders, like our honorary chairman, Prof. Elie Wiesel and the late Benjamin Meed, handed down the legacy of the survivors and gave them a voice that is heard around the world.

Ernest W. Michel dedicated himself to keep Yiddishkeit and Judaism, Israel and the Jewish people alive and vibrant, and has been a role model of how to live the legacy of the past in the future.