The Story of a Holocaust Survivor

It wasn’t until Michelle Glied-Goldstein was 16 years old that her father, Bill Glied, decided to share his story as a survivor of the Holocaust. The moment Bill opened up about his past, he became passionate about educating people on the Holocaust. He spoke to thousands of students and led many March of the Living trips. In 2017, Michelle interviewed her father to keep his memories alive and has used these recordings to continue telling his story. 

In honour of Greenwood’s Holocaust Education Week, Michelle shared her father’s story with the Greenwood community. She used clips from her interview with him and displayed historic images throughout her presentation.

“As Elie Wiesel said, ‘when you listen to a witness, you become a witness.’ I hope today, by hearing his history from me, you too will become a witness and you will learn the lessons and history of the Holocaust and share it with your friends, family and the generations to come.” 

Read Bill’s story below.

Bill Glied grew up in the small town of Subotica in what was then Yugoslavia. In 1943, when Bill was around 13 years old, the persecution of Jewish people by the Nazis began in Subotica. Jewish citizens could no longer shop during regular business hours, Jewish businesses were taken away from their owners, and Jewish people could no longer walk on the sidewalk; they had to walk in the centre of the street. 

The rules affecting young kids were the most challenging for Bill. He could no longer own a radio or go to the movie theatre, which was one of his favourite pastimes. His teacher made him and three other Jewish classmates sit in the back of the class away from the other students, and he was kicked off of the soccer team. Bill also lost a close friend because that friend's father told him he was not allowed to be friends with Jewish people.

“It’s so hard to understand how a whole community could change their views on the Jews that lived amongst them,” Bill said. “But that’s what happened.” 

In 1944, all of the Jewish people in his hometown were told to pack up a few belongings and report to City Hall. They were told they would be relocated to another part of the country where they would find work.

That’s not what happened. 

They were all directed to walk down the middle of the street to the train station. “I recall that day very clearly,” said Bill. “Everyone just stood there and watched us walk out of this town as though we don’t belong there.” This was one of the first instances where Michelle’s father noticed that no one stood up for them. 

When Bill, along with his parents and his sister, arrived at the train station, he was shocked to see cattle cars on the railroad tracks rather than the usual passenger trains. Without question or choice, they were loaded into the cars. “We were jam packed in those cars like sardines,” he said. The noise of babies crying and the look of fear and confusion on people’s faces stayed with him for decades.

They spent two days travelling in these cars, without access to food, water or washrooms, to what he described as, “the worst piece of ground on the whole Earth.” This place was Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. 

When Bill and his family arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, they saw barbed wire everywhere and a large group of people wearing what looked like striped pajamas. “People started screaming at each other. It was complete chaos. There was so much commotion,” said Bill.  

They were all told to put their belongings on the side of the road and to line up in two columns. One column was for men and older boys and the other was for women and children. Bill held on to his father’s hand and his sister went with his mother. 

That was the last time he ever saw his sister and mother. “I never said goodbye. We never kissed or hugged or even spoke before they separated us,” said Bill. He later learned that they were sent to the gas chambers.

Bill and his father were selected to become slave labourers. They were stripped naked and taken to a room where all of their body hair was shaved off. They were then given striped uniforms and wooden clogs to wear and were assigned a number. From then on, he was number 71572.

Both Bill and his father were sent to Kaufering III to build a hidden facility that would store fighter jets and army equipment. At 13 years old, Bill was working 12 hours a day. Each day, they were only offered one bowl of soup and one piece of bread. “You had to decide in the evening what you were going to do with that bread: hide it for the morning or eat it right away because you were starving,” Bill said. Michelle clarified that this was not the hunger of a schoolchild waiting for the lunch bell to ring. “They were absolutely starving,” she said.

Every other Sunday, the slave labourers at Kaufering III had to complete a fitness test, which consisted of standing on a wooden chair. One day, Bill’s father couldn’t get up on the chair because he was too weak. The officers told Bill’s dad that they were going to send him to a different camp. 

Bill started crying because he knew his dad was being sent away. An officer asked Bill if he wanted to go with his father, and Bill said yes. They were both sent to what was known as the ‘sick camp’, but it was not a place of healing. “The sick camp did not have medication or doctors or anything that was going to help you get better,” Michelle said. “You simply went to the sick camp to die.” On April 21,1945, Bill’s father passed away and Bill was left an orphan. To this day, Bill believes that the only reason he survived the Holocaust was because he was able to stay with his father as long as possible.

Soon after his father had passed, Bill left Kaufering III; the Allies were approaching, and the German army wanted to burn down the camp to avoid leaving evidence behind. He and the other slave labourers were loaded into a coal train and taken to Dachau. On April 29, 1945, Dachau was liberated by the American army. 

After liberation, Bill’s memory was faint. He remembered people from the Red Cross putting him on a stretcher and taking him to an army hospital to recuperate. He was diagnosed with “cachexia”, meaning that he was withering away.

After recuperating in the hospital for six weeks, Bill was sent ‘home’ -- but he had no family or house to go back to. Eventually, he became one of the first 1,000 children orphaned in the Holocaust to be admitted to Canada. Bill was very proud to be a Canadian.

Bill didn’t speak a lot about his experiences after the war. It took him a while to open up to his family but once he did, he didn’t stop talking about it. He also became concerned that stories like his would be lost, as many Holocaust survivors have passed away. In 2017, Michelle and her father decided to record an exclusive interview so she could share his story or years to come. 

Bill passed away in 2018, but his legacy remains. Michelle uses his story to help others understand the deep-rooted history of the Holocaust. “We are a people of survival. We turn to our community to continue to remain strong and be proud of our beliefs. I think it’s a matter of the community coming together. It’s also a matter of optimism. It’s not just about justice for the past, it’s about justice for the future,” said Michelle.

Michelle said her father always left three important messages with students:

1. Kiss the ground you're standing on because we are so lucky to live in a country as great as Canada. And it’s up to all of you to make sure we continue to make this place a great country.
2. Kiss the people who love and care for you because it's so difficult to live without them.
3. Do one good thing every day - help around the house, help a friend, help a neighbour. Whatever it may be - do one good thing. Because if we all did one good thing, we could make the world a much better place.