My name is Avraham Leibovich. I was born on October 14, 1928, in the village of Velyki Komiaty.
Back then, it was the village with the largest Jewish population in Zakarpattia. In all seventy Jewish families, traditions and rituals were strictly observed. The locals treated us with respect because we were hardworking and never refused to help anyone.
I came from a large family. My father, Isaac, was a carpenter; my mother, Chava, managed the household and raised six sons and four daughters. I attended both secular school and cheder (a traditional Jewish primary school), and I loved music. By the age of six, I was already performing in concerts, playing the violin.
Life was wonderful. And then, the war began.
I remember vividly that terrible day when all the Jews of our village were driven into the Irshava ghetto. It happened on the second day of Passover.
After some time, we were loaded into freight cars and taken west—to what we later realized was Auschwitz. As soon as we were unloaded from the train, they began sorting us: adults to the left, children to the right.
That was the last time we saw our father. My brother Maurice and I watched in horror as he and the other men were driven toward the crematorium.
Two days later, I was placed in a group of prisoners sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. It was there I was given the number 55452. It has stayed with me my entire life.
Everything happening around us felt like a gruesome nightmare from which I needed to wake up. But the worst was yet to come—at the Dora concentration camp.
This was a penal camp where we were forced into hard labor, constantly beaten, and given nothing to eat. I lost weight rapidly; soon, I weighed only 33 kilograms (72 lbs).
Those of us still able to stand were sent to work in other places of detention. I was assigned first to the Harzungen camp, and then to the Ehrlich camp, where we laid railroad tracks inside tunnels.
On April 24, 1945, as the Russians advanced and the front drew closer, 120 prisoners—myself included—were transported in freight cars to Bergen-Belsen. We were expected to walk from the train station to the concentration camp. It was a distance of seven kilometers; for us, exhausted and barely able to stand, it was a death sentence.
Anyone who fell was shot on the spot. Out of the 120, only six people reached the camp alive.
We were eventually liberated by British soldiers. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. We were moved into military barracks and fed frequently. It took me several months to even begin to recover.
I returned to Ukraine on August 1, 1945. I lived with my sister in Vynohradiv, studied at a vocational school, and worked as a carpenter.
But I felt an unbearable pull toward the music I had loved since childhood. Eventually, I graduated from the Chernivtsi Music College and the Lviv Conservatory, and I served in the army. My wife, Faina, also miraculously survived a horrific ghetto in Dzhurin, Ukraine.
For a long time, we dreamed of moving to Israel, and eventually, we succeeded, moving there with our son. In Israel, Faina became a well-known pianist, and I worked as a cello teacher.
We survived. And for that, we thank God.
