Holocaust survivor recounts horrific story at RAF Mildenhall

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Austin M. May
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  As part of RAF Mildenhall's Holocaust observance week, Team Mildenhall was offered an eyewitness account of the atrocities of that time period.

Janina Fischler-Martino, a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust by hiding in a ghetto with her older brother, spoke to a captivated audience about what it was like to watch her family and friends being marched off to Nazi concentration camps, not knowing if she would ever see them again.

On the verge of tears, she told of the occupation of her town by the Third Reich, and the hardships faced by her and her brother. Mrs. Fischler-Martinho shared the emotional roller coaster of the 1945 liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp by American forces, where her brother had been incarcerated and forced into slave labor.

She told the story of how American troops nursed her older brother back to health from the brink of death.

"Americans have played a considerable part in our lives," she said to the predominantly American audience. The 79-year-old widow, who is now the only surviving member of her family, also told of her escape from Poland, through the Alps to Italy and eventually to Scotland. Once there, she was admitted into a Catholic boarding school even though she was Jewish, and her education was free based on her status as a war orphan.

She began to break down as she told of her brother crying for the first time as their family and friends were taken out of Krakow by Nazi SS soldiers who mercilessly killed those who couldn't keep up.

Mrs. Fischler-Martino said she tells her story to others in the memory of the people who perished so they are not forgotten ... "So the world knows they lived and their lives were taken in the most cruel way imaginable," she said. "A sick man had a whim, and six million people had to die to satisfy it."

Master Sgt. Anthony Weiss, who coordinated the base's Holocaust Observance Week, said it was an honor to have Mrs. Fischler-Martino speak to the crowd.

"Afterward, several people went and talked to her, and I think people took a lot away from her speech," he said. "It's a tough time to remember. People don't like to revisit this type of thing, but it's not something to be ignored."

The master sergeant said it's fortunate that we still have people alive today who can give an eyewitness account of what happened during that time, giving a personal touch to the textbook stories taught in school.

"You could tell she was reliving it as she spoke," he said. "She wasn't just speaking topically."

Sergeant Weiss said while the story she told was engrossing, it was difficult to watch her tell it, reliving the pain from her experience.

"I was enriched by it," he said.