Eddy Wynschenk
Encyclopedia
Eddy Wynschenk was a Holocaust survivor who became renowned throughout the San Francisco Bay Area
and beyond for sharing his story, frequently, at schools throughout Northern California
. Before the Russian Army
liberated Holocaust survivors from the Auschwitz death camp in January, 1945, he was forced to go on a death march
. During the march he suffered frostbite
. Using scissors, nurses cut off his numb, frostbitten toes to save his life at the Dora-Nordhausen camp
. Speaking to students, he got angry often, and often cried as well. But sharing his Holocaust story with students became his mission in life.
Wynschenk was put to work in Birkenau, the killing facility of Auschwitz. In a speech to the Holocaust Center of Northern California
, Wynschenk later described how he was selected to work on the train platform where the Jews first arrived. After large transports of Hungarian
Jews were forced off the trains, Wynschenk had to go aboard the cattle cars and empty them of whatever possessions the Jews had left behind, then load what was left behind onto trucks. Afterwards, he was selected to work in a coal mine in Furstengrubbe, an Auschwitz sub-camp.
As World War II
drew to a close and Allied liberators closed in upon Auschwitz, Wynschenk was among thousands of prisoners forced from the camp and into a death march by the Nazis. The prisoners wended their way westward. After three days of trudging through freezing mud on their forced death march, and ten more days cramped among many other prisoners in an open convoy, the teenage Wynschenk's toes turned black from gangrene
. He was not yet eighteen years old –and weighed a mere 75 pounds– at the end of World War II in 1945, when two nurses cut off his toes. No anesthetic was used, but Wynschenk was so numb that he did not feel anything. His toes were thrown into a fire. Afterwards, his unique gait became easily recognizable.
After liberation from the death camp, Wynschenk returned to Holland, by which time his entire immediate family had been killed. He never graduated from high school. He married four years later, in 1949.
, first to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, where he worked in a leather factory. The Wynschenks moved to the San Francisco Peninsula
in 1957, had two children, and subsequently divorced. Wynschenk remarried, to a survivor of a Japan
ese concentration camp in Indonesia
. Wynschenk worked in the insurance
business.
Wynshenk received numerous letters from appreciative students who heard him, and many inviting him to speak. “I get goosebumps when I read them. I cry. The kids open up from deep inside. They touch me with their love, power, their strength.” In 1988, he was invited to a middle school in Galt, California
, after a student there brought in a newspaper article about him. “Usually I get letters after I talk to schools,” he then told the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, but the students had already written him more than a hundred letters. When he and his wife went to Galt, they were welcomed with a banner that said “Welcome, We Love You.”
Wynshenk was awarded an honorary high school diploma in 1989, from Earl Wooster High School
in Reno, Nevada
, where a month earlier his talk had held students spellbound for two hours.
In 1997, Wynschenk went to tell his story at a church in San Bruno, California
, but was confronted by five Holocaust deniers
who insisted his story was a hoax
. But the audience would have none of it. “The kids stood up roaring, roaring, roaring. Eighty kids, as if on cue, stood up and said ‘Shut up, get out of here,’" according to Wynshenk. The crowd then began to chant, “Eddy, Eddy, Eddy,”
, according to Louis de Groot of the Holocaust Center, who described him as “very scarred from his wartime experiences. There were very few people who understood him. He never was able to really conquer the damage that had been inflicted on him. He lived with a lot of guilt.” That his sisters came out of hiding on his account, only to be killed themselves, “was a very big burden that he carried,” de Groot said.
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
and beyond for sharing his story, frequently, at schools throughout Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
. Before the Russian Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
liberated Holocaust survivors from the Auschwitz death camp in January, 1945, he was forced to go on a death march
Death march
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees. Those marching must walk over long distances for an extremely long period of time and are not supplied with food or water...
. During the march he suffered frostbite
Frostbite
Frostbite is the medical condition where localized damage is caused to skin and other tissues due to extreme cold. Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas...
. Using scissors, nurses cut off his numb, frostbitten toes to save his life at the Dora-Nordhausen camp
Mittelbau-Dora
Mittelbau-Dora was a Nazi Germany labour camp that provided workers for the Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory in the Kohnstein, situated near Nordhausen, Germany....
. Speaking to students, he got angry often, and often cried as well. But sharing his Holocaust story with students became his mission in life.
Early life
Wynschenk was the youngest of four children whose father was a wholesale dealer in fruits and vegetables. When the Nazis occupied Holland in 1940, Wynschenk’s father lost his business. Wynschenk was separated from the rest of his family after they were arrested in 1943. His two sisters were in hiding, but they turned themselves in after learning their younger brother was without his parents. His sisters did not survive. He arrived in the Westerbork transit camp in Holland, alone, and then was deported to Auschwitz. Wynschenk never again saw any of his immediate family.Wynschenk was put to work in Birkenau, the killing facility of Auschwitz. In a speech to the Holocaust Center of Northern California
Holocaust Center of Northern California
The Holocaust Center of Northern California is a non-profit organization formed to ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust never be forgotten...
, Wynschenk later described how he was selected to work on the train platform where the Jews first arrived. After large transports of Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
Jews were forced off the trains, Wynschenk had to go aboard the cattle cars and empty them of whatever possessions the Jews had left behind, then load what was left behind onto trucks. Afterwards, he was selected to work in a coal mine in Furstengrubbe, an Auschwitz sub-camp.
As World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
drew to a close and Allied liberators closed in upon Auschwitz, Wynschenk was among thousands of prisoners forced from the camp and into a death march by the Nazis. The prisoners wended their way westward. After three days of trudging through freezing mud on their forced death march, and ten more days cramped among many other prisoners in an open convoy, the teenage Wynschenk's toes turned black from gangrene
Gangrene
Gangrene is a serious and potentially life-threatening condition that arises when a considerable mass of body tissue dies . This may occur after an injury or infection, or in people suffering from any chronic health problem affecting blood circulation. The primary cause of gangrene is reduced blood...
. He was not yet eighteen years old –and weighed a mere 75 pounds– at the end of World War II in 1945, when two nurses cut off his toes. No anesthetic was used, but Wynschenk was so numb that he did not feel anything. His toes were thrown into a fire. Afterwards, his unique gait became easily recognizable.
After liberation from the death camp, Wynschenk returned to Holland, by which time his entire immediate family had been killed. He never graduated from high school. He married four years later, in 1949.
Coming to America
In 1956, Wynschenk and his wife immigrated to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, first to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, where he worked in a leather factory. The Wynschenks moved to the San Francisco Peninsula
San Francisco Peninsula
The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is in Santa Clara County, including the cities of Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Mountain...
in 1957, had two children, and subsequently divorced. Wynschenk remarried, to a survivor of a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese concentration camp in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. Wynschenk worked in the insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
business.
On a mission
Wynschenk never talked about his past, until after receiving a phone call in 1972 from a religious-school teacher. The teacher had discovered that Wynschenk was a Holocaust survivor from his son, Mike. Few Holocaust survivors were making their stories known at the time. The teacher asked the elder Wynschenk to speak to the class about his story, but he became angry instead, and promptly refused. But then he reconsidered. “He became determined for people to know his story and spoke to many, many schoolchildren over the years,” said Adrian Schrek, of the Holocaust Center of Northern California, “He touched many children over the years.”Wynshenk received numerous letters from appreciative students who heard him, and many inviting him to speak. “I get goosebumps when I read them. I cry. The kids open up from deep inside. They touch me with their love, power, their strength.” In 1988, he was invited to a middle school in Galt, California
Galt, California
Galt is a city in Sacramento County, California, USA. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, after a student there brought in a newspaper article about him. “Usually I get letters after I talk to schools,” he then told the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, but the students had already written him more than a hundred letters. When he and his wife went to Galt, they were welcomed with a banner that said “Welcome, We Love You.”
Wynshenk was awarded an honorary high school diploma in 1989, from Earl Wooster High School
Earl Wooster High School
Earl Wooster High School, or Wooster High School , is a public secondary school in Reno, Nevada that is a part of the Washoe County School District. Its mascot is the Colt and the school colors are scarlet, white, and silver. As of the 2010 school year, Wooster was ranked 177th on Newsweek...
in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
, where a month earlier his talk had held students spellbound for two hours.
In 1997, Wynschenk went to tell his story at a church in San Bruno, California
San Bruno, California
San Bruno is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. The population was 41,114 at the 2010 census.The city is adjacent to San Francisco International Airport and Golden Gate National Cemetery.-Geography:San Bruno is located at...
, but was confronted by five Holocaust deniers
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
who insisted his story was a hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
. But the audience would have none of it. “The kids stood up roaring, roaring, roaring. Eighty kids, as if on cue, stood up and said ‘Shut up, get out of here,’" according to Wynshenk. The crowd then began to chant, “Eddy, Eddy, Eddy,”
Survivor's guilt
Wynschenk was haunted by survivor’s guiltSurvivor guilt
Survivor, survivor's, or survivors guilt or syndrome is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives themselves to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not...
, according to Louis de Groot of the Holocaust Center, who described him as “very scarred from his wartime experiences. There were very few people who understood him. He never was able to really conquer the damage that had been inflicted on him. He lived with a lot of guilt.” That his sisters came out of hiding on his account, only to be killed themselves, “was a very big burden that he carried,” de Groot said.
Quote
“Whenever I talk about the Holocaust, I look to the sky, because that’s where the six million went.”See also
- American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
- United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumUnited States Holocaust Memorial MuseumThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
External links
- Alexandra J. Wall, "Survivor who lost his family and toes but found joy in sharing story dies", j.J.j., also known as Jweekly, is a Jewish website and weekly magazine in Northern California. It is owned and operated by "j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California"...
, December 19, 2003. - Leslie Katz, "Convinced he had no kin, survivor finds a lost cousin: "It's a miracle," says the Dutch-born Wynschenk'", j.J.j., also known as Jweekly, is a Jewish website and weekly magazine in Northern California. It is owned and operated by "j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California"...
, December 1, 1995.
Portrait
- JBrownPhoto.com - 'Eddie Wynschenk, a holocaust survivor, pauses to collect himself during a lecture given to teens.'