Survivor and Liberator

On November 5, 1943, a convoy of cattle cars with a batch of human livestock arrived at the rail platform of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Half-choked by the fetid smell, faint with thirst, and avoiding the corpses of those who’d died on the horrific journey, out stumbled 13-year old Dov Berish and his father, devoted Bobover chassid Reb Binyomin Landau.

There on the railway platform young Dov’s childhood ended. He learned that here in this new existence, even next to his tall father, he was utterly alone. “The SS began beating us and shouting ‘Schnell, schnell,’ while their dogs strained at the leash. And my father couldn’t say anything to me — it was each person for himself.”

A little over a year later, another Jewish boy arrived in Auschwitz. Like Dov Landau, Max Privler was born in Yiddish-speaking Poland, and like the son of the Bobover chassid, this child of wealthy landowners also had his comfortable childhood shattered.

But unlike Dov, Max wasn’t there as a prisoner: Just 14 years old, he entered Auschwitz as a liberator. At an age when most kids are figuring out how to cut class, he was one of a small number of child-soldiers in the Red Army, operating deep behind enemy lines on intelligence missions.