As an 18-year old girl Berry Nahmias endured torments in Auschwitz beyond imagination. Rather than give in to her torturers, she discovered an inner strength, which she uses today to help the few remaining Greek Holocaust survivors.

By Nathaniel Tishman

Berry Nahmias' story is not a unique one. On the contrary, the more than 12 million who were murdered under Hitler's tyranny; Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, academics, and anyone in opposition to the goals of the Third Reich share her experiences. Berry Nahmias' story is unusual, however, as she is not only a survivor, but also she is among the victims which most of the world knows next to nothing about, the Jewish people of Greece.

With more than 85% of her community having been murdered, Nahmias today leads the Association of Greek Holocaust Survivors, a group which has dwindled to less than 50 members as time continues its unstoppable march. A trained psychologist, she has become a rock of stability for other Greek Jewish survivors who continue to be tormented by the nightmares of 60 years ago. It is her goal now to ensure that the world never forgets what happened to the Jewish people of Greece- soon the last witnesses will be gone; someone will need to carry on their story. This is the account of Berry Nahmias.

I arrive at Nahmias' Kifissia District apartment in the early evening- the sun is beginning to set on another brutally hot day. The walls of the spacious apartment are decorated with photos of her children, a few paintings, and a large mirror. We are seated in the living room, and she begins.

Nahmias is in her early 80's, with thinning grey-brown hair. She wears a black and white striped sweater with patches of pink, and a simple golden wristwatch. In stark contrast to the watch a very prominent tattoo is present on her left forearm, slightly faded, but the number 76859, with a small upside-down triangle beneath it is still visible. Every morning when Nahmias looks at this she is reminded how the Nazis attempted to strip her of her humanity, doing their best to kill her body and soul. She speaks somewhat halting English with an accent, but certainly enough to get by. She looks as though she could be any average grandmother, but beneath is an inner strength, which sustained her during her time as a prisoner of the Nazis.

Ominous beginnings

Nahmias was born and raised in Kastoria, a small town near the border of present-day Albania, about 150 kilometers northwest of Thessaloniki. In 1941 the Italian army attempted to occupy Greece, but the Greek forces repelled them. Shortly thereafter their German counterparts invaded, in a move that would prove to be the beginning of the end for the Jewish community of Greece. In the fall of 1943, the deportation of the Jews of Thessaloniki was complete, and the Nazis turned their sights elsewhere- Kastoria was an easy target.

According to the records of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Athens, there were 935 Jews residing in Kastoria in 1943, Berry Nahmias among them. She had just finished high school, and was preparing to go to university- the Nazis had other plans, however. When the Germans invaded, the Jewish community was taken to the nearby Vasavia labor camp, where they were held until the Nazis were ready to take them to Auschwitz.

After a short stay, the Jewish prisoners were loaded into cattle cars to begin the journey to Poland. More than 100 people were packed into each cattle car, designed to hold a few head of cattle.

"The journey lasted 8 days," Nahmias recalls. "The train would stop only occasionally, to remove the bodies of the people who had died during the trip."

" We arrived in Auschwitz at the main platform and we got out- nobody knew what was happening. We were separated; all of us who were able to work, and all of the older people and children who were immediately killed. I was separated from my father, stepmother, sister, brother, and 4 half-siblings- I never saw them again, and I was the only one of more than 50 to survive."

"We were nothing to them..."

Nahmias would be imprisoned in Auschwitz for one and a half years. During her time in the camp she was forced to work in the crematoriums, helping to load the gassed bodies of her people into the flames. In addition to the psychological torture she was enduring, she and her fellow laborers were kept in a state of near-starvation.

"It was very difficult– we were given one piece of bread to last the entire day, and some sort of soup with hormones that would make us stop developing," she recounts. "We were nothing to them."

She was closer to death every day, and was beginning to give up hope.

"I had the feeling that every day I could die, that I could no longer accept the idea of being alive. I wanted to die, and it would've been very easy to."

According to Nahmias a common sight at Auschwitz was of fellow inmates committing suicide by throwing themselves on the electrical fences.

"Many days we saw bodies hanging on the wires- it was an easy death," she remembers.

When she was in Auschwitz she had been brought to Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous 'doctor' responsible for some of the most gruesome medical 'experiments' in history. Mengele was looking for prisoners with beautiful hands.

"They thought that mine were beautiful, and I was brought to him by the guards," Nahmias recalls with a shudder. "He had seen me before, and he recognized me from another time before. He wanted to cut off my hands and just keep them, but he made me wait. Imagine how that was, that waiting."

"Dora, my survival..."

Just at the point when Nahmias had given up hope, she received a sign from God, in a sense. Although she may not have realized at the time, in the years of terror, a Yugoslavian woman named Dora would become the one thing she could rely on.

"Dora knew how to work within the system and stay alive. She told me; "Nobody can kill me, I have too much strength to survive. When I saw Dora eating the same bread as me, I found strength. I could follow Dora and survive by becoming strong like her."

Despite their torment, both Dora and Berry Nahmias were guided by a common belief.

"We felt that there was a little bit of God in everyone, and if they could simply find it and work together, all of the power could be combined," she recalls.

Later Nahmias and Dora would be separated, presumably never to see each other again. At this point, Nahmias discovered an inner strength, something she didn't know she had.

"Once I was alone I thought it was time to help myself- I wanted to survive."

As Nahmias recounts her story her eyes stare distantly ahead- perhaps she is picturing herself at the time, remembering her involuntary role in some of the most horrific events in human history.

Continued