from a phone call on November 15th, 2005

I was born in 1925 in Riga ( Latvia), to Nechama (nee Kantor)
and Shmuel Kristal. I was the second child to be born. My parents had a
girl in 1923. She died when still a baby. My father was born in a tiny
shtetl in Lithuania by the name of Klykoliai, to Sima nee Leibson (I am named
after her) and Aharon Kristal in 1892. He was the oldest of eight boys and
one girl. When Shmuel was still a child the family moved to Latvia. (
c 1899) they settled in Auce, Latvia. My mother, Nechama, was the only
girl born to Eliyahu and Gita Kantor of Shavli in 1896. She had five older
brothers. The oldest; Meir Kantor , born c 1875, left Lithuania for
the U.S c 1900. Nechama was still a very young child when he left and
she never met him again. Another brother, Zalman Kantor, went to South Africa. The
three other brothers lived with their families on the same street in
Shavli. They were well to do dealers of produce commerce and greatly respected members of the community .

During my early childhood we lived in the small shtetl Dobele, Kurland
( Latvia). Kurland at the time of my youth was immersed in the German
culture. My first language was German. My parents spoke German and
Russian at home. They were not religious, nor Yiddishists.
My fathers' brothers lived in near by Riga and Libau (Liepaja in
Latvian). My uncle, Avraham Kristal of Riga was very involved with the
revisionist party. He was the Head secretary of the Latvian
revisionist party in Riga, in the early thirties. I was often told how
during my early childhood Ze'ev Jabotinsky picked me up and played
with me (In 1925, Jabotinsky formed the Revisionist Zionist Alliance)
 My parents owned a textile store. I was sent to a nursery school
that was run by two German baronesses. My Elementary school was a
public Latvian school. I became flaunt in Latvian while attending the
school. Life changed for us in 1936. The business was doing poorly.
The small town could not sustain such a store and the store became
bankrupt. We moved to Lithuania, to the town of Shavli. Here we lived
with the brothers of my mother. They helped my parents open a textile
store. The store prospered immediately. Life was very different in
independent Lithuania. The Jews spoke Yiddish and their children
attended schools in Hebrew and took tests in Lithuanian. I had to
learn in short time three new languages. I learned Yiddish very
fast, it was much like German. It took me a little longer to study
Hebrew and Lithuanian but after a year I was able to attend the
Gimnasion of Shavli and became a member of the Betar Youth movement.
During my first summer in Lithuania I visited my family in Kovno. For
one month I stayed at the Panemune' Dacha of My mothers' cousin; Dr.
Yeta nee Rabinovitz and her husband, Nachum Levitan.

My father had a brother, Herman Kristal, who studied medicine in
Germany. Eventually he settled in Germany and had a daughter. As
Hitler came to power the situation for the Jewish people in Germany
was very dangers. In the last minute ( 1939) Herman and his family
were able to obtain visas to the U.S and arrived in one of the last
ships to come to America before the war started. He was a physician in New York for many years.

His daughter is in touch with me, she now lives in Virginia.
In 1940 the Soviets annexed Lithuania (in order to "Protect it from
Germany" ). The store was taken away from my parents. Private
ownership was not permitted, people had to form cooperatives or work
for the "party". The Hebrew Gimnasum which I attended became a Yiddish
school. Instead of studying the History of Israel and Zionism, we
studied about the Soviet society and the history of Communism. We were
not permitted to be members of any Zionist organizations.
Germany surprise attack on Russia ( June 22., 1941) took place a few
days after summer vacation started. I had one more year of High
school, but it was not to be…


As soon as the Soviet authorities evacuated to go deep into Russia , our
Lithuanian neighbors started kidnapping
Jewish men and putting them in prison and eventually killing them. My
uncle Bernhardt Kantor ( age 65) with his sons; Yosef ( an engineer,
age 24) and Lyuba ( a pharmacist, age 29) were killed by Lithuanians.
Since my father worked as an accountant for the tannery, our lives
were spared for now. The Germans realized the value of keeping the
factory open and using the Jews as slave workers. I also worked at the
tannery for one year. In November of 1943 they took all the Jewish
children who could not work ( younger then 13) as well as the old and
sick. They said that they are taking them to a safe place. Amongst
them were my cousins Mina and Gita and my aunts Yoana and Lea
Kantor. They were in fact caught in the "old people and children action” by
the Germans during November, 1943.  A group of  about 500 children and 300 old and sick were shlepped all the way to Auschwitz, where they were all annihilated in a matter a couple of days..

By 1944 only my mother and her sister in law; Ela survived (beside
me). By July of 1944 the Soviets liberated much of the area east of
Lithuania. The Germans could not let go of their Jews. They took us
west by trains. The women of Shavli ( including my mother and her
sister in law; Ela) were taken to Stutthof. My father and I were taken
to sub camps of Dachau. We were in different camps. The work was very hard, we received very little food and most people died of starvation or disease.

 As the Americans were closing in on the Dachau area in April of 1945 the Germans took us to what was called the "Death March" We were forced to walk South
East toward the Austrian border, a forced march to an unknown
destination.
We walked about 150 kilometers. We arrived in a valley, the Germans
left us and soon our American liberators arrived. It was May second,
1945

I was in a camp for Jewish displaced persons, camp Feldafing in Germany. It was the first
all-Jewish DP camp. I refused to return to Lithuania where my
relatives had been massacred by their Lithuanian neighbors and where I
was sure that anti-Semitism was still widespread.
I was resolute to immigrate to Eretz Israel and build my life in a
Kibbutz. .I joined the
newly formed Zionistic youth party - the N.O.C.H.A.M - noar chalutzi
meuchad, which had as its main goal to unify all young survivors of
the Holocaust. To help them immigrate to Israel and build a new country without any of

 the old politics and bickering of the pre-war era.

 
Camp Feldafing was located 20 miles southwest of Munich in the
American zone of occupation. The Dachau survivors were all moved
there. I found out from some survivors that my father became sick and
could not work. The Germans took him, with other sick people, to a
certain building. They locked the doors and let them all die of
starvation.

On Rosh Hashana of 1945, I met some friends who had just returned from Lithuania.
They went back to Lithuania to look for relatives. One of them said to
me " How is your mother?" I could not believe what I heard

 "My mother is alive?" I asked.
"Yes, I met her walking by the train trucks in Kovno"
Another person told me about seeing her also. She was staying with her
cousin; Dr. Yeta Ada Levitan and her husband; Nachum, at their home
in Kovno.
On January 25, 1945, my mother and her sister in law Ela, were taken
with the rest of the inmates to a Death march from Stutthoff
concentration camp. They were forced to walk westward in the middle of
powerful snow and bitter cold. Many died from freezing. Others were
shot or thrown into the icy Baltic Sea, my aunt was killed. At one point my mother and two
other women decided to escape. The Germans shot them. The two other
women fall dead. My mother was wounded and the Germans left her for
dead. A few hours later the Red Army liberated her. They took her to a
hospital in the border area of Poland and Germany. From there she was
taken to another hospital Far East, deep in the Soviet Union in
Novorossisys.


Nachum and Yeta found out that my mother survived (lists of survivor
compiled by the red army started arriving to Kovno). Nachum, who
survived the Kovno ghetto, was appointed to important position in Kovno,
by the Soviet authorities. He was able to obtain papers to travel, he took trains deep
in to Russia, to Novorossisys. Travel papers were hard to obtain since the war was still going on
at that time and traveling was dangerous.
Nachum came to the hospital in Novorossisys and arranged
for my mother to go back to Kovno with him.

I volunteered to stay in the DP camp a little longer and work for
"Bricha" a secret organization, which helped Jews who survived the Shoah to cross borders

without having visas and passports and permission to travel out of Soviet theritories, all were hard to obtain. The final destination for the Jews was Eretz Israel which was under British control.  It was very hard to obtain visas from the British mandate. In exchange of my work they promised me to smuggle my mother to Germany (generally,  younger people then my mother had preference). After three months my mother arrived to Germany.
I met my wife Cyla, in another group of chalutzim, who trained for
Aliyah in a village near ours. She joined my group and since then we
are together. Her name is Cyla nee Pomerantz, born in Rovno (then Poland, now Ukraine) in 1931.

In 1948 Cyla and I came to Southern France on the way to Israel. We
were shocked to find my mother still there. It was promised to me that
she would be sent to Israel on the first available ship when she left
the DP Camp months before us. I told the “decision-makers”
that I will stay with my mother, the only survivor of my family. A
place was found for her and we arrived to Israel during the first
ceasefire of the war of Independence (June- July of 1948).

In our original group in the DP camp there were two other Shavler: Chaim Levitan and Arke
Amit (before - Anyksht) who arrived to Kibbutz Afikim some months before us.
In Afikim we met only one oldcomer Shavler - David Cohen. Most of the
older members came mainly from Russia.. Our daughters were born in
Afikim: Batia in 1949, Orna in 1965, Yael in 1967 and Anat in 1970.
Yael has added to the family two grandchildren - Guy and Maya.

My mothers brother in South Africa was Zalman Kantor, we found him easily - my
mother remembered the name of is little town and wrote to him. He
arrived immediately to visit us. He considered moving to Israel but
after becoming sick and needing an operation, he went back to South Africa. He
had four children, his son Ellis Kantor ( named after our grandfather,
Eliyahu, who died before 1935) lives with his many children ( six) in
Seattle.
His sister Daphnie lives with her children in Australia. The oldest sister Gertrude, lives with her children in South Africa, one daughter in Canada The Kantors are very warm family.

My uncle's Meyer Kantor- we lost all connections already when the
Russians occupied us in 1940. They used to write letters to my
grandfather, Eliyahu. After he died we rarely got a letter from them.
We do not know any first names of the 5 sons...,or where they lived.
There were some rumors that they left the States, unfortunately we do
not know more.
We had other relatives; Eliyahu Rabinovitz and wife Dora of Shavli.
They survived the war . There were also  Ela nee Rabinovitz Zalmanovitz/ Yakobson and her son.

Last I heard, their son lived in western Europe ( Karlsbad?). There is Chaim Daimont and other from Ein Gev