Holocaust survivor shares painful memories

Riteman’s raw memories as a prisoner brought tears to his eyes and to many of those in the audience. He said his mission now, which began in 1990 after 40 years of silence, is to educate others to appreciate life and freedom and to never allow the horror of the holocaust to happen again.

“My heroes are veterans. If not for them believe me, none of you would be here and if you were, you’d be a slave like I was,” he said.

Riteman was a boy in Grade 5 when Nazis pounded on his family’s door in Poland at 2 a.m. and rousted them into the street with the rest of the villagers.

Thousands filled the road five-abreast, and were forced to march 60-kilometers over two-days. Riteman recounted frightening memories of seeing people lined up and shot to fall in shallow graves.

“We saw the earth moving and the Nazis just stood on top, pumping the bullets into the ground,” he said, his voice breaking.

After a year of barely surviving in the satellite camp - some slipping beneath a fence at times to supplement their meager diet with grass, frogs and rats - the prisoners were packed into freight cars as tight as sardines and transported for six or seven days with no washroom facilities, food or water.

Once they finally reached their destination at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Riteman lied about his age and said he was a locksmith to avoid the fate of those too young to work in the camps and all of the “white-collar” people who were lined up against a wall and shot with machine guns.

He saw a young woman jump from a railcar with an infant in her arms. A Nazi soldier ripped it from her and threw it on a pile of other babies.

“We were shivering like leaves, we were so afraid,” said Riteman.

The prisoners were shaved of every hair on their body, and herded into showers where they slid and fell on icy floors.

“They put a stamp on my arm. I was the 98,706 person,” he said.

Riteman told of being shuffled to many other satellite camps and the horrors he had to perform there, including his most awful memory.

“We had to pull bodies out of a building by rope tied around their feet, pile them in carts and burn them. That was the worst thing ever to do. Some of them were kids.”

On May 2, 1945, American soldiers liberated the Nazi prisoners and from that point on in his presentation, Riteman’s wonderful sense of humour, still intact after his gruesome experiences, became apparent.

Several aunts sent him letters during his recovery in the displaced persons camp and he eventually moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland to be with one of them.

All of his immediate family was lost in the Holocaust –his parents, five brothers and two sisters.

Riteman, who now lives in Bedford, reminded the audience several times near the end of the evening of how lucky they are.

“I want you to know about the Holocaust… and because you know… you will never let it happen again,” he said.

A modified presentation was held earlier in the day for younger students.