Bernard Aptaker’s Enduring Legacy
“I lived through this nightmare and survived, perhaps to tell this story.” — Bernard Aptaker
Born in Zakrzòwek, Poland, in 1926, Bernard Aptaker and his brothers, Stanley and Moshe, spent their childhood in a warm, observant household. When the Nazi occupation shattered their lives in 1939, strong family bonds helped the family survive until they were split apart. “When there’s love in the family you can overcome just about anything,” he said.
In the fall of 1942, the family was ordered to report to the Kraśnik ghetto after being turned out by a sympathetic Polish farmer who initially hid them but feared being found out by authorities. Bernard’s younger brother, Moshe, and his mother were deported to a killing center. Bernard, Stanley, and their father were sent to a series of camps where they endured unimaginable barbarity. By mid-1944, they arrived at the Flossenbürg concentration camp as forced laborers.
In the spring of 1945, the Germans forced Bernard, his father, and brother on a death march to Dachau. They survived. Bernard was 19 when he was liberated by American forces on April 29, 1945.
Thanks to his language skills in Polish, German, Yiddish, and Russian, Bernard worked for two years with US intelligence units in Europe to capture German war criminals. He immigrated to New York in 1947 and got a job working in a delicatessen. After relocating to Houston in 1970, Bernard launched what became an exceptionally successful real estate business and devoted his life to philanthropy. After his passing in 2015, the Museum received an extraordinary gift of more than $34 million from his estate.
“This represents the largest single gift the institution has ever received,” said Museum Vice Chairman Allan Holt. “The emotional scars left by Bernard’s experiences during the war shaped his views of humanity. He believed in this Museum’s educational mission and its potential to shape a better future.”
In His Own Words
In his 1996 testimony with the USC Shoah Foundation, which is available at the Museum, Bernard Aptaker started by saying, “I lived through this nightmare and survived, perhaps to tell this story.”
On experiencing antisemitism: “As kids, we couldn’t understand it. We were no different than the other… . My parents would just say, ‘this is how things are.’”
On the start of the war: “I realized something terrible and tragic was underway. Life changed in that we were frightened… . We lived moment to moment.”
On going into hiding: “At night we slept in barns and attics… . I felt great confusion and fear…many nights, I couldn’t fall asleep because I wondered what it would be like when you get shot in the head… .”
On being discovered: “We were hiding out in hay… . One afternoon the farmer came running and he said, ‘They’re coming for you.’ I hid, but suddenly heard screams. It was Moshe, who was nine… . I saw him in the middle of the field with at least a dozen farmers coming at him with pitchforks. He was frightened and crying. I walked toward him… . We were marched into the city. I was barely 15 years old.”
On his mother, Sarah: “The last time I saw my mother was in Kraśnik when we turned ourselves in… . Later, in Flossenbürg, we heard that my mother and Moshe had been shipped to [a killing center] and gassed… . No matter how old you get, it just doesn’t leave you — what your own mother had to endure in order to just die.”
On surviving Flossenbürg camp: “If [my father] had a piece of bread, he broke it into three pieces, for me, for him, and my brother, Stanley. This is how we survived. [In April 1945,] there was about 30,000 people in a death march from Flossenbürg to Dachau. It was the ultimate nightmare
because you were starved, you were cold, you were hot, you were sick, and they shot you as soon as you sat down to fix your shoelace or anything.”
On liberation: “We didn’t know, but we were five days from being liberated… . There was much disarray at the camp. My father, Stanley, and I took off into the woods. Later, the three of us were picked up by American military units… . We would all have been doomed to a terrible end without the Americans.”
On tolerance: “To me, religion means tolerance. Every person can choose the way they want to climb the mountain to their god… . We don’t have to accept others’ views, but if we don’t tolerate one another, we have nothing.”
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum serves as a repository for the USC Shoah Foundation Testimonies.
