Liz's reflections on meeting with Mike Zelon

My reflections on meeting with Mike Zelon, was that the whole experience was amazing. Here was this man that survived this horrendous event when he was still a teenager, and was in the good frame of mind to share his story with complete strangers.
I have always been intrigued with the Holocaust and have always wanted to know more. I have seen clips of interviews of those that experienced the Holocaust first hand but had never heard the entire story from any of them, save for perhaps partially fictionalized stories on the Hallmark Channel.
Seeing Mike's home was amazing. This man was not once rattled after all these years by losing practically his whole family, save for his one brother. The rest of his family had been killed, and here he was, retired from working for Boeing as an engineer, a widower of a fellow survivor, a member of the 1939 Club, and he was living peacefully with his children and grandchildren not far away, in a beautiful apartment in Playa Vista.
There were parts of the story that left me not knowing whether to laugh or cry, not truly knowing how I would feel if I had been his age at the time and lost everything and everyone I had ever known to such an inhumane act.

Jennifer's Reflections on meeting with survivor Mike Zelon

1.3.1941 The last day of an ancient Jewish community - deportation!

Deportation of Jewish ghetto in Plock, Poland.

Mike Zelon said he and his family were in this line waiting for the trains.

My Reflection:

I have to say I was pretty nervous about the task ahead pre-interview but that all my nerves went out the window when I met Mike Zelon for the first time at his house in Playa Vista. I could not have asked for a more welcoming and charming person to share this experience with than Mike. He openly and graciously told us his story at his kitchen table which was an amazing but incomprehensible story of the strength of the human will to survive. I was thinking the whole time he was telling his story that I couldn't believe that I was sitting across from somebody who had witnessed with his own eyes the horrors of the Holocaust yet he was such a friendly person who seemed to have a undeniable joy for life.

I was deeply affected by Mike and his story and meeting him will be something I will never forget. He was also excited to meet us and share pictures of his wife and daughters (after feeding us a delicious lunch) who were born here in America after the war and his grandchildren. This was touching to me because it made me reflect on how his survival produced future generations and how we are missing millions of generations of families from those who did not survive. He said the most important lesson of his story is simple and that is to be accepting of people and most of all be good human beings. He also stressed the importance of education about the Holocaust and how through being a member of the 1939 Club he is able to keep awareness of the Holocaust alive. We were able to take a video (which Liz will hopefully be able to post later) of his story but I believe the audio is a little hard to hear so I will tell a little about Mike's story in Poland.

His Story:

His story begins in the town of Plock, Poland where he was born and lived with his parents, two sisters, and younger brother. His parents owned a leather store in town and the war reached their town in September 1939, Mike and his family were forced into an overcrowded ghetto after the Germans took over their store. He told some horrible incidences he witnessed while in the ghetto about the German treatment of the Jews in the ghetto. Because he was a strong and healthy young man of seventeen he was ordered with his brother to work for the Germans where he endured beatings for no reason at all. One day after a beating from Germans Mike went home to tell his father that he couldn't take this treatment anymore from the Germans and next time he was going to try and defend himself. His father knew there was no fighting the Germans and told him 'It's better to be alive as a fly then a dead lion.' This wisdom stuck with Mike throughout the Holocaust and helped him endure the years ahead through various concentration camps.

One night Mike and his brother were taken by the Germans to work at a slave labor camp Skarzysko-Kamienna separating them from their parents and sisters, the Germans took them in the middle of the night so they did not get a chance to say goodbye to their family. At the camp Mike and his brother laid railroad tracks and were subjected to regular beatings in what the Germans called 'the music room' because of the screaming prisoners. It was at this camp that Mike learned of the Treblinka death camp from Warsaw ghetto survivors that had arrived at Skarzysko-Kamienna. Mike said he couldn't believe the stories of the gassing of Jews but after liberation learned that it was all true and that his parents and sisters had not survived Treblinka.

His liberation/escape:

The story of Mike's liberation after the war was most touching to me because of their brave action of escaping might have saved their lives. Mike and his brother were transferred to Hasag factory in August 1944. One night they witnessed Germans loading prisoners onto cattle cars and knowing that they were in danger of being on one of the cars, Mike and his brother escaped from the factory and found themselves totally free and unnoticed. They were eventually found by a Russian soldier who questioned them about being German spies. The Russian eventually believed the brother's story about escaping from the camp and told them that he had been traveling in Poland for a long time and that they were the first Jews they had come across. The soldier told them they were not safe of the front lines of the war and that they must return to their parents and hometown. They were finally free but when returning to their town did not find their family but the town received them with open arms and gave them a place to stay, food to eat, etc. The mayor was very moved by the boys surviving the war that he said he promised to kiss the first Jew he met after the war which was Mike and his brother so he kissed them and gave them work and a place to live. Mike eventually met his future wife in Poland and together they attended university in Munich, Germany and were able to eventually move to the United States through family they had living here in Los Angeles. They have two daughters. He worked for forty years as an engineer where he helped develop the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs for North American Aviation here in Los Angeles.