User:OraGordon

This page is about my father, Alexander Gordon (born Abrascha Gorbulski).

Alexander Gordon, born Abrascha Gorbulski (1922-2011)

Alexander Gordon, was born Abrascha (Avraham in Hebrew) Gorbulski on January 31, 1922, in Bergedorf, Germany. He was raised in an orphage, escaped Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport, was arrested as an enemy alien, traveled on the Hellship Dunera, enlisted in the British Army, and interrogated Nazis as a German translator, became an English citizen, became an American citizen, was a husband, father and grandfather. Late in life he traveled to schools recounting his stories in classrooms around New Jersey. He was also a subject in the film, "Into the Arms of Strangers" (2000). He passed away on May 30, 2011.

Early Life (1922-1929)

Abrascha Gorbulski was born in Bergedorf Germany, but was a Polish Citizen. Though born in Germany, according to German law, a person takes the citizenship of his father.

Abrascha's father, Zundel Gorbulski, was born in Poland April 12, 1882. He landed a job as a box factory manager (a workmeister), in Bergedorf, and moved with his wife, Abrascha's mother, Kuna Gorbulski nee Gutkowski, born in Grodno May 15, 1885, from Poland to Germany. In mid-January 1925, his father died and was buried at Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery.

In 1928, Abrascha, his mother Kuna Gorbulski nee Gutkowski, and brother Boris Gorbulski moved to Hamburg, Germany.

[Boris Golani was born in Poland in 1912; he attended the Technical University of Berlin on a Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from 1931-1935; his tuition was paid for by a wealthy Jewish family my grandmother sewed for. In 1937, he went to Israel where he joined Kibbutz Atarot near Jerusalem. Later, he enlisted in the British Air Force of Palestine. He was the first Jew to be commissioned an officer in the British Airforce in the Western Desert in Benghazi (Libya). Boris died in 1997.]

Abrascha, Boris and their mother lived in a flat, in a 3-story building on the top floor; it was paid for by the Jewish community. During the war, the building was bombed.

Kuna was a very poor widow and made some money as a seamstress making clothes. When Boris left to college, she rented out her son's bedroom. She sent Abrascha to live in a Jewish orphanage.

The Orphanage (1929-1938)

Abrascha lived at the orphanage, Waisenhaus, from the age of 7 to age 16. When he arrived in 1929, Germany was approaching a great depression. The orphanage held 30 boys (only boys) and they lived in a 3-story building with a synagogue on one side. Jewish services were mandatory in the morning, afternoon and night. A family ran it; Abrascha recalls that the head of the family, the father, was not kind. The food was only good on Shabbat and was served in the main dining room; otherwise they ate in the basement. The Warburg banking family was the main supporter of this orphanage.

Abrascha attended a Jewish school, the Talmud Torah Schule, for boys only. Hebrew and Bible taught along with secular studies. There was no school on Shabbat/Saturdays; school was open Sunday to Friday, 8a-2:30p.

He was bar-mitzvahed in January 1935 at the orphanage. He was bar-mitzvahed again at the Große Schule (Wolfenbüttel).

Camps (1938)

While living at the orphange, Abrascha became a member of Mizrachi and went to Youth Aliyah camp outside of Hamburg.

He was rejected from making Aliyah into Israel for his lack desire to become Orthodox, even though he davened 3 times a day and lived the life of a Jew, celebrating holidays, eating kosher food, being a bar mitzvah and helping his shul. This upset him greatly. Children of greater means were able to make Aliyah; he only had his mother and was upset that he wasn't given the opportunity to emigrate.

Youth Aliyah arranged for him to go to Hachsharah Chalutzim Datiim, a camp where children learned to work the land in preparation for living in Israel, in Steckelsdorf, Rathenow, Germany, 70 miles west of Berlin, from March 1938 until November 1938. There were cows, a horse, and vegetables and fruits to tend to. There was a house with boys and girls who together numbered more than 50.

All Polish citizens were deported from Germany October 28 and 29, 1938 to the German-Polish border. Kuna, Abrascha's mother was expelled with one suitcase to Zbąszyń [ˈzbɔ̃ʂɨɲ] (German: Bentschen) Bentschen Camp. According to records, she died there in 1940 at the age of 55.

How this impacted Abrascha: The Gestapo went to Steckelsdorf. All Polish Jews were told to get their suitcases. There were 20 Polish kids at the camp. They Germans had two big cars. The kids were separated by age, older and younger than 18. Turned out, there wasn't enough space in those cars. So those under 18, were told to go back to their rooms. Those who were were in those cars, were never seen again. My father's life was saved. He avoided the tragedies of the Holocaust.

Kristalnacht (November 9-10, 1938)

Kristallnacht took place while Abrascha was living there at the Hachshara Camp. Germans shot at the house he slept in and he hid in the fields that night. He returned to Hamburg on November 10, 1938. He saw that stores and synagogues had been smashed. He stayed at a youth hostel until, December 14, 1938, when he escaped on the Kindertransport.

The Kindertransport (1938)

He went by train with one suitcase and one rucksack from Hamburg to Holland. And then to the Hoek van Holland on the English Channel. Overnight by boat they went to England and onto Harwich, England. Then buses took them to a holiday camp in Lowestof.

50 religious boys were asked to go to Leeds, so he went with a friend. The Jewish community was making a hostel for them. Put them up in a hotel until the hostel was ready. They saw movies and theatre. He spent 3 months there. He said that, "England was a second mother to him."

One day a notice came, a factory was looking for 2 boys to work; they needed sheet metal experience to make neon signs in London. His friend had experience so they went. The two were put up with a family. Paid 15 shillings a week.

Enemy Alien: Category C (1939)

Then war broke out on Friday, September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. PM Chamberlain threatened on the morning of Sunday, September 3, that Britain would enter the war. As of that date, Abrascha was considered an enemy alien. He had to appear in front of a judicial committee to determine what his status was. He was considered Category C--he was permitted to roam freely in London. He lost the first job due to inexperience in sheetmetal and got another in October 1939 cleaning machinery until June 1940.

In 1940, Abrascha was arrested in London 28th June. Winston Churchill became paranoid. He had to report to the police station; a colleague gathered some items from where he lived. For the next year he only had his work clothes, because that person packed the wrong items.

The enemy aliens took buses to Kempton Park racetrack and slept on the floors where bets were placed. They were there for 3-4 days starving. Food arrived, but no one knew how to cook it; it stayed there in the kitchen and was wasted.

He was transported to Huyton in Liverpool, to another camp where they lived in tents. And then he was placed on the Dunera. {Dr Rachel Pistol, National Coordinator EHRI-UK, Department of Digital Humanities, Strand Campus King’s College London, www.rachelpistol.com, https://www.ehri-uk.org/}

The Hellship Dunera (1940-1941)

On July 10, 1940, an offer came which he accepted--he volunteered to go by boat to Canada. At least that was what he was told. The troopship he was put on had just been in Dunkirk; British Soldiers had just returned with German and Italian Prisoners of War and they remained on one side of the ship. The boat was over-crowded with more than 6,000 men. The Germans from England stayed on the other side.

The boat he was on was called the HMT Dunera and later it was named the Hellship Dunera. Abrascha slept under a table. Some slept on hammocks. During the trip, a torpedo hit, fortunately sideways. The boat traveled west; most still thought that they were going to Canada.

While following the direction of the sun, they realized that they were going south for 2-3 days. Then they traveled west again avoiding French and British activity.

The ship was manned by an army transport. A British Luietenent and a British Colonel were in charge. Once a day they could be outside on deck barefoot. One day a man committed suicide in front of Abrascha, throwing himself overboard (the day his visa to America expired). Mistreatments abounded; all their possessions were stolen upon arrival, they were starved, they were also told to run on deck with bare feet where glass was thrown, and the conditions were poor with only 10 toilets for more than 2500 men, human waste flowed across the decks.

Then they travelled east by way of the African coast stopping in Capetown. Then onto the Indian Ocean. Most of the time, he was on the lowest deck of the ship and hardly saw anything.

September 6, 1940, Abrascha arrived in Australia. First stop was in Perth, then Melbourne, then they debarked in Sydney; the men were then put on a train where they was finally fed. They traveled 500 miles north into the desert. He saw "sheep by the thousands" there.

They arrived in Hay; he was interned there from September 1940 to April 1941. He, along with quite a few others, moved to a second camp for a short while until the one in Hay was completed. He ate well, but there were no cigarettes. He worked in the kitchen to earn a little money. There was a rhuematic fever outbreak. The weather was harsh--120 degrees during the days and 50 degrees at night. There was nothing to do, but they did get to see some theatre; he remembered a "Porgy and Bess" production. There was role-call daily. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go.

Word got out about these men. Jewish Community members visited from Sydney. There was an uproar. A Major from the Army was sent from Parliament in England to understand what happened.

April 1941. Abrascha took a train ride 48-hours to Tartura, Victoria to Tatura Camp where the climate was more tolerable. Lots of food. They had tremendous freedom and could walk freely without a guard.

A delegation showed up. And a proposal was made: Those wishing to return to England could, as long as they joined the army upon arrival or those wishing to remain in Australia to join the Australian army. Civilians were not needed. Many ships were arranged. In one case, a group of 50 who traveled back to England, died en route.

Back to Sydney enroute to England in November 1941. The voyage Abrascha took back circled the other half of the earth.

Military Service (1941-1948)

Abrascha returned to the UK on the 28th November 1941, and was released the following day, on 29th November. He was freed under Category 12 of the government's white paper, which was for internees who joined the Pioneer Corps, part of the British Army. He had his physicals, followed by one week/7 days off, and then reported to a training center in Ilfracombe in the west of England, on December 7, 1941 when America came into the war.

It was then that he was told by the British Army that he had to change his name in order to hide his Jewish identity. Abrascha chose Alexander, and then took Gordon for his Gorbulski last name replacement based on a Gordon's Dry Gin poster hanging in the office. He said that at least he got the first three letters, G-O-R.

Though in the British Army, he remained an enemy alien; the British didn't naturalize anyone.

He was posted to a special army unit called the Pioneer Corp and served there for 6 weeks.

He was posted to a company in Dumfries, Scotland doing manual labor. 100 miles south of Edinburgh. 1942.

1943. He was posted to Edinburgh living in tents where he developed impetigo and went to the military hospital for 2-3 weeks which was then in the Edinburgh castle.

Then posted to another location and sent to France, 6 weeks after D-Day. From July to September 1944.

Then into Belgium and onto Antwerp. Winter 1944/1945. He transfered to a special unit producing maps. Bombs were flying overhead and it wasn't pleasant at all. Most civilians population left the area.

March 1945. Invasion of Germany was impending. A number of soldiers were sent to take special courses to be part of an interpreter's pool. He was going to be a German Translator.

Alexander became detached to a Canadian Infantry Unit which was advancing in Holland to the German border. He was with them for two months. The unit was shipped back to Canada, but he stayed in Germany.

Alexander was posted to another Canadian Unit. They were doing guard duty at Esterwegen camp, near the German-Dutch border. It had been at one time a concentration camp, second in size to Dachau. From 1936 until 1945 it was used as a prison camp which held French, Dutch and Belgian civilians. They kept prisoners there in huts and it was mostly not a killing camp, but near the end of the war, an officer made the prisoners dig trenches and then machine-guned them to the death. There were Germans Nazis there as well. Every prisoner had to go to DeNazification Court to determine if he had done a crime.

When the war was declared over, September 2, 1945, Alexander was with a Candanian unit, in a small town, Leer, a west coast town of Germany hear the Dutch border. Of note: Nearby was the town of Aurich, where in 1935 (and also in either 1934 or 1936), the orphanage sent Alex there over two summers. At that time, there were 150 Jewish families either named Cohen or Wolfe who were in the cattle trade. In 1945, wearing a soldier's uniform, he returned on the last day of the war and not a Jew remained.

Post WWII. Alexander remained in Germany for another 2.5 years, until mid-1947. He was attached to an intelligence unit for 6 months in Goslar near Braunschweig, Germany, doing undercover work looking for Germans--Nazis who disappeared.

Later, military personnel were taken out of the intelligence units. The work was handed over to civilians. He was sent to a brigade headquarters of an infantry unit in the same town as an official interpreter for a year. He stayed on in the army until he could apply for British citizenship. He became a British Citizen in 1948.

Stayed with friends from 1948 to 1949. During the war, he met a cousin who was in the US army. He decided it was time to go to be near family. Alexander was under the German quota. It took some time to get his papers. An American uncle guaranteed his visa.

Life in the United States

He arrived in America in March 1949 and lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 1959, he married, Esther Gordon (nee Manela), 1936-2023, an Israeli in Israel. They remained in Hudson County until 1972 when he and his family moved to West Orange, New Jersey.

In 1999, he was interviewed for a Warner Bros. documentary. The film went onto win an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film in 2000. It was called, "Into The Arms of Strangers."

Alexander Gordon died in West Orange on May 30, 2011.

Alexander Gordon's testimony is archived with the USC Shoah Foundation.