Corpse for a Mattress

© 2024 Tim Drake. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  09/13/2024

ISBN: 979-8-8230-3281-0 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-3280-3 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-3282-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024917997

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword

A Daughter’s Remembrance

Introduction

Chapter 1     Berlin’s Prisoner

Chapter 2     Transportation to Hell

Chapter 3     Death’s Door

Chapter 4     Crucible of Adversity

Chapter 5     Hunger Knows No Bounds

Chapter 6     Unbeaten

Chapter 7     Hope Fading

Chapter 8     The Never-Ending Road

Chapter 9     Resilience

Chapter 10   Freedom

Epilogue

About the Author

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Harry Heinz Rentel, the Jewish people, and compromised individuals who were interned and/or murdered by the millions between 1933 and 1945. May we never forget the evil that perpetrated this tragic time in our world history.

FOREWORD

Many books have been written about concentration camps. These books are good, bad, and sometimes full of hatred, containing distortions and historical inaccuracies. Most books were written by non-Jews, who had the highest survival rate. Most of these books dealt with the time between 1938 and 1942, when the concentration camps were used as extermination tools. I was arrested in 1943 and came to Auschwitz in June of that year. By April 1943, total war had been declared. A workforce economy system was established and extended somewhat to the concentration camps, in the same sense that laborers in industrial installations were not indiscriminately killed anymore. In the SS guard room at Auschwitz-Buna, there was a poster that read "Schon die haeftlinge, sie sind staatseigentum. Interpreted, it read Even the prisoners, they are state property."

I witnessed the last chapter of the German concentration camps and their end in 1945. The following pages honestly describe what happened to a simple inmate who was somehow lucky to get out alive. It is dry and undramatic, as I have never had a wide field of vision, and undue curiosity was very dangerous.

I have correctly separated the part dealing with my adventures before entering the concentration camps. I was considered in this camp, as well as in the assembly camp, a Jew. I am Roman Catholic and was a Romanian citizen who did not come under the extermination program in Germany. How I was arrested, jailed, and sent to a labor camp and then treated there as the lowest being under the sun is another story. It is a long and complicated story and has, in principle, nothing to do with the following report about Auschwitz-Buna, Buchenwald, or Dachau. It was omitted because this is not intended as an autobiography but a witness report.

Harry Heinz Rentel

May 1977

Campinas, Brazil

I tell my story so that they might tell the next generation.

—Sara Atzmon, Holocaust survivor,

artist (Hungary, Israel)

My dad, Harry Heinz Rentel, was a very special character. Well, I guess all fathers are special, but mine had a number tattooed on his left arm: 127067. For many years growing up, no other father I knew had one. My father was always telling stories about places I´ve never been to, and particularly about a strange place called a concentration camp. Only later in my adulthood was I able to understand what he was talking about. Again, my father, even having had this traumatic experience, was special; he was ironic, a joke teller, and a charmer, but more than that, he was a positive person. He taught me how to dance (on his shoes), to sail, to ride a bike, to like oysters, to read a lot and to face my problems head on. He was a doer, no matter what. He believed that life is worth living at its most and when the going gets tough, just roll up the sleeves and get things done.

Dolly Rentel

(Harry’s Daughter)

INTRODUCTION

Countless books have been written about the horrific time in our world history when millions of Jews and others considered non-desirable citizens of various countries, were interned and/or murdered by the Germans during World War II. Many survived the camps and lived to talk about it.

People will now be able to read about Harry H. Rentel and his time in the German concentration camps of Auschwitz-Buna, Buchenwald, and Dachau. This book is a true witness report of Harry’s nightmare in these three camps.

How was Harry’s story brought to light?

By late 2009, I had just published my first book, Inherited Freedom. That fall, I was visiting Endicott, New York, where I had leadership responsibility for a call center and a team of phenomenal employees. During this visit, I remember going to a nearby restaurant for lunch. As I was sitting there eating, I noticed an elderly gentleman sitting in the far corner of the restaurant with a younger woman. He had a World War II veteran’s hat on, which only meant one thing: I would be getting up and walking over to talk to him.

I had not even finished my lunch when I left my table and walked over to where this World War II veteran was sitting. I introduced myself, and that initial introduction turned into a friendship that lasted until his death. That day, I met World War II veteran Ted Breisch and his daughter Jodie Lazarek. We talked for about thirty minutes; by then, it was time for me to return to work. I never finished my lunch that day, but it was well worth it. We all exchanged contact information.

Later that week, I was invited to Jodie’s home there in Endicott. There I shared a delicious meal with her, her husband Ross, Ted, and his wife Mary. Over the next three years, I would visit with all of them every time I traveled to Endicott, New York. Ted had been a navigator on the USS Redfin submarine in the Pacific Theater of war during World War II. Mary had also been in the Navy during the war. She served at the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania naval yard, typing correspondence and serving in other various roles.

I enjoyed my countless hours with Ted and Mary, learning about their backgrounds and time served in World War II. Unfortunately, my job eventually changed in 2012, and I no longer had the opportunity to travel to Endicott, New York. However, I maintained my friendship with Jodie and Ross and was able to keep in touch with Ted and Mary as best I could. Unfortunately, Mary passed away on October 21, 2016, at ninety-two. Ted passed away on March 27, 2017, at the age of ninety-three. They are truly missed. Ted and Mary had been married seventy years.

It was after Ted’s passing that I would be introduced to Harry Rentel. Ted’s daughter Jodie was going through his personal possessions and came across a large, tattered IBM envelope. Jodie opened the envelope, briefly perused the contents, and felt it was something that I would be interested in reading. Jodie kindly mailed me the envelope and its contents.

Upon receipt of the envelope, I found a ninety-page document that contained the words of Nazi concentration camp survivor Harry Rentel. I spent time in early July 2017 reading Harry’s story.

The document was dated May 1977. I would spend the next few weeks researching as much as I could on Harry Rentel. I did not have a lot to go on. His typed document ended with his name and the city he was living in: Campinas, Brazil. Through much research, I found a Dolly Rentel residing in Campinas, Brazil. I secured an email address for her and sent her an email in late July 2017. Through various email exchanges, I was able to confirm Dolly was in fact Harry’s daughter. I learned from her that Harry had sadly passed away in 1999 at the age of eighty-two. Prior to his death, he had developed a written correspondence with Ted Breisch through a neighbor of Harry’s who had worked with Ted at IBM. They had started corresponding in March of 1985, the year I graduated from high school.

Dolly has kindly permitted me to turn Harry’s manuscript into a book. She has also provided additional personal details about her father that are incorporated into the book.

I have had a lifelong passion for all things World War II and the people who lived during that time in our history. Getting Harry’s witness report into published print is very meaningful to me. I trust you can learn more about this dark history of the German concentration camps, those who died there, and people like Harry, who miraculously survived.

Harry’s story needs to be told. Why? If not, it will be lost to the sands of time. Harry’s story is unique because he felt it necessary enough to write it down three times, eventually sharing it with Ted Breisch. Harry first wrote the manuscript in German, but it was lost. He eventually emigrated to Brazil in 1955 and rewrote the manuscript in Portuguese. Years later, in 1977, he retyped the manuscript in English, sending a copy to Ted in 1985. The manuscript lay dormant in Ted’s possessions for thirty-two years, until it resurfaced in 2017.

Harry’s story is of sheer survival. It outlines his interments at the Auschwitz-Buna, Buchenwald, and Dachau concentration camps. Harry was born on April 9, 1917, during the height of World War I, in the city of Brno, now located in the Czech Republic. His parents were Erich (adoptive father) and Stella Rentel. Stella was a cosmetologist; Erich was an engineer. At an early age, Stella lost her parents in a tragic car accident. Harry’s mother had been born Jewish; his adoptive father was Catholic. In her early twenties, she converted to Catholicism when she married Erich. She baptized Harry, Catholic, and no longer followed her Jewish religion.

Harry studied textile engineering. At age twenty-six, he was working in a shipyard in Braila, Romania. Harry never knew who discovered his Jewish heritage, but someone turned him into the local German authorities. Harry was arrested in 1943, sent to Berlin, Germany, and subsequently sent to the German concentration camps of Auschwitz-Buna, Buchenwald, and Dachau. This is Harry’s story, an authentic witness account of his two and half years as a prisoner of the Nazis.

Harry had said, I want to keep several things from being forgotten. The reader will ask the standard questions. Why were you arrested? Why were you put into a concentration camp? To answer this correctly, it is a very long story. It would mean another literary effort. I may write it as a story of the five years after my liberation, which was also full of adventures. Who knows?

My reason for taking this seven-year journey to have Harry’s story published is so that the world will not forget the countless Holocaust survivors like Harry, and the millions murdered during that fateful time in world history. He lived through what you are about to read. He felt it was important enough to capture it. With the help of his daughter Dolly, I have tried to fill in some of the missing pieces so that the reader has some understanding of who Harry was.

Ted & Mary Summer 2015

Harry’s tattered IBM envelope to Ted

BERLIN, GERMANY

1

BERLIN’S PRISONER

Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.

—Victor Hugo

I was born April 9, 1917, in the city of Brno, now located in the Czech Republic. I would later study textile engineering in school. By the age of twenty-six, three years after World War II had started, I would be working in a shipyard on the Black Sea, near the city of Braila, Romania. I was a practicing Catholic and had been my entire life. The war was all around me, but I continued to work and make a living.

It was May 1943 when I was arrested. Leading up to my arrest, I had been having significant problems with coworkers, and the consensus is that one of my coworkers turned me in to the authorities. The only reason given for my arrest was the Jewish heritage from my mother’s side of the family. I was soon put on a train, along with several other prisoners, and transported to Berlin, the heart of Nazi Germany.

In northeast Berlin are the regions of Gesundbrunnen and Alexanderplatz. Near there, not very far from Oranienburger Strasse, there is a small and shabby street which became, for many Jews, a byword for destiny: Grosse Hamburger Strasse. On that street was a Jewish home for older people, which was also used as an assembly and transport center for concentration camps.

Behind the building proper was an ancient Jewish cemetery where very prominent persons of ancient Jewish history in Germany were buried. I do not remember the names. We were allowed to walk there for a couple of hours a day, and we used the time to do some running and relay competitions to keep up some physical form. A large German school used as a military hospital was on one side of this building. This school/hospital also had a garden, separated from the cemetery by a low hedge. Convalescent soldiers used this park, and one day somebody concluded that we had too big a place to move around. We soon were ordered to remove the hedge to make the hospital park larger.

The German soldiers concluded they could not walk on top of dirty Jews, even those dead and buried for a long time. We had to dig up what remains we could find, as there were no tombstones. We found skeletons under just about every bush, but no traces of coffins, only some brown bones and skulls. The graves were estimated to be over one hundred years old.

The building for the older adults, our assembly camp, was a three-story, long, narrow house. Each story had an extensive corridor, with rooms on the right and left. The main entrance was a gateway with a thoroughfare to the