Max Metzger was born in 1903 in Gross-Reken, Westfalen, Germany. His family moved to Dorsten, Germany in 1911, where he attended school. In 1937, Max married HeldaNorger[phonetic] and they had a daughter. He went into business with his father.
His first experience with antisemitism was when his father’s cattle business was taken away in 1938. In 1939, Max was taken to forced labor in Burgsteinfurtdigging ditches until January 1942 when his family and others were given two hours to gather their belongings and were told they were being sent to the East. Max describes their journey with their four year old daughter, first being sent to Gelsenkirchen, Germany(a collection camp) where they were held for three days, followed by an ordeal on a frozen train for five or six days, without food, and finally arriving at the Riga Ghetto. Max describes the SS hitting them as they exited the trains and being forced to walk an hour to the ghetto. People who were weak or unable to walk were put on trucks and never seen again. Max describes the conditions in the ghetto and his forced labor in a slaughter house and on the docks. He recalls having to walk past victims who had been hung for smuggling items into the ghetto and witnessed the killing of three Latvian Jews by the Kommandant of the ghetto.
In 1944, Max reports, the ghetto was slowly evacuated. First the old people, then children, then those unfit for work. Max was sent to forced labor inLiebau(Latvia) where he worked for the Wermacht. It was at this time he was separated from his wife who was sent to Stutthof. In February 1945, he and other prisoners were evacuated by boat back to Hamburg, Germany where they were taken to prison. He witnessed the bombing of Hamburg and during the day worked clearing debris.
In April 1945,Max was in a group that was marched 100 km over four days from Hamburg to Kiel because there were not enough trucks to take the prisoners to Bergen-Belsen. Max’s group was sent to a small concentration camp called Hassel that had previously only had gentile prisoners. Max was among 31,000 concentration camp prisoners, Jews and non-Jews, who were freed due to negotiations between Heinrich Himmler and the Swedish diplomat, CountFolke Bernadotte. The Red Cross evacuated them on trucks and took them to Denmark, and from there by boat to Sweden. In Stockholm, through the Red Cross and HIAS, Max learned that his wife had perished during a forced march. One brother and two niecessurvived Auschwitz and one brother survived with Max(having also been sent to Kiel and rescued to Sweden). His parents and other family members perished in Auschwitz.
Max relates that while in Sweden, the king sent buses to the Displaced Persons camp and took the refugees to the opera and dinner.
Holocaust Jewish, 1933-1945, Personal narratives Jewish, Male
Count Folke Bernadotte
Death march from Hamburg
Dorsten, Westfalen, Germany.
Forced labor -- Burgsteinfurt (Germany)
Forced labor -- Liebau (Latvia)
GrossReken, Westfalen, Germany.
Jewish Ghettos -- Latvia - Riga Ghetto
Prison in Hamburg
Red Cross
World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Germany to Latvia.
World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Latvia-- Liebau.
World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Germany-- Hassel.