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Teacher Guide to the Documentary
Timeline
for David Wissnia
1924 - David is
born on August 31, in Sochaczew, Poland, a small suburb of
Warsaw.
1931 - At the age
of five, David enters a private kindergarten where Hebrew
and Polish are taught.
1937 - David finishes
elementary school and is ready to go to gymnasium.
1940 - In October,
the family enters the Warsaw Ghetto. The Wisnia home is inside
the walled area of the Warsaw Ghetto, and they do not have
to move.
1941 - David's
older brother escapes the Warsaw Ghetto in August.
1941 - David's
job is to work at the airport for the Nazis; he escapes work
detail.
1941 - David escapes
the Warsaw Ghetto but returns to find that the Nazis have
killed his family (father, mother, and younger brother) in
November.
1942 - David goes
to the Aryan side of the city of Warsaw to seek help from
family friends. A non-Jewish woman neighbor hides him for
a day and a half.
1942 - A non-Jewish
friend of David's grandfather takes him to the city of Chervinsk,
where he hides, but he is arrested in February and sent by
transport from the city of Nowy Dwor, with 2,700 other men
to Auschwitz-Birkenau. David is given his number 38526, as
one of the 470 men kept alive from the train. Out of the 2,700
men only four are alive today.
1942 - David volunteers
to sing for the Nazi SS and is given a job in the laundry
to wash and disinfect clothes and sing when the Nazis need
his services.
1943 - David falls
asleep and misses roll call and is punished with ten lashes
and a "fake" hanging which would get him three months
in the camp prison. Afterwards, David's new job is to unload
the dead bodies and luggage from the incoming trains.
1944 - On December
20, David begins the death march to Gliewitz, Poland, and
then is taken by train to Dachau where he stays for two months.
David volunteers to go to another camp for forced labor and
escapes by breaking out of the window and jumping from the
train.
1945 - In March,
after jumping off the train, David meets a column of American
tanks and the 101st Airborne and is given a job as an interpreter
for the U.S. Army with the 101st Airborne. David speaks German,
Polish, Hebrew and some Russian and learns to speak English
while working for the Americans, which will serve him well
when he goes to America.
1945 - As a member
of the 101st Airborne of the 506th H Company, David works
as an interpreter and goes to Berchtesgarten, Hitler's Eagle's
Nest, with this unit where he remains until April.
1945 - On May 7,
the war ends in Europe and David is in Innsbruck, Austria
with the 101st Airborne.
1945 - David and
the 101st Airborne are moved to Versailles, France, where
he works in the PX for the U.S. Army.
1946 - In January
David takes the Monarch of the Seas, a liberty ship, to New
York where he meets his mother's sister and stay with them.
1947 - After his
acceptance, David enrolls in the American Cantorial Society
and has been singing ever since.
1948 - David and
Hope marry in New York.
1949 - David becomes
the Cantor at Temple Shalom in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where
he remains for twenty-seven years.
1984 - David becomes
the Cantor at Har Sinai temple in Trenton, New Jersey, where
he continues to sing today.
2000 - David and
Hope have two sons and two daughters. Eric is a Rabbi; Michael
is an Electrical Engineer who lives in Japan; Karen is the
Director of Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania,
and Jana is a horticulturist. David and Hope have been blessed
with five grandchildren with one more on the way.
David Wissnia's
Auschwitz number 38526 is a testament to the human spirit.
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