Abraham Lewent (1924–2002) was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1924. The Lewent family was living in Warsaw when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. Later, the Lewents were confined to the Warsaw ghetto. In summer 1942, Abraham's mother and three younger sisters were rounded up during the Great Action—the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. They were likely killed upon arrival. Abraham was not caught in the Great Action, because during the round up he hid in a small space in the ceiling. Afterwards, Abraham found a forced labor assignment at a nearby airfield. He returned to the ghetto in December 1942, reuniting with his father. During the Warsaw ghetto uprising in April–May 1943, Abraham and his father saw the ghetto being burned to the ground. They were eventually rounded up and sent to the Lublin concentration camp (called Majdanek). Abraham's father died there. Later, Abraham was sent to the Skarżysko-Kamienna labor camp, then to Buchenwald and several other camps. US troops liberated Abraham from a train in April 1945.
I came from work, I lay down. One guy came over to me and says, "You have a high fever. You burning up." I didn't know what it is. He says to me, "Why don't you go in...in the...into the hospital." It was not a hospital. It was like a...a pigsty. People were laying on straw. I walked in inside. There's a doctor (cough). He used to be a doctor before the war, but here he didn't practice doctor. And he looked at me, he says to me, "You got typhoid" (sigh). He laid me right down. He didn't let me go back in the barracks. But I know that every third day a truck came to that thing and cleaned them, all the people out, and take them out. Because they have no medicine to heal typhoid. I was laying about two days and my fever must have dropped. And I didn't eat. I didn't...they didn't give me anything for two days. The third day I got up and I was dizzy and I said to the doctor, "I feel alright. I'm gonna go back to work." He says to me, "What do you mean you're gonna go back to work? You can't even walk on your feet." And he started to laugh, you know, like, "Who cares?" I says, "I feel good. I like to go back to work." He says to me, "You know what? You see that long table staying here?" Table about twelve feet long, maybe more. "If you can walk around that table three times and you not gonna fell down, I let you walk out." You know. And do you think I didn't do it? I walked around three times, and I walked out. And he told me, "You can go back in your barracks."
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