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.
The hunger in the ghetto was so great, was so bad, that people were laying on the streets and dying, little children went around begging, and, uh, everyday you walked out in the morning, you see somebody is laying dead, covered with newspapers or with any kind of blanket they found, and you found...those people used to carry the dead people in little wagons, used to bring them down to the cemetery and bury them in mass graves. And every day thousands and thousands died just from malnutrition because the Germans didn't give anything for the people in the ghetto to eat. There was no such thing. You can't walk in and buy anything, or getting any rations. It's your hard luck. If you don't have it, you die, and that's what it was.
We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies, Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, the Claims Conference, EVZ, and BMF for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of donor acknowledgement.
