A New Identity and Near Escapes: Tauba Biterman

After taking on a new identity, Tauba Biterman was able to escape the wrath of Nazi Germany through her willingness to work, her quick wit, and faith in God and the good nature of others, saying, “Everything that I did, I was nuts! The almighty was with me, He wrote my life. He told me what to do.”

It was the fall of 1939 when Biterman came home from her job at a local textile store in Zamosc, Poland and was told by her mother a war had started. And Hitler was coming.

Now a 97-year-old great-grandmother and Jewish community volunteer who lives in Milwaukee, Biterman described her countless escapes from the Nazis as she was forced to deny her Jewish faith as she went undercover posing as a German, while constantly living on the verge of being discovered.

Yet, within a world of unspeakable atrocities, other people also repeatedly risked themselves so she could live, from the Polish couple whose name she borrowed to the German lieutenant whose injury she nurtured in a military hospital. It brings to mind the teaching in the Talmud that basically holds that “He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.”

Biterman’s story speaks to the basic human instinct for survival, how intelligence can outwit evil, and how in a world of many bystanders, the few brave souls who do stand up can mean the difference between life and death.

Biterman spent the war nearly escaping capture after capture and being exposed as a Jew by allowing herself to trust the few kind-hearted people around her, saying, “Again I’m putting my life in somebody’s hands, but He was there.”

A normal childhood

Zamosc was a small town just under 40 miles away from Poland’s border with Ukraine. Biterman was the eldest daughter of her father, a cap maker, and mother, a housekeeper and one of six siblings.

She describes Poland as a very poor country that lacked industry, saying, “Everybody had to work with their hands and make a living.”

Despite the hard work most were subjected to, her childhood still holds happy memories, “We lived a nice life, like everyone else did. We didn’t know there was poor or middle class or high class.”

After graduating high school and getting a job in a textile store, Biterman recalls her first purchase after earning some money, “I bought myself a pair of stockings and white gloves. Back then people were sophisticated; they wore nice clothes; they cared how they looked.”

Although Hitler came to power in 1933, her knowledge then about his plans and religious persecution were minimal. “When I grew up, I did not experience any anti-Semitism because we all lived together,” she said. “We had gentile neighbors. The Jewish community and Christian communities were very close.”

The day after Biterman’s mother told her the war started a bomb hit near her home. That’s when her parents decided the whole family would run away. They ran to the Russian occupied zone, thinking life under the Russians would be safer than the approaching Germans, saying, “You might not believe me; Russia was the only country that opened the door for the Jewish people.”

It was in this occupied zone that Biterman got a job in a restaurant. Her luck of finding employment cemented her separation from her family, who wanted to head further into the Soviet Union to escape the Germans.

In 1941, Hitler successfully invaded this occupied zone and immediately built the Dubno Ghetto.

As Biterman explains her placement in the ghetto, she lightly touches her right shoulder and left arm signaling where she wore one of the infamous yellow star badges and a blue Star of David on a white band around her arm, which distinguished her as a Polish Jew.

She remembers the first days in the ghetto, saying, “They went and took the youngest men away to work, but they never returned.”

It was only after the war when she learned about the numerous concentration camps and the indescribable horrors experienced there by forced laborers and prisoners.

Biterman quickly realized the best way to ensure her survival was to distance herself from her country, religion, and people while gravitating towards the Germans.

She had learned to speak German fluently while in school and used this to her advantage, saying, “If you spoke German to a Pole or Ukrainian they will tell you that you’re a Jew, If you spoke to the German people in German, they would never accuse you of being a Jew. They had no idea.”

She used the Germans’ ignorance to her advantage when passing herself off as a German Gentile. Her fair features helped convince those around her that she was not Jewish.

Biterman attempted once again to find a job, but to do this she had to speak with the German officers. After deciding on a story that would explain her situation without revealing her true identity, she approached a German. She said that she came from the Black Forest region of Germany and was running away from the Russians for the fear that they would kill her, a German.

The Germans believed her story and allowed her to work in a hastily made laundromat located right outside the ghetto.

One day while she was working, she saw her old boss, and was surprised he allowed her to approach him, saying, “He didn’t run away, he came over and I said, ‘Mr. Kukarevich could you take me out of the ghetto?’”

She acknowledges this was a risky move for someone in her position, “You know it’s me putting my life in his hands. He was a good boss, but how did I know that he’s not going to turn me around to the Gestapo, but I didn’t think about it.”

To her surprise, Mr. Kukarevich agreed and the next day was able to take her out of the ghetto. He brought her to his home where he lived with his wife and children. She hid in the basement where they brought her food and kept her hidden while mass killings of Jews happened in the city.

After hearing about the murders, Biterman asked Mr. Kukarevich, “Would you please take me out of here because they’re killing my people right here, and they’ll find out that you’re hiding me. Your family might be destroyed.”

A new journey

Realizing the immense danger Tauba’s presence put his family in, he agreed to take her out of the city.

However, they could not simply walk out together. Mr. Kukarevich and his wife dressed her in a traditional flower-covered Polish costume complete with a babushka. Armed with his wife’s birth certificate she confidently adopted her name, Maria Kukarevich, as her own.

Early that morning, they rented a horse and wagon and agreed that if they were stopped Biterman was to say that they were married; the only flaw being she was half his wife’s age.

As they traveled through villages, she remembers the lack of life, saying, “Everything was boarded up, there was no people in these villages. They were all taken away.”

By five that evening, Mr. Kukarevich stopped abruptly and told her this is was as far as he could take her. Biterman did not know where she was and no longer had the protection of Mr. Kukarevich or his wife’s birth certificate.

After finding an abandoned barn to sleep in for the night she awoke to hear two German soldiers standing at a borderline. She built up the courage to speak with them, in German, to figure out where she was.

Once again she used her Black Forest alibi and fluency in German to convince them to allow her to pass.

For a few days, she found work milking cows, but felt as if she was constantly being watched. Believing she was about to be exposed as a Jew, she used a sick aunt as an excuse to leave.

Out of fear, Biterman boarded a train the next day without knowing exactly where it was going.

On the train, more trouble ensued when a big Polish girl asked Biterman directly in Polish, “Where are you going?”

Bitterman replied, “Well, where are you going?”

After the woman responded, Biterman said, “What a coincidence, I’m going there too!”

It was quick thinking like this that helped her stay out of harm during the war.

She ended up in a region called Galitzia, a place that is now split between Poland in the west and Ukraine in the east.

Again, she found work, this time in a kitchen where she peeled potatoes and carrots for a cook. They were in charge of feeding German civilian workers that followed the soldiers after the invasions and began to build, work, and live in the new occupied territories.

Her boss brought in another young woman to help out in the kitchen. Meeting new people was always stressful for Biterman, who was trying to maintain the identity of Maria Kukarevich and constantly fighting off suspicions. Her frustration for that day still exists as she slapped her hand on the table after every few words, saying, “He brings in an Ukrainian girl and she takes one look at me and told me ‘you are a Jew!’”

Biterman denied the allegation but was terrified that if she remained the truth would be discovered, so she left and began working in a traveling German hospital where she befriended a German lieutenant who came to the hospital weekly to get treatment for a stubborn boil.

During her time at the hospital, she met a kind young girl named Janina, who also worked there.

Soon Janina invited Biterman to accompany her on a visit to her grandmother’s house. While on the train there, Biterman cheerfully sang a song in German when a large Ukrainian man stood up and declared her a Jew.

He forced her off the train and into the station where ten Gestapos were, he yelled “Jude! Jude! Jude!” repeatedly at them. Jude is Jew in German.

She tried to explain how she knew the song without knowing German, understanding that Ukrainians and Poles were suspicious of a Pole who spoke German.

Bitterman explained what happened when they were not satisfied with her answer, saying,  A Pole approached me and he lifted me up, and he put a gun right here,” pointing to her forehead before continuing, “‘Tell me you are a Jew or I will shoot you!’”

Her response was simple, “I’m not a Jew, but if you want to shoot me. Shoot me. If you want to have me on your conscience, shoot me, but I’m not a Jew.”

She was kept in a small room at the station for a few hours before the same Ukrainian man who accused her helped her get to Janina’s grandmother’s house.

When she returned to work at the hospital, she discovered it was moving on and that she could not go with it. At this time, there was destructive unrest in the city between the Poles and Ukrainians who were burning churches.

Biterman saw the destruction and looked up to god and asked, “What should I do now?”

The war’s end

That’s when she saw two German soldiers standing on the street she was on and asked them who she could talk to about leaving the city. The soldiers pointed her towards a building.

When she opened the door, she recognized the man before her. It was the lieutenant she befriended at the hospital.

She explained her situation with the hospital and her concern about the growing unrest. Biterman asked the lieutenant to bring her along when his Army moved on.

Within two days, she was traveling with him through Romania to Hungary. The lieutenant found her a safe place to stay separate from the soldiers, knowing the proximity of a young vulnerable woman could lead to trouble.

Biterman was hiding in a basement to protect herself from the bombings when the lieutenant opened the door to tell her the war was over.

After hearing this news. she went outside where she sat on a rock and began to cry, “Who am I? Where am I to go? Where are my parents? Where are my siblings?”

It was as if the constant struggle of hiding her identity throughout the war blocked out her deepest fears and thoughts. Only after knowing she was finally safe was she able to verbalize them.

Spending years pretending she was someone else and denying her Jewish roots brought difficulties for her after the war when she tried to join a small Jewish community.

They wouldn’t accept her because she did not look Jewish and she had forgotten her language by completely blocking out who she was in order to survive the war. Everything that once helped her was now working against her.

With the help of a local rabbi, she was able to reconnect to her faith and was pointed to the place where she could begin looking for her family. It was at this site for locating “displaced persons” where she met her future husband, Edward Biterman.

In 1948 Tauba Biterman and her husband moved to America and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where they raised their son, Joseph and daughter, Shirley.  Her family survived the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and she brought them all to the United States. Her youngest sister is still alive today and lives in Los Angeles, California.

She will share her story of survival with the public on February 28, 2016 at the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center for their “Holocaust Stories: In their Honor” event.

Even after all this time, Bitterman never forgets the kindness of those around her during the war, saying, “My only regret is that I never did anything for those people that helped me.”