‘We were the fortunate ones’

Harry Schneider turns 88 in April and lives with his wife in the Daniel Pointe Retirement Community on Daniel Island.

 

But for two years of his young life, more than eight decades ago, Schneider lived with his family deep in the forest between Poland and Russia, sleeping on the ground, foraging for food, dodging gunfire, and running from the Nazis.

 

It’s a life story he doesn’t want anyone to forget. 

 

“I was 2-and-a-half years old when the war started in 1939, and my father was in the Polish army,” said Schneider. “He saw so many atrocities committed by the Germans and said we had to flee.”

 

Schneider’s mother had a brother who lived in Russia, so Schneider and his parents, along with an aunt, uncle, and cousin, left their small town in Poland in search of refuge in Russia.

 

“The Germans were chasing us in the forest, and the Russians would not let us into their territory because they had a treaty with Germany,” Schneider said. “Airplanes were bombing us, and my aunt was killed in one of the raids, so we just kept moving further and further into the woods.”

 

In 1941, the treaty broke up when Germany invaded Russia, and Poland’s Jews were able to cross into the Soviet Union. Schneider’s father and uncle were soon drafted into the Soviets’ Red Army, and Harry, his mother, and baby sister, who was born in Russia, were put on a train to the mountains outside Siberia.

 

Schneider said the journey took three weeks because they had to keep jumping on and off the trains when the Germans bombed the tracks. “It was bitter cold,” Schneider said of Siberia. “Food was rationed, and I remember standing in long lines for food and milk.”

 

When World War II ended in 1945, Schneider, his mother, and sister were allowed to return to Poland, where they discovered their house was destroyed, and their entire family who remained in the country had been murdered. Ninety percent of Poland’s three million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

 

“We were the fortunate ones,” he said. “My grandparents, uncles, aunts, and their children were all executed there. They thought everything was going to be okay, and they were executed by the Gestapo.”

 

Schneider’s father survived the war and was reunited with his wife and children, who were living in a displaced persons camp, or DP camp, in Poland. “We were very lucky he found us.” Schneider was only 4 years old when he was separated from his father, and he credits him with saving their lives. “I didn’t recognize him; I didn’t even know who he was when he came to see me.”

 

The Schneiders soon left Poland and went to live in a DP camp run by the U.S. Army in Austria, where they stayed for five years before moving to the United States in 1950 when Schneider was 13.

 

Because they had no relatives in America, the family was sponsored and housed by the Jewish Federation in Washington, Pennsylvania, a small town outside Pittsburgh.

 

Schneider learned to speak English with the help of a dedicated teacher, graduated from high school, served in the Army National Guard, went to college, and became an accountant for a beef exporting company. He eventually began his own successful export business, which he ran for decades before retiring.

 

Schneider now resides with his wife, Patty, in his retirement community on Daniel Island. They have been married 62 years and have a daughter who lives nearby on Isle of Palms, a son in Pittsburgh, and four grandchildren.

Their grandson, Josh Rogers, is a former news reporter with WCIV-TV, ABC News 4, in Charleston, and produced a documentary about Schneider titled “On the Run: One Man’s Struggle for Survival,” that can be viewed on YouTube.

 

Because there are so few living Holocaust survivors – most are in their late 80s and 90s – Schneider thinks it’s important to keep the story alive. He travels around the state talking to schoolchildren and other organizations about the horrors of the Holocaust. He tries to educate people about the perils of hatred and prejudice that led to the killing of six million Jews.

 

“I know a lot of atrocities are still being committed all over the world,” he said. “We must remember what happened so it never happens again.”