Wayne Holocaust Survivor Testifying In Former Nazi Guard's Trial

WAYNE, NJ – A Holocaust survivor from Wayne is providing witness testimony against a former Nazi guard during his trial in Hamburg, Germany, according to reports.

Asia Shindelman, 91, contributed written testimony of what life was like at the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland,the New York Post reported.

On trial is a former Stutthof guard, Bruno Dey, now 93. Dey was charged as an accessory to the murder of 5,230 Jews from 1944 to 1945. The trial began in October and is expected to continue until February.

“It’s [possibly] the last opportunity to hear living witnesses,” said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, which helps Holocaust victims, told the New York Post. “It’s important for the trial to have testimony from witnesses who . . . remember daily lynchings, people being murdered, the gas chambers and crematoriums,” he added. “It was a factory of death.”

Although Shindelman does not specifically recall Dey, she testified to the abuse people were subjected to by the guards, the Post said.

She and her mother were liberated by the Soviet Army in March 1945. Shindelman met her husband Yudel, a veterinarian who survived Stalin’s gulag, in Latvia in 1948, and became a chemical engineer. They moved with their two sons to Queens, New York in 1991 after the fall of communism. After arriving in the U.S., she began to speak out about concentration camps.

She's shared her story at Christian Health Care Center's Siena Village, as part of the community's resident speakers bureau series. Shindelman also received Honorable Mention in LeadingAge's 2019 Words from the Wise. LeadingAge launched a search for outstanding people who have had a significant impact on their communities after the age of 65, according to the Christian Health Care Center.

Click here to see a video of Asia Shindelman sharing her story.

In her presentation, which the center has provided a written account of online, Shindelman shares her story of survival.

“June 22, 1941, was a wonderful day in Lithuania, a small country in the Baltic Sea, until the Nazis came. They made all the Jews wear a yellow star on the front and the back. They took away our houses and belongings. They put us in a ghetto. We were three families in one room. We had very little food to eat. I was hungry all day,” says the Siena Village resident, who was 13 at that time and put to work first in a military airport and then a shoe factory.

“On July 1, 1944, the world changed. My mother, father, brother, and I were taken on cattle wagons to a concentration camp. No food, no water, no toilet. It was so crowded,” she says. “When we arrived at Sztutowo concentration camp in Poland, they took away my name. I became number 54128. My father was sent to another concentration camp. My brother was killed, but we did not know that at the time.

“After cold showers, they gave us dresses and shoes. If they were too small, we had to wear them anyway. No underwear. No socks. No gloves. Then they took us to the barracks. They were so crowded. No pillow. No soap. No toothbrush. No blanket. Almost no food.”

Shindelman, who is fluent in 7 languages, learned English at age 62 by reading Danielle Steele novels. Her husband passed away in 2006, and in 2009 she moved to Siena Village of Wayne to be closer to her sons.