Seventy-nine pounds.
That is how much my late paternal grandfather, Jack Richman, weighed at the age of 36 after having walked countless miles in a death march from Dachau before being liberated by the U.S. Army 80 years ago on this day.
The Americans had liberated the concentration camp, which was in Germany, a few days earlier.
Jack Richman was born in 1909 in Konigsberg, Germany, as one of five children. The family then moved to Lithuania.
In 1941, he was placed in the Kovno Ghetto, where life was difficult as he was awake before 5 a.m. and was on the most-difficult labor assignment, reconstructing airports destroyed by the Soviets. But he was not deterred. He saved his 2-year-old niece, Joyce, by placing her in a potato sack as she went into hiding and ended up surviving.
In 1944, he had the option of escaping the ghetto but opted to stay behind with his father, Leib Richman. The two would be deported to Dachau where they were separated. Jack Richman was Prisoner Number 81816.
Dachau was the longest-running Nazi concentration camp and was created in 1933. Of the more than 200,000 prisoners there, approximately 40,000 died.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance visited the concentration camp in February.
“I’ve read a lot about the Holocaust in books,” he said. “But being here, and seeing it up close in person, really drives home what unspeakable evil was committed and why we should be committed to ensuring that it never happens again.”
My grandfather worked the night shift at Dachau, doing hard labor at a quarry, while his father worked the day shift.
Leib Richman asked his son, “What will become of us? Will there be nothing left of our family? Who will be our extensions?”
Shortly before the camp was liberated, Jack Richman was put on a death march. The Nazis would force concentration camp prisoners to walk by foot without stopping.
At Dachau, my grandfather relied on a prisoner, who had access to many parts of the concentration camp, to give a portion of his daily food to his father. He was promised that the ration would be delivered to him.
However, it was only after liberation that he found out that his father died three months before liberation and therefore the prisoner took the food for himself.
A situation like that would, understandably, cause someone to lose their cool and curse at the prisoner and even the world. But Jack Richman kept his cool.
Jack Richman was employed by the U.S. Army in the 194th QM Gasoline Supply Company as an officers’ orderly and an overseer of displaced personnel employed by the company. A recommendation letter by a personnel officer, First Lt. Milton Anderson, stated that my grandfather “acted with efficiency and dispatch” and would recommend that he be “in any capacity requiring trust and confidence.”
After all, one could only imagine how someone who faced death every day could move on after liberation. But Jack Richman was not going to be deterred by the Nazis after the hell he went through. He knew that good people like the American Army and those who survived the concentration camps needed assistance to fight evil. He knew that he had to keep living life.
He moved to Chicago and met my grandmother, Reggie Richman, and the two got married in 1953.
Sadly, I never met my grandfather as he passed away in 1991, almost two years before I was born and named after him.
But the stories I heard about him make me think that we would have had the best grandfather-grandson relationship in the world. He, alongside his wife, cared for his family a lot and instilled the best values in his three children including my father such as being kind to one another. The Richman family expanded to nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
The Jewish people have faced a torrent of anti-Semitism in the United States and abroad since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel — the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
“Never Again” means the Jewish people shall never again face another annihilation. It’s a message applicable now more than ever.
May the memory of Jack Richman and those who perished at Dachau be for a blessing.
And may G-d bless our troops.
