Jacob Gutman was born on October 2, 1922, in Radom, Poland. He was one of four children; the eldest was daughter, Rayzl, then sons Chaim, Jacob, and Elek who was the youngest. The family lived in a one-room home that did not have running water. Jacob’s father worked cutting leather, and his mother was a homemaker. Jacob’s father was very active in the Bund, and Jacob would often accompany his father to political lectures. When Jacob was five, he began attending a cheder (Jewish parochial school), and two years later, he began attending a Polish public school as well. Due to health problems, Jacob had to abandon his cheder studies and eventually received private Judaic studies at home.
In 1936, Jacob graduated from public school and began working as an apprentice in his Uncle David’s cabinet making shop. He worked there during the day, and in the evening he attended trade school. One evening in November 1938, Jacob found his father sitting in front of the post office. He had suffered from a heart attack but did not seek medical attention. On February 22, 1939, Jacob’s father passed away at age 49. Jacob’s mother secretly took a job cleaning wealthy families’ homes in order to support her family.
Within a week of the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the first of many restrictions were placed on the Jewish community, and in December 1939, a Judenrat was appointed by the Germans. On April 7, 1941, the Germans forced the Jewish community of Radom to move into two ghettos. Jacob, his mother, and two brothers shared one room with another family of five. His sister, Rayzl, lived separately with her husband and child. Jacob socialized with a group of other young people, including a young woman, Bela Milstein, who became his girlfriend.
In August 1942, the Germans began to liquidate the two Radom ghettos. Right before the liquidation, Jacob managed to smuggle his younger brother into the labor camp where he and his other brother, Chaim, worked. The three brothers stayed together for the rest of World War II. However, Jacob’s mother, sister, brother-in-law, and two-year-old nephew were sent to Treblinka where they were killed on arrival. In spring 1943, Bela and her sister, Mania, were transferred to Bliżyn concentration camp. There was some contact maintained between Bliżyn and the Radom work site, and Bela managed to smuggle a photograph of herself and a letter to Jacob. He sewed a hiding place in his pants and kept her photograph with him throughout the rest of the war. Jacob and his brothers were later transferred to the Szkolna concentration camp, and when the Soviet Army approached in July 1944, they were evacuated to Tomaszów Lubelski, Poland. From there they were sent by cattle car to Auschwitz on July 26, 1944. The Gutman brothers were almost immediately loaded onto another train and taken to Vaihingen an der Enz, Germany, where they were put to work blasting a quarry for an underground munitions factory. Jacob worked the night shift, and his two brothers were assigned to the day shift. Jacob became very ill and depressed, but he survived because of a fellow Belgian laborer who shared his better food rations with him. One day he saw Chaim and Elek waiting in line to be transferred to another camp. Jacob bribed a Kapo with a slice of bread for permission to leave with his brothers. They next went to Hessenthal, Germany, to build runways for a military airport.
On April 20, 1945, which coincidentally fell on Elek’s 20th birthday, the Germans evacuated this camp and sent the prisoners on a train to Dachau. After Allied planes bombed the railroad, the prisoners continued on foot. They did not remain in Dachau for long and were next sent in the direction of the Tyrol where they were liberated by African-American soldiers ten days later. The American Army brought the three brothers to the Feldafing DP camp in Germany. Chaim and Elek left for Italy with plans to travel from there to Palestine. Jacob actively began searching for Bela, showing her photograph to other survivors and asking whether they had seen her. After initial failure, he moved to Mittenwald, Germany, where he worked in a United States officers’ mess. One day an officer told him that they had taken his girlfriend and her sister into custody. Bela had returned to Radom where she learned that Jacob was alive. She came to Mittenwald looking for him without proper documents and arrived during a round-up of potential smugglers. Jacob arranged for her release and notified his brothers that he had found her. Chaim and Elek returned from Italy in order to attend the wedding. Chaim subsequently married Mania, Bela’s sister. Jacob became the secretary of the Jewish community and was assigned the task of screening Ukrainian refugees for war crimes. After his life was threatened, he resigned to become the manager of the Children’s Nutritional Center. Jacob and Bela along with Chaim and Mania and their one-year-old son, Aron, immigrated to Canada in 1948. Elek immigrated to Palestine, arriving on the day that Israel became independent. In 1972 Jacob returned to Germany to testify in a courtroom in Hamburg against the former Gestapo head in Radom.
