Biography
David Burdowski was born in Klodawa, Poland on September 27, 1924. He was the youngest of six children and the only one to survive. David attended school until the Germans invaded. He then had to work even though he was only fourteen years old. One brother was beaten on his first day of forced labor. He immediately left for the Soviet Union and was never heard from again. Another brother had been serving in the Polish Army. He was taken as a prisoner of war and released only to be sent to a different camp.
David last saw family in 1941 when he was sent to Buchwerder Forst to work on the Autobahn. From there he was sent to a paper factory where he worked for the next year unloading trucks. In January 1942 David received a postcard from my older sister that she, her parents, sister-in-law and two children were taken to the synagogue God only knows what's going to happen to them. A few days later on January 19, 1942 he found they had been taken to Chelmno where they were gassed and buried in a mass grave. His other brother and sister were killed in Auschwitz.
In 1943 David was sent to and then to the coal mines in Jaworzno. It was very difficult work, but David earned a little extra food by also working as a barber. In January 1945, as the Soviet Army approached, the camp was evacuated by foot. The prisoners walked from Jaworzno to Katowice all night and all day without stopping. When they arrived in Katowice, they had to sleep outside in the snow. They continued marching for the next three months. After a while, David's shoes fell apart from walking and he then walked with rags tied around his feet. For years after, David suffered from frostbite on his feet. The march went to Blechhammer, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald and finally to Dachau. David eventually was liberated near Dachau in the small town of Staltach. He weighed approximately ninety pounds.
After the war, David lived in the Landsberg and Feldafing displaced persons camps and met his wife, a Majdanek survivor born in Mi?dzyrzec Podlaski. They married in 1946, immigrated to the United States in 1949 and settled in Flint, Michigan.
