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Chrystelle Angerville

Sutton and Dobyns

English 8

12/18/2018

Life Before, During, and After World War II

 Ezra BenGershom – Escapee from Jewish deportations and a disguiser who

 Golda (Olga) Bancic – Activist for local workers’ organization and resistance
soldier of the Franc-Tireurs et Partisans

 Oskar Dirlewanger – Former Nazi Lieutenant, Waffen-SS Commander, and

Even though many people understand the horrors of World War II, there are multiple

cases on how different people’s reactions were to this event. For example, there are three people

in which they all had different reactions to this war that was occurring. Ezra BenGershom

became an escapee from the deportation of Jews, faking many identities and studying the field of

biochemistry to escape the Nazis[ CITATION Uni18 \l 1033 ]. Olga Bancic was an activist of

the local workers’ organization and became a resistance soldier of the Franc-Tireurs et Partisans[

CITATION Uni18 \l 1033 ]. Oskar Dirlewanger was a former Nazi Lieutenant but later became a

Waffen-SS commander, who led an invasion in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Slovakia

Uprising [ CITATION Fre18 \l 1033 ].

Before the War

Ezra BenGershom, born in 1922 in Wurzburg, Germany, was born into a Jewish family,

in which his father third-generation rabbi. Going to primary school, he was teased for being

Jewish while he explored his interest of chemistry. At age sixteen, he was already enrolled in a

Jewish secondary school in Berlin when the Nazi began their deportations. Using his “Nordic”

features to his advantage, BenGershom found a way to escape Germany by joining a Zionist

training cooperative, in which the city youth were migrating to Palestine, as an effort to escape

the impending war[ CITATION Uni18 \l 1033 ]. Secondly, Olga Bancic was born May 10, 1912

in Chisinau, Romania, which was part of the Bessarabia province in the Russian Empire before

annexed by Romania. Bancic was born into a large Jewish family and at age twelve, she was

arrested and beaten for the first time for going on strike at the mattress store she was working at.

During the years between 1933 and 1939, Bancic was an active and vocal part in the local

workers’ organization, in which she’s been arrested many times to think of it as an occupational

hazard. She then moved to France where she helped the French leftists ferry arms to the Spanish

Republicans when they were facing a battle with fascism. Bancic gave birth to a daughter named

Dolores in 1939, and then left her to a French family to join the Fran-Tireurs et Partisans

resistance group to fight against Germany[ CITATION Uni18 \l 1033 ]. Lastly, Oskar

Dirlewanger, born September 26, 1895 in Wurzburg, was the son of a lawyer, in which he went

to grade and high school and eventually passing a test allowing him to go to college. A veteran

wounded from World War I, he received many awards and medals. In 1922, Dirlewanger joined

the Nazi Party but was expelled, then going to college to obtain his Ph.D. so he could later rejoin

the Nazi Party, in which he was expelled again and thrown into prison for foul behavior with

local party leaders. After being freed from prison by Gottlob Berger, a WWI comrade, he joined

the Condor Legion in 1937, a German military expeditionary force in Spain, where he helped
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train the crews tank warfare. Once receiving many Spanish awards and getting an outstanding

performance from his leader, he returned to Germany in 1939, where he requested to be a SS

officer during World War II and became the commander of a Waffen-SS unit[ CITATION Fre18

\l 1033 ]. When comparing the lives of these three people, BenGershom put all his effort into

escaping the war, while Bancic and Dirlewanger both entered the war to fight for their country

they showed allegiance to.

During the War

Throughout the time frame of the war, BenGershom did everything his power to avoid it.

Since during this time deportation stepped up in Germany, he had to flee to many different parts

of Central Europe. In 1941, he fashioned his own Hitler Youth uniform, in which he was able to

flee to Berlin and evade Gestapo patrols with his Aryan looks. In 1943, BenGershom was able to

escape to Vienna by using false documents that stated that he worked in the armaments industry,

thus making it to Budapest, where he hid underground until the German army invaded Hungary

also. He lastly fled to Romania where he mounted a Turkish vessel to Palestine in

1944[ CITATION Uni18 \l 1033 ]. Switching gears, Bancic became a resistance fighter of the

Franc-Tireurs et Partisans in 1940 when Germany invaded France. Her job as a soldier was to

assemble bombs and help transport explosives that were meant to derail German troops and their

supply trains. In 1943, during a Gestapo roundup, she was arrested and tortured for information.

She revealed nothing, yet still they interrogated and tortured her even when she was already

condemned to death[ CITATION Uni18 \l 1033 ]. On the flip side, Dirlewanger’s Waffen-SS

unit was assigned to fight the partisans in Poland in 1942, in which they forced Jews into

labor/concentration camps or slaughtering them altogether, partaking in drunken outings and

making life miserable for the Poles living in Lublin and Krakow. His unit was moved to Russia
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and White Russia in 1944 to fight the Soviet partisans due to his unit’s heinous behavior, and he

killed thousands of the inhabitants in that area. Afterwards, he partook in multiple operations that

included the aid of Dirlewanger’s Waffen-SS unit. Then his unit was once again moved to the

Warsaw Uprising and the Slovakia Uprising, where his unit murdered thousands of civilians and

acted despicably that they were moved to the Eastern Front in late 1944 to suppress the citizens

of Hungary. As Dirlewanger’s unit spread throughout the war, they slaughtered, captured, and

raped, even, any citizens in their path, in which there were no photographers and propaganda

correspondents that ever followed them. Dirlewanger received many awards for his

accomplishments in both world wars but had to turn over his unit to Fritz Schmedes due to his

fatal wound he suffered in 1945 on the Eastern Front. He once again served with his former unit

near the middle of 1945 but suffered yet another brutal wound[ CITATION Fre18 \l 1033 ].

Once again comparing these people, only two people were actually involved in the war, while

one decided to escape it altogether. Both Bancic and Dirlewanger were able to do what they

could to fight for their countries in the war, while BenGershom put all his effort in to making

sure he escaped the horrors of the war and the Jewish deportations.

After the War

The aftermath of the war for these three individuals could not have been more vase in

difference, even though two of them are deceased in the end. After the war had ended,

BenGershom decided to flourish in his dream to study biochemistry while he was in Palestine.

He was able to be the head of the Clinical Chemistry Division of the Academic Children’s

Hospital in Rotterdam for twenty-five unwavering years[ CITATION Uni18 \l 1033 ]. In

contrast, after Bancic was condemned to die in a Gestapo roundup, she was transferred to a

prison in Stuttgart. She was condemned to death a second time after they re-tried her again.
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Unfortunately, Bancic was beheaded on May 10, 1944, which was to be her thirty-second

birthday[ CITATION Uni18 \l 1033 ]. Similarly, after the war ended, Dirlewanger vanished to

Upper Swabia in an attempt to hide but was found and arrested by free French authorities in the

middle of 1945. Polish laborers that were under the employment of the French identified him as

Oskar Dirlewanger and on June 7, 1945, Dirlewanger was beaten to death. Rumors were going

around in late 1945 on how he survived the beating and fled to Egypt or Syria, but they were

quick to die out when French authorities exhumed Dirlewanger’s remains from the Altshausen

Friedhof (the Altshausen cemetery), confirming his death[ CITATION Fre18 \l 1033 ].

These people all put effort into the goals they were determined to follow through.

BenGershom was determined to avoid the war at all costs and was able to achieve not only his

freedom but the ability to pursue his dream. Bancic was determined to fight for the justice of the

fallen country of France, who succumbed to German’s army. Although she had a dreadful end,

she was still able to fight for France’s justice. Dirlewanger was determined to use his skills and

put them into what counted for him: Germany’s success in the war and his standing as a German

soldier.

Works Cited

Maclean, French L. Oskar Dirlewanger. 2012-2018. <http://thefifthfield.com/biographical-

sketches/oskar-dirlewanger-2/>.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Encyclopedia. 2018.

<https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/id-card/golda-olga-bancic>.

—. Holocaust Encyclopedia . 2018. <https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/id-card/ezra-

bengershom>.
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