The amazing true stories of how magicians
helped fight World War Two 1939-1945
Werner Reich: Learning magic in Auschwitz (Part 2)
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Part 2 of a two-part blog about amateur magician and Holocaust survivor Werner Reich. In this remarkable story, we learn how Reich survived the Holocaust and developed a lifelong interest in magic...
Camp D labour camp, Auschwitz I and the death march
From Auschwitz II-Birkenau’s Camp B, the Nazis moved Reich to Camp D in July 1944. In Camp D, Reich was set to work in the nearby turnip fields until late 1944. From there he was moved to Auschwitz I and employed as a stable boy looking after horses for the German officers.
Auschwitz concentration camp entrance
(Source: Creative Commons)
On 21 January 1945, just six days before the liberation of Auschwitz by the advancing Soviet Red Army, German officials evacuated the camp, ordering some 58,000 prisoners to march west towards Germany.
The march, in the middle of winter, was brutal. After one brief stop, Reich recalls:
“Some people couldn’t get up and just sat there. Some had died, having fallen asleep, sitting on the ground and then frozen to death. And while the rest of us continued, the S.S. men shot those who could not get up. As the day progressed we saw more and more dead bodies, people who were shot ahead of us”.
An estimated 15,000, or one in four prisoners, did not survive the death marches. Reich did and after walking around 35 miles, his group was loaded onto train cattle carriages and moved through Poland, to Czechoslovakia, and then into Austria. The journey lasted three-and-a-half days. More prisoners died along the way.
Mauthausen and liberation
Mauthausen was a concentration camp near Linz in upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group of nearly 100 further sub camps throughout Austria and southern Germany. When Reich arrived there on 26 January 1945, the camps contained roughly 85,000 inmates.
Reich suffered from frostbite from the march and train journey:
“I remember that the Serbian doctor there cut off my toes on one foot and part of some toes on the other foot, covered the feet with a paper bandage that looked like toilet paper and sent me back to the barracks. No anaesthesia, no ointments, nothing.”
Mauthausen’s camp staff tagged Reich with another prisoner number, 122105.
Conditions at the camp were bad and with time dragging on, more and more prisoners became infected and died. Food was almost non-existent and many others just died from hunger. The chance of survival diminished day by day. The inmates also worried that the Nazis would slaughter them all in a final act of desperation as the Allies advanced.
“We were at a stage where at any moment death could have tapped us on the shoulder.”
On 5 May 1945, three and a half months after stumbling into Mauthausen, Reich and the rest of the inmates there were liberated by the U.S. Army. It was the last German concentration camp to be liberated.
Recreated scene of the first entry of American soldiers in Mauthausen, probably 7 May 1945
(Source: US National Archives and Records Administration)
Two days later, Nazi Germany surrendered and the war in Europe was over.
After exactly two years of captivity in horrendous conditions, the 17-year-old Reich was free.
Later life and becoming a magician
After liberation, Reich hitch-hiked his way back to Zagreb in Yugoslavia. Life was tough, but the Jewish community there looked after him and he returned to school. He eventually made contact with his sister, who survived the war. His mother didn’t. After two years, Reich emigrated to London to escape Communism and lived with a German uncle there. He married his Czech wife in 1955. The couple later moved to America.
Reich did not forget the magic trick he’d learned from Nivelli in Auschwitz:
“As soon as I could I bought a deck of cards, and I amazed my friends with the trick. I had wasted the last four years in hiding and in various camps and had no other skills or hobbies. My previous was stamp collecting... But magic was different - this hobby you could share with others.”
“I was the proud owner of one magic trick unto I went to England and acquired a few more from Davenport’s [magic shop] in London. I was terrible at performing, never really having seen a magic show, but I enjoyed it. It gave me something to think about, just as it had done in Auschwitz.”
Werner Reich showing his Auschwitz tattoo (c2015)
(Source: Werner Reich)
Reich started to watch magic shows, visit magic shops and attend magic conventions. he joined the International Brotherhood of Magicians and the Psychic Entertainers Association. When he moved to America, he took lessons with Slydini, a famous magician who worked with everyday items. After specialising in close-up magic, Reich later developed a passion for mentalism.
Coincidentally, Nivelli also ended up living in America. Sadly, the former inmates never crossed paths; neither knowing who the other was until Reich read an article about Nivelli which mentioned his tattooed prisoner number. Reich made the connection and tried to find Nivelli, but he’d died many years before.
Reich performed for family and friends, but remained an amateur magician throughout his life. However, the experience he gained from performing magic gave him the confidence to speak in front of audiences - small and large - about his Holocaust experiences.
Werner Reich loved magic and lectured to students and other groups on the Holocaust until his death on 8 July 2022, aged 94.
“Time does heal,” he would say. “But always - ALWAYS - there are shadows that remain.”
Interview with Werner Reich, conducted by Joshua Jay
(Source: Vanishing Inc.)
*****
A play inspired by Nivelli and Reich’s story, by Charles Way, is called ‘Nivelli’s War’. It was first presented in 2017. The play is about a magician who helps a child at the end of World War Two. However, the play is entirely fictional and not a historical account of their Holocaust experience.
The Nivelli/Reich story is also told in the children’s book, ‘The Magician of Auschwitz,’ which includes a section summarising the real life wartime story of Nivelli and Reich.
Reich and Nivelli weren’t the only magicians held in Auschwitz. Others include Miss Blanche and, probably, Dr Laszlo Rothbart. The Nazis murdered more Jewish magicians in other German concentration and extermination camps, including Dutchmen Louis Lam and Ben Ali Libi.
Testimony by Werner Reich is widely available, including in his autobiography contained within ‘The Death Camp Magicians’ (2015) by William V. Rauscher in collaboration with Werner Reich. Reich’s Holocaust journey is reconstructed using these sources, supplemented by secondary sources about the various concentration and extermination camps and known movements of Jews to and from these camps.
The Colditz Conjurer tells the amazing true story of Flight Lieutenant Vincent ‘Bush’ Parker, Battle of Britain pilot and prisoner-of-war magician.
Written by the Magic at War team, The Colditz Conjurer is a remarkable tale of perseverance, courage and cunning in the face of adversity. It features over 55 original photographs and maps. 129 pages.
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