Nathan was then sent to a Buchenwald subcamp near Magdeburg, Germany to work in one of the satellite labor camps that provided slave labor for a local munitions factory and clearing debris from Allied bombings for the Nazis. Life in the concentration camp was harsh, with long work hours and poor living conditions. They had to sleep four in a makeshift bed the size for one or two people; two inmates had to sleep one way and two slept in the opposite direction. Nathan was the senior electro-mechanical engineer, which included repairing radios. This enabled him to listen to Voice of America on the radio to get updated war information when the guards were not around.  He considered this more important than food, since it provided him hope.

Perhaps the best example of Nathan’s creative survival skills happened just before Christmas, 1944. The Magdeburg Commandant (Andreas Hochworth) came to Nathan’s barrack holding a piece of paper.  Based on past experience, such a paper would have a list of numbers that corresponded to numbers tattooed on every camp prisoner’s forearm.  When your number was called, it meant you were taken away and executed.  However, the paper that the Commandant was holding was a letter from his wife.  She wrote that due to the bombings in Berlin they didn’t have any Christmas gifts for their children.  She wanted to know if the inmates could do anything to help.  The Commandant told the inmates that if they could make a toy that would excite his children they all could live longer; otherwise they wouldn’t. After the Commandant left the barracks, the inmates lamented how they could make such a toy.  Nathan told his fellow inmates, “Let’s think about this, since you have to admit, he gave us a very good incentive.” Nathan thought about this for two days and came up with an idea how they could make the requested toy – it’s amazing how efficiently the mind works when it’s a matter of life and death.  Nathan explained to his fellow barrack inmates that they could mount a hand drill horizontally on a bench and the 30 of them could take turns turning it as a lathe to make a wooden toy.

The inmates worked two days and nights to make Nathan’s toy.  The toy consisted of a wooden base with a hollow post.  On top of the post was a round collar with six wooden sacks of flour.  A wooden man would automatically climb the post with his arms and legs up to the top.  At the top, one of the sacks bumps onto the man’s back and he would then climb down where the sack would fall off.  The man would then climb up to get another sack until all six sacks were on the bottom .  When Nathan gave the toy to the Commandant, he could see that he was very pleased and requested that Nathan show how it worked to his officers.  Two weeks after Christmas, the Commandant came back to Nathan’s barrack holding another piece of paper, which was another letter from his wife indicating how much their children and the neighborhood children enjoyed the new toy.  The Commandant said he would never forget this toy, and Nathan thought he would also never forget it!  So the toy of a man laboring up and down a post to retrieve sacks of flour that was made by inmates in a Nazi slave labor camp, saved the life of Nathan and his 29 fellow inmates.

This is a video of Nathan telling how he designed the toy that saved his life ~ and the lives of his 29 barrack inmates (6:24 min).

How the Toy Works: The vertical post is hollow with a cord attached to the wooden man running through a slot and around a pulley to a counterweight inside the post. The counterweight which is heavier than the wooden man, lifts the man to the top of the post. When the wooden man reaches the top the momentum knocks one of the sacks onto his back. Now the wooden man with the sack is heavier than the counterweight, so he climbs down. Once the wooden man reaches the bottom of the post there is a small protrusion that tilts the man back so the sack falls off his back on to the tray. The man then becomes lighter and able to climb back up the post again. This cycle repeats until all six sacks of have been retrieved.

This is a video that shows how a replica of the Buchenwald toy works

(special thanks to Stuart Mryhow for making the replica of the Buchenwald toy)