Überlebende des Holocaust, Überlebende des Massakers vom 7. Oktober 2023 „Ich wurde 1935 in Bukarest, Rumänien, geboren und war das jüngste von vier Kindern. Meine Mutter sagte mir, dass ich aufgrund des Zeitpunkts meiner Geburt – kurz vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und dem Holocaust – als Pechvogel geboren wurde. Mein Vater, der in Polen geboren wurde, wurde gewaltsam aus Rumänien verbannt, weil er nicht die rumänische Staatsbürgerschaft besaß, so dass sich meine Mutter ganz allein um unsere Familie kümmern musste, während der Hass und die Gewalt gegen Juden in Rumänien eskalierten. Es dauerte eine Weile, aber es gelang uns, meinen Vater wiederzusehen, nachdem ein Verwandter, der Zugführer war, ihn in einem Zug entdeckt hatte. Von ihm erfuhren wir, dass mein Vater, der Arzt war, von den Russen eine Stelle in einem Krankenhaus in Odessa erhalten hatte, und so gelang es uns, ihn dort aufzuspüren. Nach unserem Wiedersehen mussten wir erneut ...
Holocaust Survivor, Kinder Transport Survivor, (In the album you can see George’s Mother, Marie and George) “I still remember the “Night of Broken Glass” as if it was only yesterday. That was the night when Nazi mobs ravished all the Jewish communities thru out Germany and Austria. During that night Jewish homes, businesses, and Synagogues were burnt down or destroyed by other means. The same night some ninety-one Jews were murdered and some 30,000 men were sent to various concentration camps. It was a major turning point in the Nazi persecution of the Jewish population. Only after three days was I allowed to go down to the street and that only with an adult. There are two scenes that are imbedded in my memory. The first was that of a hat shop across our street which was owned by a Jewish couple. The shop was completely destroyed and the contents ...
Bergen Belsen concentration camp Naomi is sitting in an original cattle cart that deported Jews for concentration camps all across Europe “I was born in Amsterdam in 1936. The middle child of three. I had a wonderful childhood, but everything changed when the war began and with it the persecution of Jews. In May 1940, German forces occupied the Netherlands, and soon after, we were deported from Amsterdam. My mother, older brother, baby sister – who was just four months old and I were crammed into a cattle cart not meant for human transportation and were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. It was horrendous. It was cold, we had no water, no food, and the cart was so overcrowded with other prisoners that we could barely move or breath. If we needed to use the toilet, there was only a filthy bucket in the corner of the cart ...
Auschwitz Holocaust Survivor The Little Librarian of Auschwitz “I was born in 1929 in Prague the capital of Czechoslovakia to Hans and Elizabeth Polach and I had a wonderful childhood. Everything changed with the annexation of the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany in 1938 and later on with the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Hitler’s forces. In November 1942, my parents and I were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Despite the horrible conditions there, we managed to hold onto a sense of dignity and purpose in our lives while we were there. However, all that changed when we were transported to the East. The moment they shoved us onto those cattle carts, was the moment when we were totally stripped of our humanity. We endured a harrowing journey of a day and a night in those cattle carts, then reached a place where life was of no value at all. Our ...
Auschwitz, Holocaust survivor “I can still remember the ramifications of the ‘Anschluss’ (Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938). The day after the Anschluss I was kicked out of school because of the implementation of the Nuremberg Laws and I came back home in tears. I didn’t understand what I did wrong? and why I needed to be punished only because I was Jewish. On that day my dad returned home from work and told us he was fired from the Austrian Electric Company because of the Anschluss. Our lives as we knew them in Austria have changed dramatically. Two days later two SA officers burst into our house. One of them pulled out a gun and aimed it at my head. He told my father he had three minutes to hand him over all of our money – otherwise, he would pull the trigger and my family would ...
Auschwitz Holocaust survivor (in the picture you can see Eva and her mother Marta at Erzgebirge ski resort before the Holocaust) “I was born in 1930 in Tetschen – a village which is not far from the German border in Czechoslovakia. Tetschen was located on the Sudetenland which was annexed to Germany as part of the Munich Agreement – the agreement that was trying to appease Hitler and bring ‘Peace for our time’ but only managed to postpone the outbreak of World War II by a year. When I look back I can say I had a wonderful childhood. If I was a painter I would color it in pink and blue. We had a beautiful house that was always filled with flowers culture and music. In 1935 I and my family moved to Prague and in those years I don’t remember that we ever suffered from anti-Semitism but I ...
