Auschwitz Holocaust survivor “On my fifteenth birthday, I got a present that I will never forget – a one-way ticket to hell. When the doors of the cattle car creaked open at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, I knew my life as I knew it would never be the same. As all prisoners who arrived at Auschwitz, we went through a quick selection process that concluded who would be chosen for forced labor and who would be sent to the gas chambers. In a split-second, Dr. Mengele, infamously known as the ‘Angel of Death’ decided that me and my three sisters: Sara, Riku, and Esther would turn right and be assigned to forced labor while my dear father and mother, and my two youngest brothers would be led to the left, destined for a horrific fate to the gas chamber just hours later. My elder sister Haya, and her baby Etya were ...

Holocaust Survivor, Krasna ghetto. “The devastating memory of my father’s murder still haunts me to this day. I was only thirteen when Nazi soldiers executed him in front of my eyes. It was during one of the German ‘Aktion’ at the ghetto and my father was ‘chosen’ randomly to be shot. I was standing next to my father, holding his hand firmly hoping that our lives will be spared but the Nazis had no mercy, and with a shot to the back of his head he collapsed pulling me down to the ground with him. I was covered with blood lying beneath my dead father’s body and before I fainted I remember asking myself if I had arrived in heaven or whether I’m still in hell. After the shooting, the Jewish undertakers of the ghetto gathered all the bodies and put them on a wagon so they could bring them ...

Holocaust survivor, Theresienstadt concentration camp “I arrived at Theresienstadt concentration camp two days before my twelve birthday and as a birthday present, I got to collect abandoned corpses from the street. The corpses were already naked as prisoners in the camp already stripped them from their belongings. I never saw a dead body in my life and it was an unbearable shock to see and collect them but I kept on doing that. Saying no to the Germans wasn’t really an option. I was in a state of survival. I knew that if I want to live another day I have to collect those corpses and bring them to cremation at the camp crematorium. The crematorium in Theresienstadt was composed of four ovens and was unique in the way we’re each body was individually incinerated. After a body was consumed the remaining ash would be collected and poured into a box which later on was archived at ...

Auschwitz Holocaust survivor One of the youngest prisoners to be freed from Auschwitz.   “I was only two years old when I and my mom were liberated from Auschwitz so I don’t have any conscious memories stretching so far back but unfortunately I will have to say that Auschwitz is deeply burned inside my body and soul because of the emptiness of growing up after Auschwitz, when so many of my family members were gone. In November 1944 my father, pregnant mother, and I were sent on a cattle train from the labor camp Novaky in Slovakia to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. When Jewish families from all across Europe reached Auschwitz they went through a selection process where the Nazis decided in seconds who they will keep alive for forced labor and who will be gassed to death soon after arrival. Luckily enough, the gassing in Auschwitz stopped two or three days before our arrival so my transport was the ...

Holocaust survivor, Theresienstadt concentration camp. “How Music saved my life… I was born in Berlin, Germany in 1931 two years before Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power so basically, I had no childhood at all. As a kid, I remember being bullied, harassed, and beaten just because I was Jewish. The Hitler Youth which was partially a paramilitary organization patrolled the streets of Berlin and if they saw Jews, they would harass them and usually would harshly beat them. One day I was walking with my father in the street and the Hitler Youth spotted us because of the yellow badge we were forced to wear and I was severely whipped till bleeding. My father, who was my hero couldn’t really come to the rescue because if he would have helped me he would have been severely whipped as well. So, he stood by and watched how his ...

Chairman of the Second World War Veterans Association “I was seventeen and a half when I got an induction order to the Red Army, and by September 1943 I was drafted and sent to basic training. As new recruits, we all became familiar with warfare and weapons, but no boot camp could prepare us for the smell of burnt flesh. I was enlisted to the Red Army and fought the Nazis in Estonia, Norway, and Poland. In the harsh battle of Katowice, Poland, held on January 12th, 1944, I felt for the first time what it meant to be hurled into hell. It was very simple: you either killed or got killed. Whoever claims he knows no fear in battle is a liar, or someone who hasn’t the slightest idea. I was never a coward, I charged forward whenever I had to, but fear never left my side. In letters ...

Holocaust survivor, Tunisia The Nazis made the Jews wear yellow badges, especially in the big cities, and launched the usual process of dehumanization, just as they had done in Europe. They began to build the infrastructure for the extermination of the Tunisian Jewry. All Jewish males were forced to work in labor camps set up for this purpose. My father was taken away to work at one of these camps, and he never overcame the humiliating experience and the damage to his health. He died of pneumonia shortly after the war. We suffered hunger, thirst, disease, and lice infestation. My mother talks about the terrible feeling of helplessness, of losing all control over our lives. Terror dominated the streets and you could never know who was going to be the next victim. The List of victims from our community grew longer every day. Luckily for the Tunisian Jewry, Messiah’s prophecies ...