Holocaust Survivor “I was born in 1935 in the town of Biała Rawska in Poland, about 70 kilometers east of Warsaw. I was an only child, and my life was happy. I was a child of nature – I remember how every morning I would run to play by the river, sometimes with my Polish girlfriends. I loved picking mushrooms and blueberries in the forest and watching butterflies and crickets. For me, it was paradise. In 1939, when World War II broke out and the Germans invaded Poland, my life didn’t change immediately. For the first two years of the war, we continued living relatively normal lives in our small town. The moment things truly changed for me was on my first day of school, September 1st, 1941. I was six years old and starting first grade. I remember my Polish friends came to pick me up, and together we ...
Auschwitz Holocaust survivor “I was born on February 8, 1939, in Kraków, Poland, seven months before the outbreak of World War II. The German occupation of Poland and its consequences were very difficult for us, as the Nazis began to enforce their anti-Semitic racial laws on all Jews in Poland. We were forced to wear the notorious yellow badge that marked us as Jews, and lived in constant fear. In 1942, a German officer came in with his mistress and barged into our house, informed us that our beautiful home was being confiscated and taken over by him. I remember that we had to pack our lives into just a few suitcases, and that same day, we were moved to the ghetto in the city, which was very close to our apartment. My father spoke perfect German and was a skilled electrician with a golden touch – two abilities that proved ...
Holocaust survivor, Bergen-Belsen “I was born on February 27, 1942, in the Netherlands, at the Westerbork transit camp – the same camp where Anne Frank and her family were sent after they were captured. The very fact that I was born in Westerbork is a quiet miracle. It shows that even in the darkest chapters of human history, people still longed for closeness, for tenderness, for life itself. After the Holocaust, people would often tell me how “lucky” I was to have survived. Lucky? What kind of luck is it to be born in a concentration camp? I couldn’t understand how anyone could call that luck, and for many years, I carried a deep, silent anger. But time has its own way of healing. Over the years, I learned to let go of that anger, to breathe through it. And slowly, I began to understand. I began to feel ...
Holocaust Survivor “I was born in 1935 in Romania, in a small village called Nepolocauti, which was then part of northern Romania. I grew up in a rural area that was both beautiful and peaceful, and I can say without a doubt that it was one of the happiest periods of my life. Unfortunately, that time came to an abrupt end in 1941, when Romania formed an alliance with Germany – a pact that turned our lives into a living hell. I still remember the knock on our door. Romanian police officers entered our home and ordered my parents, Aharon and Sali, my younger sister Katie, and me to leave our house and report to the nearest train station within three hours. When we arrived at the station, we were herded like livestock onto an overcrowded cattle car packed with people. We had no idea where we were being sent ...
Holocaust Survivor “How many people around the world can say they were born in a cave? Well, I guess that I’m one of the ‘fortunate’ ones… My parents, Anatolev and Manya, were partisans who fought the Nazis in Eastern Europe and they knew exactly what was planed for them if they would ever be caught. In order to escape that faith, my parents decided to run for thier lives and go underground. literally underground. In April 1941, two months before Germany attacked the Soviet Union and invaded Ukraine, my parents were already hiding in an underground cave where I was born. I spent the first months of my life in a dark, cold and damp cave with my parents and others who were also fleeing and hiding from the Nazis. The only food we had was the food my dad managed to forage from the surrounding farms. Living in a ...
Holocaust Survivor (The picture shows Rachel, Magda’s mother) “I was born in 1939, in the city of Debrecen – the second largest city in Hungary – just before the outbreak of World War II. One of my earliest and most haunting memories is from 1942, when my father was taken away from us to a labor camp. From that day on, we never saw him again. To this day, I still don’t know what became of him. Unlike my father, the rest of our immediate family was incredibly fortunate. My mother, my six siblings, and I somehow survived the Holocaust – something I can only describe as a series of divine miracles. One of the events I remember with painful clarity – as if it happened only yesterday – took place during Passover in 1944. We were in the middle of the Seder meal when the Germans burst into our ...
Holocaust Survivor, “My parents, Richard and Gertrude Mainzer, were born in Germany and worked as lawyers. With the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party coming to power in 1933, the treatment of Jews began to deteriorate rapidly. The enactment of the Antisemitic Nuremberg Laws in 1935 resulted in Jews being stripped of their civil rights. My parents wisely realized that they could no longer remain in Germany, where it was becoming increasingly dangerous for its Jewish citizens. My parents decided to leave Germany while it was still possible, and they moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It was very fortunate that they chose to leave Germany, because I don’t know what would have happened to them if they had stayed. In 1937, two years after the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws, I was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and in 1939, my younger brother Frank joined the family. From what ...
Kfar Maimon Grandfather of Oded Abergel, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival on October 7th “I was born in 1935 in Tétouan, Spanish Morocco. I made Aliyah (immigrated) to Israel through the ‘Youth Aliyah’ movement. I lived in the kibbutzim of Yavneh and Lavi and later in Jerusalem. In 1966, I moved with my family to the western Negev, to the moshav of Kfar Maimon – a community of virtuous, deeply rooted people with a strong sense of mutual responsibility. On October 7th, we were not at home. Our village was spared, but the residents were evacuated to hotels in Jerusalem. That’s how we found ourselves as refugees for nearly half a year until we were able to return to our homes. The disaster touched our family. My grandson, Oded, was murdered at the Nova music festival. He was 27 years old, loved horseback riding, ...
Kfar Maimon Grandfather of Oded Abergel, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival on October 7th “I was born in 1935 in Tétouan, Spanish Morocco. I made Aliyah (immigrated) to Israel through the ‘Youth Aliyah’ movement. I lived in the kibbutzim of Yavneh and Lavi and later in Jerusalem. In 1966, I moved with my family to the western Negev, to the moshav of Kfar Maimon – a community of virtuous, deeply rooted people with a strong sense of mutual responsibility. On October 7th, we were not at home. Our village was spared, but the residents were evacuated to hotels in Jerusalem. That’s how we found ourselves as refugees for nearly half a year until we were able to return to our homes. The disaster touched our family. My grandson, Oded, was murdered at the Nova music festival. He was 27 years old, loved horseback riding, ...