“The German’s knockdown our apartment door and forcibly took my father away, As an only child, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him so I ran after him, grabbed him by the pants, and told the soldiers that I’ve only had my father and mother in this world so he can’t take him away! At first, the soldier was surprised by my audacity but a few seconds later I felt a harsh blow to the back of my head, a blow that caused me to faint. I was only nine years old but every day I would go to the local police station searching for answers for my dad’s disappearance. A few weeks later the police officers told me that my dad is alive and has been hospitalized and if I wish to see him I will have to polish the shoes of the germans soldiers who occupied the ...
“When I was three years old, I became a human being without a country – a refugee. It was June 4th, 1938, and Hitler was allowed by Great Britain (and others) to take over the Sudetenland, the part of former Czechoslovakia that borders eastern Germany, as a means to prevent war. It was a foolish political move that failed. The Jews of the Sudetenland, which included my parents, paternal grandparents, and me, fled to what we hoped was safety in Prague. I remember us schlepping so many suitcases to the train station late at night. My parents were scared. I remember that I had a beautiful new red tricycle with black handlebars, that I had just received for my birthday. I was not allowed to take it with me. I cried bitterly. This, for me, as such a small child was the very beginning of becoming a refugee. We lived ...
“You don’t get the life you want; you get the life that you get.” I survived four years of Theresienstadt which is near Prague. I remember, in December 1941, my mother and I getting off the train with a knapsack on my back and a suitcase, walking several kilometers to the camp in the bitterly cold snow. My mother had a couple of heavy suitcases too, and she kept telling me to hurry. My suitcase was so heavy. You have to remember, I was just six years old. After a while, a kind man helped me. We found ourselves with another five other mothers and kids in one room, with bunk beds and straw mattresses. It was depressing and cold. I cried, and so did many of the other kids. When we asked when we could see our fathers, they told us to look out the window at 6 am ...
“It was very crowded in Lodz Ghetto. We were four families in one house. So many Jews died of tuberculosis, typhoid and hunger. There are images in my mind I do not want to recall… when I tell my holocaust stories I can’t sleep at night, sometimes two nights in a row. It’s a lifetime of haunting memories. In the ghetto, we had to work for food slips, but they were never enough to satiate our terrible hunger. Mom and I worked as knitters, but mom couldn’t really knit so I would take the yarn home and knit her part as well at night. In July 1944 we were transferred to Auschwitz, where mom and I were immediately separated. I didn’t know back then, at the ”selection” process, that I would never see her again. That day, after the selection, I remember the Nazis let us hang out in the ...
“Tolek! make sure that Lolek is safe!” “Until this day my mother’s words still echo in my head. For me, there were many grim moments during the Holocaust but that was one of the hardest. Because of the complete mayhem in the train station, people didn’t realize that we were in the middle of a selection process. Schneller! Schneller! Schneller! the Germans kept shouting while their dogs barked at us. During the selection process, Men were separated from women and children. I was only seven years old and naturally went along with my mother. My older brother Tolek who was eighteen years old was separated from us and was taken to the men’s line. My mother in a matter of seconds realized that the line we were standing in, was a line that the germen saw as dispensable. She realized that I will have better chances of surviving if I will be on the men’s line. She screamed at my brother: ‘Tolek! take the ...
“The entire families of my parents were murdered during the Holocaust. We are speaking about 380 people who perished, So you can understand why I didn’t want to have any connection whatsoever to the Holocaust while I was growing up. There were a lot of survivors who spent a few days at our family house in Tel Aviv. My room was next to the guest room so I heard them crying during the long nights. I can still remember the bread that they hid under the pillow. My dad never spoke about what happened in the Holocaust and when I asked my mother about it, she showed me a book about the Holocaust and pointed to the appalling photos of the dead, and would say, ‘This is our family.’ When I was in sixth grade, I was asked by the principal to play the violin at the school holocaust remembrance ceremony and ...
“I was born in 1930 in Baden-Baden, Germany and When Hitler rose to power, my family fled to Paris. With the outbreak of WWII, and the German occupation of France in May 1940, I was sent with my sisters, Erica and Georgette to an orphanage at the Château de Chaumont with the Help of the OSE (an organization that supported Jewish children). For me and my sisters, it was a safe haven that protected us from the atrocities across Europe. In 1942 the orphanage was scattered because of an informer who told the Nazis about our whereabouts so I and my sister had to flee. I knew that my mother was in Lyon so it was only reasonable that we will reunite with her. When we arrived in Lyon, I found out that My mother had been imprisoned. I didn’t think twice and went to the jailhouse and told the wardens: “‘Let my mother out. ...
” The Secret Starvation Study Conducted by Jewish Doctors at Warsaw Ghetto taught me that Humans have the ability to do amazing things. We should all learn from those doctors how we can break boundaries, even in the direst of times. The Human spirit is much stronger than what we can imagine.”
1800 calories VS 180 calories 1800 calories – The daily recommended calories for a grownup / 180 calories – The daily meal in Warsaw Ghetto
“The perished were no different than me. Or you, If we know and are aware of their life, beliefs, desires, humor, sadness, horrors and love, they will always be in our minds. Their story is their legacy to us. They remind us to guard against the first signs of tyranny, inhumanity, and injustice. I feel an obligation to pass their story from generation to generation. Instead of worrying if the perished will even be remembered in the year 2120, I feel a responsibility to ensure that we safeguard their legacy today, not only by remembering that 6 million Jews were killed, but that for example, Friedl Dicker Brandeis, my hero, will continue to be remembered. She was an Austrian artist and textile designer who studied Bauhaus designs. While at the Terezin camp she secretly gave art lessons to children, essentially teaching art therapy. She encouraged the children to overcome the ...