Hershel Greenblat
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 cave is not the ideal surroundings for a young baby, and I caught diphtheria (a serious bacterial infection), but miraculously, I managed to survive my illness even though there was no medicine available.
As we lived in a cave, my parents were always scavenging for food. In one of thier missions to find food, they were caught up in a firefight between the Russians and Germans. In the crossfire, my mother was severely injured by a shell fragment. My Dad knew that my mother wouldn’t survive her injury without medical care, so he needed to choose whether to save my mother and take her to receive proper medical care or to go back to the cave and save me. My dad took a desperate decision and took my mother to receive the medical care she desperately needed, and left me behind in the cave. Luckily, after eight weeks, my mother recovered, and she and my father came back and found me safe and sound. I was very lucky, as during those eight weeks I was attended by friends of my mother who were also living in the cave, and they took care of me while they were gone.
My mother survived her injury, but she needed additional medical care, so we were forced to leave the cave and move further east into the Soviet Union to the town Krasnodor. While my mother was hospitalized, my father worked in a bakery that was operated by the Russian police. Because we were so desperate for food, my Dad took some bread with him, but he was caught and as a result, he was sent to prison for almost two and a half years. A month after my Dad’s impression, Alta, my sister, was born, and now my mother needed to care for two kids all by herself.
She did everything she could to support us, and she managed to keep us alive until my father was released in September 1945, a few months after the end of the war.
After the war, we spent five years in different DP camps, and eventually we were granted permission to move to the United States of America. I can still remember how beautiful the Statue of Liberty looked when I first saw it while our ship headed to New York harbour. We became Americans and never looked back. In Europe, I was Grischa, but in the States, I’ve become Hershel.
It wasn’t an easy ride to transfer from Girscha to Hershel, but I was fortunate to have an incredible teacher, Francis Faderman, my first teacher in America. She supported and cared for me in ways I’ll never forget. I still remember how she bought me my first pair of jeans so I could better fit in at school. She truly brought me from darkness into light. We remained friends for the rest of our lives.
All my life, I tried to forget my experiences during the Holocaust – it was simply too painful to face.
I never spoke about it publicly. That changed unexpectedly during a film screening at the Berman Holocaust Museum in Atlanta. At the end of the movie, the presenter asked if anyone had questions. I raised my hand, and suddenly, I began speaking about my life during the Holocaust. I just couldn’t stop. Eventually, the presenter gently paused me, and we scheduled a meeting at the museum so I could share more. I later met with the museum’s educational director and gave my full testimony. That moment marked a turning point. I went on to become a speaker at the museum and in public schools across Georgia. I’ve crisscrossed the state to help educate and inform the younger generation about the Holocaust. I believe it’s vital they understand what happened, so they can ensure it never happens again.
My grandkids, Erin, Eddie, Emily, Corey, Hannah, and my great-grandchild Elija, are the joy of my life. During the Holocaust, I never knew if I would make it alive, so having grandkids and a great-grandchild is unimaginable. This is my true victory over Hitler and the Nazis.
In my speaking engagements, I always tell the kids: Be kind to one another. Be a good person. Show respect, and never discriminate against anyone. I want to leave a better world for my great-grandchild, Elija. If those kids – and the rest of the world- follow these simple guidelines, I’m confident that Elija will grow up in a world where he and everyone else can truly prosper and thrive.”
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