Read reflections and testimonies written by Holocaust survivors in their own words.
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Aunt Hannah
November 1, 2011
Yet again I had to go to the post office to retrieve the package from our Aunt Hannah. How embarrassing! The package was none the better after its trip from London to Washington, DC. I had to take the bus with my high school classmates to reach home. Hanging out from the package were arms and legs—yes, several—of woolen underwear. What was Aunt Hannah thinking? No one wore such items in America. How could she think my sisters and I would need them?
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The Happiest Day in My Life
November 1, 2011
Luckily, I have had more than one happy day in my life. One such day was when I visited Israel for the first time. I was excited and apprehensive about the trip because I knew so little about Israel. I wondered what the country looked like and how it would make me feel.
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Revisiting Memories
November 1, 2011
Early in 1942, when I wasn’t quite five years old, a German officer accompanied by two soldiers came to our apartment in Brussels. I remember being in the room that faced the street with my mother and the officer. The two soldiers were elsewhere in the apartment. The officer was searching through an armoire, possibly for foreign currency or other valuables, when the doorbell rang.
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Mama Picking My Husband, Jack
November 1, 2011
In January of 1945, we were lined up for roll call, expecting to go to work as usual. Instead we were ordered to get our blankets and our dish for food and to come back. As we stood there lined up five in a row, we were told that we were leaving the camp. We assumed that we would be going to another labor camp, but instead we started off on foot. Later this would be known as a “death march.” We marched through the towns and villages of Poland and Germany, leaving many women behind, some who died from exhaustion and starvation and some who were shot to death. We marched this way until the middle of February. We stopped then outside of a little town called Chinoff, where we were pushed into a barn. How many women were there I do not know. Many women died of typhus and hunger in that barn.
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Deceptive Expectations
November 1, 2011
For decades we survivors have been waiting for the release by the International Tracing Service (ITS) of the millions of records kept in Germany. The Nazis were very meticulous in keeping records of the countries they occupied and of the people whose fates they determined. They kept strict records of every person and event, of dates, and of the destinations of the people involved. We were anxious to get access to those documents to learn about the final fates of our lost dear ones.
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Coincidences of Life
November 1, 2011
I was seven years old when the German army entered our town, Drohobycz, in Soviet Ukraine on July 1, 1941. Immediately they started persecuting Jews by indiscriminately robbing and killing us, forcing us to wear armbands with the Star of David, and confiscating our arms, radios, gold, etc. They encouraged Ukrainian thugs to enter Jewish homes, beat up the inhabitants, and take whatever they wanted. In fact, it did not take much encouragement. My maternal grandfather was one of the victims of the beatings and died a few days later.
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Life Changes
November 1, 2011
I was born in Mukacevo, Czechoslovakia. My family was a close and warm family. They took care of each other and lived intertwined lives. My uncle lived right next door to us with three cousins. My grandparents lived nearby and after my grandfather died, my grandmother came to live with us. Other family members, living in towns farther away, would come to visit once a month.
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Going Home: Liberation, May 5, 1945
October 19, 2008
We couldn’t believe that the Nazi soldiers hadn’t killed us. We never thought that we’d be free again. After we discovered that we were liberated from the Gunskirchen concentration camp in Austria, we found out that there had been orders to shoot us all, but the captain in charge had decided not to carry them out.
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My Reason for Writing My Story
October 19, 2008
My family came to Romania in 1931 from Znojmo in the Czech Republic when I was about three years old. My parents moved us to Stanesti, a town in the Romanian province of Bukovina where my paternal grandparents lived. My father told my grandfather that he wanted to take the whole family to Palestine and my grandfather said that it was a good idea but he would have to find someone who would take the cow, the horse, and the chickens. Father, unfortunately, could not find anyone. My family consisted of my mother, my father, and my older sister. A lawyer by profession, my father became the chief civil official of the town and we lived in the house assigned to him in that position.
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The Wicker Chair
October 19, 2008
The first three years of my life, which I spent in hiding from 1942 until 1945, seemed very normal to me. Three adults—my mom, my dad, and our friend Selma—as well as my brother were around all the time. They paid attention to me, played with me, and taught me the things you teach a little girl. Of course, I did not realize that our life was only indoors and that going outside to play or for a walk were not part of our daily routine. The adults kept their fears from the children.
