My survivor is Arek Hersh who was born in Poland. In September, 1939 the Nazi army attacked Poland. He and his family had to move to Lodz with relatives.While at Lodz the nazi army tried to take Arek’s dad to a work camp but he escaped with Arek’s brother. So they took Arek instead and at the railroad station, where he was going to be transported, his brother tried to take his place but Arek refused.He was taken to otoschno camp. After 18 months, he and 10 others have survived from the 2500 other men that were transported with him. He worked by cleaning the camp commander’s office and he stole food in order to stay alive. In 1942, he was sent home and that same year the Nazi decided to liquidate the ghetto where Arek was living. Arek and 4000
Starting in 1939 during the Holocaust, many Jews were deported to concentration camps by the Nazis where they will meet their end, but how did some of them survive? Even though most of them died, some lives were saved by the very few people with moral courage. One of the people with moral courage was Carl Lutz. Moral courage is the actions a person takes because of his/her belief of what is right or wrong, even though it may risk his/her life. Lutz was born in Switzerland in 1895 and he emigrated to the United States at the age of 18. During more than 20 years of temporarily staying in the United States, he worked at the Swiss Legislation in Washington and became chancellor of Swiss Consulates in Philadelphia. These events lead him to be appointed as Swiss vice-consul in Budapest, Hungary. During his life as a Swiss vice-consul, he decided to save the Jews because of his belief. By the time of his death in Bern, Switzerland in 1975, Lutz earned the title of Righteous Among the Nations
In researching testimony I chose to write about Eva Kor’s. Eva and her sister Miriam were taken to Auschwitz II- Birkenau from a Ceheiu which was a Romania ghetto in the 1940’s. Eva’s story starts out in Port, Romania where she was born and raised with her family before the holocaust. Eva had two older sisters Aliz and Edit who were murdered during the Holocaust along with her parents. The last time Eva saw her father and sisters were when they arrived in Auschwitz. Eva and Miriam were with there mother until a man asked if they were twins. There mother said yes after asking if that was a good thing and then they were taken away never to see her again. Once taken away they were brought to a barrack for twins were they were kept until liberated.
Through the death and destruction of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel survived. He survived the worst of it, going from one concentration camp to it all. He survived the beginning when thousands of Jews were forcefully put under extremely tight living quarters. By the time they were settled in they were practically living on top of one another, with at least two or three families in one room. He survived Madame Schächter, a 50 year old woman who was shouting she could see a fire on their way to the concentration camp. He survived the filtration of men against all the others, lying his was through the typical questions telling them he was 18 instead of nearly 15; this saved his life. He survived the multiple selections they underwent where they kept the healthiest of them all, while the rest were sent off to the furnaces. He survived the sights he saw, the physical
Who was Elie Wiesel? Elie Wiesel is a famous Holocaust survivor, a political activist, professor, and a novelist. He is the recipient of many different accomplishments and achievements throughout his life. He is most known for his novel Night, which is about his survival during the Holocaust.
Gerda Weissmann Klein’s personal account of her experiences during Germany’s invasion of Poland and of the Holocaust illustrated some of the struggles of young Jewish women at the time in their endeavors to survive. Weissmann Klein’s recount of her experiences began on September 3, 1939, at her home in the town of Bielitz, Poland, just after Nazi troops began to arrive and immediately enforce their policies on Polish Jews. On that night, which had only been the beginning for her and her family, Jews within Nazi Germany had already felt the effects of Adolf Hitler’s nationalist ideals for almost five years. From 1933 until 1939, when Weissmann Klein’s experiences began, “anti-Semitism was a recurring theme in Nazism and resulted in a wave of
Prisoners in concentration camps committed small acts of rebellion against the Holocaust that outlived the guards and the Nazis. Even though their acts could not save their lives, they sparked questions that the survivors, such as Elie Wiesel, could recall years after the Holocaust ended.
The Holocaust is known to all of us in some manner. Maybe we know someone who survived this
A few people survived the concentration camps. It was never promised they will see their family again. Most families were split up when they were taken away to the concentration camps. Some camps were split up by gender. They didn’t care if you were married or if you had kids. If you had kids under 12 years old you weren’t going to see them again because kids were automatically sent to death chambers.
For example, a family of 8 escaped to a cave in Ukraine around October 1942 (Arkell). This family, the Stermers, hid in a cave with five other Jewish families, 38 total people (Arkell). The mother, Esther, the father, Zaida, two of the brothers, Sam and Saul, and two more waited for 18 months in this cramped space (Arkell). They probably didn’t have to be quiet since they were in a cave away from civilization, but I wonder if they were scared of people roaming around. An SS officer came and invaded the cave, but after they had a little talk with Esther, they left and never came back (Arkell). She said, "What are you afraid of here? The Fuhrer is gonna lose the war because we live here? “(Arkell). At the end of the hard year and a half, the Russians liberated their Ukrainian town and they were saved (Arkell). There is a movie that came out that explains all the hardships that they suffered (Arkell).
Only 7,000 emaciated survivors of a Nazi extermination process that killed an estimated six million Jews were found at Auschwitz” (Rice, Earle). Most of these deaths occurred towards the end of the war; however, there were still a lot of lives that had been miraculously spared. “According to SS reports, there were more than 700,000 prisoners left in the camps in January 1945. It has been estimated that nearly half of the total number of concentration camp deaths between 1933 and 1945 occurred during the last year of the war” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in the world’s history.
The phrase "a lesson to be learned and a tragedy to behold" has been indelibly attached to the Holocaust that to think of it in any other way is thought to insult all those of the Jewish community who lost their lives to the attempted genocide of their race by the Nazi regime. Despite such brevity attached to learning lessons from the Holocaust one must wonder whether the lesson has actually been learned or if people will continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. Angela Merkel, the current German Chancellor, has stated that the German experiment towards multi-culturalism has failed, those who wish to migrate into the country must learn the German way whether it is the language they speak, the culture they have or the very religion they hold dear . Such sentiments seem to echo those of the former Third Reich which held the German way, the Aryan way, as the only path to which people should attempt to pursue. While this paper is not trying to vilify the current German government nor is it trying to compare it to the Third Reich, the fact remains that the steps their government is taking fall uneasily close to that of their vilified predecessor. The fact is though, the German government is merely following through with the popular sentiment of its citizenry who believe immigrants coming into the country disrupts the German way of life and all attempts to live side by side in peace have failed. Despite being a predominantly Christian nation who supposedly follow the way of Christ, to hear them say that makes one wonder whether their claims truly reflects their deeds. It is from this situation that the essay of Eckardt and its view that the Holocaust is a "Christian Problem" becomes relevant to what is happening in the world today.
“If you save one life it is as if you have saved the world” ( zmdhfgcsmjv ). Heroism is not defined by the number of people who know your name or the numbers of awards you have received. However, heroism is defined by the impact an individual or a group of individuals makes on other’s lives. The Bielski Brothers were three men who made it their mission to save Jewish men, women, and children during the Holocaust. Not only did they save lives on a daily basis, but they were able to stop Nazi efforts. The impact they have made is monumental; today tens of thousands are alive because they decided not to give up. Even though the brothers risked their lives on a daily basis, they did not view themselves as heroes.
One cold, snowy night in the Ghetto I was woke by a screeching cry. I got up and looked out the window and saw Nazis taking a Jewish family out from their home and onto a transport. I felt an overwhelming amount of fear for my family that we will most likely be taken next. I could not go back to bed because of a horrid feeling that I could not sleep with.
Regine Donner, a famous Holocaust survivor, once said, “I had to keep my Jewishness hidden, secret, and never to be revealed on penalty of death. I missed out on my childhood and the best of my adolescent years. I was robbed of my name, my religion, and my Zionist idealism” (“Hidden Children”). Jewish children went through a lot throughout the Holocaust- physically, mentally, and emotionally. Life was frightening and difficult for children who were in hiding during the rule of Adolf Hitler.
Who survived the holocaust? What are their lives like today? What has been the government's response towards those who survived after World War II? Have the survivors kept their faith? How has the survivors next generation been affected? The survivors of the holocaust were deeply effected by the trauma they encountered. This unforgettable experience influenced their lives, those around them, and even their descendants.