Gerda Weissman was a teenager when the Holocaust started. When the war started she heard gunshots coming from the rooftops. Since it was very dangerous her family moved into their basement. The basement had no electricity, and water. Her brother was forced to leave, and go to a labor camp. The last day she saw her father was June 28th, 1942. She was taken to a labor camp where she was forced to work very hard. She met two girls that were close to the same age as her, and they became best friends. To help her get through the holocaust she used many different techniques. She spent a lot of time with Ilse and Suse. They were forced to go on a death march, and it started snowing. Many women died while on the march by freezing to death. But Gerda’s
The Germans were deporting 5 to 10 thousand Jews a day at the Umschlagplatz. Were the Jews would be tightly packed in cattle cars and shipped off to death camps like treblinka were they would be sent to labor or the gas chambers were you executed. Death camps would try to hide what’s really going on. The death camps would say turn in all your valuables so you can be delouced but what they really are doing is sending you to your death.People that are war profiteers would sell some of the valuables that were collected at the death camps. So Irena was terrified when they started deportation she was afraid that all the kids that she put in the orphanage in the ghetto. Several days after wards there was tremence fire fights that broke out all over the ghetto. So Irena sprung into action thinking that the Germans would be distracted from all the fighting so that Irena can smuggle more Jewish kids into the Aryan side. Irena looked at danger straight in the face and smuggled kids through the sewer. Once the Nazi got wind of people smuggling Jews through the sewer they started putting posing the sewers so in anybody went down there they would die. That day Irena smuggled almost 200 kids throughout these
When Irene Safran was only twenty-one years old, her carefree life ended in the face of the Holocaust. Born to two Jewish parents as one of ten children-- four girls and six boys in all-- in Munkachevo, Czechoslovakia around the year 1923, her world changed in early April 1944 when she and her family were transferred to a Jewish ghetto. For the next year, Irene's life was a series of deaths, losses, and humiliations no human should ever have to suffer, culminating, years later, with a triumphant ending. Her story is proof that the human spirit can triumph over all manner of adversity and evil.
In Night Elie Wiesel was living in Sighet and was taken by the Nazis because he was Jewish. They took him and his family to a death camp where boys and girls were split up. From then he and his father never saw his sister and mother again. Elie and his father went through terrible things that nobody should’ve ever experienced. Elie almost gave up plenty
Born in Poland, Henia Weit was the youngest of nine children in her family. She lived in a town by the name of Sambor. Unfortunately, the town was bombarded by German soldiers shortly after Hitler started his reign of terror on the Jews. Henia’s family was forced to do laborious work in a ghetto until they were all deported to a concentration camp. Fortunately for Henia, she was able to escape and never went to the concentration camp herself. Instead, she had to survive for several years alone, with only her sister to turn to.
“I remembered every house, every tree, every flower; all the wonderful times, the memories of my family, which were happiness; but I also remembered every anguish, every death, every tragedy,” said Alicia Appleman-Jurman during a lecture for the Holocaust survivors oral history project. Within a four year period, about six million Jewish people died (out of nine million Jewish people before the beginning of WWII) during the rule of the Nazi Party, with very few of them surviving. Alicia Appleman-Jurman is a very important survivor of the Holocaust. She was determined to help the Jewish people, even after having her entire family annihilated. She persevered to the end of the war and at just thirteen she smuggled most of the surviving Jews, through
This book is from Elie Wiesel’s perspective and follows all of the struggles throughout the whole Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was taken from his hometown to the Auschwitz concentration camp and separated from his sisters and mother. He suffered and took care of his dad while trying to survive the torture and killings in the concentration camp. Elie survived this holocaust and decided he was obligated to tell his story and let people know the honest truth of what happened from the first person perspective.
Hanci Hollander was 14 years old when she got to her concentration camp with her mother and sister. It was a very long hard
“For nearly 50 years I don’t and can’t speak about what has happened to me… I was silent when I was hidden and I stay silent even when I am not” (Rein Kaufman). Because the memories of her childhood were so painful, Lola did not tell anyone what had happened; not her uncle, who raised her after the holocaust, not her husband, and not her children. Lola decided to share her story in May of 1991 when she met Jane Marks, a reporter who was writing a book on hidden children. After Lola is handed the microphone at a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reception and told, “Go ahead and talk”, she tells her story once again - but this time in public. “My silence, it seems, has been fully broken” (Rein Kaufman). Since that moment, Lola has spoken many times at synagogues and schools. Lola has shown courage and trust by sharing her story, but that wasn’t all she
Each of these histories reveal a story of suffering that is endured by both Gentile and Jew, but also a story of humanity and salvation. In Five Chimneys: A woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz, Olga Lengyel tells of her family assisting other Jews fleeing the Nazi military. Later, after her own ordeals in Auschwitz, she was saved by citizens in a small Polish village. An essay written by Vera Laska is included in Women and the Holocaust: Different Voices, which is an anthology of essays about women in the Holocaust. In addition to the many stories of survivors and rescuers, I am using several scholarly articles
Her father, who always seemed to know what was on her mind, told her never to do that and never think about that again. One day her father came up to her and told her to put on her snow boots. She did as she was told, and it just so happens that a short period of time later she and other girls were forced on a “Death march,” as it was called. The march was called this because either they died on the way or they marched to their death. Gerda Klein survived this march because of her friends and her determination and hope. He was found by an american soldier, who was also Jewish. He had escaped to the U.S.A. because his family sent him there before they were captured.
There are many records of first person experiences in the Holocaust that show what it was like to live during the time period, and most records are the victims; telling their story. During the Holocaust, about 6 million jews were killed. A spectator witnessing this horrendous brutality was Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel was born in Transilvania and was sent to a death camp when he was around 15. He witnessed horrible things and wrote a book about his experiences in 3 Austwitz death camps. The plot of his memoir,”Night” follows him through his life in the death camps with his father and how they stay together until the enevitable death of his weak and ailing father. A big part of the memoir is how their relationship changes throughout the story.
In All But My Life, the memoir of Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein, the first bystanders the audience
Her story is an example of a person who struggled with adversity but searched for a reason to hope. She has used her remarkable survival as an inspiration for those who have no reason to believe they can overcome struggles. She has a foundation named Citizenship Counts which teaches students about their rights and the importance of their citizenship. She has written many books about her experiences and her belief that hope will help a person overcome darkness. She travels the world today telling people her story to increase their knowledge of the Holocaust. Her story of survival serves of as an inspiration to people who are suffering and are looking for a reason to have hope.¹
The Holocaust was one of the most brutal, dehumanizing events in the world. American history explains how the United states fought for liberation of the many occupied by the Nazis. Throughout my years in school, I have learned about this topic, but not in detail. I had the chance to watch an amazing documentary titled One Day in Auschwitz. It featured a woman named Kitty Hart-Moxon, a Holocaust survivor of Polish-English background. Separated from her family, she was thrown into the well-known death camp, Auschwitz. She described her story of survival to two young girls; they were the same age as Kitty was during that time.
All But My Life is a memoir about a young Jewish girl, Gerda Weissmann, who was able to endure the hardships of World War II and the Holocaust. Gerda went through and saw more horrific things in the matter of a few years than any of us will ever have to face in our lifetimes. The fact that a girl this young and hopeless can withstand so much pain but yet contain so much strength should be an inspiration to all. Reading this book really opened my eyes to what the world can bring. After reading Gerda’s journey, I will never again complain of times being tough or depressing in my life. This book really meant a lot to me for that very reason. It is amazing that