Tag: Holocaust survivors tell their stories

“Wearing backpacks and low shoes, we escaped Italy for Switzerland at dusk. We plodded single file up a path that got steeper and steeper. After 12 hours, a great weariness descended on me. ‘Not another inch!’ I screamed. My father slapped my face. I began to cry, but gradually quieted, pulled myself together, and followed along like a good girl.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

To escape Italy, Jews took a perilous path through the Alps to Switzerland

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“When a group went to the gas chamber, there were occasionally extra rations. I actually looked forward to this. Can you imagine waiting for people to die so you can get a one-inch piece of rotten potato better fit for pigs than humans? You really became an animal there. I was terribly ashamed, and still am.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

A trip to the gas chamber for some meant extra rations for others

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“Our family sailed on the St. Louis, bound for Cuba. When Cuba and the U.S. refused the ship entry, England, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium agreed to accept its passengers. We went to the Netherlands, where my father had relatives. In July 1939, I left on one of the last Kindertransports to England. The rest of my family went to the gas chamber.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

A quarter of the St. Louis passengers denied entry to the U.S. died in the Holocaust

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“Josef Mengele was one of 20 SS physicians who worked on the selection ramp. He pointed at people as if to say, ‘Go to the left, go burn a little bit.’ One day, he befriended a Roma boy and dressed him like his own son in a Nazi uniform, the next day he threw the boy into the gas chamber. That’s the kind of monster Mengele was.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Joseph Mengele, the monster Nazi physician

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“Like most death camp survivors, my father quickly discovered that no one, even those closest to him, wanted to hear about his wartime experiences. Everyone was too busy putting their own lives together.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

After the war, people closed their ears to survivors’ stories

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“We slept in bunk beds in the attic and worked with civilians down in the factory. It was a model concentration camp — the kind Nazis displayed to the Red Cross to show Jews worked as laborers, not for the German army. For sure, they didn’t show the Red Cross places like Auschwitz and its crematorium!” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

A Jewish “official” displayed by Nazis to the Red Cross at a “model” concentration camp

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“At age 54, my childhood memories were awakened when I read about children who lived in Otwock’s Jewish orphanage. I discovered that I was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 when I was nine months old. Now I imagine my parents, a young, handsome couple, fighting in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Young ghetto fighters

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“As our numbers grew, a loaf of bread was cut into 13 slices (not 9 or 10), the soup was clearer, and only on Sundays would we find pieces of potato or even macaroni in it.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“My grandmother hid with my mom and aunt in an attic. A man with two sons and a young couple were already there. There was a ladder, but no one to take it away. When the SS searched the building, the ladder saved them. A soldier said that if anyone was up there, they wouldn’t have left it.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

An obvious ladder made the SS think no one would dare to hide in the attic

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

“Partisan quarrels over U.S. immigration prompt me to reflect on my own arrival at age 7, escaping from World War II. More than the odyssey that took us from Poland to the Soviet Union to Japan to the U.S., border patrols threatened us at every turn and left us in legal limbo even when we finally arrived in America.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Then, as now, border patrols blocked hopeful refugees at every crossing

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter