"When I was a boy... about seven or eight years old... our history teacher told us stories from the Bible." "And he told us about..." "Egypt, about the Exodus... how the Jewish people suffered there." "It was like a legend that had nothing to do with me." "I often think... that my granddaughter is going to grow up... knowing that I was born in Lodz..." "Jack Fuchs" " Lodz, Poland and she is going to look it up in an encyclopaedia." "The city of Lodz... 750,000 inhabitants, textile industries... and that is all she will find about it." "That 250,000 Jews lived there... and died in such a tragic way... not one word." "And that is frightening." "A child may look in an encyclopaedia... and will probably find:" ""Holocaust, term used in connection..." ""with six million Jews who used to live in Europe..." ""and were killed under unique circumstances..." ""by the Nazis, between 1939 and 1945."" "And that's all." "Algunos que vivieron - (some who lived)" "When I finished elementary school... we went to Bielz to take the entrance exam for high school." "Liza Zajak-Novera Hajnowka Bielsk, Poland" "We looked like two blooming flowers." "My parents even bought me new shoes." "We were there waiting for the others... and four big boys walked by." "They looked at us, and one of them said... putting his finger on his nose like this:" ""It smells like onion"... meaning that there was a Jew there." "This incident is engraved here." "Kids were..." "Robert Lamberg" " Liberec, Czechoslovakia for somebody who felt persecuted..." "The kids were very dangerous." "One time, they were chasing me... hitting me, and shouting, "You dirty pig, you dirty Jew!"" "And out of despair, I knocked at the deacon's door." "He was in his bedroom." "He came out and said, "What's going on?"" "I said, "They're beating me." "They're shouting 'Jew' at me, 'dirty Jew.'"" "And he looked at me, with a nice smile on his face... and said, "So what?" "Aren't you a dirty Jew?"" "And he closed his door." "Young men, when they were drunk, used to shout "Jews!" in Polish." "Benjamin Mehl" " Uchaine, Poland" "They would say in Polish:" ""Don't buy from a Jew!"" "Sometimes at school, even the teachers... sort of reproached us for the fact that we were Jews... and, being young children, we felt bad about that." "Whenever my mother went to Bialystok to buy goods... on her return, she'd say that she went to a show." "Many single people and young married couples came." "They talked about Eretz Israel and the future of the Jewish people." "They talked about politics, about the future of the world." "And I tried to understand what these words meant:" "Communism, fascism." "And the word "Hitler" was already in every mouth." "Until 1937, we lived in Reichenberg... and later in the city of Brno..." "Brünn, in German." "And finally, in 1937, we ended up in Bratislava, in Slovakia." "Why this journey?" "Like a slow exile... toward Turkey or Egypt." "Because my father was sure that there would be a war... a world war, and that there would be a persecution... of Jewish people like never before." "Some German Jews came to Czechoslovakia." "Alejandro Horyath Michalovce, Czechoslovakia" "They managed to escape." ""More so, when" Kristallnacht "happened..."" "the "night of broken glass."" "We talked about it, but it wasn't something that..." "We were blind." "We did not see the reality." "There the border was shut down." "So we stayed in Bratislava." "And, as Jews... we could not opt for... what was in place of Czechoslovakia." "And what was in place of Czechoslovakia?" "Either the German protectorate... of Bohemia and Moravia... or Hitler's satellite state... the Slovak Republic." "When I was 13 years old..." "I became a member of... a Socialist youth organisation known as Bund." "And when I was about 14, 15 years old..." "I joined the civil defence." "They gave me a band to wear." "They gave me instructions... and everything was like when we were young children... playing war:" "The good guys and the bad guys." "We would hide." "Everything was like a game." ""There was a rabbi and there was a" shochet." "A "shochet" was a religious slaughterer." "He was an archetype "of what I imagine as a" tzaddik." ""A" tzaddik "is a saint, a righteous man."" "He wanted to essentially "score a goal for God."" "He wanted to perform a "mitzvah"." "He knew there were some people... who might forget to light the candles." "So, in the most delicate way, he'd knock on their window... and he'd say, "It's time."" "And everybody, believers or not, would light the "Shabbat" candles." "1939" "The first day of September was the first day of school." "Mira Kniazniew-Stupnik Bialystok, Poland" "My father had left for work... and my mother was... glued to the radio." "At a certain point, she shouted:" ""War!" "War has broken out!" "Germany has invaded Poland!"" "So instead of us beginning school... planes began to fly over us." "I was born on September 4, 1939... exactly when the Allies declared war on Germany." "My parents didn't want me to be circumcised..." "Pedro Boschan" " Budapest, Hungary foreseeing that this could be a risk factor." "As a result of my parents' refusal..." "I was excluded from Jewish records from the very beginning." ""The Jews caused this world war." ""It was the Jews who were the cause of it all!"" "This was heard everywhere." "This was taught at school." "My mother had lived in Lodz during World War I... so it was still fresh in her memory." "My grandmother had died of starvation, of typhus." "My mother remembered the awful lines to get bread." "So when the war began, it was exactly the same." "From the very first days, there were long lines to get bread." "And just a few weeks later there were Germans on the streets." "But people continued on with their lives." "My little brother went out, and with his two big, beautiful, dark eyes... kept staring at a few soldiers who were eating something." "One of them stood up and gave him a loaf of bread." "These were the first soldiers." "They didn't discriminate yet." "They didn't ask whether we were Jews." "There were theories that Jews could be smelled... because they stink." "You can see them from far away." "Their ears are like this... and their noses..." "And the way they walk." "That was even taught at school... in a subject called:" "Rassenkunde", theory of the race."" "We had to assemble, and I was assigned to a line... that was headed by the man who had been my history teacher." "He did not even look up." "He wrote my name without lifting his head, ashamed to look at me." "They made Jewish record books where they listed everybody." "What their names were, where they lived, and they just grabbed them." "They didn't take long to give the order to wear the star... which was worn on the left side on the front... and on the right side on the back." "And one day... they came at dawn, surrounded our city... with lists, house by house... they came in and took us out." "Each one with a little bundle in his or her hand." "I cried, I cried for my dolls." "Eugenia Unger" " Warsaw, Poland" "I cried because I had a special place there, a room... that had a bed, a dining room... all those toys that were beautiful, really beautiful." "And when I had to leave all of that... part of me was broken." "My uncle could have saved himself, together with his whole family." "He had a brother here in Argentina." "And he received a letter from this brother in 1938..." ""Why don't you come to this country?" "I will help you. "" ""Why don't you come with your family?"" "And years later, in the ghetto... he would walk around with that letter in his hand... showing it to everybody, "Why didn't I listen to my brother?"" "1940" "My brother had to smuggle things." "They would bring food from the Aryan side, the "Gentile" area... into the Jewish area." "The idea was to get the bunkers ready... to hide." "And then one day, the Nazis caught them." "I could talk from afar with my brothers." "There was a little boy there... he was singing there, in the prison." "Oh, my God." "That song that this boy sang..." "An image that I remember strongly is that of my father... as they were bringing him from the cellar where he had been beaten... his face covered with blood... and, of course, I could not understand why... my father would let himself be beaten in that way." "At the beginning, they only smuggled food... but later on, they began smuggling weapons." "And many times... for a lot of money, for a lot of valuables... they would bring weapons that were either useless... or had no bullets... and so it became necessary... to manufacture weapons inside the ghetto." "The Jewish leaders, as well as a part of the population... did not consider the Resistance such a good thing." "But we must keep in mind that this was a civilian population." "They were not an army." "There were brave people, there were cowards." "They were families with children." "Old people, sick people." "Not everybody was born to be a hero." "In the smaller towns, they took the population... they forced them to dig a pit... and then they killed them with machine guns." "Very few managed to get out, climbing through the dead bodies." "Then they would come to the ghetto and tell us about it." "A few managed to escape the ghetto... through contacts with the Resistance... and went into the woods." "One day, they issued a statement... that everybody was going to leave this prison." "I grabbed a knapsack, and packed boots and shoes." "I thought that they were being taken for forced labour." "I ran..." "I ran after them... screaming:" ""David, run away!" "Ignaz, run away!" "Run away, run away!"" "And I gave him, what's it called..." "I gave him that knapsack." ""And he was taken to the" Umschlagplatz"," where the trains were." "At the beginning, they would say:" ""If you come today, we'll give you two or three pounds of bread"... and the people were hungry." "They were starving." "So the people went willingly." "The fear was of deportation... not of going to a certain death." "The families that I accompanied to the trains... took their belongings with them." "Nobody could even imagine... that the people going to the trains with their belongings... were going to their deaths." "A man came who had escaped from Treblinka." "The names Treblinka, Ponary, Majdanek, Auschwitz... were already mentioned in the ghetto." "And that man began to tell what was going on in Treblinka." "He mentioned the gas chambers, the crematoria." "And we all took him for a lunatic." "1942" "They were cattle cars... completely sealed..." "David Galante" " Rhodes, Italy with just a little window... to allow us to breathe, to allow some air in." "We began to feel the overcrowding." "Diseases broke out." "People were dying inside the cars." "Mostly, for sick people... or old people, this was unbearable." "At that time, I had a temperature, I was not feeling well... and there was a little lake, and my mother took me there... to wash me and get my temperature down." "At that moment, some trains came in... and the trains blocked us from the sight of the guards." "And my mother took advantage of that to hide me." "We stayed there hidden among the brush... while the people were pushed into the cars and taken away." "From that moment..." "I never saw my sister again... who disappeared or died, we never really knew." "We arrived at a railway station..." "Victor Oppel" " Poienu Glodului, Romania in a city, the last city in Hungary." "Before going through Slovakia... someone made this gesture with his hand... to warn us that we were going to our death... and somebody from the back of the train said, "He's an anti-Semite."" "My brother said that he remembered from a book he had once read... that people would hide underground, in bunkers." "So he suggested to try that, and get underground." "It could be for a day, a month, a year." "So we dug a hole." "We measured to fit in 10 people... alongside, and in the width, and the height was... about 3 feet, so that you could turn a little bit." "But not sit down." "We could not sit down in there." "At the beginning, it was easier." "Everything was easier at the beginning." "We could hide behind an armoire... using it to block the door." "They put the armoire there, and everyone was hidden." "But all that was useless." "Those Nazi bastards knew all about these tricks." "As they searched for sick people... you could sense that something terrible was going to happen." "Therefore, people went into hiding." "In my case, my mother and I... went down for the selection." "My father... and my two little sisters went into hiding." "And I... did something that today I think... was unethical... because they needed to take a certain number of people." "If they did not take my father and my two sisters... they had to take somebody else." "There were endless lines of people... and one mother carried a suitcase." "She did not want to open it." "And the Nazi fired two or three shots... and the suitcase opened, and a dead child fell out." "I saw that from... the little windows where we were up there, hidden on the roofs." "There were moments when those stairs were opened... and we could go out." "The streets were full of dead people." "They still had some clothes on." "They still had some belongings." "And then the poor people came... taking everything off them and putting on their clothes." "People were dying from typhus, diarrhoea." "It was terrible." "Fleas were eating them up." "I remember a little boy who came by with a bundle... such a small boy... and he took out a photograph, and he said, "I had a mum and a dad." ""Look how handsome my mum and dad are!"" "My mother was able to get..." "I guess she paid some money..." "She was able to get us false identity cards in Budapest." "We kids played in the streets... with the weapons or the helmets that were scattered around, as toys." "But we were constantly aware... that we had to keep a secret... therefore, in a way, my little friends were potential enemies or informers." "1943" "It was the night of August 15th to the 16th... when the liquidation of the Bialystok Ghetto began." "At 6.;00 in the morning, notices were posted... ordering everybody to gather at the assembling place... that was in Pietrasze." "They always sent the Jewish police first... or the Ukrainian and Byelorussian collaborators." "And only then the Nazis came in." "They began to take people out of their houses, and it was then... that the Resistance reacted." "It was an unfair confrontation, but it was fuelled by heroism." "To see German soldiers dead on the streets... of the ghettos was no small matter." "But later, they came in with planes... they began to fire from a low altitude." "It became almost impossible, but the Resistance did not stop." "The Nazis had the ghetto surrounded for a full month... until they finally crushed... all the remaining resistance." "They were our heroes... the brave Jewish youth... who fought not just to defend their lives... but the honour of the Jewish people." "And we all came out." "We were among the last Jews who left the Warsaw Ghetto." "We were taken to the "Umschlagplatz"... where the trains were." "And along the way, when I came out from the bunker... dead bodies were lying there... my cousins, my uncles, my aunts..." "They were all lying there." "After four years in the ghetto... we were among the last to be deported." "People could feel that the end of the war was close." "We had endured so much already, so we tried... to keep ourselves together, and not be deported." "But at the last minute, we were found." "The door was left open." "That is something engraved in my memory." "How can you leave your home... with the door left open?" "Our ghetto was liquidated in January, 1943." "And I left in the third transport... with all my family." "We travelled... for four days and four nights... without any water... without anything." "One of my uncles reached out his hand with a small cup... and the Nazi shot him in the head, and he fell there." "He was dead for three days, lying in the car... together with us, as we crossed all the territory of Poland." "We were taken to Auschwitz." "We were ordered to get off, while being beaten." "We just collapsed like a shapeless mass." "Like garbage on the dirt." "And they were there with their huge dogs... screaming, "Right, left, right left"... just choosing a few young ones... and all the others to the other side:" "Women, children, old people." "They told my youngest aunt, Sarah, to run... her little daughter stayed with my mother... and my mother turned her head and shouted at me, "Run!"" "And I ran." "And my little sister one year younger than me, ran after me." "But they beat her and sent her back... to where my mother and my little brother were." "And I ran after my aunt." "I stood by her side." "My little sister ran after me, and they beat her mercilessly." "And my mother and all the others... got on the trucks... and they all went to the gas chambers." "They took away all our clothes." "Everything." "And they took us to a block of barracks... where there was a "kapo"... and he screamed, "You are in the biggest..." ""concentration camp in the world!" ""There are so and so many prisoners." "Every one of you is in my hands!" ""I can do whatever I please with you!"" "And then, Dr. Mengele came." "He set himself there... and then... selection." "To the right, to the left." "The old women, the old men, the crippled... all of them... they went immediately to the gas chambers." "And children, too." "Those who were not at least 16 years old were gassed." "I remember a boy... who was about 14 or 15 years old... and Mengele told him:" ""How old are you?"" "The boy said, "Sixteen-and-a-half."" "He said, "I asked you how old you are!"" ""Fifteen."" "And he sent him to his death." "In the barracks, there were children of about eight... ten, twelve years of age." "And they fed us very well there." "They gave us good food." "They took care of us." "They even gave us milk." "They had written on the card that I was eight years old." "When they realised I was 18... they sent me back to the working barracks." "Later I found out that all those children... were there for experiments... that the doctors performed on them, and then they were killed." "They took away my clothes... they gave me wooden shoes... and they cut my hair... they held us in quarantine... in Birkenau." "Fleas ate us alive." "They didn't give us any food." "They brought in a pot of water, with potato skins... and a small piece of bread." "That was our meal." "And we were forced to work." "We had to do everything we were ordered to do." "It could be 3:00 in the morning." "They were barking at us, ordering everybody out." "In cold rain or snow, we had to line up in groups of five to be counted." "They spent their lives counting us." "People's lives were worthless, but everybody had to be counted!" "From there, we were sent to pick up debris." "The Nazis destroyed all the villages around Auschwitz... so that no witnesses were left." "And they killed people there." "Beatings were terrible." "If you just slipped, they wouldn't let you stand up." "And my friend Malka, plodding on that mud, she tripped." "And this huge dog jumped on top of her." "When it was time to go back, everyone had to be accounted for... dead or alive... in order to make sure that none of us had escaped." "And I had to carry Malka... together with another girl." "My workmate had to carry Malka's legs... and I had Malka's head hanging here... and Malka's arms, as we walked along, were pounding on me." "They were pounding on me." "They are still pounding on me to this day." "We had to carry cement." "In order to carry cement, you need to know how... because if you don't know how to carry cement, you just drop dead." "We worked in the mountains." "Moises Borowicz" " Sokoly, Poland" "We made tunnels with air hammers." "They planned to put factories there... to manufacture ammunition or some other weaponry." "They had entire towns with factories, with planes... everything was hidden underground." "I had to work in the factory where the grenades were manufactured." "Sometimes we managed to send grenades without a detonator." "Valeria Wollstein-Cohn Beled, Hungary" "That was our little contribution, one might say... for the war effort." "On a Monday, we just fled." "We had to walk through 3 feet of snow... in temperatures below zero during the night." "And our parents could not breathe, or walk, or anything." "Finally, one of the brothers... two of my brothers held my father up... and my mother, we had to carry on our backs." "Halfway into the woods... my mother begged us not to take her any further." ""Just leave me here." "I cannot go on."" "She could not breathe." "She could not live anymore." "My father felt the same." "So we told her, "If you stay here, then we stay here, too." ""We won't go on."" "1944" "The clothes they took from the people sent to the gas chambers... were brought into the women's camp." "Everything was checked in the presence of two SS with machine guns." "If they saw something, we had to take it out and put it in a box..." ""called" Wertkasten", the box of valuables."" "They also checked that a pile of good sweaters... didn't include one with a hole." "Each "Staplerin", the woman who prepared the packs... had her "Sortiererin", the one who... sorted out the clothes brought in by the men from the crematoria." "This was a good job... because sometimes we came upon a piece of bread." "And this could save our lives." "My father made a pair of shoes for me... real sturdy ones." "And there is a whole story around that pair of shoes... and I felt bad later on, because in Auschwitz... the only thing they let us keep was our shoes." "The last time I saw my father... they wanted to separate me from my father and I did not want to." "I am not sure if this is a dream... but my father pushed me away and said, "You go."" "And I had these shoes." "I kept them." "Some time later... a Ukrainian, or a Frenchman, I don't remember who... saw my shoes, and he said:" ""Why don't you give me your shoes, and I'll give you a loaf of bread."" "And that loaf of bread... was like an injection of blood... like a blood transfusion." "I could feel it replenish my body immediately..." "I felt it could help me survive a few more days." "To this day, I do not understand why they kept us in German territory... with typhus, tuberculosis, diarrhoea... people dying, corpses all around." "What was the purpose?" "Somebody explained to me later that they did not kill us because... they were waiting... to find a way... to wipe us out completely." "A "Muselmann" was..." "At the end, I was a "Muselmann"... because I was finished." "When one weighed 70, 75 pounds... a person with a body like that... was a "Muselmann"." "It was a body to be burnt." "Birkenau was the bottom of hell." "The crematoria could not keep pace... and the smell... that piercing stench of burnt flesh... a sugary odour that I can still smell." "In the barracks, I received the slice of bread for my brother... and when I went to give it to him, I found him dead." "That was terrible." "I thought I was going to die the same way... because after my brother got sick and died, I got sick with typhus." "You had the corpse on top of you, and you screamed, "Get off me!" ""I cannot stand you any longer!" And the person was dead." "Dead!" "I would wake up in the morning, and by my side there were two dead people." "Then I would sit them up... so they would be given a piece of bread." "I sat them up... and instead of just one piece of bread, I had three." "As for hope..." "I saw dead people every day." "I knew that one brother was dead, knew nothing about the other one." "I knew that my parents had been killed in Treblinka." "So I had practically no hope of living." "When they were beginning the evacuation... my father, who always instilled... so much courage... and so much hope... he said... that he would leave Auschwitz on that train." "Of course, after this my mother was no longer a person." "She was practically a "Muselmann"." "And I decided that if, in the following selection... she was sent to the left, I would follow her." "And the feared selection came." "Mengele came in... and he indicated that she should go to the left." "We were taken to the death block." "The trucks went in... and people were taken to the gas chambers." "This happened in January 1945." "The Allies had already taken Majdanek." "There they found, working at full capacity... the gas chambers, the crematoria." "But the trucks never came for us." "So they took us back to the camp." "We were not the only ones spared from the gas chambers." "There was a previous group of people... who were already inside the gas chamber and were released." "And all the sick people stayed alive... and were liberated at the end of January 1945." "1945" "We had to dig the pits... and then throw the dead people into them." "And later on, they were covered with lime, I think... lime and dirt and..." "That's why they gave me an extra bowl of soup, because I went there." "I didn't even think." "I didn't even think." "What was I..." "I couldn't..." "I couldn't think." "We were not there to think." "We were there just to survive." "The only thing that we had in our minds was:" ""Where can we get a potato?"" "The snow was up to our knees, and we kept walking." "And on each side, the Nazis with their machine guns." "We walked in rows of five." "The person in the middle could sleep, and we would hold each other up." "If planes were bombing us... we just dropped on the snow "and they shouted "los hinlegen"..."" "which means "lie down."" "And suddenly we began to notice that there was one less Nazi beside us... and another one was gone... and we looked to the other side, and another one was gone." "They disappeared as if by magic." "And when we realised what all those shouts were about... the American soldiers were standing beside us." "And then..." "We hugged each other." "And the American officer..." "He was a Jewish man." "And he hugged me as if he were my father." "We were so thankful, so happy that we were being liberated... that we pushed sugar into the soldiers' mouths." "We were giving them the most precious thing we had... and they tried to explain that they were not hungry, that we should eat." ""Potatoes!" "Grab potatoes!"" "And we grabbed from the ground... and we began to eat this mush... and the American soldiers looked at us, thinking, "These people are crazy."" "One morning, we heard Russian songs." "We went up there... we put our arms up and said, "We are Jews."" "They said, "Jews?" "Fine." "What are we supposed to do?" ""Do whatever you want."" "And to hear that "do whatever" was like a dream for us." "You cannot imagine what it was like... when we heard that song..." "That was the song they were singing as they were coming towards us." "That was..." "I don't know." "At that moment I did not realise that all my family was gone." "And I wondered, "Where should I go?" ""I have no Poland." "I have nowhere to go." ""My mother is no longer with me." ""I haven't got my brothers." "I have nobody." ""Where do I go now?"" "After the liberation, we went back to find out what had happened... and inside the bunker our parents were dead." "Probably a bomb was thrown in." "And my little brother..." "The bones of his little hands..." "People from the Red Cross, reporters from newspapers came to film me." "They asked me to take off my clothes." "All my vertebrae could be seen under my skin." "Once I was shaved, my hair cut and disinfected... and I was wearing pyjamas..." "I laid down in a bed for the first time... and at that moment I just said, "Now I can die."" "Why didn't I say, "Now I can live"?" "I did not think about that then." "I thought about it 50 years later." "It was the feeling that they couldn't kill me anymore." "Now I can die." "One day, my father came by." "Even after being fed in a medical camp... he still weighed only 81 pounds." "I had so deeply engraved... this issue of my new identity... and the risk of death if I didn't use it." "So when my father mentioned the Boschan family..." "I told him, of course, that I didn't know anybody by that name." "That has remained a very bitter memory over the years." ""Tante" Gisela, "Tante" Camila... the other cousin, Ernst Lamberg... everybody dead." "And we received identical letters." "It is known that he"l"she was in... concentration camp Sered until this date... concentration camp Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen... until this date... concentration camp by Berlin until left the camp with a skirt I had stolen from a German woman." "The skirt and a piece of rye bread, which was already greenish... because I couldn't bring myself to eat it." "I kept it in my knapsack." "Those were the riches I brought back with me... to my dear Poland." "We went to the house... of a Christian girl who lived there... and her mother was waiting for her." "Her mother was waiting for her, together with all her family." "You wouldn't believe the party they threw when she arrived." "No wonder, of course." "The next day, they went to church." "I went with them, but I told them..." "I wasn't a Christian... and I wasn't going to kneel." "I was an atheist." "I did not believe in God." "Now I ask for Your forgiveness, God." "WAR IN EUROPE IS OVER GERMANY SURRENDERS" "When we went outside..." "I heard a newsboy saying that the Nazis... that Hitler and his people escaped to Argentina." "At that time, I didn't even imagine that I was going to be in Argentina." "All the Croatians, all the Nazis came to Argentina... and we couldn't get in." "The bishop's secretary... was the one who arranged everything." "He arranged everything." "We had to be smuggled into Argentina." "Perón did not allow us... to come into the country because we were Jews." "My aunt paid the $200 or $300 to get us here... and we arrived in this country." "Three or four months later, my husband arrived." "And the struggle to survive began again." "To learn the language, to learn a job... to learn sewing on an electrical machine." "We used to spend summers in Miramar." "When we were on the beach, I'd wonder, "Who lives in that house?"" "It was a two-storey house." "Later, I learned that Schwamberger lived there... one of the most wanted Nazis in the world." "He lived in that house across from where I was with my kids." "He may have passed by my side on the street while we were walking." "He may have touched my arm which they tattooed." "Many of them came to this country." "I can only mention the names I know... such as Mengele, Schwamberger, Eichmann." "Lots of them came here and we still do not know today." "When I came to this country... and I saw the soldiers..." "I thought that all the Nazis were here... because they wore the same helmets, the same uniforms." "It was the period... of the Nationalist rise... so again, we had to get false documents... with birth certificates from different places... stating different religions... with different dates." "Therefore, our arrival and settlement in Argentina... was still surrounded by an aura of illegitimacy... that had to be protected so it was not discovered." "1976" " MILITARY COUP IN ARGENTINA" ""When" el Proceso", the dictatorship" took place in Argentina... it was much like it was in Europe." "This proved the idea... that this is not something that only happened there... as an accidental circumstance at a certain place in the world... but rather that this is something we're all subject to, permanently... no matter where we live, and no matter who we are." "Just like in Germany... there were many people who did not want to see." "But I did know." "I knew about the missing people." "About people we were acquainted with." "My sons at that time were studying at law school." "And every day, to see them safe at home, it was like "we survived one more day."" "1992" " BOMBING OF THE ISRAELI EMBASSY" "When the Israeli embassy was bombed... the people involved were never arrested... and that was it." "With the bombing of AMIA (Jewish Federation)... they managed to destroy a cultural legacy as well." "1994" " BOMBING OF AMIA BUILDING" "The bombing of the Jewish Federation building, for instance... and the recent findings about police involvement in it... refute the government's more reassuring version of the incident... which was badly needed in order to settle down... establish roots, feel comfortable and belong here." "Some reporters said:" ""There were also innocent victims who were passing by."" "Lmplying that those who were Jews had not been innocent victims." "I became an Argentinean citizen." "I feel I am an Argentinean." "And I think this was an attack against a country, against Argentina." "Not against the Jews." "The desecration of graves reminds me of the Nazi era... when they destroyed the Jewish cemeteries in Europe." "In Germany, at the beginning, Hitler had ideal circumstances." "Unemployment was very high... and the Versailles Treaty put a lot of pressure on Germany." "Taxes were very high, there was hyperinflation... and unemployment reached a terrible level." "It reminds me of the situation here." "It scares me when there is such a high rate of unemployment... because then people look for a scapegoat." "How could this happen in Germany?" "In such a cultivated country?" "They elected a man like Hitler." "I remember once when I went to work for a short time in Puerto Rico..." "I thought it was paradise." "I could not believe how beautiful it was." "The palm trees and bananas growing everywhere." "You could just grab them." "Oranges, the sea..." "The beauty and peace of it all." "The first thing that came to my mind was:" ""Was all this exactly the same while I was in Auschwitz..." ""or in the ghetto?"" "Apparently, it was." "I remember the first days in Dachau... the colours... because it is in Bavaria." "It was fall." "How did I dare... to look at nature... to look at the mountains... that I had never seen before?" "In September we celebrate the High Holidays:" "Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur." "Once on the eve of Yom Kippur... when "Kol Nidre" is sung... somebody took out a "siddur"... a small prayer book... and began to pray." "The weeping in the barracks... is deeply engraved in my memory." "The weeping, the pain, and the feelings that engulfed all of us." "Perhaps one needs to cling to those memories... to that Yom Kippur... to keep on living." "And the people who could not break away from this pain... they just died." "The pain fades away and becomes nostalgia." "Sometimes, I even think... about the ghetto with a feeling of nostalgia." "You wonder how that is possible." "How is that possible?" "I remember my friends... boys and girls, walking around the ghetto... singing songs... and sometimes it is the survivors' pride... that prevents them from admitting that they have forgotten." "That does not mean that they do not remember... but it is impossible to relive... and nobody should criticise them." "Families, large and small." "Faces, cheerful and sad." "Beautiful and simple." "Someone's mother, father, grandmother." "They lived, worked, raised their children... wishing happiness for them... just like everyone else in the world." "The only distinction was that they were Jewish." "They did not know that because of their identity... a terrible tragedy awaited them." "Pogroms, humiliation and murder had happened before." "But this was the Shoah, the Holocaust." "This is the word given to describe... what happened to the Jewish people during the Second World War." "Six million were killed." "When Hitler came into power, outlawed the Jews... and made them targets for persecution and violence... the world did not protest much." "It was someone else's problem." "Even when the Nazis conquered half of Europe... many thought that repressions against them... would effect mainly the Jews." "And indeed this is how it was at first." "One needs an enemy to make a nation fight." "If there is no real enemy, one has to be invented." "That's how Hitler united Germany with the common hatred." "These are photographs of Jewish pogroms." "Everyone knows now what happened afterward." "Millions were shot, burned in the ovens... killed in the gas chambers." "The Jews were not the only victims." "For the first victim is never the last." "Shoah, the Holocaust." "The Nazis called it "the final solution."" "Everyone in this film was a child during the war." "They are children from the abyss, remnants of once large families... children who survived by pure chance." "They come to us from the smoke which took away... their beloved parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers." "They are among the very few... who miraculously survived out of so many." "They came from the inferno alone, often naked... with no families or even pictures to remember them." "Thus we sometimes show photos of other children... someone else's brother or sister... but they come from the same smoke." "We hope they will understand if we remember them all together." "Everything had started so cheerful for them." "They were growing up in a large country, feeling protected." "To them the country seemed strong and kind... just like their parents... strong, and kind, and beautiful." "Childhood" "I was born in Kiev." "I was the oldest of three children." "I had a little brother, Abrasha." "He was eight years old." "My sister Paulina was four years old." "In every apartment building... there were Jews, Ukrainians, Russians." "My father worked... as a blacksmith at a factory." "My mother was a housewife." "Father was at work all day... so I went there to bring him home." "He'd get so tired." "Maria Grinberg, 12 years old in 1941." "I was born in Nemirovo... a small town in the Ukraine." "I was the youngest in the family." "I had an older sister, Mera." "Galina Aizensharf, 5 years old in 1941." "My father loved me and I loved him." "We were very close." "He was tall, handsome, and strong." "He cured people with the gift of hypnosis." "My mum was a caregiver at the Jewish orphanage." "And grandma was always there." "I used to sit in her lap... and paint her face with Mum's lipstick." "She would let me do anything." "Life was very simple... the life of a "shtetl"." "People observed the Sabbath." "They sewed all week." "There were small houses." "The tailors lived on one side." "Their whole family lived in one house." "Across from us lived a tinsmith." "He also had children, boys." "We'd often go to their place." "Everyone lived together." "The Moshkovich family across the street... had a few daughters and two sons." "There was Menachem." "Ilia Kelmanovich 10 years old in 1941" "He sold whitewash and bluing." "When we were very little, we were bathed at home." "They'd warm up the water." "I remember..." "I hated it when they used to wash my head." "My mother worked in a kindergarten." "Galina Davydova 11 years old in 1941" "My father was a bookbinder." "He played the trumpet." "My friends and I would run... to where he was marching with the trumpet." "I was so proud of him." "We had a tree for the New Year." "My favourite thing was the candy." "New Year's Eve... was probably the most joyous children's holiday." "Before the war... the relationships between different people were fairly normal." "There were some incidents... where drunkards on the streets... would call us kikes." "But they were drunks... so we did not pay too much attention to them." "And as for decent people..." "Raisa Dashkevich ...we had many Russian friends, without discrimination." "This is how they lived their lives in the Soviet Union:" "Children from Moscow, Kiev, and small towns... very poor and not so poor." "Many of them did not even think about... what set them apart from other children." "But there turned out to be a difference." "Their parents were Jewish." "Thus we had lived until... the most horrible day in my life... when something suddenly changed." "The adults looked worried and cried." "The planes came and one dropped something." "There was an explosion." "I fainted." "The raid was close." "This was how the war began." "War" "Dad took me by my hand... and I saw my reflection in the window pierced by bullets." "I said that those were little suns." "At 2:00 a.m. There was a horrible bombardment of Kiev... and in an hour... all our husbands received draft orders." "When my father... received his draft order... my mother cried very hard." "There was a sea of people... a sea of sorrow." "Father told Mother to pick up the kids and leave." "Then they marched away." "And we never saw them again... because they all perished." "I didn't see my husband either... because he was killed in the first few days of the war." "Yakov Sukhovolsky 13 years old in 1941" "On July 2 the Germans appeared on motorcycles." "They looked so confident." "They met hardly any resistance." "They were singing in a strange language... so loud and strong, lots of them." "That's how our city was occupied." "It was too late for us to leave." "They took our horses and we stayed behind." "My mum was very young." "She had three small children." "She did not leave on time." "No one expected... it would happen so soon." "The German army's push was overwhelming." "Thousands of Soviet soldiers... entire divisions were captured." "In a matter of just a few weeks, enormous territories were captured." "Those were exactly the regions where the bulk of the Jews lived." "The war launched against them was one of total annihilation." "Nobody could protect them." "Most men were fighting on the front." "The Nazis sought to gain support in the occupied territories." "In any nation... there are those willing to serve whatever authority is in power." "They are capable of any cruelty, of any crime." "The Nazis hastened to bond those accomplices by bloodshed... but not just any bloodshed." "The blood of neighbours, classmates and children." "BABI YAR City of Kiev" " September, 1941" "In September, the German army captured Kiev." "They posted a decree in Ukrainian... ordering all Jews to report... together with their children... and all their belongings... by 8.;00 a.m." "Those who failed to report... would be shot for not complying with the order." "Many started crying... but others told us not to be afraid... because they thought... that we were just being resettled." "Aunt Polia said, "Perhaps we're being sent to Palestine."" "Viktor Stadnik 8 years old in 1941" ""That would be good." "It's warm there."" "My mum made little knapsacks... and gave one to each of us." "It was such a peaceful, beautiful day." "There was no wind, very calm and quiet." "People were emerging from all the streets... just like little streams... emptying into a river." "No one knew." "No one could imagine what would happen to us." "A woman came out from the building across the street." "A Russian or a Ukrainian." "She said, "Don't go."" "Nothing else, just, "Don't go."" "We marched behind the German guards... and she kept walking along." "Suddenly my mum pushed me toward that woman." "She grabbed me and hid me behind her." "My older brother Tolia was carrying two bags of dry bread." "He could not just dump them... and he couldn't leave Mum behind." "We just looked at each other." "We were very close." "One brother survived... while the other perished in Babi Yar." "Luidmila Zavorotnaia Ukrainian Eyewitness" "Two girls lived nearby, Rosa and Tsilia." "They got away." "They were running toward my house." "Two young Germans caught them by the arms." "The girls were stumbling and screaming." "What could I do?" "I was scared." "The Germans dragged them away as they screamed." "Two beautiful girls." "That's when it began." "It was a wild shriek." "A wild cry." "People heard the gunshots... and realised where they were." "They kept beating everyone." "I just held my child... so only I got beaten, not him." "There were infants... lying on the ground, still alive." "The Germans would grab them... the pit was full of boulders... and they would smash their little heads... against the rocks." "I called for my mother." "I was completely scattered." "I do not remember how I got undressed." "I was completely naked." "We were near the edge of the pit." "When we approached it and heard the gunshots... we understood everything." "We understood that we were marching to our deaths." "There was an enormous crowd there... crazed in the face of death." "They pushed each other." "They pressed against each other." "There were so many people." "I stood nearby." "There was an interpreter there." "He was a Russian man." "I don't think he was a German." "My braids came undone." "I don't know how." "I can't tell you how." "I wasn't crying." "I was howling with fear." "I was all alone." "I kept screaming, "Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!"" "The interpreter noticed me." "He asked me..." ""Hey, girl, how did you get here?"" "I could not talk." "I must have been in a state of shock." "Just imagine... to be there and to watch all that." "Suddenly, a "politsai" came up to me... and said, "Why are you standing around?" ""Why aren't you in the line?"" "He turned around... and kicked me in the stomach with his jackboot." "I fell to the ground." "Then the interpreter approached." ""Don't you see that she is one of us," he said." ""She's here by mistake." ""Why are you beating her?"" "He walked over to a heap of clothes... grabbed an overcoat and covered me." "I was shaking so much." "People started falling." "They were shooting from the other side." "They didn't shoot everyone in the back of the head." "People got shot in the chest and everywhere." "First my dad fell... and I saw how he pulled my mum with him." "Then the sisters, then I can't remember." "I still can't understand how I didn't go insane." "I saw my mother... up there being executed." "I kept screaming, "Mummy, Mummy!"" "But what could be heard there?" "It was madness, you understand?" "Mother held both of them by the hands." "I walked out of there crippled for life." "I kept regaining consciousness... and fainting." "I was holding my baby, but he was already dead." "The weight of the bodies on top of me... and my weight strangled him." "It wasn't the bullets that killed him." "I regained consciousness in the middle of the night... and I began crawling from under the bodies." "I somehow managed to crawl out." "That ravine was very steep." "It was hard to climb." "I don't know who helped me." "Perhaps it was God." "I don't know." "According to German statistics... 150,000 Jews lived in Kiev before the occupation." "By January of 1942... the Nazis reported that there were twenty left." "Twenty Jews." "Seven men and thirteen women." "Ghetto" "Everyone knows about Babi Yar... but in Belorussia there were more than 100 ghettos." "They were like small Babi Yars." "100,000 Jews were killed in Minsk alone "during several" Aktionen." "Glusk was one of those Babi Yars." "Grandma and Riva went to the square... and they never came back." "The square was surrounded." "We still lived in our house for a while." "By fall... we were forced into a ghetto." "There were some geese there... for the officers' meals." "They confiscated them in the villages nearby." "Someone had to herd the geese." "There were three of us." "My sister, a boy Yosik and me." "I liked him very much." "He had curly hair and black eyes." "He had a beautiful smile." "He'd always say to us..." ""Don't be afraid." "If a German walks by, just smile." ""I promise he won't touch you." "That's a sure thing." ""They won't kill you if you smile at them."" "And then one day Yosik didn't come." "There were just three geese left." "I asked my sister if he was killed." "She said, "Yes."" "I asked, "But why?" "Didn't he smile?"" "She said that he probably did." "I couldn't understand how they could kill him if he smiled." "I realised that he smiled and then started to cry." "That was how we lived in the ghetto." "My dad was already sick... and he'd lay in the bed... sick almost all the time." "It was very cold, and we had nothing to eat." "One morning, Mum put coats on us and hid us under the bed." "Dad said to Mum, "Hide!" She wanted him to hide." "As soon as she hid, the "politsai" came in." "Dad said out loud:" ""Goodbye, Tania and children." "I will never see you again."" "They took him away... broke everything in the house, and we just laid under the bed." "Nobody looked under the bed." "To this day, I still think... dad's hypnotic gift saved us." "In a country that has endured so much... it is difficult to empathise with another's suffering." "Many people say, "They were not the only ones." ""Look at us!" ""Look at how many we lost, how much we suffered in that war." ""Why should we feel sorry for them?"" "It's easy to answer why... but it's difficult to get through to those... who won't care about a child, or an old man's suffering... just because they're of a different blood." "Mum was not at home." "They took her and my little brother." "That guy, Sergey..." ""son of the" politsai"'s chief" took them there." "People said... that Mum hid in the attic." "And the boy, he was just two years old." "He was two." "Mum put him under the table... and put the tablecloth over him, to hide him." "But when they came... they asked if anyone was at home." "She had told him to be quiet... but the little boy started crying and she came down." "They led them both away." "Every little town had its own ghetto." "And every ghetto had its time..." "Emma Murchenko 16 years old in 1941 ...for the Jews to be killed and burned." "But they all had one thing in common." "Not a single ghetto in Belorussia remained." "All ghettos were liquidated." "One morning at dawn... around 5:00 a.m. The German killing squads... stormed into town." ""The" politsai "were walking" through the streets... and the kids followed them." "Both the "politsai" and the boys were Ukrainian." "They were searching for the Jews." "Panic began." "People were beaten." "People fell, people fainted... and we were herded into the middle of a field." "There were no Germans involved in that "Aktion"." "Perhaps they were given the orders... but I didn't see a single German." "There were just the "politsai"." "They were all drunk." "They were cursing terribly." "My little sister asked Mum where they were taking us." ""To the woods," Mum said." ""Can I take my doll?" my sister asked." ""We took the doll, but the" politsai took it away and said to my sister:" ""No doll for you!" ""You are going to be killed!"" ""But when the" politsai "rounded us up..."" "our men started a fight with them." "They broke the "politsai" cordons... and people started running away." "My sister knocked on a woman's door." "The woman opened a window instead." "She saw and recognised the three of us... and started shouting as loud as she could..." ""Politsai!" Jewish children!"" "We were shocked and ran away farther down the street." "The Goldberg boys were running, too." "She yelled, "There!" "Jewish children!"" "The boys were killed." "Many children who ran, were killed on the spot." "Basia's and Ida's children were running." "They were all shot." "We were led down the street." "People stood on both sides... and threw stones, rocks and mud at us." "They were shouting:" ""Look!" "Look at her, look at him!" "Look at them!"" "And yet the Jews did so much good for those people." "There were doctors, teachers, obstetricians among the Jews." "Klara, the obstetrician, aided births in the entire village." "When local women realised we were all going to be shot... they ran after us and asked, "Give us back Klara and Khariton."" "Khariton was the dentist." "Without Klara they'd be left without anyone to deliver their children." "But no one was released." "Around 15 children were brought." "They were told to undress." "It was freezing." "At the bathhouse, they were shot." "One girl was a little older." "She was crying and hugging her brother." "Then they were shot." "And then the locals fought with each other... over dead children's clothing." "They forced us to our knees." ""Behind each one stood a" politsai." "When the shot was fired, I ducked... and then I was pushed into the pit." "The next group was brought..." "Vera Levitskaia 10 years old in 1941 ...and I heard my older sister among them." "She held our little brother." "He was crying." "It was very cold because everyone was naked." "He kept crying:" ""I'm cold." "My feet are freezing."" "She kept comforting him:" ""Calm down, Sioma, it'll be warm soon."" "Then there were shots again, and they fell." "I don't know how the Ukrainians felt, in general..." "Vitaly lanover 5 years old in 1941 ...but some took people's clothing... and ripped out earrings and gold teeth." "Some of them, not all of them... especially "politsai", but others were taking clothes, too." "They unloaded us." "Parents started undressing." "Mum was holding my hand." "She looked at me." "Her gaze was horrible." "It wasn't dawn yet." "She said, "Run, son!" I started running." "I slipped between people's legs in the crowd... but they saw me and fired a few shots." "When we were leaving, my brother was crying." "Klara Vinokur 14 years old in 1941" "Mum tried to comfort him, "Don't cry, I'm with you."" "Everyone realised where we were going." "I had two thoughts at that moment." "One was:" ""If it's true that there is an afterlife..." ""then I'm going to see Dad now."" "The other thought I had, which may seem strange, was:" ""If Stalin knew what was happening, he would save me."" "He was our idol." "They started bringing people, 30 per truck." "As soon as one group was done, they brought the next." "Those who covered the bodies with soil, they were shot last." "As each row was shot... they fell into the pit and were covered with soil." "The children were brought to a small table..." "Mikhail Mervinetsky ...and were given a small piece of wet cotton... to smell or to taste." "If the child did not fall down at once... he would be kicked into the pit with a foot." "Around 11:00 a.m. They brought my family, too." "Mother was always stronger." "Father cried." "Then they saw me." "And I saw them." "They took my mum and dad... to the grave." "Father screamed out... not to forget them." "They told us to take off most of our clothes and shoes." "It was very quiet." "Everyone was sitting down." "Nobody cried anymore." "We were made to walk between two lines of "politsai"." "We sat down, the whole family together." "Then my parents were led away." "I never saw them again." "There was a large pit there." "When all were shot... only we boys remained." "There were perhaps 10 or 15 of us." "The "politsai" said:" ""You kikes!" "Go to the pit!"" "And he made all of us go there." "I ran up to one "politsai" who was there." "I said that I was Ukrainian." "He told me to sit down." "Then I saw a German... with a four-year-old boy... and I asked him to give that child to me." "I took him... and when everything was over..." "I walked away with that boy." "I walked with him down a road... and I saw a man passing by." "I asked that man:" ""Can you take this child with you?"" "I said that the boy's parents had been killed." "He took the child and I went away." "I don't know what happened to that boy." "I was only eleven." "I had to survive somehow." "They herded everyone into a barn... poured gasoline all over and set it on fire." "Can you imagine that?" "Mothers, sisters, brothers, all burning alive!" "Some burned sooner, others later." "Children and their mothers see each other on fire... and no one can help each other." "They cry until they become ashes." "It's different when you die alone, even if you're burning alive... but when your loved ones are on fire... when you see how someone you love is dying more quickly than you... when someone's hand is burning... when your children are crying, "Mummy, it hurts!"" "In the middle of a clearing... there was a bowl on a wooden table... with a huge bottle of rum and a glass." ""The" politsai "would go there and drink..."" "and then they led us away naked." "Suddenly, I wanted to live so much." "I had a terrible fear of death." "I began hiding behind people's backs." "As each group was taken, I would keep hiding." "Finally, it was the last dozen." "My parents were already shot." "They took my sister by her leg and threw her against a tree." "Bullets weren't wasted on children." "They died the most horrible deaths." "I get sick talking about it." "And then a "politsai" shouted, "I am going mad!" ""My trigger finger is swollen." "I have already killed 50 people." ""Let my finger heal."" "When I was there with the last dozen... there was no place left to hide." "The "politsai" were, themselves, half-dead from the killing." "And when they saw me, a little girl in an old nightgown... they said, "All right, keep it on!"" "I was too ashamed to undress." "I already had small breasts." "In the second before he fired his gun... it must have been because of fear and shock..." "I fainted." "When I regained consciousness, it was already dark." "I saw stars... the moon and trees." "I thought, "My God, the afterworld looks just like ours."" "Then I heard moaning... and realised that I was under a heap of bodies." "I was sticky, covered with clinging mud." "Some of it was excrement." "A lot of it was blood." "It was an absolutely horrific sight." "The moon and stars were shining." "I saw "politsai" walking near the pit." "I was not alone." "Six-year-old Rita was there." "Toiba was also there." "I thought she was old... but she must have been 35 years old." "The three of us started crawling." "I motioned for Rita to be silent." "There was a second pit... and I fell into it." "Imagine what Rita was going through!" "She lost me." "It was pitch-black... so she cried out for me, "Lucia!"" "Instantly, she was shot dead." "At the same moment, Toiba was killed." "Rescuers" "The survival of each of these children is a miracle." "But there were also kind people..." "Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Tatars... who risked their own lives... to save other people's children." "War-stricken themselves... they still remained humane." "I woke up inside a house... when an old woman was pouring some water on me." "She washed me, took care of my wounds..." "And put some ointments on me." "Three days later she said:" ""Girl, you don't look Jewish." ""You're still young." "Your whole life is ahead of you."" "She gave me clothes and shoes and said:" ""Go, and may God help you!"" "A Ukrainian woman was passing by." "She took us with her." "Aunt Pasha gave us white scarves... so that we wouldn't be recognised as Jews." "She gave us little crosses on necklaces." "She said, "You, Mera, will now be Marusia." ""And you, Shelia, will be Galia."" "I kept this name." "She gave me food and drink." "She gave me advice and..." "I took her name Ekaterina." "She also called me "Golubka"." "Dove." "She cried a lot." "This nickname grew on me... and I became Ekaterina Golub." "I prayed to God for help." "And I still do, to this day." "Choice" "Often people ask, "Why didn't the Jews resist?" ""Why didn't they escape from the ghettos?" ""There were young and strong people there, too. "" "They tried, but such freedom had its own terrible price." "Yes, they could flee from work." "Some would be shot, and others would escape." "But for every escapee... not only the family, but all of their relatives... would be killed and burned." "What do you think?" "Who could live with such sins?" "Who could live with the blood of mothers and fathers on them?" "I talked with my brother... and we decided to escape." "Although I was thinking:" ""How can I flee if my mother stays behind?"" "Lev Gurevich 14 years old in 1941" "Mother was begging us to flee." "My brother didn't want to." "He was older and was making all the decisions." "He said, "No, Mum, we won't leave you."" "She fell to her knees and begged us to flee." "So we fled to the woods at night." "I still can't forgive myself." "Because of me, my parents died sooner." "When they shot my mother..." "I was told by a neighbour... she was holding my brother... a three-year-old boy." "She held him so tightly in her arms... they couldn't separate the child's body... from his mother's." "And then when I joined the partisans... we started to take revenge... for our mothers and brothers." "We fought in small groups." "Our Jewish partisan force..." ""set" politsai "quarters on fire..."" "and shot the "politsai"." "Besides being a scout..." "I also went on reconnaissance missions." "We liberated... prisoners of war and Jews near Minsk." "Had it not been for the partisans... no one would have survived in ghettos." "No one." "The war was coming to an end... and like the rest of Europe, Germany was in ruins." "It was shattered by what it had started itself." "But children still had their whole lives ahead of them." "How could they live... knowing such horrors about people?" "In an instant, I lost everything." "Before, I had a home, my parents... my brother and little sister." "I am the last one from Miropol." "I had hoped someone else had survived." "But I am the only survivor, the last one, miraculously." "God helped me survive." "Maybe so I could tell you about it." "After the war, they all went away together with the Germans." "Serdiuk, the "politsai"'s chief... was captured in Poland, tried and executed... but his son came back... and I decided to kill him." "I had a Parabellum pistol." "I took it and went to his house." "His mother opened the door." "I asked, "Where is Sergey?"" ""In the bedroom," she said." "I went in there." "He lay on the bed, face down." "He was asleep." "I stood there with the gun, but I could not shoot him." " I turned around and went away." " Why couldn't you do it?" "I don't know." "I suppose I could have if he saw me face-to-face... or if he had resisted, but he as just asleep." "Revenge doesn't change anything... and it cannot bring anyone back." "When Jews prayed in synagogues... the prayers were sad ones." "Why do women cry as they pray... during the feast of "Shavuot"?" "It's not because... they worry about food." "It's because we've always been persecuted." "This is a great sin." "How could someone kill a four-year-old child... who has never harmed anyone?" "Fascism promised the Germans happiness from the blood of others." "For that purpose, Germany created the world's most powerful army... and made murderers out of thousands of people." "But it turns out that hatred does not lead to happiness." "Instead, it leads into an abyss." "Everyone must know the truth." "They must remember." "I keep thinking, "We will all die someday."" "I hope our children never know the kind of suffering we lived through." ""Eyes of the Holocaust."" ""Holocaust:" ""From the Greek," holokauston":"" ""Burning or totally burnt sacrifice." ""Literally:" "What is destroyed by fire." ""What is destroyed by fire."" "We saw so many things." "We lived through so many things." "This German precision... ensured that no living witnesses would survive." "We knew everything about the nearby crematoria." "The things that happened when we arrived... the process of selection and so on..." "We thought that the Germans couldn't allow people to escape." "People who saw all of this, who knew all about this... would later tell others." "We even considered... never telling anyone about it... if we ever got out." "For no one could believe... that such a thing could have existed, that such a thing could have happened." ""Challah:" ""Woven bread used on Saturdays and feast days." ""On ordinary Saturdays, it is long-shaped." ""On autumn feast days..." ""it is woven in a circle."" "I liked Passover... because we would get the Passover plate from the attic... which was much prettier than the other bowls... as it was only used for one week a year." "My mother did a big spring-cleaning." "She made a small pellet from yeast." "She put it in the stove... to show that the house was clean." "Our furniture was very simple." "There was an armchair and a chair... which we put together with pillows... to make a "hesebet" for my father." "On Fridays we took the "sholet" to a nearby baker... and we children picked it up at noon on Saturday." "On Saturdays the family was always together." "On Friday evenings, too, when my father returned from synagogue." "My mother lay a snow-white tablecloth on the table." "The candles were burning... and there were the two pieces of bread, or challah." "I still remember... the challah blessing... even in Hebrew:" "Baruch ata Adonay Eloheynu melech... haolam hamotzi lechem min haaretz." "We always said it this quickly... so we could eat the crust of the challah... which always tasted good." ""Anti-Semitism:" ""In common parlance..." ""measures taken against the Jews." ""It means opposition to Jews."" ""Numerus clausus:" ""Discriminative anti-Semitic policy." ""It means limited number."" "There was once a pogrom during which the rabbi was arrested." "The rabbi was told... that he and his family would be freed, not killed... if he stood on one leg and told them the essence of the Jewish faith." "The rabbi stood on one leg and said, "Love your neighbour as yourself"... and put down his leg." ""That's the essence of the Jewish faith," said our teacher." ""Do you love your neighbour as yourself?" He asked me." ""Teacher, " I said, "I'll try, but I'm not sure it will work. "" "He stroked my head. "To God," he replied, "you will be a good Jew."" ""God is interested in whether you keep the Commandment." ""Whether you believe in him or not is up to you." ""That doesn't really matter to him."" ""Jew:" "A race of Semitic origin..." ""that dispersed all over the world from ancient Palestine. "" "In the classroom, the children passed around... a piece of paper with the words:" ""Erger, Berger, Sósberger, every Jew's a bugger." ""Get the hell out of our country."" ""September 1, 1939." ""Germany invades Poland." ""The Second World War breaks out." ""Germany invades France..." ""Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg."" ""June 22, 1941." ""Germany invades the Soviet Union." ""Hungary joins the declaration of war..." ""thus entering World War II."" ""December 11, 1941." ""Germany and Italy..." ""declare war on the United States."" ""February 2, 1943." ""The Sixth German Army surrenders at Stalingrad. "" ""March 19, 1944." ""German troops, having lost on the Eastern Front..." ""enter Hungary."" "We sat down to have lunch." "The restaurant was full." "The radio was on." "We didn't know why they were just playing music." "I will never forget the moment when the radio announced... that the German troops had arrived in Budapest." "All I remember is... how everyone dropped their cutlery at once." "There was a huge clang, followed by total silence in the restaurant." "My father was always listening to the radio... and knew much more than we did." "He always reassured us that this would soon be over." "I was shocked to hear from my uncle, a doctor... that while my father pretended to be so optimistic... he had in fact gone to my uncle two days after the Germans arrived... to ask for poison... so the three of us wouldn't have to endure the horror that awaited us." ""Jewish laws:" ""From 1938 onwards..." ""the exclusion of Jews..." ""in Hungary intensified."" "They passed hundreds of laws." "Jews were not allowed to look out of windows overlooking the street." "They couldn't look out of their own apartments." "Jews couldn't walk on the promenade or the pavement... only the road." "Jews couldn't go to cafés, bakeries, cinemas, or theatres." "Jews could only go to the market to buy food after 10:00 a.m." "Afterwards a law was passed... that only those "of pure blood" were allowed to compete in sports." "To be honest, I didn't know what "of pure blood" meant." "I'd only ever heard this said about dogs." ""Yellow star:" ""Distinguishing mark worn by Jews on their clothing. "" "When it was decreed that the star had to be worn at all times... my father asked where we should pin it during the summer." "They shouted, "To your skin!"" ""Deportation:" ""Banishment..." ""forced removal to alien places."" "We were getting ready for Shabbat." "The challah was all prepared." "Some of it was already in the oven." "Suddenly, totally unexpectedly... a big group of gendarmes broke in." "Very rudely they told us to quickly pack our things." "They hardly gave us a minute or two... to pack a few little things... the most important items." "They were harsh, unfriendly." "But as the other people in the village watched us leave..." "I didn't see sorrow in their faces... rather curiosity, mocking." "They looked at us with a satisfied smile... as if we were animals." "It was a terrible feeling." "We took our bags and got on the truck." "That's where Golgotha began." "We had to leave for the ghetto." "We had a dog, Muri." "The poor thing ran and ran after us until he was totally exhausted." "Maybe he was the only living thing that sympathised with our plight." ""On May 15, 1944..." ""the mass deportation..." ""of Hungarian Jews began."" ""July 9, 1944." ""The mass deportation of rural Jews..." ""to concentration camps is complete."" ""Ghetto:" ""The Jewish population..." ""was squeezed into isolated districts."" "It was a big house." "We were terribly cramped." "We had the two babies with us." "I don't know how many of us there were in that room." "Next door there were even more." "There was a girl... with chicken pox or a rash." "She was crying so much, the poor thing." "Just like the two little ones." ""Grandma!" "Stroke me!" she repeated, because her skin itched." "The whole thing was terrible." "I met many good... decent, caring people." "Next door lived three old maids." "We had only just gotten to know them." "Every morning they visited us on the way to work... to ask us what they could buy for us... what they could do for us." "They came to get the richer families." "We would hear... a neighbour being taken away... and brought back hours later, almost beaten to death." "Some of them died afterwards." "They set up the interrogation room... in the tailor's shop." "They took the head of every household there." "In our case, my mother." "They took her there and beat her." "They lined us up... and marched us across the city to the brickworks." "It was pouring rain." "We took with us the little bags... which we were allowed to bring." "Lots of people were on the street or looking out of windows." "It must have been quite an attraction." "What I remember most... was the loud laughter." "We thought this was the end, but no." "It was just the beginning." "It was raining into the brickworks." "We sat or lay in puddles for three days." "We couldn't wait to leave." "Of course, we didn't know where we were leaving for and how." "It became an adage in our family." "At some depressing moment I said to my mother:" ""If I were rich, I would take off my cap and bid farewell to Hungary."" ""Where would you go, Son?" My mother laughed." ""Germany," I said." "I made it." ""Entrainment:" ""People are crowded into cattle trains..." ""and transported..." ""to concentration camps..." ""and death camps."" "A few days later this freight train arrived... and we could get on it." "I was delighted." "We could leave!" "Fantastic!" "They were cattle trains." "One of my most terrible memories... a sound I can still hear today, was of that door being locked." "When, at the age of 13, I knew they had locked us in." ""The mass deportations took place..." ""with active cooperation..." ""of the Hungarian authorities." ""437,000 people were deported..." ""most of them to Auschwitz."" "There were old people, pregnant women." "All I could hear was, "Water, water." "Doctor, doctor!"" "It rattled within me... like the rattle of the train." "I was in a daze from hunger, from tiredness, from the heat." "I don't even know how many days we travelled for." "Little Gyuri wanted to sleep." "He asked for his teddy bear." "He was only nine. "The bear, the bear!" It was in his rucksack." "The jam jar in his rucksack broke." "His bear was swimming in jam." "I couldn't even give him his bear." "My last picture of that poor boy... was of him asking for his bear." "My poor mother looked out and saw the green fields... the blossoming trees and flowers." "It was the 1st or 2nd of June." "She started crying and couldn't stop." "What are they doing to her two children, her pride and joy... when there are people out in the fields, free, working?" "A little boy was there with his parents." "I started chatting with him." "He was 6 or 7 years old." "His first year of school was over." "I said, "So now you'll be starting the second year."" ""I'm not going to be in any year," he replied." "Mariann Adler:" "Lived 11 years, 4 months, 5 days." "Éva Bárdos:" "Lived 8 years, 11 months, 12 days." "Judithka Deutch: 0 years, 6 months." "György Bartos: 12 years, 2 months." "Péter Feldmár:" "Lived 0 years, 0 months, 12 days." ""Shoah:" ""Misfortune..." ""disaster..." ""extermination..." ""destruction..." ""catastrophe."" "As it was a branch line that led to Auschwitz... we felt as if we were going backwards." "At that same moment... many people said the same thing:" ""Regent Horthy cares about us after all!" "He's bringing us back!"" "About an hour later... the train slowed... and we arrived at the place we never imagined existed." "When they opened the train doors... or rather, flung them open... there were hordes of SS officers." "They screamed:" ""Out!" "Out!" "Damned Jews!"" "It was a total reign of terror." "They tore people off the train." "The moment we arrived I perceived a smell... that never went away." "I had never smelled it before... or only at pig slaughter." "I told my mother and grandmother... that this was the smell of burning meat." ""That's impossible!" they said." "It was like an overturned ants' nest." "Everyone was scrambling, not knowing where to go." "They started to shout." "They separated the men from the women." "That's when I saw my father for the last time." "My mother held my sister's hand... and my hand on the other side." "Then we reached Dr. Mengele." ""Can you work?" he asked." "I said, "Yes."" "They didn't want my sister." "She was short, with her two ponytails." "She went with my mother." "They held hands and waved." ""I'll see you later," I shouted." "I never saw them again." "Children under 12 went straight to the gas chambers with their mothers." "Among the children, only twins remained." "There was this girl there." "They separated her mother to the left-hand side." "The poor woman started screaming:" ""My daughter!" "My daughter!" "My daughter!" ""I won't leave my daughter here!"" "And Mengele..." "Mengele, laughing, told her:" ""Take your daughter with you, too."" "When we arrived, he sent my mother to the left-hand side." "I didn't want to leave my mother's side." "I wanted to run after her." "A German soldier threatened me with a rubber truncheon." "My poor mother was so worried I'd be beaten, she gestured to me:" ""Go, go!" "We'll meet later!"" "It's that gesture... that I still see before my eyes." "I stayed behind." "That was the last time I saw my mother." ""Crematorium:" ""For the purpose of burning human corpses..." ""crematoria were built..." ""in the death camps."" "Everyone told stories about what home was like... the children's room, the toys, the dolls." "And, most important, what they cooked, what they ate." "We were always waiting for meals." "Food was our main topic." "There was a latrine... next to which... were piles of corpses." "I don't know how many." "That's where we played." "Looking back, I was completely unaffected by it... playing among corpses." "I don't think we were afraid of death by then." "We lived in the children's block." "Next door was the block where women were gathered after selection." "They were taken to the gas chambers the next day." "We heard those terrible shouts and screams every day." "The children got used to it." "They became lethargic, apathetic." "The bodies of those who died were collected." "They threw the bodies into wheelbarrows." "We saw all this as children." "The event I remember very clearly... lasted for about 10 days." "They didn't notice... that one young woman was pregnant." "She gave birth in the barracks." "There was this platform... that ran down the centre of the block." "It was made of stone." "I don't know why it was there, but it was there." "It divided... the two sleeping quarters on each side." "They put the baby on that platform... and didn't let the mother go near." "She couldn't breast-feed." "Not that she would have had milk anyway." "To begin with, the baby cried very loudly." "It became less and less loud... but it kept crying for a very long time." "That's what we listened to." "On Friday night this lady was singing beautifully." "She had been a singer at the Kolozsvár Opera." "She sang beautifully." "Her name was Lola." "She was in that room... from where they took people before they were killed." "I couldn't understand why she was there." "Later I understood why." "She was holding a little dead baby in her arms." "She talked and sang to that dead baby as she went around the room." "As I looked at her holding the dead baby..." "I realised that she had gone mad." "I will never forget that as long as I live." ""Appel:" ""The line-up held..." ""in concentration camps." ""It was held at the Appelplatz."" "Very early in the morning, at 3:00 or 4:00... they made us stand in line in the freezing wind and snow." "We had to stand absolutely still... and they would count us." "If someone collapsed... it was forbidden to touch them, to help them." "The SS women walked among us... with dogs and whips." "If anyone moved or spoke... they immediately used the whip." "The Germans counted the dead, too." "The numbers had to add up." "The whole idea was to stamp out... any remnants of human dignity." "That grin on their faces as they hurt us... was indescribable." "There was no space... for solidarity or camaraderie." "To eat, to breathe... everyone had to trample on everyone else." "This very situation... this pile of human meat, one on top of another..." "You couldn't even move." "People became like vermin." "We left very early in the morning." "It was pitch-black." "I can still hear the voice... of the German SS woman in my head:" ""Left, left, left, and left."" "That's how we went to work, marching in precise tempo." "Only once did we see a concentration camp." "That was tragic." "There were children speaking Czech... or some Slavic language." "I don't know why... but a German was beating one child with a club." "It was tragic." "If I had to walk past there..." "I closed my eyes and put my hands on my ears." "Those of us from religious families... underwent a terrible crisis." "We prayed every morning and night... to a merciful God." "God could not have seen... what happened to the children... to our parents, to the old, to women... but especially, to the children." "It seems..." "God was not there in Auschwitz." ""Proclamation:" ""October 15, 1944." ""Regent Horthy announced..." ""on the radio..." ""that Hungary was no longer in the war."" "Miklós Horthy's announcement... was on the radio." "I remember the sentence:" ""Now everyone knows that Germany has lost this war."" "That he... the leader of Hungary's right-wing, racist government... or rather, the head of the state... should say this... made it clear that it was all over." "That it was really over." "This lasted until 3.;00 p.m., when the radio went silent... as it would go silent many more times in my life." "The silence was followed by music, then contradictory information:" ""Szálasi has assumed power." ""The Hungarian Arrow Cross Party has assumed power."" "They took us into a pretty large room... in the Arrow Cross headquarters." "In the centre of the room... was a table, a machine gun, and a stool." "Jews were lined up facing the wall." "A woman entered with a basket of food for the Arrow Cross man." "She must have been his wife." "I was only a small kid, and I had been standing there for hours." "I didn't really understand things." "I was hungry." "Over my shoulder I saw him eating." "I could smell the stew." "His wife said to him:" ""Give some to the kid!"" ""No, he's a Jew," he said." ""But he's just a kid!" she said." ""From little worms do big maggots grow," he replied." "On the 24th, the day before Christmas... some Arrow Cross men came... and said they were taking us away to work." "They took a number of children... down Rákóczi Street and through the city." "I cannot say they felt sorry for us." "They took about 100 children." "They took us to a shelter in Munkácsy Mihály Street." "A few days later... some nuns brought a further six or seven children... to us." "All but one of them died... because they were too weak to survive." "We were so full of grief." "Even though they weren't our own children... they were still children, innocent children... who had to die in such a horrific way." "There was a little boy... who lay dying for a whole afternoon." "He called me "Mummy."" "It was horrible." "Arrow Cross men entered the house and announced... that they would take Jews, floor by floor... to the Danube to be shot." "We were taken by just six Arrow Cross men... although there were a lot of us." "There were at least 80 or 90 of us on that floor." "My mother explained to me... that when we stood next to the Danube and she heard the shot... she would jump behind me and I should jump into the river." "I didn't really understand." "But it never came to this." "Suddenly a truck stopped behind us." "We weren't allowed to look back." "We didn't know who it was." "It was Wallenberg... with his auxiliary police squadron." "I later learned they were mostly Jews... wearing Arrow Cross armbands." "They disarmed the real Arrow Cross men... and gave direct orders to take us to the ghetto." "They put us on the truck, and instead of going to the ghetto... they took us to Pannónia Street... and told us to hide wherever we could." "On January 13... the Russians came." "They didn't understand... who these children were who threw themselves into their arms." "I cannot think back without being moved." "That was a really great moment." "A true liberation." ""The Budapest ghetto was liberated..." ""on January 18, 1945."" ""Hungary was liberated..." ""on April 4, 1945."" "Sadly, my twin sister didn't come back from Auschwitz." "She became ill." "We were freed by the Russians." "They didn't give her much medicine... but they did make a film of her." "My mother was also ill." "She weighed 35 kilos." "I weighed 20." "She lay in bed." "So did I." "One morning my mother came to my room from her and Ruthika's room... and she said, "Judith, your little sister Ruthika is dead."" ""May 9, 1945." ""World War II comes to an end in Europe."" "The Holocaust cannot be explained." "It cannot be understood." "To talk about the Holocaust... is to speak of the incomprehensible." "It was not a historical event." "The Holocaust stands outside of history." "A perfectly irrational event." "If I recount my memories..." "I am not telling you about the Holocaust." "I am a survivor." "My memories include... my experiences since surviving it." "Only those who died could really tell us about the Holocaust... but they cannot tell us because they are dead." "Péter Feldmár:" "Lived 0 years, 0 months, 12 days." "Zsuzsa Grosz:" "Lived 9 years, 10 months, 1 day." "Péter Kartlesz:" "Lived 11 years..." "In 1937 or 1938, I was enrolled... in a private Jewish school." "It was a private school for educating... potential geniuses." "Every Jewish mother considered her child... to be a potential genius." "Sometimes my father would take me out for some fruit liqueur." "He liked sweets." "He'd buy the liqueur for me... but tell me not to say anything to my mother." "I remember my father." "He was a kind-hearted man." "There was this game that we would play." "We would walk on stilts... or play jump rope." "You know, things you do when you're a kid." "When I look back on it now... it seems like it was a very fun time." "I remember I was spending summer with my mother." "The window facing the park was open, and my mother was downstairs... and someone else was there, possibly my sister." "Stefa heard something on the radio... and she yelled through the window that there would be no war." "And I remember my mother dancing in the park." "WORK MAKES YOU FREE" "(I REMEMBER)" "The war broke out." "I stood in the window of our beautiful, light-filled apartment." "I remember... that I saw a vast number of soldiers in an impressive army." "I was looking down on them from above." "It was the advance... of the German infantry." "An order was issued to go to the ghetto:" "The Jewish district." "There is this house... with a hallway full of people." "We are sitting." "It was considered lucky to get a seat on the stairs." "I remember... the young people, the kids... wanted to make contact with each other." "I fell in love with a girl... who lived close by." "I remember that her name was Anka." "We sat on the balconies... before the ghetto was completely closed off." "There were kisses, you know, like kids do." "Ghetto or no ghetto." "Jew or non-Jew." "Love, feelings, desire, it's all the same." "They hanged everybody on Lokietko Street." "She was hanged, too." "They hanged my girlfriend." "Really." "A so-called "Aktion" began." "Everything was set up." "We escaped from the ghetto." "My aunt Marylka welcomed us as family." "That wasn't easy... because it was the time of the ghetto... the time of the so-called Aryan side... the time of danger, the time of armbands... when being a Jew or not being a Jew... meant life or death." "Marylka said, "Listen, we'll hide you under the bed."" "So I stayed under the bed." "I had a little hiding place there... living on the floor." "After a few days I realised... there was something going on in this room." "There were people there... who spoke German." "I saw uniforms..." "I saw machine guns and weapons." "Above my bed, above my head... something was going on... some rhythmic movements." "I was terrified." "For me, the German language was a death sentence." "And here, suddenly, it meant laughter, joy... vodka and other things." "I didn't know what was going on." "I didn't know what was going on." "I was in hiding for many months." "I was in hiding in my so-called aunt's house... which was the safest place in the world." "There was no better place than under the bed of a whore... for the Germans." "One day some officials came... and told her to go to some kind of a German sanitary institution... and it turned out that... someone reported that she had a venereal disease." "So we had to leave." "I was, you understand... a kind of Jewish monster." "Red hair, pale, skinny... with frightened eyes and a long nose." "This group of thugs... appeared around us." "They called out, "Jew boy!"" "You know what that means." "They brought a German soldier from somewhere... and said, "These are Jews." "These are Jews."" "A crowd in the afternoon." "Around us, this mob of spectators... aggressive spectators." "Spectators, you know." "Escape wasn't possible." ""Jews!" "We caught the Jews!" "We are giving you the Jews."" "So these officers said to take us to the camp." "It was a long journey." "People were dying." "Our group was getting smaller." "There was one soldier left... and us, and darkness." "My mother gave him her wedding band... and he said, "Run."" "We had nowhere to go." "We were walking through the streets." "There were no people." "Nobody." "And we got to the Korczak cemetery." "It was huge, magnificent." "We decided... that this was a good hiding place." "We found a few graves... where you could move the stone... and go inside." "I've never felt... as calm and safe as I did inside somebody else's grave." "Every day... was a victory of survival." "I remember we were taken "to the" Umschlagplatz... in wide rows, I think." "Maybe eight... or even 12 people in one row." "It took a very long time... because they would stop us in front of every building." "They would select some people from that building... they would line them up in rows... and then they would walk another 25 paces to the next gate... so they could do it all over again." "I remember some people crying and others being beaten." "Somebody was killed inside because he was sick and couldn't walk." "Jedrek was a small child, and my mother was carrying him." "All of it... was creating a terrifying tension." "At some point... somebody walked by, a Jewish policeman." "It turned out that he was a friend of my mother's." "He took us to a building that they didn't take people from." "We found this out later." "This house was like out of a movie." "There were lots and lots of people there." "An unusually large number of people." "We were stepping all over them." "You couldn't get through otherwise." "Then, I remember, my mother's brother found us." "He had already been to the "Umschlagplatz" looking for us." "He didn't know we had managed to escape." "He found us and took us back." "By then it was considered safe again." "The "Aktion" was over." "They wouldn't do a second "Aktion" there." "My mother didn't believe it." "She decided to escape from the ghetto." "We passed through Waha Street." "There was a German officer posted there... who had already been bribed." "As we walked down the street, two blackmailers approached us." "We must have looked terrible." "These blackmailers were actually very decent people." "I think my mother gave them 20 zlotys... not a large amount." "They offered to take us to a tram stop... but my mother refused." "Once you were in the ghetto... all you thought about was escaping." "You thought that you could live outside... but that wasn't the case." "The Aryan side was very dangerous." "Danger lurked everywhere... even more so than in the ghetto, as a matter of fact." "Of course, I'm not talking about during an "Aktion"... when they would take people out and kill them." "But the worst killers in the ghetto were hunger and disease." "On the Aryan side, it wasn't hunger or disease... but the people themselves." "Then, Stefa Szereszowska escaped from the ghetto with her family." "She didn't know what to do with her kids." "My mother took care of little Peter." "The fact that he had red hair made him stand out." "So he was taken from one place to the other on the Aryan side." "He moved from one hiding place to another." "By tram." "To keep him from being discovered... they put a "Hitler Youth" uniform on him... and he pretended to be a German." "Because Germans also had red hair." "Mrs. Klosowska didn't know that we were Jewish... so we stayed with her." "I constantly had to be careful because I liked to hum." "I had to be careful... because I caught myself humming "bad" songs." "I was humming Jewish songs, the ones from the ghetto." "Songs that kids would sing for a piece of bread." "People started saying, "There are Jews here."" "Mrs. Klosowska came upstairs to see my mother... and they started talking." "She told my mother what people had been saying... and my mother told her that we were Jews." "She was a very decent woman." "Nevertheless, she was scared." "So we had to leave." "I don't even quite remember where we moved." "It was a very chaotic time." "At that time, an uprising broke out in the ghetto." "I remember I saw... clouds of smoke." "It was Easter." "I had this kind of desire, as I see it today... to separate myself from Jewish people." "I remember..." "I repeated things I had heard." "I heard comments that the Jews were being burned... and that it was a good thing." "There was a woman there... and I repeated to her... that it was good the Jews were burning." "Her reaction... was not one of approval." "She scolded me." "They were in this... underground organisation." "One day this organisation intercepted some denunciations... written by two women... who lived across from us." "One was a fortune-teller, the other a seamstress." "They had written that Jews were living there, meaning us." "They intercepted denunciations about other people, too." "My mother didn't hesitate a moment." "We escaped immediately." "This organisation then killed... the fortune-teller and the seamstress." "But we were already gone." "I was taken to the Biernacki family, where my brother was staying." "He wasn't circumcised." "He was born when the ghetto was being formed." "While I was staying with the Biernacki family... two men came one day... and said they'd heard that Jewish kids were hiding there." "Mr. Biernacki took my brother, who was younger than me... and pulled his pants down to prove that we were not Jewish." "That was good enough... for about two days." "In the meantime, in Warsaw... my mother was arrested." "One day the "Kripo" came... which means the criminal police, and took my mother." "When this family in the Praga district... found out about the arrest... they were scared that they would beat her... and that she would tell where I was." "So they told me to leave the house... and walk around... which I did." "I experienced what all Jews were experiencing at that time." "I didn't know what to do with myself." "Suddenly, I found myself in front of a basilica." "I went inside, and some priests came in." "They were praying, yet they noticed me." "They were probably thrilled to see such a religious kid." "I sat there, I don't remember how long... but I sat there for a few hours, not knowing what to do... whether I should go or stay or go back home... or where I should go." "And I decided to go back to that family... because I had nowhere else to go." "And they took me... out of town." "I should stop here... because while I stayed with that family... nobody told me that my mother had been arrested." "But I knew that something was wrong." "I felt this tremendous weight... literally, a weight on my heart." "It was a time of intense religious feeling for me." "I was praying a lot back then... to God, to Jesus." "One day while I was praying... that weight was lifted off me." "Later I found out my mother was released from prison that same day." "I still carry these old issues around with me." "I can't seem to get rid of them." "Because what stayed with me after the war... was that element of hiding." "I am hiding all the time." "Even when I'm not really hiding, I'm still hiding somehow." "And sometimes, in totally unexpected situations... like in America, for example... when somebody asks me if I'm a Jew, I say no." "I had a special coat made for me with... what do you call it?" "With a custom-made lining... so you could put onions and potatoes and so on in there... and when I managed, when they didn't catch me..." "I would walk the streets like a barrel." "I had 20 extra pounds on me." "They would catch me, beat me, and throw the food away." "This was in the beginning." "They would throw whatever food I had into the street... the potatoes or the onions." "Sometimes I would come back home bleeding." "You can imagine what my mother would have felt seeing that." "But I enjoyed it." "I had a good time." "Yes, I had a good time." "I wasn't scared of anything." "At the Rozycki bazaar, I met a lot of Poles... and I took one guy as a partner... and we were smuggling food into the ghetto together." "He was 19 then and was already in the underground army." "Stasiek, yes." "And that's how I started to make good money." "I was somewhat of a hero to myself." "My family could live off me." "I was a hero to my family, I was going to the theatre..." "I ate chocolate and I had everything." "But on my way to the theatre..." "I saw tens or even thousands of people... lying in the streets." "I liked the theatre a lot." "I saw those tragedies, those dramas." "Excellent artists." "But..." "I don't remember." "But I went often." "I walked to the theatre over dead bodies." "Over dead bodies." "They were piled into those wagons." "It was terrible." "Everybody was so skinny." "And their eyes!" "Everybody was just staring." "But I got used to it." "No problem." "Not a problem." "A human being just wants to live." "Breathe and live." "For me, personally, nothing else was more important." "The day arrived when they came to our house." "Terrible." "It was terrible." "First thing in the morning." "My sister, my father, and I were still sleeping." "Suddenly we heard yelling and shooting." ""Everybody out!" "Everybody downstairs!"" "And they were shooting." "You couldn't even think straight." "My sister and I left the room we were in." "I wanted to get to the stairs." "We were on the third floor." "My mother grabbed my sister and me... and pulled us back into the room." "We had a credenza in the room... and she forced us inside... me and my sister." "This credenza had two shelves." "My sister was on top and I was below." "She locked the credenza with a key and left." "I never saw my mother again." "I was lying there quietly with my sister." "The Germans came and started kicking with their boots... but they didn't open the credenza." "They didn't open the credenza and after a while..." "Mostly, I remember the silence after the shooting." "There was this terrible silence and I heard the whistle of a train... from the "Umschlagplatz" on Stawki Street nearby." "I heard that and it was so terrible." "We couldn't stand up." "On Stawki Street there was this wall... and Lithuanians or Ukrainians... were shooting at the windows... just for fun." "I was afraid to stand up... so we just lay there... helpless, in fact, not knowing what to do with ourselves." "Silence." "After the terrible noise and shooting." "Suddenly I heard somebody... running down the stairs." "He was crying." "Crying terribly." "He cried so much that..." "If I can say it now, how I understand it now..." "I don't know how I took it back then... but I remember thinking that there was nothing to be scared of... because a German doesn't cry." "Only a Jew cries." "So if he cries, I don't have to be afraid:" "It's a Jew." "So I didn't hide... and my sister and I were just lying on the floor." "That man came into the room, and it was my father." "After a few days, once more..." "I am so stubborn and selfish..." "I told my father, "I have to escape." "I don't want to stay with you." ""I don't have a chance here." "I have to escape."" ""You are going to leave us?" "Yes, I want to escape."" "The next morning, while it was still dark... my father took me to Leszno Street, near Chlodna Street." "As I remember, my father gave me... a few Russian gold coins." "They were like little pigs, he said." ""You might need them."" "He gave me three of these "little pigs"... and I ran away." "And I think I told him, "Listen, I can't say goodbye..." ""because I'll cry and it will make my eyes red"... and that wasn't allowed." "So I ran away." "That was the last time I saw my father." "Through this whole time... all the time I was smuggling, I had this scout's hat with me." "Always." "In my coat pocket." "You know the kind." "I always had it in my pocket." "I kept it with me as an emblem or something like that." "When I put it on, I was a Pole." "That's how I got through the gate and out of the ghetto." "I knew that my first problem was blackmailers." "I had to watch out for blackmailers." "When they caught a Jew... they either took everything from him and left him alone... or they turned him over to the German police." "The Germans were giving awards for every little Jew... whether it was a girl or a boy." "A Jew had nowhere to go." "Polish people... most of them... were apathetic." "I mean, it wasn't their problem... this terrible risk of hiding a Jewish boy." "There was a small segment of Poles who were good... and a small segment of Poles who were bad and who said:" ""Thank God Hitler is cleansing Poland of the Jews."" "So the Jews had to run." "But I had a friend named Stasiek." "I had Stasiek." "I jumped on the tram and that was it." "And I'm going." "Where am I going?" "To the Praga district." "I don't know if Stasiek will welcome me." "Will he throw me out of his house?" "Back then it meant death for the whole Polish family... if they were caught hiding a Jewish boy." "I remember the moment I got there." "It was on the first floor." "It was so dark." "I knocked on the door, so scared, and not sure what would happen." "Would they take me in or not?" "Because of the terrible situation and the risk involved." "Stasiek saw me." "He was happy to see me." ""Jedrek, come inside."" "I walked in so scared." "His sister Niusia was there, and his mother." "They undressed me." "I had lice." "They cleaned me up and fed me." "Somehow..." "I managed to go to sleep." "And then, a tragedy." "I started to scream in the middle of the night." "And not in Polish... but in my family's tongue, my mother's tongue:" "Yiddish." "I had no control over it at all... and they got scared." "And Niusia, who was a beautiful Polish woman... around 20 years old, something like that... her friends were coming over to visit and have some vodka... and God forbid they should hear any Yiddish." "That was just unthinkable." "They had, I don't know what you call it... an empty space, a little niche... and they tried to put me in there and close the little door... and put rugs over it so they wouldn't hear my screams." "But that didn't help." "So Stasiek decided he would take me to his father." "His father was a janitor somewhere on Ogrodowa Street." "He told me his father was hiding Jews in the basement there." "Six Jews and a little girl." "So he was taking me there, and I could scream down there... among the other Jews." "He took me there on his bike." "He was risking his life, because I'm circumcised." "I could shout a thousand times that I was a Pole... but it wouldn't do any good." "He took me there to that basement... but I didn't like it there." "People were fighting with each other." "There was no air." "His father was a janitor there and he was providing food." "After a while, I don't know how long..." "I must have decided that I didn't want to stay there." "I asked the father to bring Stasiek over... that I wanted to talk to him." "So Stasiek came." "I must have said..." ""If you can't take me to your house..." ""I'm going back to the ghetto." ""I'm fed up with this living in fear every minute of the day."" "This German law says that a Jew doesn't have a right to live." "It was terrible living in hiding on the Aryan side... with Aryan papers." "It was terrible." "So Stasiek took me back home." "And then the tragedy happened." "A few days later... some Poles killed a German in the neighbourhood." "The Germans started searching houses, and they found those Jews." "They found them and must have beaten them up... and must have asked them who had been hiding them... because they pointed to Stasiek's father." "So they killed him along with the Jews." "Stasiek came home crying... that his father had been killed." "It was horrible." "I understood that under such circumstances..." "I could not stay at his house, but he didn't throw me out." "Despite all of this." "When he saw what was happening... he remembered that he had some family in Biala Rawska... so I told Stasiek to take me there after the mourning period." "It didn't take long." "Three, four, maybe five days... in the morning... the Germans came." "All Jews were to gather within one hour... at a certain bazaar." "At some point this Polish guy approached me... and said, "Hey, you Jew."" "He must have recognised me from the fear in my eyes and such." "After he said that..." "It was summer, and there was this field of rye there on the left... and I started to run right across this field." "I managed to escape." "This was in the morning." "I came to the train station... and it turned out that there was a train scheduled to go to Rogowo... but not until 2:00 p.m." "And that meant death for me." "What was I supposed to do now?" "I remember, I bought myself two apples... and then something terrible happened in the park." "I was entering the park." "There was this little river there, some water... and I saw two girls sitting on a bench." "I knew right away that they were Jewish... but I didn't speak to them." "I didn't want to have anything to do with Jews." "Nothing at all." "I wanted to be alone." "And I walked away... maybe 100 metres or so." "I don't remember." "And then something horrible happened." "You probably can't even comprehend it." "Some undercover guy approached them." "They started talking." "I heard yelling." "He shot them both on the spot." "And I'm sitting there, seeing all this." "Now, imagine." "Maybe it's not true, maybe it is... but I'm alive." "The undercover guy..." "There was a path where I was sitting... and he was coming toward me." "Later I tried to understand what I had done." "I had two options:" "Either run away... or go toward this guy." "I bit into my apple." "I had my hat on... and I walked toward that guy on the path... and he did not stop me." "When I passed him, I sank into total depression." ""I don't want to live anymore!" "I simply don't want to!"" "I went to the bathroom in my pants." "I had shit all over myself." ""This is the end." "I don't want to live anymore." "I can't take it."" "I got out of that park." "I saw a little house." "I knocked on the door of this house... and some lady opened it." "I said, "Listen, I am a Jew."" "Normally I wouldn't have said it." ""But please let me come in and stay here..." ""until 2:00 p.m." ""Then I'll leave, and I'll go to the train station..." ""and I'll go to Rogowo."" "And this woman says, "Come in, boy."" "She took those dirty clothes off me, because I had shit all over." "She took it all off and cleaned me up." "She gave me some milk and put me..." "I remember this vividly." "She put me to bed... and the sheets were white and clean for me." "For me, this was like something from another world." "I lay down and fell asleep." "Later this poor woman woke me up crying." "She said, "You know where I'm supposed to take you." ""But, unfortunately, you can't stay here." ""My husband and children will be home soon." "You have to..."" "She was crying. "You have to leave."" "So I left." "I went to Warsaw... and I went back to Stasiek's in the morning." "I had nowhere else to go." "There was still an "Aktion" going on, uninterrupted, every day... for 8,000 Jews:" "Adults, kids, old people." "I went to Stasiek's." "They welcomed me... but there was no way I could stay there." "With my screaming, you know, and everything else... it wasn't possible." "I decided I would go back to the ghetto." "Because of that constant fear, every minute, you know." "I knew I could live there another week or so... with the other Jews." "I would be free." "It wasn't long." "It's hard to believe." "I just can't believe it." "They caught me." "They caught me and took me to the "Umschlagplatz"... and put me in the transport car." "I am on my way to Treblinka." "Kids, old people." "It was horrifying." "At some point, I start to look for a way out." "Escape." "What happens?" "A chance." "It's very rare that something like that happens." "But it does happen." "I found a piece of wood... in the floor which was rotting... and we managed to make a hole... to the point where I could slip through it." "Unbelievable." "Sometimes I can't believe it myself." "I got... some kind of an adrenaline rush... and slipped my body halfway through it." "It was so terrible down there... the wind and the wheels... the steel, everything all together." "It scared me so much." "Part of my body was outside the car... so I pulled myself back in." "I have no courage to escape." "I am scared." "I am scared and I know that I am going to Treblinka." "Next to me there is this young lady, this young girl." "She wants to jump." ""How do I jump?"" "Nobody knows how." "You do it instinctively, in a second." "How do you jump from a train?" "The train is going 35 miles an hour, more or less." "I don't know exactly." "She says, "I want to jump." "I don't want to go." "I want to jump."" "She slipped through the floor... supporting herself with her hands... and two of us were holding her legs." "When the train slowed down on a curve... we shoved her legs forward, you know... with force like that... and she fell underneath the car." "She fell the wrong way." "She fell under the wheels." "We heard the scream, and that was it." "So I'm going to Treblinka and I can't make up my mind." "After a while I made a decision." "I wouldn't jump like her." "I'd jump the other way around." "On my back." "How do you jump on your back?" "You stick your legs out first, through the floor... you support yourself... on your elbows... and you keep your head up." "Two people are holding your head." "They wrap some rags around it." "And like we did with that girl's legs... they pushed my head through forcefully, very quickly." "I let my elbows through and fell... not on the rails themselves... but between the rails." "Nothing happened to me." "But I fainted." "I woke up between the rails." "I was lucky that another train wasn't coming." "I woke up, got up quickly and went into the woods." "I walked a few miles through the woods... and got to the train station... and went back to Warsaw." "And I returned to Stasiek's." "They put me to work... for the so-called "Sonderkommando"." "This was a special commando... where, after the gas, they burnt the bodies." "It was a tragedy when I saw it." "A real hell." "Like you used to tell your kids... that they will burn in hell when they do something bad." "It was a terrible shock for me... because I didn't know what to do." "I didn't know how to drag a corpse by the hands." "When the transport came... there were people in the cars... from France, from Holland... from all over Europe." "They could barely walk." "When they were on their way to the crematorium... there was a fence made out of tree branches... all the way from the gate where the forest started... to the crematorium building... so they wouldn't be able to see it right away, the smoke and fire..." "because we had transports at night sometimes." "When the transports came... they had to go on foot from the transport cars." "From the ramp... it was about half a mile... to the gas chambers." "A Red Cross ambulance was dispatched... upon the arrival of each transport... and they were carrying this gas, "Zyklon"." "It was called "Zyklon"." "Once the people got to the building... there was a big room for undressing... with benches and hangers." "People were undressing... believing that they were going to take a shower." "There were two chambers there." "Each was divided into two." "There was a sign there that said, "Entrance."" "And there were shower stalls." "At first glance, when they got there... they couldn't tell that it was, in fact, a gas chamber... because they saw shower stalls and things like that." "But when the chamber started to get crowded... these SS officers started to beat them with sticks... and blood was flowing." "They would hermetically seal the doors... like the ones they have in deep freezers... lined with felt in three places, and they would shut them tight." "Then, from the ambulance, they would..." "There was an opening on the left... one, two openings... so they would take a can of gas from the ambulance, open it... and throw it inside through that opening." "It took maybe 20 minutes... maybe up to half an hour." "Then the chambers were opened up... and you could see... that these people died standing up... because they were holding on to each other." "There were families there." "They were holding hands." "And then we had to take the bodies out." "Before the next transport came... the chambers had to be cleaned up, ventilated and set up again." "It was hard for these people to realise what was going on." "They were so tired and so mistreated." "These poor creatures could hardly walk." "Their legs could barely carry them." "I couldn't help them... couldn't give them any advice... that would help them escape from this hell." "There was no way." "We've discussed this already." "If I tell them, what will change?" "They'll gas them anyway." "The commando leaders, once in a while... would take those so-called old workers... and put them on the transport." "Then they would take on new workers... like me, for example." "And people rebelled." "The crematorium was set on fire... by four men." "They didn't know what to do with us... so they laid us down in a row, facedown, hands behind our backs... and shot every third one." "Quite a few friends were killed... and the rest were taken back." "So that was going on all the time... day and night, constantly." "Three shifts." "But those ovens were not up to the task... when the transports came from Europe... and there were lots and lots of people." "So they built two new crematoria... modern ones, modern crematoria... each with ten ovens... two chambers each." "The ovens were fed by a current of air... so the corpses would burn faster." "Modern chambers and undressing rooms were underground... and the gas was thrown in from above... and settled downward." "After people were gassed, there was an elevator... where they would put the dead bodies... and the elevator was brought up... and we would take the bodies from there." "We had metal gurneys which we would set down." "Every oven had a roller... with two guide poles... fitting the gurneys." "We would put the gurneys on the poles... two at the back... and two in the middle... and one had a kind of a fork... made out of reinforced steel." "It was spread out like this... and it was pushing it." "Well thought out." "A factory of death." "Unimaginable." "Unimaginable." "Never in my life did I think..." "I would ever survive something like that." "The thing was that you had to." "You had to." "I was only looking how to get myself out of that hell." "Barbed wire all over." "All you could see was the sky." "If you didn't see it, you can only imagine." "Like people burning in hell." "You just can't imagine it." "One cannot convey it at all." "Who am I, the lost child?" "Is mine the wall of the ghetto or is it the fertile soil?" "Small and graceful" "is my homeland Czechia" "Or is it the whole world?" "Poem by Hanus Hachenburg Killed in Auschwitz at the age of 14" "Ruth Kopeèková" "What we experienced cannot be described." "No film or testimony can capture that." "It has to be lived." "It's impossible to share." "The daily terror of the transport." "Who will be beaten?" "Me, or someone next to me?" "Who will be disliked?" "Who will be sent where?" "No one can truly explain that." "No matter how good the film, it cannot be captured." "I was born in Prague." "Jiøí Steiner" "My family was proud... to be Czech and from Prague." "Karel Borský" "My father, Adolf Beller, and my mother, Alice... had a store on the square in Frenstat." "I was also born there." "I have a twin brother, which is an important part of my story." "For the record, I am the younger one by 15 minutes." "This could be the reason behind my lifelong "twin complex."" "I can't be alone." "The Jewish village was so small... that we could almost see what everybody had for dinner." "Mrs. Rabin would holler from the yard to Mrs. Fridl:" ""What are you cooking?"" "We were not very religious... celebrating only major holidays." "I don't recall... following any traditions." "Doris Grozdanovièová" "We were orthodox Jews... which meant holidays were sacred." "Of course, we had two nights of temple... and I had to recite the prayers." "Pavel Eckstein" "All traditions were observed." "Dr. Karol Bernath" "Every week, we went to temple." "We had a nanny." "She spoke German to us, so we grew up bilingual." "That came in handy many times in my life." "I was brought up... speaking both Czech and German." "Both languages were spoken in our house." "Every Monday morning, my father, with his driver Macourek... went on the road." "He went... to all the textile shop owners... along the border." "My father would walk into a store... with a huge bag full of textile samples." "Well, then the selling began." "And every evening, he would call my mother with the order:" ""Mr. Jejteles..." ""three "etapeens", four "gorgets"."" "Munich Agreement 1938" "I got my information from my uncle." "He knew well ahead of time..." "Hanuš Münz ...how aggressive the Nazis were going to be." "Karlovy Vary 1938" "It started on the eve... of September 13." "That night, all the Jewish stores were broken into and burned." "Czech and Jewish..." "And the synagogue was burned." "Mynek snuck my sister and me... into the train station... and we went... to our uncle in Pribram." "Brigita Bakovská" "Everything was nice... until the Germans came in 1939." "Everything changed after that." "Prague 1939" "My father got up in the morning and looked out the window." "There were Germans downstairs, but he didn't know that." "Hana Sušická" "They pointed a gun at him and said, "Close the window."" "He turned around and said, "My God, the Germans are here."" "Viktor Laš" "The way I found out that I was a Jew... was by getting a Jewish-star." "Then the discrimination against us began." "The Nuremberg Laws were imposed." "We had to turn in radios, silver... and all kinds of other things." "This was a way to harass us." "I was supposed to wear a Star of David... but I didn't give in to the Germans." "I didn't wear it." "My father enlisted me into a children's transport... without my knowledge." "When I realised what was going on..." "I jumped out of the train and into his arms." "He couldn't get rid of me." "Our parents wanted us to leave... but I was very happy that I didn't." "Can you turn it off?" "Eva Hrušínská" "I'd run through the Jewish village... to the wooden gate of the synagogue... where the lists were." "With my heart pounding in my throat and full of fear..." "I would look to find out who was on it." "I remember doing a courageous thing." "We went to the movies." "We took off our stars and went in." "I was saying goodbye to my mother." ""It won't be long." "I'll be back soon."" "I said goodbye and left." "I had a secret love... and she was the only one I shared my plan with." "I would escape the first chance I got." "Znamenackova went with me to the Veletrzni Palace." "I recall having a wristwatch." "I took it off at the last minute... and gave it to her:" ""Here, take it to remember me by."" "That watch was the only thing I got back after the war." "Alena Hájková" "Arnost Neuman, Heda Tyrkova, Berger, Jany, and Kruh... they all agreed not to board the transport." "It would have been easy to run away, but there was nowhere to hide." "In addition, we were told that by staying..." "Miroslav Kárný ...our parents were protected from the transport." "It was awful because we couldn't say goodbye." "The German soldier had to literally rip us apart... me and my mother." "There was one more mother... who was parting with her little boy." "She was kissing his hands, telling him:" ""I'm asking God that your hands will always provide for you..." ""that you won't go astray in this world..." ""and that you will become a decent person."" "She was standing next to us." "I never saw the little boy again." "I will always remember that moment for the rest of my life." "Terezin" "We were put into the Sudeten army barracks." "They were built with concrete." "Everything was cold." "Huge halls..." "It was shocking to lose my freedom." "I suddenly realised that." "There were many worries, of course." "Worry number one: transport." "Worry number two: diseases." "And danger number one:" "lice, mites, and fleas." "I arrived there at the age of 18." "An age when young people start to live and think about life." "But I was placed in this environment." "When we went to Terezin... we invented codes for our letters." "We wrote messages in German." "That was how we kept our families informed." "One day, they lined us up... and announced that those sending illegal letters... would be severely punished... but that those who came forward would not be harmed." "Several people confessed." "They were executed." "For example, there was one boy... the youngest of them all." "He must have been 16 or 17." "He was just writing to his mother not to worry... that he was doing fine." "I was working in Terezin with children." "Eliška Jermáøová" "None of the girls... who were there with me survived." "At first, I was taking care of geese... brought from Lidice." "Then I was promoted to be a shepherd." "This photograph is from that time... with my own little flock of sheep." "I had a traditional wedding." "I can't even describe it well." "I was in such a state." "My parents were already dressed for the transport... and just after the wedding ceremony, they left." "I never heard from my parents again." "One day, my husband was working in the Vohousice train station... when a transport from Berlin was announced." "It was just a single car... with old people from a home for the aged." "Some had died on the train." "When they cleaned out the car... there was a bundle in a blanket." "It was a child, still alive." "My husband took the child." "It was naked... covered only in a grey military blanket full of mites." "My mother died soon after I was born." "Her sister Hajtmanova took me in." "She lived in Berlin... in a mixed marriage." "Judis Baer-Urbanová" "She kept me for two years." "But then most likely she got scared, or..." "I don't know why... but she put me... in a home for the elderly, among old people." "It was a Jewish home for the aged... used for deportation to Terezin and other camps." "She put me there." "I didn't know who she was." "She had a string around her neck with a little paper tag... stating her name and date of birth." ""Judis Baer, born October 2, 1940."" "I owe her my life." "We took care of her." "As long as we could make her life a little better." "Even though we were in Terezin, threatened by deportation..." "I remember this... as the most idyllic part of my life." "Of what use is the beauty of science?" "Of what use is the beauty of pretty girls?" "Of what use is a world without justice?" "Of what use is a sun when there is no day" "Of what use is a God?" "Only to punish?" "Or to improve mankind?" "Or are we beasts suffering from our own feelings" "Destined to perish?" "I remember once we received a package." "It was full of Christmas cookies." "My brother and I sat down with it, and we said, "Let's each take one." ""Well, one more." "Well, one more." "Well..."" "And so it went on until the box was empty." "In order to keep the faith... and the resistance in the camp... it was necessary to have a cultural life... and to try and maintain human dignity." "Faith and spirit... played an irreplaceable role." "The SS tried to break them both." "One night we heard noise out on the stairs... and they burst in." "They went through everything." "I didn't know what they were after." "But they arrested me." "When I arrived at their headquarters..." "I had to take my clothes off." "One of the men picked me up and sat me on the stove naked." ""Tell us what you know." "Tell us everything."" "I kept saying, "I don't know!" I only spoke broken German then." ""You know what we want from you."" "The stove wasn't red-hot... but my skin was completely blistered." "I still bear the scars today." "It was horrifying when Terezin was overcrowded." "The original 7,000 inhabitants... eventually swelled to 57,000." "Everything crumbled, all life functions of the city." "Four thousand people were dying each month." "When I was tending the sheep..." "I saw mass graves for the first time in my life." "It was terrifying." "They would throw someone out of a sheet and that was it." "Instead of going to the construction site... we stayed in the square." "A truck came... and 30 of us were loaded in." "There was a large barrel of powdered lime in the truck." "The smell hit us immediately." "The truck took us away." "We were very tense." "Something was happening." "We smelled fire." "Over a hill, we saw a burning village." "Lidice" "It was Lidice." "That's when I really felt the fear." "We saw a field of corpses." "Until then, I hadn't seen a corpse." "You can imagine the shock." "They brought us into the garden." "There were many SS soldiers." "They were drunk." "Five minutes later, Seidl came and told us:" ""Dig a grave here!"" "Anyone who couldn't do it... was whipped and beaten." "Whoever couldn't keep up was beaten like a dog." "They ordered us to strip all the dead people... empty their pockets... and turn everything in." "The dead people must have been told they were going somewhere... because everybody had a little bit of food on them." "Seidl said that we could eat it... but we couldn't bring ourselves to do it." "Whether you were hungry or not... fear and the incredible tension... wouldn't let you swallow a bite... of food from people who had died so tragically." "And as always..." "I had the luck... of standing... in the corner of the grave... and with my hands... passing each corpse on to the next person." "Can you imagine such atrocities... for an 18-year-old boy?" "They were between 15 and 80 years old." "There were children." "Fifteen-year-old boys." "Younger boys than me." "There was a priest, a grandfather... a local policeman." "This mentally and physically horrible work... took some 36 hours... with maybe only two half-hour breaks." "Then they drove us back to Terezin." "The ghetto was like a sponge." "They would herd in people in large numbers from surrounding ghettos... to be transported to the death camps." "Hanuš Arendt" "When the number of people decreased... they brought in more from other ghettos." "In January 1943, my wife was listed for transport to Auschwitz... where almost nobody survived." "We tried to keep her off the transport... by having her "attempt" suicide." "That was risky... because even with an injury... they might still put her on the train." "To go in an unfit condition... would be certain death." "I walked all the way to the SS soldiers... and they said, "What do you want?"" "I said, "I want to be put with my daddy on the transport."" "They said, "No."" "I said, "I will be alone here."" "And they said, "It's nice to be alone in Terezin."" "The luggage was piled up... against the walls, and in the centre... there was one bucket with water... and another one for urinating." "Soon, the bucket started to overflow." "We were packed in like sardines." "I just remember holding onto my father by his trousers." "Words cannot describe the shock a person went through." "Absolutely horrible." "When we arrived at the unloading ramp..." "Auschwitz" " Birkenau" " Poland the "kapo" overseer, also a prisoner, yelled:" ""Fast!" "Out!" "Leave everything on the train."" ""Out!" "Out!" "Leave everything!"" "We left everything lying there, and they lined us up." "We went before Dr. Mengele." "I was still in good spirits as I walked with Bohous Bondy." "I said, "Bohous, I'll say I'm sick."" "He said, "Idiot!" "I should smack you."" "At that point, I realised... that Bohous knew what was going on in Auschwitz." "It was a doll... a teddy bear." "They tore it out of my hand." "We had to get out." "A woman picked up her child and held it close." "An SS soldier noticed her." "He ripped the child out of her hands, picked it up by its legs... and smashed its little head against the train wheels." "Another woman in front of me was limping." "They took her walking stick... and because she couldn't keep up... a Nazi came and killed her with a single shot to the head." "I saw that and cannot forget it." "My first impression after getting off the train... was the red sky." "The camp was surrounded by barbed wire." "Behind the wire, the prisoners were running out... begging us to throw them some food if we had any." "They were being shot at by the guards." "They were shooting people begging for food." "We saw the apocalypse... something absolutely beyond comprehension." "Behind the wires, prisoners were jumping up and down... in striped clothing... while other prisoners yelled commands at them:" ""Up, down, up down!"" "We couldn't comprehend what was happening." "It is something the human mind fails to understand or believe... even after experiencing it." "One Polish prisoner said:" ""I will not shave you unless you give me your shoes. "" "All around were SS soldiers walking with their whips." "The Polish prisoner insisted... and so the new prisoner gave away his shoes... and got some broken clogs or something like that in return." "We had to take off the clothes we were wearing... and I was given a nice woollen sweater... and a long skirt." "The next day, I found that it was full of lice." "I couldn't get rid of them." "The lice carried encephalitis, and many people died from that." "I was given military riding pants... three times my size... a shirt without a back with only a collar and a front... and a jacket with sleeves I had to roll up four times... so I could wear it." "We looked like fools." "I had a dress coat with its tails cut off... a beautiful French silk shirt... that ended halfway down my back... and underwear and socks... that were made... out of cut-up Jewish prayer shawls." "Walking around wearing this... we could hardly recognise our closest friends." ""1-7-0-8-5-7."" "Jan Salus" ""7-3-6-2-8."" "I'll remember that in my grave." "Barracks in Auschwitz were truly barracks... with only a roof... and a chimney which was never used for heating." "Inside, there were three-storey bunk beds all around." "There you lay without a blanket or mattress, just on the boards." "People were lying head to toe... so they could fit more of us in." "When one person tried to turn, everyone else had to turn as well." "Otherwise it was impossible." "There wasn't any space." "Today it seems unbelievable... that I survived such unimaginable conditions." "There were long latrines... women on one side, men on the other... only divided by some kind of net." "That is where I used to meet my father... but he was already very weak." "We used the latrine only when we were told." "It was just a board over a hole." "A small piece of bread was handed out there... and it had to be eaten in the latrine." "To come out with the bread wasn't allowed." "I carried a spoon... in one of my buttonholes." "It was an aluminium spoon... with the handle sharpened like a knife... so I was always ready to eat... or cut something." "Everything that came in was thrown into a big pot, cooked... and that was called "soup."" "There were pieces of potato or some vegetables... but there were also threads, needles, and bandages in it." "Everything that came in was thrown in together." "They brought it in a sink... chamber pot, or some other container." "There were three of us, so one would have a sip and pass it on." "We didn't have anything to eat it with... so we would fish out a piece of turnip or beet... or we drank it out of the pot." "The food was so sparse and so bad that if you didn't have to eat... it was better not to eat at all." ""We want bricklayers." "I'll go!"" "It meant extra soup." "That was the currency in Auschwitz." "My legs were very swollen." "Gerty Kersten was standing next to me." "She was saying, "Come on." "Let's try one more time."" "I will walk with my legs in between yours... and we'll fool him." "I said, "That won't work."" ""Come on," she said, and dragged me." "It worked, and she saved my life." "Fredy Hirsch was able to start... a children's block in the family camp." "Fredy Hirsch" "He didn't worry about himself." "He only wanted to improve the children's lives." "Once a 4-year-old asked me:" ""When you go to the gas chamber, will I go, too?" ""And my mummy, too?"" "Fredy Hirsch was told if he leads his children into the gas chamber... they will spare his life." "Fredy was begging... the camp commandant... to exclude his children." "They didn't, of course." "The SS officer of the family camp... called out about 40 numbers... including my brother's and mine... and we went back to the family camp." "From there they took us to different barracks and gave us sedatives." "There was some hope in the air... as people began to think they would get out." "Nobody was allowed out... and in the morning the camp was empty... except for the smoking chimneys." "We asked, "Where are our parents?" "They went to board the transport."" "Nobody told us that at night... they had forced everyone out of the barracks by cruelly beating them..." "loaded them into trucks... and drove them to the gas chambers." "In a single night in crematorium number four... they gassed 3, 792 men, women, and children." "It's a historical fact that in the gas chamber... the people from our transport sang the national anthem." "June 14, 1944... is the official date of liquidation... in the gas chamber... of my mother and father." "People were very tense... because no matter where you were... you could see the smoke coming out of the crematorium." "When the smokestacks were smoking... you felt like a cannibal... because you breathed in the somewhat sweet smell of the burned bodies." "I can remember that smell to this day." "The sweetish stench was spreading throughout the camp." "And I thought to myself... that if Jews are God's chosen people... then there is no God." "By chance, as my group was unloaded..." "I caught a glimpse of my parents and sister also getting off the train." "Before my very eyes they went to the gas chamber." "Dasha quickly pulled my sister away... or she would have gone in as well... because my mother wouldn't leave my blind father." "She didn't tell me anything." "Her last words were:" ""Promise me that you will never leave your brother Otto."" "Those were her last words." "After that she didn't say anything." "Saying goodbye was like:" ""Take care of yourself." "Don't catch a cold."" "As if I were going skiing... or to a summer camp." "Both of us knew it was our last goodbye." "My mother's calmness..." "She worried about me." "She had saved me a little piece of bread." ""Take it." "Take it."" "Professor Epstein from Prague was trying... to get as much medicine as possible." "He recruited prisoners "from" Kommando Kanada... who collected valuables from the transports for storage." "They collected medicine... from the suitcases left on the trains." "The only way to bribe these people was with gold." "So we organised a system... that when someone died in the hospital and had gold teeth... the local dentist would melt it into nuggets in his little oven... and we'd use them to bribe people "working in the" Kanada "warehouse."" "Dr. Josef Mengele experimented... on twins, on midgets... and on any other "abnormal" humans." "This meant constant examinations for us." "Finally he asked us what we wished for." "We said we would very much like to see our parents." "And he said, "You will see them soon."" "That it would be in the afterlife, he didn't mention." "We were standing outside the gas chamber, believing this was the end." "At the last minute some command must have come in... and they turned us around and we walked the other way... into some barracks that had showers in them." "There they showered us, warmed us up, gave us some rags to wear... and we got on the train." "We went to a shower room." "Water came out, not gas, and they gave us burlap bags." "Nothing but burlap bags... with a hole at the top." "No other clothes, just that." "And like that they forced us into trains." "The SS came and said:" ""There's a transport ready." "Who wants to go?"" "I didn't go because I was very sick." "When they loaded us up, we were all thinking... maybe we will get out of Auschwitz and we will live." "When we were leaving..." "Jan Jecha ...they set the camp on fire." "They set fire to the barracks where the sick people were." "At the end of our marching group... there was a horse-drawn wagon." "People who weren't able to walk anymore went to sit on it." "When the wagon was full, they pulled over into the woods... and then we heard shots." "A while later, the wagon came back empty." "As the days went by, the march lasted about 10 days... more and more people were dying." "Jiøí Pavel" "They shot people right in front of us." "They put 110 of us into each car." "There were so many of us that we couldn't even sit down." "Each of us had one bowl, which we used as a urinal... and possibly to collect some rainwater." "There wasn't anything else." "The whole time, we weren't given any food or drink." "Suddenly there was an air raid." "They started bombing us, and machine guns went off." "I was filled with energy." "I threw myself out of the open car... and let myself fall onto the train tracks." "When the raid was over... the three aeroplanes turned around four or five times." "We ran out into the woods." "We had to get off the train... if we still had the strength... and bury those from the other trains... most likely Polish men... who had died during transport." "We had to bury them in the woods, under the birch trees... without any shovels." "We just covered them with leaves." "Of the 110 people in each car... thirty or forty were dead at the end of the four-day journey." "There were so many of us that you could say that we were in layers." "I remember a bare foot... constantly pushing me in the face." "I kept trying to push that foot away... but it always came back." "Then I saw that this foot belonged... to a person who was already dead." "We rode part of the way and then we walked... until we came to Belsen." "That was horrible." "I was crawling on my hands and knees." "All I saw... were dead bodies all around." "Here and there a person was still alive." "On one side of the entrance were containers with food... on the other, there were corpses piled high." "We were on the very edge, between life and death." "It was very bad." "When you put your ear to the ground, you could hear the front lines." "The ground was really rumbling." "Then we would hear a roar." "We were thinking, "Hopefully, we'll live."" "We heard shooting from a distance." "The front was closing in." "We were given a piece of bread... and they told us to march on." "Those that stayed... were probably killed and buried... like the ones who couldn't walk any farther." "We walked for 20 kilometres." "It was February." "We were in no-man's-land... with firing above our heads from both directions." "We came onto a frozen field." "On the other side were a road and a grove." "I was slowly sneaking toward the grove." "Just about when I reached the road in the dark... an SS soldier appeared in front of me." "I thought, "Now he will shoot me."" "Suddenly, someone at the camp shrieked." "The soldier turned around... and I quickly ran into the grove." "Mauthausen" "Mauthausen was built like a fortress... out of large stone blocks." "The headquarters as well as the kitchen and square... were built with stone from the local quarry... where the infamous stairs were." "When the prisoners couldn't walk anymore... the Nazis threw them down 30 metres into the quarry." "Then they carried them in wagons to the crematorium." "Suddenly I thought, "Where am I?"" "I poked my head out." "The Germans were probably there." "Bullets started flying over my head... so I retreated into the grove." "In Mauthausen was a gas chamber." "We were to be sent there." "But when we arrived on April 29... the International Red Cross was already there." "The gas chamber wasn't operating, and the SS soldiers were disarmed." "I saw a light in the distance... so I followed the light." "It was a farm with cows and a barn." "No one was around and the farmhouse was locked." "I sat on a stool in the barn." "After a while a farmer woman, about 45 years old, came... and talked to me for a while." "She asked me if I wanted anything." "She took me into the kitchen and for the first time in three years..." "I saw a real house." ""I know you're Jews." ""Over there, in the woods, you'll find everything you want. "" "There the German soldiers undressed, changed into civilian clothes... and left everything behind." "It was unbelievable... everything from bacon to clean underwear." "We changed into clean clothes." "She told me, "I have a lot of milk here." ""I'll go to the woman in the next house to make butter out of it."" "Halfway there the Russian rockets started flying." "She left the buckets of milk and ran to her friend... and I stayed in the farmhouse alone." "The Russians were firing rockets... and the Germans were firing rockets back." "Everything was destroyed except the room I was in." "In the morning the door opened, and in came two Russian officers." "Professional thieves and murderers... served as wardens in the camp." "It was ironic that they called him "Daddy Boublik."" "He was a well-built, strong man from Ostrava... and I took many beatings from him." "When the liberation started... the prisoners killed him and many of the others." "We were afraid they would escape... so as a quick way of bringing them to justice... we caught about 20 of these people... and we drowned them in the water reservoir." "We weren't able to cross the front lines... because either the Americans were on the offensive, or the Germans." "So we turned back inland... and walked to Tlucna by Plzen." "They were having a feast, so they invited us." "Standing in the hallway, I felt I was being drawn toward the door." "I thought, "At least open the door a crack."" "So I did." "And there he was, the first Russian soldier standing right there." "We all ran out, the big guys picked the first soldier up... and they carried him through the streets of the camp." "In February, the Russian journalists came... and shot those famous documentaries that still move us." "Fifty years after the war they're still so real." "The next morning, dressed in German uniforms... we went to look for the military government." "We met an American soldier with a rifle... and he told us in German, "This way!"" "So we went "this way," and we came to a prisoner-of-war camp... for Germans captured by Americans." "An American soldier came to me and asked me if I knew how to pray." "I said in German, "Yes."" "And then he started the Jewish prayer in Hebrew." "Luckily, during the year I went to temple..." "I had learned this prayer." "So I continued in Hebrew." "He clapped his hands and said, "It is okay." "He's a Jew."" "We came to an SS canteen." "We ate everything they had, mixing it all." "Somewhere in my mind I knew:" ""You're killing yourself."" "Almost everybody was shouting "Water, water, please some water."" "But they threw us canned pork meat... and those who foolishly ate it got sick." "The latrines were indescribable." "They would overflow." "Faeces lined the entire walkway and people walked in it... because everybody had dysentery... if not typhus." "One of the people I owe my life to is a German military doctor... who during my illness, sat next to my bed day and night... and the only thing he could do... was give me injections to strengthen my heart." "First it was paratyphoid and in Belsen it was spotted typhus." "The girls brought an English doctor to me." "He was so shocked from all that he'd seen... that he told me it was the flu and that it was all right." "So the girls took care of me and I made it through." "The way I survived such horrible circumstances was by... harbouring an utterly insane hatred... and a desire for vengeance." "I was imagining I would survive... and one day I would get into some little German town... and when I would see a mother with a baby in her stroller..." "I would go to her, take the child by its legs... and smash the child's head on the sidewalk." "I don't remember anything more." "Only that I woke up in some fancy villa... completely alone, in a room." "I know that a doctor came in..." "looked at me and said, "I will adopt you."" "And I screamed at him at Czech:" ""Bullshit, if the war is over, I'm going home."" "When the diarrhoea cramps began..." "I peacefully defecated in the bed." "I yelled at the German woman, "Mrs. Schmidt, I shit in my bed!"" "And she came... picked up the dirty sheets and clothes... washed my Jewish bottom, oiled it nicely and powdered it." "I rolled another cigarette... lit it up, smoked it in bed... and waited almost impatiently for the next cramp... so I could scream again, "Mrs. Schmidt, I shit in my bed!"" "I walked all the way to Prague to Mrs. Roubickova's house." "I rang her doorbell around 6:00 a.m." ""I am Vika," I said." "As I said it, she passed out." "When I woke her up... she made me take my clothes off... and she immediately burned them... then she put me in the bathtub, washed me... and put me in bed." "The revolution started." "The news came that Russian tanks were approaching Prague... bringing the first groups of people with them." "Imagine, it was Dasha with Irena and my sister." "Those three girls came... and found me in bed." "When I walked on the street looking ill... a man stopped me, and asked:" ""Are you Mrs. Lainerova?"" "He didn't recognise me." "I weighed only 75 pounds." "When I said yes, he asked me, "And where is the little girl?"" ""Why are you talking about the child?" I said." ""You know all the children were gassed."" "He said, "No, she wasn't gassed." "She stayed in Terezin." ""I was in Terezin until the end, and she was there."" "My Aryan aunt lied to me, and said there was nothing for me there." "The people who had been hiding our things... said that I had been away too long." "But there are worse things in life." "In order to receive any money, I had to have a guardian." "He shamelessly stole from me... forged my signature... and kept half of my orphan pension... which then was 900 crowns." "Judith was living in Olesovice... where they put orphans rescued from Terezin." "She was sleeping when we arrived." "She recognised me right away." "We shouldn't have eaten all of that food." "I went to the hospital with typhus." "There, after four or five days of fever, they wrote me off... and moved me into the basement... where the dead and dying were." "And I told myself instinctively:" ""You have to live through this."" "Somehow I collected myself." "The beds were on the floor." "I picked up something." "I started to yell... and broke the glass door." "The doctor said, "This man can make it."" "And they put me back in the room... and I recovered." "A group of doctors got together... in their white robes... about eight of them." "They looked at me, shrugged their shoulders, and said to themselves:" ""This is because of Bergen-Belsen." "We can't help her."" "And they left." "So I thought to myself, "What are you thinking, you smart-asses?" ""I made it through all of this only to die at home?" ""Not a chance!"" "The loneliness is bad." "My whole life, I had nobody to go to." "I felt no hatred anymore." "I got rid of it through my diarrhoea." "To live your life decently." "Be kind to others." "I love children very much... and hope that no children... ever have to go through... what we had to go through." "Whether it is God's will, or whether it's some kind of destiny... it is what I owe my life to... because it is made up of one coincidence after another."