Behind every name a story

Holocaust

1. Behind every name a story from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Survivors and Victims. Read the stories at https://www.ushmm.org/

2. Jakob Blankitny Jacob’s story It was winter and the cold burned us; all the camp was flooded and muddy. They took our winter clothes and in exchange gave us light clothes that looked like striped pajamas...

3. Rosa Marie Burger My Life in Germany I saw girls weeping—my friends, girls I had grown up with. Their bundles were placed in the last car and the people were herded onto the train. We lived not far from Dachau.

4. Irene (Blász) Csillag IRENE’S STORY I was born in 1925 in Satu Mare, which was in Romania at that time but in 1940 became part of Hungary. We were four in our family: my mother, father, and one sister, Olga, who also survived and is still living.

5. Miriam (Rot) Eshel The story of the picture The man photographed us and after a few days he brought the picture … My mother said to us: “We will bury the picture.”

6. Haya Friedman MARIUS Marius was the only “humane” being I met during the terrible days of deportation. On a snowy November day in 1944 at Auschwitz ( I was 19 years old), they called us together and crammed us again into railcars, 80 girls in a railcar that was meant for eight horses and sent us away—we didn’t know where, of course.

7. Manya Friedman THE TRANSITION I had little confidence when I started. My hands were so shaky I could barely read my own writing. As I started writing, I was given confidence, support, and encouragement. If I can do this, then you can too.

8. Mara Ginic THE ESCAPE My throat was parched, the wind blew my hair in my face and obstructed my vision. My knees buckled and the glacier never seemed to end.

9. Andrew Glass Illegal Immigration: A Personal History Finding a way to remain in the United States as an illegal alien proved to be one heck of a sweet bargain.

10. Sima Gleichgevicht-Wasser TWO FRIENDS: SIMA AND POLA, 1939–1945 Sima could easily pass as a non-Jewish Pole because she had a light complexion and was blonde, but to be able to live as a Pole, she needed a Kennkarte (identification card), and to get a Kennkarte she needed a Polish birth certificate

11. Marian Kalwary I Remember Everything In normal circumstances, time goes fast, but in the ghetto, it dragged exceedingly long. Every day passed very slowly, as if to spite us.

12. Pieter (Peter) Kohnstam Anne Frank came to say good-bye to us In the morning of July 6, 1942, Anne Frank came to say good-bye to us . The Franks were about to go into hiding in their secret annex. It was a sad and difficult parting for everyone.

13. Joseph Moses Lang Joseph Moses Lang Remembers It began in May 1944 when my family and I were told to pack whatever we could carry and we were placed, along with many others, in an old factory building in Targu Muresh, Romania.

14. Ester Lupyan The Sonderghetto within the Minsk Ghetto In the memories of those who lived through the occupation, the recollection of the existence and survival in the ghetto is still frightening. I will only say that out of our family, my mother and I were the only ones to survive.

15. Heinz Raphael A Chronicle of growing up in the Third Reich and of the escape to Sweden The Gestapo visited us in the morning. They knew my father from his visits as Seelsorger (minister) to the Jews in the local prison.

16. Barbara Rebhun Barbara's story: What's my name? who am I? who were my parents? I was found in either an empty train wagon, or close to the rail station, by a Red Cross attendant in the little town of Milanówek, about 20 kilometers from Warsaw.

17. Erna Rubin War Memories from Czernowitz and Transnistria After three weeks in the ghetto of Czernowitz, we were sent to the camps in Transnistria for three terrible years of poverty, hunger, typhus, and fear for the future. We had hope in our hearts and only that kept us alive.

18. Irene Safran Deportation to Auschwitz My journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau began on May 19, 1944, when I boarded the train with my parents, three younger sisters, and two brothers.

19. Simon Family One Family’s Holocaust Story While in Westerbork, Selma Simon wrote to her daughters, Ruth and Hilda in England. The last letter was written four or five days before they were deported to Poland in which, sadly, Selma said, “We hope to see you soon.”

20. Agnes Gertrude Wohl Agnes’s Story My name is Agnes Gertrude Wohl (maiden name Mendelovits), born in Budapest, Hungary, on March 3, 1933.