“Each day that we survivors live on is our victory over hate.”

– Allan Hall, 88, lives in Miami Beach, Florida USA

“I was born in Krakow, Poland in 1935. At the start of the war, in September 1939, my father insisted that we flee to the Soviet side, while my mother thought otherwise. She had faith in their German friends and never imagined that anything bad could happen. We eventually packed up and fled to Lviv. We stayed there, hidden, until November 1941, when we were provided with documentation under a fake Christian identity. A doctor helped my parents forge documents that served as a proof that an illness forced us to move to Krakow with other patients.

The Russians liberated Krakow on January 19, 1945 and we immigrated to the USA in late 1946.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in America. In my opinion, anti-Semitism belongs to the weak, the defeatists. Each day that we survivors still live on is our victory over their hatred. That’s how I live my days, until they too, run out! Am Yisrael Chai!”

Allan participated in the 2023 March of the Living. As an educator on the trip, he shared his story with the students as part of the International March of the Living mission to keep Holocaust memory alive.

Photos: Ziv Koren
Text: Iris Lifshitz Kliger