This page contains the names of survivors who have been provided by local delegation to the IMOL office. We apologize for any inadvertent omissions. Please email Ariana Tipograph at ariana@motlmail.org with any names of survivors that might be missing, and any other corrections.
• ASHER AUD • Zduńska Wola, Poland
• MAUD DAHME • Amersfoort, Holland
• ABE FOXMAN • Baranavichy, Belarus
• NOAH KLIEGER z’l • Strasbourg, France
• RABBI ISRAEL MEIR LAU • Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland
• FRANK LOWY • Fiľakovo, Slovakia
• BRANKO LUSTIG • Osijek, Croatia
• LOLA KLINE • Nowogrodek, Poland
• EDWARD MOSBERG • Krakow, Poland
• SIGMUND ROLAT • Częstochowa, Poland
• LEON SCHWARZBAUM • Germany
• ELIE WIESEL z’l • Sighetu Marmației, Romania
• FELIX ZANDMAN z’l • Grodno, Belarus
• MOISÉS BOROWICZ • Sokoly, Poland
• TAUBE CYMROT • Chmielnik, Poland
• LEON BELL z’l • Krakow, Poland
• Martin Biggs z’l • Krakow, Poland
• ESTERA BRAITBERG • Lodz, Poland
• HENRY BUCH • Warsaw Ghetto, Poland
• JOHN CHASKIEL • Wielun, Poland
• KUBA ENOCH • Krakow, Poland
• SABA FENIGER z’l
• GEORGE GINZBURG • Danzig, Germany
• ABE GOLDBERG • Lodz, Poland
• PAUL GRINWALD • Paris, France
• JOHN GRUSCHKA • Usti N/L, Czechoslovakia
• RICHARD HABER • Krakow, Poland
• ALICE HALASZ • Hungary
• ROSA JANKIE • Krynki, Poland
• MIMI JOSEF
• JUDY KOLT • Lodz, Poland
• HENRI KORN • Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Germany
• CELIA LEDERMAN • Warsaw, Poland
• NATE LEIPCIGER • Chorzow, Poland
• LIBA LINDEN • Chelm, Poland
• TUWIA (TUVIA) LIPSON z’l • Lodz, Poland
• JACK MEISTER • Kielce, Poland
• HENRYK NEUFELD • Krakow, Poland
• DAVID PRINCE • Lodz, Poland
• RITA ROSS • Warsaw, Poland
• EVA SLONIM • Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
• VIVIANNE SPIEGEL • Paris, France
• RACHEL STEINBERG • Krakow, Poland
• GEORGE STERNFELD • Warsaw, Poland
• JOE SZWARCBERG • Kozienice. Poland
• HALINA SZWARCBURG • Warsaw, Poland
• DAVID SZWARCBURG • Warsaw, Poland
• VERA WASOWSKI • Lwów, Poland
• LILA WIEN
• MAX ZILBERMAN z’l • Lodz, Poland
• GERTRUDE (TRUDY) ALBUM • Hungary
• PAUL GALAN • Slovakia
• JACOB GOLDBERG z’l • Lodz, Poland
• LOLA GOLDBERG z’l • Lodz, Poland
• REGINA SPIEGEL • Radom, Poland
• SAM SPIEGEL z’l
• JACK ADLER • Pabianice, Poland
• DR. RAUL ARTAL MITTELMARK • Bershad, Transnistria
• FREDDY DIAMENT z’l • Gelsenkirchen, Germany
• BELLA FRIEDMAN z’l – Radom, Poland
• ROBERT (BOB) GEMINDER z’l • Wroclaw, Poland
• NATALIE GOLD • Radzimin, Poland
• ALLEN GREENSTEIN z’l • Opatow, Poland
• JEAN GREENSTEIN • Sevlus, Czechoslovakia
• DOROTHY GREENSTEIN z’l • Otwock, Poland
• SIGI HART z’l • Berlin, Germany
• ERIKA JACOBY • Miskolc, Hungary
• EMIL JACOBY • Cop, Czechoslavakia
• GABRIELLA KARIN • Bratislava, Slovakia
• JESA KREINER • Belgrade, Serbia
• SIDONIA LAX • Przemysl, Poland
• PAULA LEBOVICS • Ostrowiec, Poland
• BEN LESSER • Krakow, Poland
• DAVE LUX • Czechoslovakia
• NANDOR MARKOVIC z’l • Bilky, Czechoslovakia
• EVA PERLMAN • Berlin, Germany
• MIKE POPIK • Levice, Czechoslovakia
• LEON PROCHNIK • Krakow, Poland
• LEA RADZINER • Amsterdam, Holland
• HALINA WACHTEL • Warsaw, Poland
• ADELE BESSERMAN • Lodz, Poland
• DAVID BORGENICHT z’l • Krynica, Poland
• AMALIA GORONI
• IRVING GRAIFMAN z’l • Grodzsk, Poland
• BERNARD GROSS • Palatka, Czech
• PERCY KAYE z’l • Lodz, Poland
• CELIA KENER • Lwów, Poland
• MORRIS KIEL • Benzin, Poland
• LILI KIEL (BIENSTOCK) z’l • Warsaw, Poland
• CHANA LEISER
• EVA LIBITZKY z’l • Lodz, Poland
• MARTIN LIBITZKY z’l • Lodz, Poland
• JOSEPH LITT • Warsaw, Poland
• DAVID MANDEL • Munkacs, Hungary
• ETA MANDELBERGER
• EMANUEL (MANNY) MANDELBERGER z’l •
• ANNA ROZENTAL
• JOE “ISRAEL” SACHS z’l • Przyrow, Poland
• BRENDA SENDERS z’l • Sarny, Poland
• REGINA WOLBROM • Gera, Germany
• IRENE ZISBLATT • Polena, Hungary
• AMEK ADLER z’l • Lublin, Poland
• ELIEZER AYALON z’l • Radom, Poland
• HARRY BAIKOWITZ • Kaunas, Lithuania
• MARTIN BARANEK • Starachowice, Poland
• JOSEF BETEL z’l • Lodz, Poland
• BEN BICHER • Brussels, Belgium
• ERNEST BLOCH z’l • Nyrsko Czechoslovakia
• TED BOLGAR • Sarospatak, Hungary
• LILLIAN BORAKS-NEMET • Warsaw, Poland
• ALFRED BRAUN z’l
• GEORGETTE BRINBERG • Villerupt, France
• ALEX BUCKMAN • Brussesl Belgium
• HOWARD CHANDLER • Wierzbnick, Poland
• JUDY WEISSENBERG COHEN • Debrecen, Hungary
• BERTHE CYGELFARB • Brussels, Belgium
• ELIE DAWANG • Paris, France
• MARIETTE DODUCK • Brussels, Belgium
• LOU DUNST z’l • Jasina, Czecholsovakia
• ERNEST EHRMANN • Kralovsky Chlumec, Czechoslovakia
• ELLA EHRMANN • Hungary
• MAX EISEN • Moldava, Czechoslovakia
• IRVING EISNER • Sojmo, Czechoslovakia
• ANITA EKSTEIN • Lwow, Poland
• MARK ELSTER • Chelm, Poland
• ESTHER FAIRBLOOM • Tarnepol, Poland
• MORRIS FANTUCH • Radom Poland
• JOE FELLNER • Hungary
• BEN FINKEL • Manyevicz, Poland
• EVA GELBMAN • Sárkeresztúr, Hungary
• NASH GEORGINE • Budapest, Hungary
• BILL GLIED z’l • Subotica, Serbia
• PESI ZELIKOVIC • Sinovirska Polana, Czechoslovakia
• SIDNEY ZOLTAK • Siemiatycze, Poland
• FISHEL GOLDIG • Mielnica, Ukraine
• ISAAC GOLDSTEIN z’l • Bialystok, Poland
• ELLY GOTZ • Kovno, Lithuania
• PINCHAS GUTTER • Lodz, Poland
• TERRY GUTTMAN
• ANNA HEILMAN z’l • Warsaw, Poland
• GEORGE HERCZEG z’l • Nagyvisnyó, Hungary
• PAUL HERCZEG • Budapest, Hungary
• STEVEN HOPMAN z’l • Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland
• MAX ILAND • Liege, Belgium
• LISELOTTE IVRY • Czechoslovakia
• MINA JANKIELEWITZ z’l • Sandomierz, Poland
• ESTHER KANEL z’l
• ANN KAZIMIRSKI z’l • Vladimir Volynski, Poland
• HOWARD KLEINBERG z’l • Wierzbnick, Poland
• NANCY KLEINBERG • Wierzbnick, Poland
• PETER KLEINMANN z’l • Munkacs, Czechoslovakia
• SUZANA KOHN • Stara Kanjiza, Yugoslavia
• PINEK KRAINDELS • Opatów, Poland
• BRONKA KRYGIER z’l • Warsaw, Poland
• WILLIAM (BILL ) KUGELMAN • Sosniwice, Poland
• IRENE KURTZ • Warsaw, Poland
• ANDRE LANDSMAN • Budapest, Hungary
• JOE LEINBURD • Suceava, Bucovina-Romania
• NATE LEIPCIGER • Chorzow, Poland
• BILL LEWKOWICT • Vilna, Poland
• FAIGIE LIBMAN • Kaunas Lithuania
• PAWEL LICHTER • Rypin, Poland
• LUDWIG LYDYNIA
• JOE MANDEL • Muchkachevo, Chekoslovakia
• HENRY MELNICK z’l • Lodz, Poland
• ERNESTYNE (EDA) NAJMAN • Krakow, Poland
• GEORGINE NASH • Budapest, Hungary
• SOL NAYMAN • Stoczek Wegrowki
• GYORGI NEMES • Budapest, Hungary
• ANNA NISSENBAUM • Budapest, Hungary
• ANGELA OROS RICHT • Auschwitz Poland
• SUSAN PASTERNAK • Zambrow, Poland
• FANNY PILLERSDORF z’l • Benzin, Poland
• AVIVA PTACK
• TOVA ROGENSTEIN • Krakow, Poland
• DAVID SCHAFFER
• MAYER SCHONDORF z’l • Bardejov, Czechoslovakia
• RENA SCHONDORF • Cracow, Poland
• MARTHA SHEMTOV • Lvov, Poland
• DAVID SHENTOW z’l • Warsaw, Poland
• ERNEST SINGER • Kosice, Czechoslovakia
• STEFANIA SITBON • Warsaw, Poland
• ALBERT SLIWIN • Jerzow Poland
• INGE SPITZ z’l • Potsdam, Germany
• VIVIAN STOCKHAMER • Lida, Poland
• TOM STRASSER • Nove Zamky (Slovakia)
• TUKY TREITEL • Budapest, Hungary
• ROBBIE WAISMAN • Skarszysko, Poland
• MIKLOS (MIKE) WALLENFELS • Budapest, Hungary
• MANYA WALLENFELS • Buszk, Poland
• SALLY WASSERMAN • Katowice, Poland
• Fanny Wedro – Korzec, Poland
• ALINA WEIDEN z’l • Cracow, Poland
• ERNIE WEISS z’l • Mad, Hungary
• ROBERT WEISS z’l • Debrecen, Hungary
• LENKA WEKSBERG • Czechoslovakia
• HELEN YERMUS • Vilnius, Lithuania
• KATHLEEN ZAHAVI • Nyiregyhaza, Hungary
• MIRIAM ZAKROJCZYK • Krasnostav, Poland
• ROMAN ZIEGLER z’l • Dabrowa Górnicza, Poland
• MARCEL ZIELINSKI • Krakow, Poland
• MARYLA ZIELINSKI • Lvov, Poland
• HEINZ KOUNIO • Thessalonikil, Greece
• SILVIA SEVI z’l • Thessalonikil, Greece
• IRVING ROTH z’l • Kosice, Czechoslovakia
• GYULA FURST z’l • Hungary
• IMRE LEBOVITS • Tiszafüred, Hungary
• EVA LEBOVITS • Budapest, Hungary
• EDIT SZEKERES z’l • Hungary
• IMRE VARSÁNYI z’l • Hungary
• MAGDA BADER • Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia
• MARTIN BARANEK • Starachowice, Poland
• SALLY DAUMAN • Lodz, Poland
• JULIUS EISENSTEIN • Tomaszow, Poland
• JUDY ELKIN
• IVAN GABOR • Bahia Mare, Transylvania
• PAUL GAST • Lodz, Poland
• ANITA KARL • Lwow, Poland
• MICHAEL MARDER • Nisco, Poland
• LOUISE OBERLENDER
• SAMUEL PELTZ • Staf Nowakdski, Poland
• CECILIA BORGER • Poland
• BERNARDO GALEK • Ciechanow, Poland
• MICHAEL GILAD • Katowice. Poland
• SHIE GILBERT • Ciechanow,Poland
• ABRAHAM GOLEK • Lodz, Poland
• JACK HANDELI • Salonika,Greace
• ABRAHAM MAJZNER • Krashnik, Poland
• BINA NEGER • Borislav, Ucrania
• LUIS OPATOWSKY • Brussels, Belgium
• BEDRICH STEINER • Prague, Checoslovakia
• KURT WERNER • Checoslovakia
• BRONISLAW ZAJBERT • Lodz, Poland
• LASZLO SELLY • Hungary
• MAGDA BADER
• MARTIN BARANEK • Starachowice, Poland
• DAVID MERMELSTEIN
• JOE “ISRAEL” SACHS z’l • Przyrow, Poland
• DAVID SCHAECTER
• LARRY BERKOWITZ
• HANK BRODT z’l • Boroslav, Ukraine
• HENRYK (HENRY) ERLICH z’l
• PAUL GAST
• STEVE MAGIER z’l
• HARRIET STEINHORN ROTH z’l
• RACHEL SCHWARTZ z’l
• BERNICE VANT z’l • Poland
• ROCHELLE (SHELLY) WEINER • Rovno, Poland
• ELLY GOTZ • Kovno, Lithuania
• ELLY GROSS • Șimleu Silvaniei, Romania
• RAY FISHLER z’l • Krakow, Poland
• FRITZIE WEISS FRITZSHALL • Czechoslovakia
• FELICE ZIMMERN STOKES • Germany
• GIL LACHOW • Strassbourg, France
• SARAH LUDWIG • Radom, Poland
• LEAH HERMAN • Wagy Warbod, Hungary
• DONALD KRAUSZ • Scheidam, Holland
• IBI BARAS • Hungary
• HELEN BECK z’l • Cracow, Poland
• KUBA BECK z’l • Cracow, Poland
• RUDA BERKOWITZ z’l • Poland
• VERONICA BIALER • Budapest, Hungary
• HENRY BORENSTEIN z’l • Warsaw, Poland
• ILSE CAMIS • Vienna, Austria
• RUTH DESPERAK z’l • Hungary
• JOSEPH ECKSTEIN z’l • Etyek, Hungary
• MARY ECKSTEIN • Budapest, Hungary
• SHIRLEY ENSELBERG • Belgium
• MARY FARBER z’l• Zywiec, Poland
• VERA FOLIC • Versailles, France
• NORMAN FRAJMAN • Warsaw, Poland. Majdanek
• NINA FRISCH • Stanislaw, Poland
• DANIELLE GABOR • Paris, France
• THOMAS GABOR • Slovakia & Budapest, Hungary
• PHILLIP GANS z’l • Amsterdam, Holland
• MAX GLAUBEN • Warsaw, Poland
• ROSETTE GOLDSTEIN • Paris, France
• JACKIE GRUBER z’l • Warsaw, Poland
• MAGDA HAMMER z’l • Warsaw, Poland
• ROSLYN KWAL z’l • Scydlowicz, Poland
• JIMMY LICHTMAN z’l • Szatmar, Romania
• LUSHA MAN z’l • Poland
• MICHAEL MARDER • Poland
• JACK MAYER • Speyer, Germany
• MIRIAM MOSKOWITZ z’l • Poland. Majdanek
• JACQUELINE NEWMAN z’l • Paris, France
• SAM RON • Kazimierza Wielka, Poland
• ERNA RUBINSTEIN z’l • Zywiec, Poland
• MURRAY SAFISTEIN • Poland
• SAM SCHLEIDER • Stanislov, Poland
• MARK SHUPAK • Warsaw, Poland
• RUTH SOLD z’l • Poland
• MARCEL SPIEGLER • Rumania
• SALAMON WAINBERG z’l • Poland
• ROCHELLE (SHELLY) WEINER • Rovno, Poland
• TZILA (SHEILA) WEINSTEIN • Siberia
• VICTORIA WEISSBERG z’l • Lima, Peru
• AREK HERSH • Sieradz, Poland
• EVE KUGLER • Halle-an-der-Saale, Germany
• HARRY OLMER • Sosnowiec, Poland
• IVOR PERL • Makó, Hungary
• ARIE SHILANSKY • Siauliai, Lithuania
• MALA TRIBICH MBE • Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland
• DORA ROTH AKERMAN • Rosvegovo, Czechoslovakia
• THERESA DULGOV • Budapest, Hungary
• LOU DUNST z’l • Jasina, Czecholsovakia
• ISAAC GOLDSTEIN z’l • Bialystok, Poland
• WILLIAM (BILL ) KUGELMAN • Sosniwice, Poland
• PAWEL LICHTER • Rypin, Poland
• BEN MIDLER • Bialystok, Poland
“When you listen to a witness, you become a witness” Survivor Speaker Series featuring “Three Generations of Holocaust Memory – The Life and Legacy of
International March of the Living mourns the passing of Holocaust survivor and educator, our teacher and mentor, Irving Roth, z”l. Irving Roth educated countless students
In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the International March of the Living and the March of the Living Digital Archive invite you to join
We mourn the loss of Holocaust survivor and March of the Living educator, Howard Kleinberg, z”l, (1926-2020), a well-known and much beloved Auschwitz survivor from
On Thursday, December 3, 2020, the International March of the Living held another “When you listen to a witness, you become a witness” Survivor Speaker
International March of the Living’s inaugural “When you listen to a witness, you become a witness” Survivor Speaker Series debuted on Wednesday, September 30, 2020.
Click here or on the video player below to watch the recording of International March of the Living’s inaugural Fireside Chat featuring renowned Holocaust Survivor Rav
MAUD DAHME was born in 1935 in Amersfoort, Holland. In 1942, the Germans sent letters to all the Jewish families ordering them to appear at a railroad station with one suitcase. The family was suspicious, and asked one of their Christian friends associated with the Resistance to hide Maud and her sister Rita. Their parents instructed them never to reveal that they were Jewish.
The girls were eventually taken to Elburg when they had to leave their first house. They stayed there with the Westerink family until April 1945. The winter of 1944 was so harsh and they had very little food to eat, so there were times they ate bulbs, or grilled bugs. They returned to Oldebroek in June 1945 after liberation. Their parents survived and reclaimed Maud and Rita but so many years had passed that the children had difficulty recognizing them.
They returned to Amersfoort. Their extended family had all died at the concentration camp Sobibor. In 1950, the family decided to move to New Jersey. Maud became a force in education–holding a variety of local and state posts. Maud became a passionate advocate of Holocaust education and was featured in a PBS documentary and at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Her family continues to grow.
“Respect each other more than anything because inside we are all the same and if we don’t have respect genocide will continue.”
NOAH KLIEGER z"l was honored by The International March of the Living and Israeli-Jewish Congress (IJC) on September 6, 2016 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The International March of the Living mourns the passing of Noah Klieger z'l, renowned Holocaust survivor. As one of the most well-respected members of the Israeli press corps, Noah dedicated his life to Holocaust education. He was a longtime dedicated member of the March of the Living family. His commitment to our mission and participation in so many of our journeys enhanced the lives of thousands of March of the Living Alumni. Noah’s legacy will live on through the millions who were privileged to hear, read and listen to his testimony. May his memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
READ: How the March of the Living began by Holocaust Survivor, Noah Klieger z"l
READ: A Night to Honor Noah Klieger, Sept 2016
Noah Klieger z"l at the 2012 March of the Living with Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Holocaust Survivor of Buchenwald extermination camp, former Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Israel, and Chairman of Yad Vashem.
Noah Klieger z"l, was born in 1926 in Strasbourg. His older brother Jonathan was born in Germany but later their family relocated first to France and then in 1938 to Belgium. After the start of the WWII, when Belgium fell under the Nazi occupation, 13-year-old Noah helped founding a Zionist youth underground organization. Members of his group were passing messages between adult underground cells, helped obtaining ration stamps and smuggling Belgian Jews to Switzerland. Overall, Klieger's cell successfully smuggled some 270 Jews to this neutral country, and in 1942 his own term came to leave Belgium, but he was caught at the border by the Germans.
Klieger spent some time at the Mechelen transit camp and in January 1944 he was sent to Auschwitz. There he has got pneumonia and expected to be sent to death, but, as Klieger recalled later, he addressed personally Mengele and other physicians who accompanied him and succeeded in persuading them that he still can be of use. One of the doctors agreed to send him back to barracks. Later he was saved from extermination by a miracle: one of the SS officers running the camp turned out to be an avid boxing fan and decided to form a boxing team out of Auschwitz prisoners. Despite having no previous boxing experience, 16-year-old Klieger volunteered to join the team. Other team members who had such experience in the pre-war world read his bluff but helped him to stay on the team, withholding their own hits and allowing him to hit them. Together with his teammates Noah was fed better than other prisoners and sometimes even received soup from officers' mess. They were also exempt from work in the afternoon hours so that they could train. In all other respects, they were treated no better than other prisoners and sometimes even harsher; this was the way to show them that their athlete status does not carry privileges.
When in January 1945 the Red Army started closing on Auschwitz, the remaining prisoners were transferred on foot to Germany. After a three day long death march the survivors, including Klieger, were sent to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. There he succeeded in fooling the Germans for the second time by pretending to be a precision mechanics expert and was sent to the underground plant producing missiles. On April 4 he was once again sent by foot with the rest of prisoners to another concentration camp, this time Ravensbruck; this death march took 10 days, but on April 29 Klieger and other prisoners of Ravensbruck were freed by the Red Army.
Noah Klieger shows his Auschwitz number tattoo. (photo credit: GPO/WIKIPEDIA)
After returning from the camps Noah started a career as a journalist. As a reporter he was covering Nazi criminal trials in Belgium, France and Germany. In Belgium he reunited with his parents, who also survived in Auschwitz; his father Abraham started publishing a German-language magazine for Belgian Jews, and Noah was translating articles in this magazine to French.
When Klieger learned about Aliyah Bet, an illegal immigration operation allowing European Jews to come to the Mandatory Palestine, he joined forces with the organizers. In 1947 he himself became one of the illegal immigrants and boarded the ship Exodus 1947, becoming first a passenger and later a crew member. Shortly after his arrival to Palestine Israel War of Independence started, and he joined the Haganah as a volunteer. He took part in the Operation Danny, then was included in the "French commando" squad and finally became a soldier of Negev Brigade and fought in the Southern Palestine.
After the end of the War of Independence, Klieger once again embarked upon his journalistic career. He became a L’Équipe correspondent in Israel in 1953 and also one of the founders of first sports section in an Israeli newspaper. Starting from 1957 he was a member in the Yedioth Ahronoth where he also wrote a personal column till the age of 90. In addition, he covered trials of Adolf Eichmann and Ivan (John) Demjanjuk that took place in Israel, and frequently published pieces about Holocaust survivors. He keeps taking part in Marches of the Living (MoL), the annual educational programs dedicated to the Holocaust history.
Klieger took a major part in the development of Israeli sports as an executive and administrator. From 1951 to 1968 he served as the chairman of Maccabi Tel-Aviv Basketball Club, and from 1970 to 1998 as the chairman of the Maccabi Ramat-Gan Omni-Sport Club. Klieger was a member of the Maccabi World Union Executive for 14 years. He was also a major fixture in the development of European basketball, participating in FIBA's activities since 1951. He chaired FIBA's media council and the Basketball Commission of Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive for over 25 years and was a press advisor to FIBA's Secretary-General and FIBA Europe Secretary-General.
In 2010, Noah Klieger was awarded FIBA Order of Merit. In 2012 he was awarded the National Order of the Legion of Honor by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy upon the recommendation of the journal L’Équipe, and in 2015 was inducted into FIBA Hall of Fame as a contributor.
Noah Klieger was a recipient of 'L'oeuvre d'une Vie' award from the Journalist's Union and Award for Outstanding and Long-time Sport Activities in Israel (2008), as well as the honorary doctorate by the University of Haifa (2015). He was a recipient of a honorary medal from the City of Strasbourg. In 2016 Noah Klieger was awarded a title of Honorary Freeman by the city of Ramat Gan. His story of survival in the concentration camps has been told in a documentary film Boxing for Life.
Klieger died on 13 December 2018, after several years of ill health caused by a heart condition. His final column for Yedioth Ahronoth was published on 11 December and commemorated 80 years of that newspaper.
Biography found HERE
RABBI YISRAEL MEIR LAU is the Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yaffo and former Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel.
Israel Meir Lau was born in 1937 in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland. In 1942 the majority of the city’s Jews were deported to Treblinka. Among the victims was the rabbi of Piotrków, Israel’s father Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau. Israel, at the time a five year old known as Lulek, managed to evade being deported and was thus saved. In November 1944, during a selection, his mother succeeded in pairing him with his older brother Naphtali, who was sent to a labor camp. Their mother was murdered in Ravensbrueck. Lulek was deported along with his brother to the slave labor camp Czestochowa and from there to Buchenwald. At the age of eight he was liberated in Buchenwald by American forces.
In the summer of 1945 Israel and Naphtali made aliyah. Israel studied in various yeshivot and began to work as a teacher of Bible. After filling rabbinic posts in numerous synagogues and neighborhoods, he was appointed as chief rabbi of Netanyah, and then as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. He also served as a member of the chief rabbinical council. Between the years 1999-2003 Rabbi Lau served as the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, returning afterwards to his position of Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yaffo.
As a survivor, Rabbi Lau intensely deals with Holocaust memory and commemoration through his worldwide speeches and appearances, as well as in his writings, including his best-selling autobiography Do Not Harm the Child. During his tenure as Chief Rabbi of Israel he worked to establish closer ties with the Catholic Church, ties that he still continues to strengthen.
On August 4,2009 Rabbi Lau participated in the Righteous Among the Nations ceremony at Yad Vashem honoring his rescuer Feodor Mikhailichenko.
Rabbi Lau is married and has eight children and many grandchildren. He is the author of numerous works on Jewish law and tradition. In 2005 Rabbi Lau received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement.
In April 2013, Frank Lowy attended the March of the Living, where he shared the story of how his father, Hugo Lowy, perished during the Holocaust.
FRANK LOWY was born in Czechoslovakia (in what is now Slovakia), and was forced to live in a ghetto in Hungary during World War II. He made his way to France in 1946, where he boarded the ship Yagur, heading for Mandatory Palestine. However, he was caught en route by the British authorities and interned in a detention camp in Cyprus.[12] Lowy joined the Haganah, and then the Golani Brigade, and fought in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War in the Galilee and Gaza.
Lowy is a businessman and the former long-time Chairman of Westfield Corporation, a global shopping centre company with US $29.3 billion of assets under management in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. He is a former Chairman of Scentre Group, the owner and manager of Westfield-branded shopping centres in Australia and New Zealand.
BRANKO LUSTIG z'l, was born in Osijek, Croatia in 1932. He was a survivor of both the Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen concentration camps during World War II and his experiences in the camps were captured in Schindler’s List. Most members of his family perished, including his grandmother who was killed in the gas chamber, while his father was killed in Čakovec on 15 March 1945. Lustig’s mother survived the Holocaust and was reunited with him after the war. On the day of the liberation, he weighed only 66 pounds (29.94 kg). Lustig credited his survival in Auschwitz to a German officer who happened to be from the same suburb of Osijek as Lustig. He overheard Lustig crying and asked him who his father was. It turned out the officer had known Lustig’s father.
During the 2011 International March of the Living, Lustig celebrated his bar mitzvah at Auschwitz, in front of barrack No. 24a. He missed his rite of passage as a 13-year-old because at the time he was a prisoner in the very same barrack, having been deported from Osijek when he was ten years old.
Watch Lustig's moving participation in the 2011 March of the Living, which also includes eloquent remarks from his daughter Sara and a message from Steven Spielberg.
May his memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Lola Kline, niece of the famed Bielski brothers who saved more than 1,200 Jews in the forest of what is now Belarus and became the subject of the movie, “Defiance.” Kline’s mother, Taibe Dzienciolski, was a sister of the three brothers, Tuvia, Zus, and Asael, who waged guerilla warfare against the Nazis and collaborated with the Russian partisans.
Kline, a Freehold resident, was born in 1941 before the Nazis invaded Nowogrodek, which was in Poland at that time. When she was 6 months old her parents escaped to the forest to join the family partisans, bringing their infant daughter with them. Three months later they gave her to a Polish couple and she lived as a hidden child. Kline said the couple treated her well, showered her with affection, and provided for her needs.
“I remember them feeding me, going to church with them on Sundays,” she said. “I thought I was Catholic and was baptized. I learned to hate Jews, but that wasn’t because of them. That was for their protection and for my protection. They knew the Germans were out to kill all Jews.”
She lived with them until she was almost 4, when her parents kidnapped her after the couple refused to relinquish her.
“They thought my parents would be killed,” Kline told NJJN. “They didn’t expect my parents to show up after the war. It was very traumatic for me, my parents, and certainly for the couple.”
Her parents, with young Kline in tow, ended up in a displaced persons camp in Fohrewald, Germany, before moving to Brooklyn.
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.
From Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Bantam, 1982), p. 32. This quote also appears in the Permanent Exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
ELIE WIESEL z'l (1928-2016) was born in Sighet, Romania, on September 30, 1928.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner and Boston University professor, Wiesel worked on behalf of oppressed people for much of his adult life. His personal experience of the Holocaust led him to use his talents as an author, teacher, and storyteller to defend human rights and peace throughout the world.
A native of Sighet, Transylvania (Romania, from 1940-1945 Hungary), Wiesel and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz when he was 15 years old. His mother and younger sister perished there, his two older sisters survived. Wiesel and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died.
After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist in that city, yet he remained silent about what he endured as an inmate in the camps. During an interview with the French writer Francois Mauriac, Wiesel was persuaded to end that silence. He subsequently wrote La Nuit (Night). Since its publication in 1958, La Nuit has been translated into 30 languages and millions of copies have been sold. In Night, Wiesel describes his experiences and emotions at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust: the roundup of his family and neighbors in the Romanian town of Sighet; deportation by cattle car to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau; the division of his family forever during the selection process; the mental and physical anguish he and his fellow prisoners experienced as they were stripped of their humanity; and the death march from Auschwitz-Birkenau to the concentration camp at Buchenwald.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed him Chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980, he became Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Wiesel was also the founding president of the Paris-based Universal Academy of Cultures.
Wiesel’s efforts to defend human rights and peace throughout the world earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Liberty Award, the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor, and in 1986, the Nobel Peace Prize. He received more than 100 honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning.
Three months after he received the Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Wiesel and his wife Marion established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Its mission is to advance the cause of human rights and peace throughout the world by creating a new forum for the discussion of urgent ethical issues confronting humanity.
His more than 40 books have won numerous awards, including the Prix Medicis for A Beggar in Jerusalem, the Prix Livre Inter for The Testament, and the Grand Prize for Literature from the City of Paris for The Fifth Son. The first volume of Wiesel’s memoirs, All Rivers Run to the Sea, was published in New York (Knopf) in December 1995. The second volume, And the Sea is Never Full, was published in New York (Knopf) in November 1999.
Elie Wiesel was Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at the City University of New York (1972-1976), and first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University (1982-1983). In 1976, he became the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University where he also held the title of University Professor.
MOISÉS BOROWICZ was born in 1917 in Sokoly, Poland. He lived with his parents and two brothers. When the persecution of the Jews began and before they were locked up in the ghetto, they lived in hiding and buried underground in a bunker. Trapped by the Nazis, they are deported: their parents in a wagon, Moises and his brothers in another. At that moment, the two wagons come off and Moses loses his parents. One of his brothers pulls the train and never knew anything more about him. Soon his other brother dies. Moses was in 7 concentration / extermination camps. As a Nazi hierarch once said to the Moises mother: "this boy has a destiny to live". And so it was, Moisés survived.
Taube Cymrot was born in 1926 in Chmielnik, Poland. In 1939, after the partition of Poland, before the advance of the German army, his city remained in the part occupied by the Nazis. While still a child, she began working on a tobacco plantation to get food. Forced to wear the Star of David, she remained in her village ghetto working as a dressmaker so that she could eat. She was arrested and she was deported to various labor camps Skrzysko-Kamiene, Hase-Werg, Chestojova until she was liberated by the Russians. After passing through various countries in Europe where she married and she had her first child, David, they arrived in Montevideo on their way to Buenos Aires where they were not allowed to enter. They finally managed to enter Argentina in November 1948. In 1950 her daughter was born. She currently has several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
HANKA DZUBIAS was Born in 1930 in Poland, she was the youngest of 7 children. When the war began she lived in Lodz. In 1940 she was forced to enter the ghetto and never saw her father again. At age 14, she was deported to Auschwitz where she worked in the munitions factory.
Before the advance of the allies was transferred to Oranienburg, a field of men, and then transferred to Ravensbrück, a concentration camp for women, which became ill and skeletal. On April 30, 1945 the Red Army entered and rescued her. Refugee in Sweden finished her studies. While there he met another former prisoner of Auschwitz, Leon Grzmot, with whom she later married and with whom in 1952 he came to Argentina. She has 2 children and grandchildren.
Marí Dawidowicz z"l (1929-2021) for some, María or Myriam for others was born in Belgium in 1929. She was 9 years old when the war broke out. Her childhood was marked by constant changes, while her father fought as a volunteer in the army first and then as a member of the French resistance. She survived the Second World War sheltered and hidden by different families in the French countryside. When she ended the war, she returned to Belgium with her mother and from there she traveled to Argentina. She participated in the March of the Living in 2014 with Argentina Delegation. Marí was encouraged to tell the terrible childhood story of her, which she had hidden in the trunk of her memories. She had 7 grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Mari passed away on January 26, 2021.
SARA RUS was born in 1927 in Lodz, Poland. Until the Nazis entered Lodz She went to the Jewish school and studied violin. In 1940 they were forced to move to the lodz ghetto where they lived in subhuman conditions. There she met her future husband, Bernardo. In 1944 she was taken with her family to Auschwitz, there she suffered separation from her father whom she never saw again. She was transferred to Freiberg to work in an aircraft factory and then to Mauthausen camp, where Sara and her mother regained their freedom on May 5, 1945. Sara weighed less than 30 kg. like her mother. She married Bernardo and decided to emigrate to Argentina. Sara had two children, Daniel and Natalia. In July of 1977, Daniel Rus was kidnapped at the door of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA), where he worked while preparing his thesis to be a physicist. Then the tireless search began and she joined the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the Founding Line, where she continues working until today. Sara’s daughter Natalia gave her two granddaughters and 4 great-grandchildren.
LEA ZAJAC was born in Poland in December 1926. When the Nazi invasion occurred, the same day of the beginning of classes, she could not return to school or attend secondary school. She was confined with her family in the ghetto of Pruzany, near Bialystok, in terrible conditions of overcrowding, hunger and diseases. In 1943, after 2 years of living in the ghetto, she was deported to Auschwitz. When Lea arrives, after 3 days of traveling in cattle cars, she was separated from her family, almost 80 people transported by trucks directly to the gas chambers. Tattooed with number 33502 she remains in Auschwitz-Birkenau for 2 long years doing forced labor. Before the advance of the Red Army, from January to May of 1945, the Nazis force it to carry out the March of Death into the interior of Germany under the terrible conditions of the European winter. Lea entered clandestinely to Argentina in 1947 via Uruguay. She got married, had 2 children, one of whom died 3 years ago, is a widow and has 5 grandchildren.
Martin Biggs z"l, from Krakow, Poland, was one of the pioneers of the modern Australian office products industry. He changed his surname from Biegeleisen after migrating to Australia after the Second World War, founded Martin Biggs and Sons in Sydney in 1973 as a general trading company in the stationery business. The creation of the Marbig range of products started soon after.
The business proved to be very successful and one of Biggs’ sons, Victor, succeeded his father as managing director. The business was sold to ACCO Brands in 1996.
In 2016, ACCO Brands acquired the remaining 50 per cent of its interest in Pelikan Artline.
Long-time ACCO employee Roy Leggo said Biggs was a “true icon” of the office products industry.
“Martin was an innovator and an astute businessman but he was also a very humble man,” he told Office Products News.
A survivor of the Palszow concentration camp during the Second World War, Biggs migrated to Australia in 1952. He married Genia, also Polish, in 1948 and they had two sons, Victor and Danny.
Wolf, an only child, was born in Lodz, Poland on 3 September 1925. Though not religious, his family kept a kosher household. Wolf and his parents were moved to the Lodz Ghetto in May 1940. On 18 August 1944, they were transported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, where tragically both parents perished. The American Army liberated Wolf from Wobbelin on 2 May 1945. Wolf rose from a state of emptiness about his fate, to singing “Hatikvah.” That newfound hope and determination lead him to find a new start in Israel, then Australia.
“The legacy of the March of the Living is to learn about what happened to our people and what were our traditions that sustained us through the centuries and the Shoah. In order to live in peace and harmony we need to have mutual respect for and mutual acceptance of the other. With the understanding that the laws of our country are paramount.”
NATE LEIPCIGER was born in Chorzow, Poland on February 28, 1928. He had one sister Linka. In September 1939, the German army invaded Poland, and when the Nazis’ decided to make Chorzow “Judenrein”, Nate’s family was forced to leave their town and move to the town of Sosnowiec, which became a de facto ghetto. Nate and his family were transported to Auschwitz, where Nate was separated from his mother and sister, never to see them again. As luck would have it, Nate’s father was able to move Nate into his own line, thus being able to keep his son with him. Nate survived the camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Funfteichen, Gross Rosen, Flossenberg, Leonberg, Muhldorf am Inn and Waldlager (two sub-camps of Dachau). Nate and his father were liberated on May 2, 1945 and immigrated to Canada in 1948. Nate married Bernice, and they have three daughters, twelve grandchildren and one great grandchild.
In 1925, Tuvia Lipson z"l, was born for the First Time - to Yaacov and Malka Lipszyc.
Tuvia spent his younger years like any normal child growing up in a Jewish house surrounded by his parents, two brothers and two sisters. In 1938 Tuvia celebrated his bar-mitzvah with little fanfare.
The evil years descended on Europe and Tuvia spent four and a half years in the Lodz ghetto living in inhumane conditions.
Several miracles touched Tuvia’s life.
Standing in Auschwitz-Birkenau waiting to be selected an inmate in a striped pyjama came up to him and saved him from the gas chambers by separating him from his parents.
Tuvia received his first number 10378 in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Tuvia was Born for a Second time once he was liberated from Ebenesee in December 1944.
Six weeks later, after liberation by the Americans, a truck with Jewish Palestine Brigade soldiers came and took all the young people away to Italy where he stayed training with the Palmach and from there on to Israel arriving illegally in early 1947.
A brave holocaust survivor then started his life again in Israel. Tuvia fought in the War of Independence and witnessed the birth of a nation.
Following the war, Tuvia chose to join the newly established Israel Defense Force, where he received his second number 131825 and rose through the ranks during his 11 years, including fighting in the 1956 Sinai Campaign and retired with the rank of Captain in 1957.
In 1960 Tuvia and his family emigrated to Australia and started a new life.
Tuvia was blessed with six grand-children and ten great-grand-children.
Tuvia would say “Standing in Auschwitz-Birkenau I never thought that I would be lucky enough to marry let alone have children, grand-children and great grand-children. I have been eternally blessed”.
Tuvia was a Shoah Survivor, Haganah fighter, Soldier, Officer, Husband, Father, Father-in-law, Grand-father, Great grand-father and a good friend.
Jack Meister was born in Kielce, Poland in 1928. Jack remembers when the Nazis came, when he was just 11, and that was the end of his education. In 1941 Jack and his family were sent to the Kielce ghetto where Jack was ordered into forced labour. He was transferred to Radom labour camp in 1942, and was later incarcerated in Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Buna concentration camps.
At the age of 18, in April 1945, Jack was liberated by American soldiers. He spent two years rehabilitating in Switzerland before immigrating to Australia at the end of 1949."
Jack recently celebrated his 91st birthday at a Melbourne reunion with his fellow MOTL participants.
Jack Adler was born in 1929 in the small town of Pabianice, near the city of Lodz, in the part of Poland that had been in the German state of Prussia between 1795 and the end of World War I, when this territory was given back to the new independent country of Poland. His family owned a textile factory in Lodz.
When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Adler's home town was captured during the first week. According to an article written by Karla Pomeroy, and published on January 31, 2007 in the Laramie Boomerang, Adler told an audience at the University of Wyoming on January 29, 2007 that when the occupation of Poland first started, he watched with the excitement of any 10-year-old boy as people brought flowers, food and drink to the Nazi soldiers.
It was the ethnic Germans, whose families had lived in this part of Poland for centuries, that welcomed the German soldiers as liberators. For the Jews, the German occupation was a disaster. Adler said that hours after the occupation began, notices were posted that said Jewish residents were not allowed outside their homes unless they had a yellow Star of David displayed on the front and back of their clothes. Jewish children were no longer able to attend public school. Almost immediately, the beatings and the torture of the Jews began in the town square of Pabianice, according to Adler's speech at the University of Wyoming.
The Jews in Pabianice and the other surrounding villages were soon isolated in a ghetto, dependent upon the Germans for food. Adler's mother and his older brother died in the ghetto, but Adler, his father and two sisters survived.
On May 10, 1942, the able-bodied Jews were moved into a ghetto in Lodz, where they were put to work in the textile factories, making uniforms for German soldiers. According to Adler, the old, the sick and the young were taken to another ghetto, from where they were later sent to the gas chamber. He was able to save his younger sister by sneaking her out of the group destined for the gas chamber and getting her into the work group.
The Lodz ghetto remained open long after the other ghettos in Poland were liquidated and the prisoners were sent to other camps or to the gas chamber. In August 1944, when the Russian Army was already occupying part of Poland, most of the Jews in the Lodz ghetto were finally sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, including Adler, his father and his two sisters. Adler said that his two sisters were immediately sent to a gas chamber, disguised as a shower room, at Birkenau.
According to the article by Karla Pomeroy, Adler told the audience at the University of Wyoming that "mothers with infants had their children ripped from their arms when they refused to give them up. Adler said that the babies were thrown up in the air and used as target practice."
During the selection process at Birkenau, Jack Adler and his father were directed to the right, but were not registered in the camp. They were held in quarantine at Birkenau for a few weeks, and were then sent to work in one of the eleven Kaufering sub-camps of Dachau near Munich, Germany.
Shortly before Dachau was liberated, the prisoners in the Kaufering sub-camps were marched to the main camp. Three days before the American Seventh Army arrived to liberate the Dachau prisoners, thousands of Jews were marched out of the camp, toward the South Tyrol, where Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler intended to use them as hostages in negotiations with the Allies. Adler was liberated from the march by American soldiers on May 1, 1945; he was sixteen years old, and had survived six years in German captivity.
The following is a quote from the article by Karla Pomeroy in the Laramie Boomerang:
Adler was the only member of his immediate family to survive the camps. Out of 83 total members of his family, four others survived.
Adler moved to Chicago a year later as a war orphan. He learned English, graduated high school and went to college. He met his future wife in 1952, and they have two children. He has returned to Germany but has never returned to his home country of Poland.
Adler associated with a small group of Jewish refugees in his new home of Skokie, Ill., but rarely discussed his wartime experiences with anyone, including his children. It wasn't until his children had grown and had children of their own that he began to open up about his past.
Dr. Raul Artal-Mittelmark joined the BJE March of the Living 2019 as a first time Survivor. His story is unique in that Raul is today one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust. He was born under difficult circumstances in 1943 in Bershad- Transnistria, a slave labor concentration camp, and a Nazi killing field in the Ukraine. He spent his first year of life hidden in an abandoned barn and half destroyed farm house.
At the age of one, after the Soviet Union’s Red Army liberated the camp, his parents returned to their hometown Czernowitz in Bukovina, which came under the Communists rule. After many attempts to flee Communist Russia, Raul and his parents were able to move to Romania, and then 12 years later to the US. A year later they decided to move to Israel. Raul finished High School in Israel and then served in the Israeli Army, where he met his future wife
Michal. Together, they completed medical school in Israel, and then came to the US for advanced training. They have 3 children and 8 grandchildren together. Raul’s son, Dr. Roy Artal will be serving as the staff Doctor of the 2019 BJE March of the Living trip.
As Holocaust survivors his parents never stopped, even for a day, from sharing their war experiences, the atrocities, beatings, humiliations, disease, hunger and hiding/protecting Raul. Transnistria, known as the forgotten Holocaust, was a place where 300,000 Jews perished. The genocide there was accomplished through starvation, random killings by Romanian and SS units, exhaustive slave labor, disease (typhoid and typhus) and freezing cold. Research tells us that 220,000 - 260,000 Jews died in Transnistria. Of the 25,000 Jews in Bershad only 8,014 survived. Raul’s life journey has taken him through 5 different countries and languages. His parent’s difficult life and the trying circumstances of his birth inspired him to become a physician, specializing in high risk obstetrics. He had a most rewarding and successful academic career.
Currently, Raul devotes much of his time to write his memoirs, sharing thoughts about his life’s experiences under the shadow of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, the lessons learned should never be forgotten.
We mourn the loss of holocaust survivor and March of the Living educator, Bob Geminder z”l (1935-2019), who travelled with our Los Angeles Region for many years. Bob was planning to again participate in the upcoming 2019 March of the Living.
"To my dear family and friends: Live a life that you can be proud of, embrace the past and grasp the future. Remember the famous quote that I live by, “Why fit in, you were made to stand out!” Make sure you do something to help others who are not as fortunate as you. Remember my past. You are all now ‘secondary sources’ of the Holocaust. You MUST continue to repeat my story so all our relatives and the other six million Jews did not die in vain and will not be forgotten." - Bob Geminder (See Human Element Project)
BOB GEMINDER z'l was born on Aug. 3, 1935 in Wroclaw, Poland. Upon the outbreak of war, Bob’s family was forcibly relocated to Stanislawow, a city then under Soviet occupation. The family’s fate worsened in 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Stanislawow fell under heavy bombing, during which time his father suffered a fatal heart attack. Bob’s mother sent his brother and him to live with a family near Krakow who were paid with the ownership of their family’s apartment building. Bob’s brother was soon sent back to their family, but Bob stayed for another three months where he was neglected and underfed. Bob, his mother, his step-father, and his brother eventually made their way to Warsaw, where after the Uprising, they were sent to Auschwitz.
Just before the train arrived, they managed to escape through a hatch in the roof, and hid in a nearby village until they were liberated by Soviet troops in January 1945. Bob’s family left Poland for the United States in 1947, and moved to Pittsburgh. After he served in the US Army, he moved to Los Angeles and began his career as an engineer.
In 2015, Bob met and fell in love with fellow survivor, Gabriella Karin. Read How two survivors found romance HERE.
Bob passed away on January 27, 2019, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. May his memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Learn more about Bob on his website HERE.
Listen to Bob's story HERE.
"I was fortunate enough to travel with Holocaust survivor Bob Geminder last year on March of the Living to Poland and Israel. There are so many stories of Bob to share but I will always remember when I walked with him out of the Warsaw zoo and he reminded me that the most important thing I could ever do would be to listen to stories and remember them so that our ancestors' history could become our story. Telling his story of survival, Bob insisted that he was the luckiest man in the world and afforded each of us the opportunity to shake his hand, the hand of the luckiest man to ever live. Bob, you will be missed but never forgotten. May his memory forever be a blessing and may his story forever be our story.” - Jared Hasen-Klein, 2018 March of the Living
ALLEN GREENSTEIN z'l was born in the town of Opatow, Poland in 1926. His family owned a shoe business, as well as working as farmers. He was 14 when the war broke out in 1939, and his city of Opatow fell to the Germans. The Jewish residents were immediately segregated to a ‘Jewish quarter’ and forced to wear white armbands with the Star of David. In 1941, a ghetto was established in the town, which soon led to outbreaks of typhus and other diseases due to poor sanitary conditions. During this time, Allen and his older brother Benjamin worked under the Germans in stone quarries. When asked if he ever truly feared for his life during the war, he replied that he did, but only on one occasion. It was Christmas Eve, 1941. After work in the quarries, he faced a long and cold walk back to his barracks. That night, the wind was very strong and he was having a difficult time getting back. About a quarter of a mile from his barrack, a streak of lightning hit an electric lamp that plummeted toward him. It narrowly missed him. During all this time, it was the hand of nature that Allan feared, not the Germans.
In November 1942, the ghetto was liquidated. Some 6,000 Jews, among them Allen’s parents and younger sister, were taken to Treblinka, where they were murdered en masse upon arrival. A small number of Jewish citizens, including Allen and his brother, were selected to remain in the ghetto and ‘clean it up’. One such duty was to bury the bodies that littered the now defunct ghetto. Six weeks later, he and his brother, as well as the other workers, were sent to the ghetto Sandomierz, in South-Eastern Poland. There, Allen faced another ‘selection’, where most residents were rounded up and sent to the death camps. He and his brother managed to be selected with a group of men that were taken from the ghetto to work in the munitions factory in the Skarzysko-Kamienna labor camp. There, he worked alongside the Polish citizens in the factory, the difference lay in that the Poles returned home after work, and he returned to his barrack. Yet, there were times where he was able to get help with money and food from supportive co-workers.
In 1944, with the Russians approaching, he and his brother were sent on trains to Częstochowa, a city in southern Poland famous for its Black Madonna painting. On Jan 10, 1945, with the Russians approaching that city, he was sent on a train to Buchenweld, arriving there Jan 16, 1945. This was a transition camp where people were sorted to be sent to death marches. Three times he was sent to a line destined for the march, three times he escaped. On April 11, 1945, American tanks arrived in Buchenweld, signaling the liberation. Allen reminded me that death was present not just during the Holocaust, but after the war. After the liberation, a large number of people died due to illness and inability to recover from their entrapment in the camps. He spoke to me about how Buchenweld SS officer Koch and his wife engaged in torturous murders and medical experimentation[2]. Death and murder was everywhere. But Allen had only feared the hand of G-d, and he survived.
Two weeks later, given the choice between repatriation in Poland or moving to the displaced person’s (DP) camp set up by the English, Allen and his brother chose to go to the DP camp set up near the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Shortly after his arrival at the DP camp, he met a husband and wife team from his hometown, and decided to leave the DP camp with them to the city ‘Vorth on the Duna’, using the same trains that had been used to transport people to concentration camps. It was there, in December of 1945 that a friend who was visiting convinced him to move to Zelschin. He left for Zelschin in Jan 1946, and after living in a kibbutz for a few months, he moved to the city and joined the police force. And this is where his Hebrew skills truly came to the fore. His future wife, Dorothy, was studying Hebrew at her sister’s home, and needed a tutor. Allen met her through her father, with whom he had worked together at a labor camp. Dorothy had spent the war living as a gentile and working as a domestic servant. Her sister, who had lived abroad during the war, brought her to Frankfurt after the liberation. Of-course, neither Allen nor his future wife knew at the time what the future held for each, as they would be separated during their respective attempts to leave Europe. Both hoped to resettle in North America.
One month before being cleared to leave for Canada, Allen and his brother had arranged to buy goods through certain traders. At that time, there was a huge black market for food, clothes, and foreign currency. At the meeting with the traders, Allen’s brother was shot repeatedly as the men attempted to leave with their goods. He died three days later at a nearby hospital. At the age of 23, Allen was ready for a new home.
In November 1948, Allen arrived in Toronto, Canada where he had cousins who had settled there before the war. After living for one week with one cousin, he found his own apartment and found a job as a clothes cutter in a factory, where he worked for seven years. One month after Allen’s arrival in Toronto, Dorothy arrived there as well. Remarkably, she had sailed on the same boat as Allen to Canada, and was with one of the last groups of children that traveled from Germany, through Italy, and to North America. They quickly resumed their relationship and were married in March of 1949. She worked in a factory initially, but harbored the dream of attending college one day, which she did several years later in order to become a school teacher.
Not long after, they had one daughter, followed by a son. Of-course, everything was difficult. When their daughter was in 2nd grade, she had to take three buses to get home due to safety reasons. In 1962, with the crime rate surging in Toronto, Allen applied to move to the US. As today, back then getting a visa was no easy task. After waiting for months, he still remembers the day when, at a Bar Mitzvah that he was attending, he ran into his travel agent who informed him that his visa was ready! On the last day that he was allowed to use the visa, Dec 15 1962, he and his wife took the Greyhound to Buffalo. She later returned to Toronto to finish the school year while Allen traveled from Buffalo to Chicago, and then to Los Angeles. By July, the rest of the family came to join him. He found work with famed fashion designer Rudy Gernreich, himself a German Jew who had escaped the Nazis by emigrating to the US in 1938.
Today, Allen remains active in the Jewish and Holocaust survivors community. He was interviewed for Steven Spielberg’s 1996 documentary, ‘Survivors of the Holocaust’. He also recently traveled to Poland to participate in the ‘March of the Living’, a two week journey for teenagers and survivors that follows the death march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest concentration camp complex built during World War II, on Holocaust Remembrance day. This was his second trip back, his first trip back to Poland was three years ago. At that time, they traveled to his wife’s hometown, where she was honored by the mayor. In the town, there was but a small Jewish cemetery, and the house that her family had lived in was still standing, now occupied by Poles. His hometown was even more difficult to enter, which he only mustered up the courage to visit on his second trip to Poland. Opatow had five token gravestones, a synagogue now converted into an apartment complex, and no Jewish residents. Opatow, a town of great Jewish prominence and a terrible massacre, had chosen not to remember.
"Dorothy Greenstein always told March of the Living participants that they provided her the wings so she could fly and remain young. In truth, though, she was the one who provided us with the wings and insight and strength to become the keepers of memory. She was a teacher who ignited passion in all those lucky enough to be in her orbit. " - Monise Neumann, Former Director March of the Living BJE LA
We mourn the loss of holocaust survivor and March of the Living educator, Dorothy Greenstein, z"l, (December 10, 1930-December 16, 2018), who travelled with our Los Angeles Region for many years.
Dorothy was born Devorah Kirszenbaum, the daughter of a rabbi in Otwock, just outside Warsaw. Shortly after World War 2 started, the Jews of the region were forced into a ghetto. Greenstein's parents, six sisters and two brothers were forbidden to leave its confines on pain of death, but Greenstein didn't look stereotypically Jewish and snuck out from time to time to get food for her hungry family." Fortunately for me, the Nazis were teaching everyone that there were no Jews with light hair and blue eyes," she said. "These blue eyes saved me. I spoke fluent Polish with no Yiddish accent, and everyone thought I was Polish."In time, though, Greenstein's father got wind of a plan to "resettle" the Jews in the Otwock ghetto. He ordered her and another sister with similar coloring to go into hiding.The girls bounced around the homes of family friends and friends of friends for years, each time for short intervals. Once, Greenstein and her older sister were riding a train, and a passenger asked her sister why she was travelling with "that Jewish girl."
It was actually a series of small acts of kindness, interspersed with lucky breaks, that ultimately saved her life. Dorothy, found herself fleeing through the countryside, alone at the age of 11. She'd knock on farmhouse doors and throw herself at the mercy of strangers. "Hello. I'm a Jewish child. Please, will you save me?" she'd ask.
Some turned her away, but many gave her shelter for a night or two, or even for a few weeks at a time, before fear for their own safety compelled them to ask her to leave. Greenstein's sister told her it would be safer for them to travel separately, and they split up. Greenstein hid on farms, in a labor camp where she had relatives, in corn fields.
Dorothy remembers that an elderly farm woman who was bringing her food to eat in a cornfield discovered a Nazi trying to drag her off and shouted at the young soldier."I know you! We go to church together! You call yourself a Christian. You should be ashamed of yourself. Let that child go," the woman hollered. The Nazi released her Eventually, a sympathetic Christian told Greenstein how to steal the identity of a deceased Christian child and obtain a birth certificate. She used that to get work as a maid until she was old enough to join the Polish uprising. In the end, only five members of Greenstein's family survived.
May her memory be a blessing and may her family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
"At the last of the BJE March of the Living workshops in Los Angeles, I had the privilege of meeting Mrs. Dorothy Greenstein, a survivor of the Holocaust who was born in Poland and whose family perished in Treblinka, who coincidentally was my mother’s beloved second grade teacher. Although she’s participated in the march of the living many times before, at 85 years old, she was unable to come this year. When she learned I would be here, she took a beautiful bracelet off of her wrist and clasped it around mine, saying that she wanted her spirit to travel with me to Poland. Mrs. Greenstein: I have not simply carried your story here. Now, I have become a part of your story, as have the thousands of people who are participating in this March. I’m wearing your bracelet right now, as a promise to you and to all of the courageous survivors: We will continue to tell your stories. We will pass these stories on to our children, and we will not forget. " - Words of Eliana Melmed- who in 2016 was the student representative from BJE LA who spoke at the ceremony in Birkenau
GABRIELLA KARIN was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. and she always tell how her mother was someone who risked her life to help other Jewish families, when world war 2 broke out A German policeman who was a friend of Karin's family provided her mother with lists of the Jewish families who were going to be sent to concentration camps. Her mother would travel at night to warn families that they would soon be taken away."She always took me with her, like a decoy, so people would not be so suspicious," Karin said. "She would tell [Jewish] people to hide. Some [did], but nobody thought that within three to six months they wouldn't be alive anymore. Gabriella lost seventy-five members of her family. She recounts "I was a little girl, everyone in the neighborhood got along. Jews and non-Jews mixed with ease, came to my parents' shop, were friends. No one could ever have imagined what was to come. We would never think it was possible."
Ultimately Gabriella was saved by Karol Blanar, a Christian man who saved her life and eight others—including her mother and father—by hiding them for nine months in a floor of his apartment, across the street from the Gestapo headquarters. Gabriella says that she owes him so much for giving her a chance to live, work is in memory of the children who did not survive the Holocaust; she showed the group a picture of a birthday party where Today Gabriella Karin is an artist, and her art and clay sculptures depict her experiences during the Holocaust or the bond between a mother and her child.
Jesa Kreiner (previously spelled Krajner) was born in the city of Belgrade, capitol of the former Yugoslavia, now Serbia. Date of birth November 16, 1934. His nuclear family consisted of his father Herman and mother Maria and Jesa (pronounced Yesha). Jesa’s fathers was an executive in the largest investment bank in the country while his mother was a housewife.
Jesa and his family belonged to the Ashkenazi Jewish community while the majority of the Jews were Sephardim. The relationship between the two communities left a lot to be desired and they frequently fought one another. His family believed in the unity of the Jewish people and his Sandak (godfather) was a Sephardi Yakov Benvenisti.
After World War II started and the murder of the Jews commenced, with the help of Jesa’s father's employer, they were able to obtain documents attesting that they were Catholics and escaped to the Italian occupied part of the country, to the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia. Upon arrival to Dubrovnik, Jesa and his family were arrested but ultimately released. Subsequently his family moved further south to Montenegro where they lived until the end of the war. Once back in Belgrade in 1945, Jesa commenced his formal education having lost the war years. The Jewish community was decimated but resumed functioning, this time integrating both the Ashkenazim and Sephardim. In school and beyond Jesa experienced numerous acts of anti-Semitism and bullying. He started his Jewish education and was Bar Mitzvahed in 1948. Eventually he became active in the Jewish Student Association and became its President in 1959. Jesa also sang in the Jewish Community Choir Brothers Baruch which performed in the country and beyond.
Jesa studied and graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and started working in 1960. Subsequently he came to the USA where he obtained his Ph.D. and was hired at California State University Fullerton where he advanced through the academic ranks and served in numerous administrative positions, including that of the Chair of the Division of Engineering encompassing all engineering departments.
He published over 100 technical publications some of which he presented at conferences in the USA and many other countries, and was a recipient of numerous research grants by NASA, DOE, DOD and many corporations. For his achievements, Jesa was recognized by the prestigious awards of Outstanding Engineering Educator of Orange County as well as of Distinguished Engineering Educator of the Greater Los Angeles area. During his work at CSU Fullerton, he served as the Faculty Advisor of the Hillel Jewish Student Organization at Cal State Fullerton and was an active member of the B’nai Brith Shalom Lodge in Los Angeles. He has been married to his wife Yael for over 48 years and has two adult children, Gideon and Abigail, both of whom are married and have children of their own. Their son Gideon made aliyah in 2012 and their daughter Abigail resides in Los Angeles and is a member of Sinai Temple. Jesa and his wife are members of both Temple Sinai in Los Angeles as well as Temple Beth Emmet in Orange County.
Sidonia Lax was born in 1927 in Przemysl, Poland. She was the only child and her parents lived a life that some considered to be affluent. In 1939 the war broke out in Poland. In 1939 Nazi tanks enter Poland and everything was taken away from the Jews. People were losing their possessions, the Germans took her radio, which was her last precious item. Sidonia had to wear a yellow star and all the Jews in the town were forced into a ghetto. There was no medicine, no food. At the age of 12 she was selected for a job- breaking up large rocks into small rocks which helped her develop her muscles.
People started to disappear and Sidonia and her family went to hide in a bunker under an apartment building. They arranged for a Polish policeman to meet them at a certain time and he would help them escape. However, when her mother who was first in line left the hiding place- she was killed. Some time later her father tried to escape because he heard that there were some apples and he wanted to get some fresh apples for his daughter. He never returned- Sidonia was left an orpan- alone – yellow in color from lack of food and full of lice. She was discovered by a Nazi officer and his dog and put in jail – and eventually, she landed in Auschwitz. She had her head shaved. She was placed with nine other people in a small building. There was one bed and one blanket for them. In the morning each person was to stand at attention, standing on ice, and with no movement whatsoever. Sidonia was lucky to get a pair of shoes and she watched everyday as people were directed to the left or right- to life or death. Because she was strong from breaking up rocks in the ghetto, she was always selected to go to work.
Her job was to work on grenades filled with chemicals. One day, they were told not to load the grenades on the train. A voice rang out and said “load the prisoners,” All the prisoners at the work site were loaded into the trains and because the Allies who started bombing the Nazis thought that trains was loaded with weapons- they bombed it. Sidonia’s clothes caught fire and she jumped from the train and rolled around in the wet grass to quench the fire.
The war was over and she went to a displacement camp and she found out that she had a uncle and a cousin in the U.S. She made her way to Austria, Switzerland and then ultimately was able to make her way to America. When she saw the Statue of Liberty, she wept. Sidonia came to Los Angeles and lived with her uncle and aunt. She eventually married Lewis Lax, had three children, who married and she then said she had six children. Along came 5 grandchildren and now 2 great grandchildren.
PAULA LEBOVICS born Pessa Balter, had a happy early childhood. Born in September 1933, she did not know at the age of five that a war had started, one that would destroy her life as she knew it. She lived in a religious home; her parents worked in her grandfather’s shoe store in Ostrowiec, Poland until 1940 when soldiers came and told her family that their part of the city was not for Jews. Her family was banished to a single room in the open ghetto.
Her brother Herschel rapidly schooled himself in survival and prepared a hole under a chicken coop, where he hid his family and whomever else could crowd in, a total of 40, on days when there was to be a “selection.” Two sisters, ages 16 and 18 declined to join them because they had papers that assured them they could work in safety. They were never heard from again- they were murdered in Treblinka. Pessa was hidden in an attic during the day and allowed out to see her parents only at night. She quickly learned survival lessons from her brother, chief among these lessons to appear as invisible as possible. When her brother told her it was too dangerous to stay, she hid in an abandoned brick factory then moved from place to place. She suffered gnawing hunger and numbing cold.Eventually she was captured by Ukrainian soldiers and taken to the Germans. At one point, Pessa recalls being told to wash the floor of a large hall at a Hitler Youth camp. .
At the age of 10, she was herded onto a cattle car, packed with other unfortunates and taken to Auschwitz. The women were cast into a room and subjected to searches. Then she was tattooed. She survived on starvation rations of watery gruel and black bread, and singing, to bolster the spirits of her fellow prisoners. When Mengele, came to select subjects for his infamous experiments, she practiced her skills at being invisible. Pessa heard that her brother was across the electrified fence and found him. When they found that their mother was gravely ill, he passed food for her across that fence to Pessa. Others, unsuccessful at negotiating the fence were seen hanging on it every morning, electrocuted, dead.
Then, one day, all the adults were marched out of the camp, a death march. Left with the younger children, Pessa’s only food for 10 days was a moldy bit of bread she had found. Allied bombs were starting to fall and knocked out the powerhouse. Along with others, she returned to the camp and in an abandoned storeroom she put on as many clothes as she could manage to protect herself against the winter cold. Darkness found her scrambling through a mound of mismatched shoes and she was so proud of herself to find two felt boots. They were not a pair, and one was much too large, but as she had nothing, then found something, for a moment she considered herself rich.
Finally on January 27, 1945, Russian soldiers opened the gate. Death was still prevalent throughout the camp as so many succumbed to dysentery. She once again found her mother. They registered with the Red Cross and then went to their home town. When they found her grandfather’s building, the caretaker who had taken over the living quarters greeted them with the question: “Jew, they didn’t kill you?”
Her brother Herschel once again came to the rescue and got them to a displaced persons camp in Germany. There, she enrolled in Hebrew school, the first real school she ever attended, at age 12. Herschel eventually emigrated to Australia in 1950 and she and her mother came to the United States, arriving in Detroit on March 1, 1952. She changed her name to Paula and married in 1957. She has two children.
It was a beautiful day nearing the end of summer in the French Alps. Maggy Levier and I were two young women riding on rickety old bicycles through alpine villages on the mountainous roads. The wicker baskets hanging from the front handlebars of our bikes were filled to the brim with food provisions and an assortment of men’s clothing. We were intent on our destination, but not certain of the route we should take. The day was August 31, 1944, and the war that raged in Europe was not yet over.
Just six weeks earlier, in mid-July on Bastille Day, my husband, Rodolphe, myself, and our three children, Eva, twelve, Ernest, nine, and Raymond, five, had ventured out on a hike up into the high Alpine meadows for a picnic. Below us in the village of Autrans, brightly colored flags adorning homes and shops fluttered in the summer breeze. The sky was blue, the summer wildflowers bloomed, and we tried to keep the war out of mind for the day. As we shared our family picnic, we saw airplanes flying above. Their presence added to the spirit of the day as we thought they were Allied planes continuing to push back the defeated Germans with the Allied victory in North Africa. Recently, we had been buoyed by the news of the Allied invasion in Normandy on June 6, 1944. Now here were the Allies coming from North Africa advancing into southern France to liberate us.
Our optimism was short-lived. The pristine mountain air was soon disturbed by the sounds and smoke of bombs being dropped on a nearby village. The airplanes flying overhead we thought to be our liberators were actually German planes finally piercing through our mountain fortress. Our family outing and Bastille Day celebration came to an abrupt halt as Rodolphe and I quickly gathered up the children and ran down from the mountain meadow. As we made our way back to the village, Rodolphe said to me, “The net is tightening; if the Nazis catch me, I want to have a weapon in my hands to defend myself to my last breath!”
With these thoughts freshly imprinted in his mind, the next day, July 15th, Rodolphe left Autrans with our friend Serge Levier and his son-in-law, Henri Bamberger, to procure weapons and join the underground forces (FFI, or Forces Françaises de l’Interieur).
To further set the scene, let me backtrack briefly and provide some historical context. By November 1942, just two years after Germany occupied France, we had come to live (or hide) in the village of Autrans high in the French Alps. It was a community that sheltered many Jewish refugees who had managed to escape from their homes in cities and towns across occupied France and were hiding from the murderous grasp of the Nazis. Autrans was located in a high mountain valley in southern France near Grenoble. Because of its geography and limited roadway accessibility, the area created a natural fortress, which had kept the German Army at bay, at least temporarily. We had lived there relatively undisturbed until September 1943, when Italy made a separate peace agreement with the Allies. The Italian troops retreated from southern France, leaving the Germans to move in, imposing their harsh regime on the entire region. During the winter of 1943-1944 the Germans made dreaded incursions into the Vercors, a high mountainous plateau that encompassed our village of Autrans. The Vercors, at the time, was being held by the FFI, a small underground army composed of resisters to the enemy and to the Vichy government. Fortunately, the Germans thought the army was much larger and more well-equipped than it actually was.
Following our Bastille Day picnic, my husband joined the FFI and fully participated in the ensuing Battle of the Vercors, not to become a hero or to presume to help victory along. But in the heavily forested Alps, the FFI resisters managed at a crucial time to detain two German divisions – which were thus considered missing in the south.
During his absence and the subsequent German occupation of Autrans, we had had a fairly close call when a Nazi officer took up temporary residence in the house where I was living with my three children. Fortunately all my children had blond hair and blue eyes resembling me more than Rodolphe who looked more “typically” Jewish. Our landlord, who spoke no German, asked me not only to give up my bedroom for the officer, but to serve as an interpreter. Not to arouse suspicion, I posed as a native French speaker who could speak only pidgin German and interpreted as best I could.
In fact, I was born in Driesen, Germany, and had been a medical student at the University of Berlin in 1933 when on October 3rd of that year I was immediately excluded from all studies because of my “Marxist” activities, though in truth my crime was having been born Jewish, as I was no political activist. My husband was prohibited from practicing patent law in Germany shortly thereafter. Fortunately, his colleagues invited him to join their firm in Paris, so we moved to France in 1933. We ultimately became French citizens, and my husband was able to work there until Paris, too, became unsafe for Jews.
The Battle of the Vercors, for which Rodolphe, Serge, and Henri had taken up arms, was short -lived and the only action most of the resisters from our region would see. The Resistance army was officially disbanded. Those who had volunteered were told to disappear and save themselves. Because the Germans still occupied the area, Rodolphe and Serge thought it best to lie low for a while. They had given up their Resistance uniforms for civilian clothes and were making their way through farms and villages, trying to keep clear as best they could of German patrols. Eventually, they made their way to St. Martin d’Août, a town about ninty kilometers from Autrans, where Serge had a friend. Henri, in an attempt to return home more quickly, had taken a shortcut through the mountains back to Autrans, fell into German hands, and was executed. I learned of Henri’s death when I was called to the neighboring town to identify his body. However, I still did not know the whereabouts of my husband and Serge.
August days passed by without news of Rodolphe or Serge. Grenoble was liberated on August 23, 1944; for the Vercors the war was over. Still we waited for news. There was no telephone service in the mountains, but when there was news, it traveled quickly by word of mouth from post office to post office, hotel to hotel, village to village. As I returned home from my morning shopping on August 30th , my children greeted me in the front yard and anxiously relayed a message.
“Maman, the priest was here, he wanted to speak to you. He left a message upstairs.”
I climbed the stairs with legs suddenly made of jelly. On the kitchen table lay a piece of paper quickly torn out of a pad, without a date, no doubt written by the priest. It said:
“M. Gutmann and Cdr. Levier are in St. Martin d’Août, in the Drôme, lacking money and civilian clothing. Asking one of their wives, preferably Mme. G bring them money and clothing…”
To this day, I cannot understand why I did not dash out to see the priest to find out how he happened to possess that piece of paper or that information, how old the message could be, and to thank him. Instead, I ran to Claire Levier’s house to tell her.
“Our husbands are safe,” I told her. “They need money and clothes. I must go immediately by bicycle to St. Martin d’Août to bring them those items.”
Claire’s daughter, Maggy, who was just sixteen years old, insisted on coming with me. We quickly rented two bicycles and asked the advice of Dr. Chauve and the butcher, Mr. Barnier, both of whom had been of invaluable help to FFI.
“How can we reach St. Martin?” I asked them. “Should we travel through Grenoble? Did they have a roadmap? Was the Grenoble area already safe?”
“Careful,” they said. “There are still skirmishes here and there. Go toward Grenoble to the Red Cross. If they tell you that you can continue, fine. If not, entrust your package and the money to them, with name and address, and they will deliver it as soon as possible.”
In great haste, I assembled as much as I could for our trek to St. Martin. Before leaving, I took my three children, Eva, Ernest, and Raymond, to Roland and Geneviève Menthonnex at Clairfontaine with instructions that the children should be sent to Mr. Plasseraud in Paris if neither I nor my husband should return. Mme. Menthonnex had earlier told us, “In case of hardship or difficulty, send the children to us, simply with their suitcase,” and I had great faith that Mr. Plasseraud would do what was necessary to send the children to my parents in Palestine after the war, should it come to that.
So here I am at the beginning of my story again. It was a beautiful day nearing the end of summer in the French Alps. Maggy Levier and I were two young women riding on rickety old bicycles through alpine villages on the mountainous roads. Did our appearance betray our mission? Two young women clothed in summer skirts and cotton blouses, pedaling in heavy hiking boots, our bikes laden down with supplies. Now on the road to Grenoble, anxiously, we started climbing to the Croix Perrin Pass. The road had become too steep so we got off our bikes and pushed them. With wicker baskets filled to the brim with food provisions and an assortment of men’s clothing, we hiked up to the summit pass. Before beginning the descent down to the town of Lans, we rested for a moment in a mountain meadow and hastily ate the sandwiches we had brought along.
Back on our bikes, eager to be on our way, we began the descent. It didn't take long for me to discover that the brakes on the old bicycle didn't work. Furiously I kept applying pressure to the brakes while assessing my options – none of which were good. To my left were the rocks against the mountainside of the road and to my right, the cliff. The road was a series of hairpin turns and my speed was mounting. Bend after bend, I flew along the road at top speed, quickly approaching a very narrow hairpin curve, where I fell. The bike dragged me dozens of meters on my stomach, my right hand clinging to the useless brake of the handlebar, pulling me along with it. There I remained sprawled out in the middle of the road, the left side of my face skinned and bleeding, my blouse ripped, my left hand, elbow, and knee encrusted with pebbles. My left ankle was broken, my right thumb completely dislocated, the flexor tendon torn, and the first joint hanging. Maggy fell off her bike too with a big part of the brake stuck in her forearm.
Our expedition was over and I could only lament incessantly, “My husband… my husband… How will I reach him now? My husband… my husband…”
Maggy began to cry, too. Within moments of our calamitous accident, people appeared on the road. They had been picking berries and mushrooms and emerged from the surrounding forest when they heard our cries. We were only two to three kilometers away from the village of Lans.
One man set off immediately for help while the others carefully moved both Maggy and me off to the side of the road. Another man had some brandy with him, which he offered to us with a cube of sugar. I insisted that he give it to Maggy, who was now in a state of shock. After some time the first man, who had gone to town, returned with a bottle of fresh water and news that a cart was on its way to collect us. Tears streamed down my face as I took the water and used it to clean away the dirt and pebbles embedded in my skin. Our foolhardy plan was doomed. Where was my husband now and how would I ever get the needed supplies to him?
Let me backtrack here and fill in the details of Rodolphe’s story up to this point. Following the Battle of the Vercors, Rodolphe and Serge, suspecting continued unrest in the area, made their way to St. Martin d’Août, where Serge knew someone who might take them in until things settled down. Their journey was not without danger. They cautiously made their way through German-patrolled fields and villages, keeping out of sight as best they could. They slept in barns and accepted a piece of bread or cup of milk from compassionate farmers along the way. One such farmer lent them a wheelbarrow filled with hay covering their knapsacks and enabling them to pass without suspicion under the noses of the German soldiers. Rodolphe and Serge walked along the road very slowly, pushing the wheelbarrow as though they were farmers returning from the fields. Finally, they reached St. Martin d’Août, where they rested and were cared for.
The townspeople were thirsting for news of the Vercors, wanting to know what had happened up there during the battle. Rodolphe and Serge were taken for officers of the Résistance, perhaps because they were older than most soldiers or perhaps because of their foreign accents. As they relayed their knowledge of the events to this little gathering, they voiced their concern for us, their families still in Autrans. The Nazis had killed so many in the region, and Rodolphe and Serge were justifiably worried for our safety.
Among the townspeople, a young priest, Father Petit, offered a plan.
“Listen,” he said. “I will go to Grenoble, and from there to Autrans, to reassure your loved ones and bring you news of them.”
But Rodolphe and Serge could not accept this kindness. “Father,” they said. “The area is still infested with Nazis. They will take you for a priest of the Résistance. You’ll risk too much. And… we are Jews…”
“That does not matter,” Father Petit reassured them. “I would even say on the contrary! Leave it to me. I will plan my trip before going off to Grenoble. If the Germans stop me, what could I tell them?”
“There is a large sanatorium for 300 to 350 children in Autrans,” offered Rodolphe.
“Good! I'll tell them that my parishioners who have children there are anxious about them, and I would like to get news of them.”
The next morning, Father Petit set out on his bicycle toward Grenoble. But the following day he returned to St. Martin d’Août, his heart heavy, his mission incomplete. The Nazis still controlled much of the area surrounding Grenoble, and he was not able to pass through to Autrans to check on the families. He did, however, manage to scrawl a cryptic note on a torn piece of paper that he had passed along to another priest with the request to have it delivered to Charlotte Gutmann in Autrans.
The note read, “M. Gutmann and Cdr. Levier are in St. Martin d’Août, in the Drôme lacking money and civilian clothing. Asking one of their wives, preferably Mme. G bring them money and clothing…”
This was the note I received from the unknown priest the day before I set off with Maggy on our fateful journey. When Father Petit recounted his tale to Rodolphe and Serge, describing the note and its contents, my husband was alarmed to hear that the note might be delivered. Though appreciative of the priest’s great courage and noble efforts, Rodolphe had reservations.
“The only thing that worries me,” he explained to Father Petit, “is the message you left with the priest in Sassenage. Imagine that he succeeds in passing it to someone, and then it reaches my wife. If I know her, she will dash out immediately, and if she falls into the hands of the Nazis, on her bicycle laden with men's clothing, she will be accused of supplying the Résistance, and her fate will be sealed. I must get to Autrans at all costs to prevent my wife’s departure.”
My husband left at dawn the next morning, racing to get to me before I could make my way to him. Serge had hurt his foot while helping to bring in the hay. It had become infected so he was not able to make the journey with Rodolphe. At the price of a thousand difficulties, my husband walked relentlessly, rode a train part of the way, fell into the hands of a group of FFL (Forces Françaises Libres, communist rivals of the FFI), was suspected of being a German in civilian clothes because of his accent, and was under threat of being shot. Fortunately, he was able to give details of the FFI. So he was released and even provided with a pass.
When Rodolphe got to Sassenage, he was told: “You're lucky… The cable railway to St. Nizier has been working again since this morning.”
From St. Nizier, a town now in ruins, Rodolphe walked the last five or six kilometers to Lans, where he arrived exhausted. He happened to recognize a woman standing in the doorway of her house.
“Is there anyway I can get to Autrans before nightfall?” he asked her.
At that moment, a farmer was passing by her house in his cart. The woman pointed to him and said, “He's on his way to Croix Perrin now. Apparently two women have had an accident. He can help to get you part of the way,” she said. And so Rodolphe hoisted himself onto the seat beside the driver.
Meanwhile, Maggy and I waited by the side of the road for help to come for what seemed an eternity. We were distressed, injured and frightened. Finally I heard in the distance the trot of an approaching horse. Our rescue wagon appeared from around the bend in the road. As the cart approached, a man's voice called out, startling me:
“Charlotte!” he shouted.
I turned to look toward the familiar voice and by the grace of God saw my husband, Rodolphe, perched on the cart beside the farmer!
Without this accident, Maggy and I would have taken a different route and been near Grenoble by then. We most likely would have fallen into German hands, because the area was still full of Nazis. Looking suspicious on our bikes, transporting men’s clothing, food, and money, chances are we would have been executed on the spot. My husband would have returned to Autrans, found an empty house, and known great anguish.
Instead, our paths miraculously crossed. Call it Providence, a miracle or the work of angels. We were blessed on that day with our roadside reunion. After recovering our spirits, Rodolphe accompanied Maggy and me to the infirmary in Lans, where a young surgeon took care of us. With delicate hands, he washed and disinfected our various wounds, and stitched and bandaged them. He sewed the tendon of my right thumb and put a cast on my left ankle. We rested for a few days until Serge eventually joined us. Together we all returned to our loved ones in Autrans.
*********************************
This was my mother’s story and though it was miraculous, it was not the only miracle we experienced during the war. Why did we survive? The village of Vassieux, a neighbor to Autrans, was in ruins, leveled, with all inhabitants massacred. Again, we were so close to the destruction. Why were we protected by Providence? Why did we experience these miracles that kept my parents, my brothers and me alive when so many others had died? After decades of asking myself those questions, I finally came to an answer. I am alive today so that I can travel with the March of the Living delegates, sharing my family story with today’s youth with hopes that they in turn will share it with others. Whereas these wartime horrors should never be forgotten, neither should the miracles.
IRVING GRAIFMAN z'l was born in Grodzsk, Poland, but was living in Warsaw when the war began. He and his family, four brothers and 3 sisters, along with his parents, were taken to the Warsaw Ghetto. Mr Graifman was in many camps during the more, most notably, Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Theresenstadt. It was from Theresendstadt that he was liberated by the Russian army. Mr Graifman remembers that as the allies came closer, the Nazis would take us with them when they fled.
BERNARD GROSS was born in Palatka, Czechoslovakia. He was taken to a working camp in Munkacs, Hungary and spent 2 years there. After about one year in Munkacs, Bernie remembers that they began taking people to Auschwitz. Bernie was liberated by the Russians and was reunited with all of his siblings.
RUTH GROSS was born in Neliton, Czechoslovakia, one of nine children. Mrs Gross left home to live with an aunt when she was 14 years old. When she returned to her family one year later, her two older sisters had already left home. They went deep into Hungary where they worked for Jewish families and sent money home to her parents. Mrs. Gross remembers that “things were beginning to get difficult at home”. When food rations were tifht, Ruth told her father that she was leaving to join her sisters. “He would only get 1 loaf of bread and would have to divide it up between everybody. If I left, he had an extra piece for someone else.” She as able to get around because she spoke several languages fluently. Eventually, Ruth ended up in Auschwitz. Four of her sisters also survived the war.
DORA JABKO was born in Lodz, Poland and was taken to the Lodz Ghetto when she was 9 years old. Her only sibling, a brother was 5 at the time. Her family was later transferred to Ravensbruk where her parents perished and she and her brother were liberated by the Russians. Mrs Jabko was 13 at the time.
PERCY KAYE z'l was born in Lodz, Poland and escaped the Lodz Ghetto to join the resistance movement. His parents and 3 sisters perished during the war. Mr Kaye received two of the highest decorations by the Polish army for this fighting during the war. He knew a German soldier and was able to get secret information from him. When Mr Kaye crossed the German lines, he carried two cyanide pills with him so that he would not be tortured for his information. He has written poetry about his experiences and they are located at Yad Vashem.
MORRIS KIEL was born in Benzin, Poland, close to the German border. He was an only child and was 14 years old when the war began. His family was called to a soccer field where people were being separated. He and his parents were sent to one side and sent home. His grandparents were sent to the other side and were later transported to a holding area. Morris gave his age as 16 and was sent to work in a leather goods factory. He knew his grandmother was already gone but he was able to crawl through an attic and bring his grandfather back home. Eventually, Morris was taken on another train to an oil and gas refinery which would later be taken over by the SS and become Blechhammer. When the British and American forces learned of the gas refinery, they bombed it so that it wouldn’t be usable. Morris was then sent to Gross-Rosen and later to Buchenwald and was later liberated.
LILI KIEL (BIENSTOCK) z"l was born in Warsaw, Poland and was an only child. Her family was put in the Warsaw Ghetto and then moved to Majdanek, Auschwitz, Ravensbruck, Malhoff and Leibzig. The continuous bombing after arriving in Leipzig kept the group of prisoners moving. As they marched along various roads, Mrs Binstock (Kiel) tucked herself into a doorway where she was greeted by a Polish woman. Believing that Lili was also Polish, the woman offered shelter in the barn. The next morning she was awakened by the flashlight of an American soldier. She walked back to Poland. When she returned to Poland she was offered the opportunity to send a telegram to a relative in the United States. While doing so, she heard the familiar voice of a man who used to work for her father and they were later married.
EVA LIBITZKY z"l was born in Lodz, Poland. When the war broke out, her parents, older brother and herself were transferred to the Lodz Ghetto. Before the German raids on the Ghetto, plans were made for her older brother to be married. “I came from a very religious family and once a wedding was planned, you could not change it unless someone very close to the family died. So even though raids were happening, we still managed to have a ceremony for my brother’s wedding with a Rabbi and a Chuppah.” Her brother was then taken to Chelmno during one of the raids. Her parents died during their time in the Ghetto. When allied forces started moving in, Eva was taken on open coal wagons between the Ghetto and Therezenstadt. The trip lasted 3 weeks as they were moved back and forth before finally being liberated from Therezienstadt by the Russians.
Eva, and her husband, Martin (z'l), who passed away in 2012, and participated
with Eva on the 1998 March, made a tremendous impression on our participants. Their courage, resilience and strength were an inspiration to all our participants. In 2010, Eva published her memoir, Out on a Ledge - Enduring the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz and Beyond.
May her name be a blessing and may the family be comforted among the mourners in Zion and Jerusalem.
MARTIN LIBITZKY z'l was also from Lodz, Poland. He had 1 brother and 3 sisters. When the war broke out, he was fighting in the Polish Army and was in Warsaw. He was sent to a military prison but when it was discovered that he was a Jew, he was sent to the Lodz Ghetto. There he worked as a fireman. From the Lodz Ghetto, Mr Libitzky was sent to Auschwitz and then on to a factory where he built propellers for airplanes. He was liberated by the Russians from Auschwitz.
JOSEPH LITT was born in Warsaw, Poland. Growing up he had five brothers and one sister. He was the youngest. He went to school and Hebrew School. He says, “I come from a close knit lving family. That is what I lost.” During the war he was in Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising. In April 1943 he was sent to Majdanek. From Majdanek he was sent to Skarzysko Kamienne, a labor camp which had a munitions factory. He was liberated from Bergen Belsen in April 1945. Joe recalls “is worst moment of his life was on the March in 1992 in Treblinka when I walked to the Warsaw monument and said kaddish for my mother and father.”
ABE ROZENTAL z'l, accompanied by his wife, participated in the very first March of the Living and his first trip back to Poland. Abe was a survivor of Auschwitz and several other camps. He was always available to talk to the kids and answer their questions. As the participants tried to take in what they were seeing, Abe give them strength. He became a father figure to many. After the first day at Auschwitz, the kids kept coming over to him, one by one, to ask how he was, how he was feeling, if he was okay. When some of the participants were having a particular hard time, Abe would walk over to them and say, “walk with me – we will walk out together – unlike so many of my family and friends.” Abe was deeply touched by their concern, and truly moved by their compassion. For him, seeing the way the kids reacted was a reaffirmation of the strength of the Jewish spirit.
ISRAEL “JOE” SACHS z"l was born and raised in the small town of Przyrow, Poland. At the outbreak of WWII, Joe, a young boy of 12 years old lived with his parents and an older brother in the city of Sisnowiec. During the German occupation, Joe was apprehended in a deportation roundup and shipped off to a labor camp in Germany was he was 15. After nearly three years of concentration camp internment, Joe was liberated on May 8, 1945. None of his family survived the war.
(L-R: Holocaust Survivors Joe "Israel" Sachs z"l, David Mandel and Irene Zisblatt stand in Auschwitz with Melinda Mishkin Kieffer during the 2008 March of the Living.
Click HERE to watch this Survivor Speaks video featuring Joe which was created by the Miami March of the Living.
May his memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
READ MORE ABOUT JOE "ISRAEL" SACHS
LEON SENDERS z”l served with the partisans. As an radio man and explosive expert, he was instrumental in placing detonators near bridges to stop the forward march of the troops.
BRENDA SENDERS z'l grew up in Sarny, Poland, a small town of 20,000 people including approximately 8,000 Jews. She was sent to the Ghetto and when the Ghetto was liquidated she was sent to what appeared to be a small camp. “The camp looked like a small version of the big camps. One day, a man cut the barbed wire surrounding the camp and I said goodbye to my mother and she said, “if you leave here, never forget what you saw.” I left and my mother pushed my sister out from the barbed wire. My sister followed me and then we split up. I joined the partisan fighters and my fought on horseback and with guns until the end of the war. My sister and I found each other when the war ended. “ More information on Brenda can be found on the Jewish Partisans website.
REGINA WOLBROM was born in Gera, Germany. In October, 1938, her father was taken because he was a Polish citizen. Regina survived Kristalnacht before her mother was able to send her and her 2 brothers away to an aunt in Belgium while she remained in Germany trying to get a visa for herself. Eventually the father smuggled himself from Poland to Beligum and Regina’s mother went from Germany to Belgium. The family was then reunited and her sister was born. When the Germans entered Belgium, Regina’s mother sent her to a dressmaker to learn the trade. The dressmaker agreed to keep Regina and then sent the entire family to a cousin. The dressmaker’s cousin kept Regina and her family. Regina reminded this cousin of her own daughter of the same age that was in a Convent. The nuns were asked to keep the family and they eventually wee taken in by a Priest and the priest’s father. In May, 1944, Germans came into the house and said “someone is here who doesn’t belong”. They asked Regina for her paperwork and when she told them she couldn’t find it, they looked for it. She was put in jail and questioned. The Priest was also questioned but because he was a Priest he was able to stay silent. It was then that Regina was sent to Auschwitz, Ravensbruck, Malchof and Leipzig. Regina was eventually reunited with her siblings.
IRENE ZISBLATT lived in Polena, Hungary. Life started to change for Jews in her town and Irene was thrown out of school for being a Jew. In 1944, Germany invaded Hungary and Irene’s family was ordered to the Ghetto. The children were sometimes allowed to go to the river with the adults. One time, when they returned to the Ghetto, the men were gone. Shortly after, cattle cars arrived to take them to a local vineyard to work. The trains never went to the vineyard and instead went to Poland – Auschwitz/Birkenau. Although Irene’s mother tried to keep everyone together, Irene remembers her mother’s last words when they were separated, “Don’t cry, I’ll come for you later”. She never saw her mother again. Irene was liberated in April, 1945. Irene still carries today the diamonds her mother sewed into her clothes to be sold for food if needed.
“The Story cannot die. We are dying. We won’t be around, so hopefully the new generation can tell the next generation.”
ABRAM (AMEK) ADLER z'l was born in Lublin, Poland, on April 20, 1928 and grew up in Lodz. In 1939, his family escaped to Warsaw and then to Radom. In 1943, Amek was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, to various work camps and eventually to Dachau, where his father and one brother perished. Amek was liberated on April 28, 1945 and eventually reunited with his mother and two of his brothers. He lived in Italy from 1945-1947, working with the Israeli Irgun Tzvai Leumi to help illegal immigrants into Palestine. He immigrated to Sweden in 1948 and then to Toronto, Canada in 1954 with his wife, Ruth. He was successful in both the fur and jewelry industries becoming president of the Canadian Jewellers Association in 1989. His autobiography, Six Lost Years, was published in early 2017. Amek passed away on April 25, 2017 while in Humbolt, Saskatchewan sharing his story. He and Ruth are blessed with two children and four grandchildren.
“I hope that through my shared personal experiences on numerous March of the Living trips, I have impacted numerous teens and adults so that the Shoah cannot and will not repeat itself in the future.”
MARTIN BARANEK was born in 1930 in Starachowice, Poland. After 17 months in a labor camp, he was taken to Auschwitz. In January 1945 he was forced on the Death March from Auschwitz to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Martin was later forced on another death March to Gunskierchen. There he was liberated by the American Infantry 71st Division on May 4, 1945. He arrived in Italy in June of 1945 before going on Aliyah-Bet on an illegal ship to Palestine. After a forced stay in Cyprus, Martin landed in Palestine where he was placed in the Atlit Detention Camp. Martin fought in the 1948 War of Independence. In December of 1948, he arrived in Canada and was reunited with his Mother. In 1953, Martin married Betty Eidelman. Together they raised four children and are proud grandparents of nine grandchildren.
“When we were young and just learning about the murderous Holocaust, we were mortified that the world was a very scary place. Our father said, ‘people are mostly good, and goodness will always win.”
JOSEPH BETEL z'l was born on June 30, 1929 in Lodz, Poland. In 1939 when the Nazis created the Lodz ghetto his family fled by train to Stopnitza to be with family. They moved around from town to town eventually making their way to the Strzegom Forest. His younger sister became ill and died and his Mother and older sister were killed. Just six months before the end of the war his Father was killed leaving Joe alone at the age of 15. At the end of the war he made Aliyah to Israel and fought in the 1948 War of Independence. Joe moved to Canada and met and married Carmela, in 1956. Joe began his work life ironing shirts eventually becoming a successful entrepreneur. They have three children, ten grandchildren, one great grandchild and more on the way!
BATIA BETTMAN wrote a play “No More Raisins, No More Almonds” and a film “Let Memory Speak”. She is an advocate for Jewish Education, and was a founding board member of Montreal’s Jewish Education Centre.
Ernie did not speak much about what he endured until he participated as a Survivor Educator on the March of the Living. He wanted to ensure that students have the chance to bear witness to the remnants of the Holocaust and be encouraged to bring about positive change in our world. It was for all the young student participants. He had an incredible connection with young people.
ERNEST BLOCH z'l was born in Nýrsko, Czechoslovakia, in 1927. He survived Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Bismarckhütte, Mittelbau-Dora and was liberated by the Soviet armed forces in Prague, Czechoslovakia. His entire family was murdered and his life as a Czechoslovakian was completely destroyed. When the war was over he moved to Canada where he managed to rebuild and create a wonderful life and family. He embodied strength and perseverance. Ernest met his wife Erika in Canada in 1951 and they married a year later. He worked in the construction industry. Ernie will forever be remembered for his love of people, compassion, optimism, his will to overcome hardships, his generous spirit and wisdom, and for the many lives he touched. Ernest passed away on April 6, 2012, Erev Pesach. He is survived by his wife Erika, two children and five grandchildren.
“As long as we are able to move, we should continue to tell our stories”
Hedy Bohm was born in 1928, in Oradea, Transylvania, and was an only child to Ignacz, a master cabinet maker, and Erzsebet, a homemaker. In May of 1944, Hedy and her family were sent to the Oradea ghetto, and from there, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was then selected for forced work detail at an ammunition factory and shipped to Fallersleben, Germany in August 1944. Hedy was liberated by American forces in April 1945. Post war, Hedy returned to Romania, where she was able to meet up with cousins, and where she married her husband Imre. They were able to escape to Prague, where an aid organization arranged for this group of Hungarian orphans to get visas to Canada. They arrived in Halifax, Canada in August 1948. Hedy has two children and two grandchildren.
TED BOLGAR participated in the March of the Living for many years until 2017 when he decided it will be is last.
“It is vital that we learn from our history and be vigilant that it is never repeated by anyone and to anyone.”
Howard Chandler was born in December 1928, in Weirzbnik, Poland. He was the middle child of four siblings; an older sister, and two younger brothers. At the onset of the war, Howard was almost eleven years old, finishing grade three, and remembers the rounding up and kidnapping of Jews for forced labor camps and the constant search of houses. Between 1942-1944, he was a prisoner in Starachowice Labour Camp and then sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald and was liberated from Theresienstadt in 1945. Only he and one of his brothers survived. In 1947, he was able to be included in a group to go to Canada, where he found his mothers’ two sisters, and lived with another sister. Howard mar
“Remembering is not enough… fight indifference, intolerance and injustice.”
Born in Debrecen, Hungary, in 1928, JUDY WEISSENBERG COHEN was the youngest of seven siblings. In June 1944, Judy and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, there she and her sisters were separated from their mother. Although Judy survived several camps and a death march, her parents, four siblings and most of her extended family were murdered. After being liberated by the US army in 1945, Judy spent two years at the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp, along with two siblings. In 1948, Judy immigrated to Montreal, where she met and married Sidney Jessel Cohen and together they had two children. They moved to Toronto in 1961. After a personal encounter with a neo-Nazi Holocaust-denying group in 1993, Judy became an activist in Holocaust education and anti-racism. She is the originator and Chair of The Holocaust Centre’s permanent exhibit “We Who Survived,” Judy is also the creator of the website “Women and The Holocaust.”
“Not all people are the same. There were good people, people that helped and risked their lives to save us children. There are all kinds of people in the world and we are not all the same. Always remember that though there was bad – there was also good.”
Berthe Cygelfarb was born on July 18, 1931 in Brussels, Belgium where her parents, both born in Poland, met and married. In 1933 they moved to Paris and her brother was born. In 1941 during a roundup of men, her father was arrested and sent to Pithivier’s camp, where she visited him before he was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where he died in July 1942. Jews were obliged to wear the yellow star and soon there was a roundup of women and children. When the French police came to arrest them, they fled for the countryside where they stayed until the end of the war. Berthe met her husband Wolf (Welwel) Cygelfarb, also a Holocaust survivor through Hashomer Hatzair which she joined in 1946. They were married in November 1950 and in December moved to Canada together. Welwel passed away in January 1992. They have two children and four grandchildren.
LOU DUNST z'l, an unassuming man with the quiet smile and soft voice, rode on trains whose destinations are a litany of man’s inhumanity to man: Aschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen, Ebensee. Yet he told us: “God was always with us in the boxcars, in the camps, even in the gas chambers.”
He refused to be a victim and be consumed by the camps and the war that defined his early life. Instead of finding hate and vengeance in the heart of this man there was LOVE. In a world overflowing with the worst things people could do to each other, Lou Dunst emerged from this with open arms and sincere love glowing from his very being. “We must get rid of the hate…have only love in your heart.”
Lou chose to teach love. That love has built a loving family, lasting friendships, and cherished memories. That love has opened hearts, calmed unrest, assuaged pain and taught us all the redemptive strength of standing tall with one’s faith and principles.
Lou kept that tree healthy with every new branch it sprouted: his connection with San Diego’s Jewish community, his beloved wife Estelle, his 30 years as a successful businessman and as an inspirational teacher and speaker. Lou Dunst’s life is an example of how one man can emerge from darkness into light and carry that true flame to others.
“My first experience on the March of the Living was with my granddaughter in 1998. I was scared and nervous and not sure what to expect. I have learned first hand that without history there is no memory, and without memory there is no future. This is why we need the March of the Living, to continue to educate and teach all future generations.”
MAX EISEN was born in 1929, in Moldava, former Czechoslovakia. Max had two brothers and a younger sister. In spring 1939, Max and his family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Max worked in slave labour with his father and uncle, but in September 1944, the two were selected out, leaving Max alone. One day, after being sent to the Auschwitz hospital with a severe beating, he was operated on by the camp surgeon, Dr. Tadeusz Orzeszko, a polish political prisoner. All patients who could not return to work were being taken to Birkenau and gassed. Dr. Orzeszko removed Max from his stretcher and made him clean the floor of the operating room, effectively saving his life. Max survived a death march to Mauthausen, Melk and Ebensee. He was liberated by the US Army on May 6, 1945. Max arrived in Canada on October 25, 1949, and then moved to Toronto. He married Ivy Cosman. They have two children, two grandchildren, and three greatgrandchildren.
“From the past, we learn about the present. From the present, we learn what to do with the future. I believe that the only way to guarantee the survival of the Jewish people is through education. The children must learn, so they can teach future generations.”
IRVING EISNER was born in Sojmo, Czechoslovakia, on March 10, 1926. He had four sisters and one brother. Irving and his family were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. His mother, brother and two sisters were killed there. From Auschwitz-Birkenau, Irving was sent to Dachau, where he was labeled prisoner #89012. Irving was liberated from Dachau by US troops in May 8, 1945. Irving and his sister, Sarah, survived, along with their father. In 1946, Irving, his father and sister found their way to a German Displaced Persons camp. While there, Irving met and married his wife Sima. In 1949, Irving and Sima went to Israel, and settled there until 1953, at which time they came to Canada. Irving was a very well-known teacher at both Eitz Chaim and Associated Hebrew School. He authored two books Dachau: Book one, #89012 and Dachau: Book 2, back to the Camps. Irving and his wife are blessed with three sons, nine children and eighteen great grandchildren.
“Always remember the lessons of the Shoah. It is part of our Jewish history. When the survivors are no longer here, it will be up to the future generations to carry on. I hope that the students commit to remembering the lessons of the Shoah and will have a greater dedication to the Jewish people and Israel.”
ANITA EKSTEIN was born in Lvov, Poland, in 1934, to Edzia and Fischel Helfgott. In 1942, after her mother was taken away, she was taken in and hidden by Josef Matusiewicz, a Polish Catholic man and his family; and then hidden again in 1943, by Matusiewicz’s nephew, who was a priest. Her mother was murdered in October 1942 in the Belzec death camp. Her father was murdered in 1943. Anita was liberated in 1945. She immigrated to Canada in 1948, with a surviving aunt. In 1988, Anita went to the Ernst Zundel trial in Toronto. His denial of the Holocaust motivated her to speak out about her experiences. Anita feels that education will lead to better understanding about what happened to the Jewish people and a warning of how this could happen again to anyone, at any time. Anita has three children, eight grandchildren and two great granddaughters.
“They gave me the courage to face my past and go on with the future; the strength to walk and smile and so now I try to help them. I wish for every child to have a happy childhood and a future that is only bright with Happiness. Have no fear, Bubbie Esther is here.”
ESTHER FAIRBLOOM was born in the ghetto of Tarnepol, Poland. Her mother placed her in an orphanage in Zbarz run by nuns, and placed her sister with a family on a farm. Her parents, who owned a slaughterhouse, donated meat to the orphanage, and the Mother Superior would return the favour. Esther was too young to know her own name or birthdate and she would never learn these details as her parents were shot and killed when the Germans came to take the slaughterhouse. Following the war, Esther, so named by her Aunt and Uncle, refused for a time to remove her rosary beads or the cross around her neck. Eventually they moved to a Canadian farm for two years and then to Toronto. She discovered through old photos that she had a sister in Israel and at the age of 30 the two reunited. Esther married David and is tremendously proud of her children and grandchildren.
“ I hope I have helped these young people and through them, future generations, to better understand the horrors of this time, and reassure them that the will to live is stronger than any effort to destroy life. My wish for all the young people is that the future should be as kind to them as it was to me. I am forever grateful to the March of the Living for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of this wonderful and important experience.”
RENY FRIEDMAN is a child survivor from the Netherlands. She and her twin brother were born on April 4, 1937. With the help of the underground her family went into hiding in the countryside, of the Ardennes region, as well as in Brussels. In both cases they were discovered and forced to run. Her mother was deported to Auschwitz and survived. Her father placed Reny in a convent and her brother in a monastery. She passed the remainder of the war there and began to enjoy the rituals and trappings of the Catholic faith. When her father came to get her at the end of the war, he allowed her time to return to her Jewish roots. Reny made her way to Canada in 1955, where she met and married Henry Friedman, also a Holocaust Survivor. They are blessed with three children and two grandchildren.
“The future of the Jewish Nation is in its youth. When I see tens of thousands of youth marching together between Auschwitz to Birkenau, my optimism comes back, and I feel again like we have a chance in this world. If I can impact one student each year on the March of the Living to commit to educating future generations about the Holocaust, and the importance of not becoming a bystander, then I have fulfilled my mission.” - Bill Glied
We mourn the loss of holocaust survivor and March of the Living educator, Bill Glied, z”l, who travelled with our Canadian Delegation for many years. Bill was born in Subotica, Serbia, in 1930. He was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944 along with his family. Upon arrival in Auschwitz, Bill and his father were sent to the right and his mother, sister and rest of the family was sent to the left. That was the last time he saw them. Bill was later transferred to Dachau in Germany and worked as a slave labourer, building an underground company, which would manufacture parts for BMW. On April 29, 1945, Bill was liberated by the US Army. After spending six weeks in hospital, recovering from Typhoid Fever, Bill returned to Serbia and lived with his aunt and uncle. Bill arrived in Canada, as an orphan, in September 1947.
Bill passed away in February 17, 2018 in Toronto, Canada. He is survived by his wife Marika, three daughters and sons-in-law, eight grandchildren, one grandson-in-law and his first great grandchild born in July 2018.
It was the 2009 March of the Living and I asked Bill to say a few words at the start of the international ceremony in Auschwitz-Birkenau to the thousands of students gathered there. As always, Bill was brief, touching and eloquent.
Since 1988, I have organized many International March of the Living ceremonies, but Bill's words in 2009 are among the most memorable.
“There is a unique and noble custom in the Jewish religion. We go to the cemetery and find the graves of our loved ones. Then we take a small stone and place it on the tombstone to say, ‘We are here. We haven’t forgotten you. We love you. We remember you.’ “In Auschwitz there are no tombstones. All those who perished here – my mother, my sister, my whole family – they have no monuments. But all of you who are standing here today, you are the little stones, and you are saying, ‘We are here. We haven’t forgotten you. We love you.’”
The farmer that saved SIDNEY ZOLTAK and his family is a “Righteous Among the Nation”. He is involved with Yiddish Theatre.
ISAAC GOLDSTEIN z'l (October 9, 1925 – October 9, 2018), was born in Bialystok Poland and was the only person in his family to survive the Holocaust, spoke about living through a death march, only because a friend gave him a pair of shoes at the last minute.
At the age of 14, Mr. Goldstein’s life was turned upside down when the Germans invaded Poland. For the next six he often had to run, hide or lie to keep from being killed.
Isaac spent time in a number of camps including Majdanek, Auschwitz and Buna Amnuvitz. He witnessed first hand horrible atrocities committed man against man. He often wondered why he was still alive while he watched his family and friends dragged off never to be seen again.
There were many times when his life was saved simply by a pretty girl walking by to distract a guard, someone asking him to carry a backpack, giving him a pair of shoes, or even jumping ahead of him in line to board a boat. He acknowledged these ‘coincidences’ are hard to discount, but find it difficult to attribute his survival to a higher power’s plan. Isaac lived in San Jose, CA.
"I am a better person for having known Isaac Goldstein, z”l. When I think of Isaac, I always think of his smile. That’s one of the many things I admired about Isaac, despite all the horror that he witnessed and experienced, he still smiled, laughed and lived life to the fullest. I’ll never forget this one moment when the group was walking through auchwitz when suddenly Isaac stopped. In front of us there was a ditch. Looking right at it he said, “I dug that ditch” and proceeded to tell us the story of how he and his friend dug that ditch to keep a low profile from the nazis. Isaac enriched my March of the Living trip and my life. After the trip I was lucky to share countless dinners with Isaac where I got to know him as more than just a Survivor. He taught me the importance of making time for your family and giving back to the community. When he talked to you, he had this unique way of making it feel like you were the most important person in the world. Thank you for sharing your stories and your laughter Isaac, you will be forever missed." - Abigail Gavens
“My message to the next generation is that we must never forget. But remembrance alone isn’t enough. Each of us must also act, speak out, and provide financial support to the causes that will protect our future. If not us, who will?”
JOE GOTTDENKER was born in 1942 in Nazi-occupied Poland. By that time, his father has already been deported to a work camp. Joe’s mother Bina, entrusted her new-born child to Petronolo and Wladyslaw Ziolo and joined the Polish resistance. The Ziolo family adopted Joe and raised him as their own. Joe stayed with the adoptive family for three years until the end of the war. When the war was over, he reunited with his parents in Germany. The family immigrated to the United States in 1948 and to Toronto in 1958, where Joe has lived since. Joe believes that one’s Jewish identity is defined by values of acceptance, tolerance and understanding – not just for our own community but for all races. To be a Jew is to be a citizen of the world – we must be in it together. Joe is a proud father of three children and grandfather to five grandchildren.
“Remember the Holocaust. Love the Jewish people.”
ELLY GOTZ was born in Kovno, Lithuania, on March 8, 1928. He was an only child. In June 1941, Elly and his family were forced into the Kovno ghetto, where they spent three years. In the summer of 1944, he and his parents were taken to Germany by cattle car train. His mother was unloaded with all the women at Stutthof concentration camp. He and his father were deported to Dachau. There they were forced to work as slave labourers, constructing a giant bomb proof aircraft factory. On April 29, 1945, at 17 years old, Elly was liberated from Dachau by the U.S. army. Elly married Esme in 1958 and lived in Norway, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, before immigrating to Canada in 1964. Elly has three children and six grandchildren. On July 2, 2017, at 89 years old, Elly fulfilled one of his lifelong dreams…. to fly. He jumped from a plane in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday!
“The Ba’al Shem Tov once said ‘Remembrance is the secret of redemption. Forgetting leads to exile.’ The only way to try to avoid future Holocausts and genocides, is to educate our youth, our future leaders. We have to show them what human beings are capable of doing; both good and bad.”
Pinchas and his twin sister were born in Lodz, Poland, on July 21, 1932. In 1939, his family was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. In April 1943, after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Pinchas and his family were deported to the death camp, Majdanek, where his whole family was murdered on arrival. Pinchas was the sole survivor. From Majdanek, he was sent to a work camp, then to Buchenwald, and then on a death march from Germany to Theresienstadt. He was liberated by the Soviet Army on May 8, 1945. After liberation, he was taken to Britain. Pinchas lived in France, Israel, Brazil and South Africa, before immigrating to Canada with his wife Dorothy, and their three children, Jan, Tanya, and Rumi in 1985. Pinchas has three grandchildren.
“If one picture is worth 1000 words, then seeing with your own eyes the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the extermination camps in Poland, is worth more than 1000 pictures. The March of the Living has brought thousands of students to the sites where our Jewish people were tortured and killed. The program must continue to operate to ensure that the tragedy of the Shoah will not be forgotten and to prove to the deniers that it did happen.”
Denise Hans was born on June 21, 1938, in Paris, France. She is the fourth of six children. In 1942, her father, aunt and uncle were taken away, and Denise was left with her mother, siblings and two cousins in Paris. Denise later found out that her father was shot during a Death March from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, while her uncle’s family was gassed upon their arrival to Drancy concentration camp, just outside of Paris. Denise was hidden twice with farmers and then in a convent, where she and two of her sisters stayed until 1948, when they were reunited with their mother and siblings. Denise immigrated to Canada in 1956 and in 1959, she married Milan Hans, who was also a hidden child survivor from Czechoslovakia. She has three children, seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
“In 10 -15 years none of us survivors will be here to tell the truth. So, if these young students don’t come on the trip and stand up and talk about what happened, about what they saw and learned, then the deniers of the Holocaust will win.”
GEORGE HERCZEG z'l was born in Nagyvisnyó, Hungary in the mid 1920’s. He had two sisters. During the war he was in a brutal forced Labor camp with his father. His Mother died in Auschwitz and his father died three weeks before liberation. After the war he went back to his village and tried to continue his father’s lumber business until the communist regime took it away. He escaped illegally to Austria and arranged for his sisters to do the same. In 1948 he came to Canada on a farm contract through the Canadian government. He worked a year to fulfill his contract and was then transferred to Toronto. He worked as a dishwasher, restaurant manager, real estate salesman and developer. George met and married Agnes in 1962 soon after she arrived in Canada. They have two children and seven grandchildren.
“It’s an experience for the children unlike any other. They have never lived through these stories, the kind of stories I told them. They saw what Auschwitz; Treblinka and the Warsaw ghetto were like… Now they know what Israel stands for and how special Israel is to us because of the March of the Living.”
MANIA HUDY was born in Warsaw in 1933 and lived there with her parents and brother. In 1940 they were forced from their home and relocated to the Warsaw ghetto. They were packed into tiny living quarters with three or four other families. In 1943 her baby sister Bronka was born and soon given away to a Nun in the hopes she would stay alive. Mania and her brother were taken to live with a Polish couple until 1944 when they were discovered and taken to Bergen Belsen, where they found their Mother working there. They were liberated together and were sent to a DP camp always wondering about baby Bronka. Baby Bronka was found in 1949 in Belgium alive and well at the age of six. The family moved to Israel. Mania has two children, six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.
“The next generation should do everything possible to do all they can for Israel and support Israel to stay alive. Because if we had Israel back then, the Holocaust would never have happened.”
HOWARD KLEINBERG, z"l, (1926-2020), a well-known and much beloved Auschwitz survivor from Toronto, passed away on December 9, 2020 at 94 years of age.
Howard, together with his wife Nancy, attended the March of the Living on a number of occasions, passing on the torch of memory to hundreds of Toronto March of the Living participants.
His future wife Nancy saved him toward the end of the war in Bergen Belsen, by pulling him out of a pile of dead prisoners and nursing him back to health. Eventually they were separated and Howard ended up in an American hospital. But the couple miraculously reunited in Toronto in 1947, married and remained happily so for the next 70 years.
The couple appeared on the Regis and Kelly morning show to share their remarkable love story during a Valentine’s contest where viewers voted for the World’s Greatest Love Story.
May his memory always be for a blessing.
“History should never be allowed to repeat itself. And G-d forbid if it does; this generation should not go like sheep to the slaughter. But I am sure that they won’t because of March of the Living. I’m sure that this will never happen again.”
NANCY KLEINBERG was born on April 20, 1927 in Wierzbnik, Poland. She had five brothers. In 1941, her family was forced to move into the town ghetto. In July 1944, Nancy was separated from her family, and deported to Auschwitz; where she stayed for six months, until being forced out on a death march in January 1945. After a three-day march she arrived at Bergen Belsen. On April 15, 1945, Nancy was liberated with her aunt. Days after liberation, she found Howard lying in a pile of corpses, almost dead. Nancy recognized him as being a friend of her brother, and Nancy nursed Howard back to health. After going their separate ways post war, Nancy and Howard reconnected in Toronto in 1947. They married in 1950; have four children, eleven grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren. Nancy and Howard were showcased on Live with Regis and Kelly in 2011 with having one of the world’s greatest love stories.
“To see the death camps, to touch them, reminds me of the tragedy of my people and the 6 million who should not have died. Those we must remember. The children must be witness to the truth of this past. The tragic lessons and legacy must be passed on to the children, so they can be certain the world does not forget.”
BRONKA KRYGIER z'l was born in 1925 in Warsaw, Poland. Her parents ran a small shoe manufacturing business. Her father was a very active member of Poland’s Socialist party and she remembers Leon Trotsky visiting their home. When the Warsaw Ghetto was created her family escaped to nearby Wohyn, but later returned without Bronka. Bronka joined various groups of Jewish refugees, Russian POWs, and partisans in the forests. Bronka made her way to Russia and then back to Poland at the end of the war, where she discovered that her family perished in Treblinka. In 1948, Bronka moved to Paris, joined an ORT school and trained as a furrier. There she met and fell in love with Hersz Krygier, also a Polish Holocaust survivor. They were married in 1949 and in 1957 immigrated to Calgary, Canada to be with Hersz’s family. They have four children and five grandchildren.
WILLIAM (BILL ) KUGELMAN's memories of his teenage years are now more than a half-century old, but they have not dimmed. At age 15 or so, he was taken with his family from their home in southwest Poland to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
For Mr. Kugelman, being held at Auschwitz was not the worst part of the Holocaust. It was seeing his brother die of typhoid fever at another concentration camp, affiliated with Dachau. About 3,000 people were sent to the camp at that time, and within months, only a few hundred remained alive, he said.
“We were dying like flies,” Mr. Kugelman said.
Mr. Kugelman, is one of Tucson’s few remaining Holocaust survivors.
“It is very important for the young generations to not be quiet. If you something that’s not right, speak up. Do something about it. Bad things will not just pass, you have to deal with it.”
IRENE KURTZ was born in 1928 in Warsaw, Poland. She had two brothers and one sister. At eleven years old, Irene and her family were forced into the Warsaw ghetto, and in 1941, her mother and her sister were taken away, during a selection process. Her two older brothers fled to Russia to join the Russian army and Irene was left alone with her father. In April 1943, during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, her father hid her in a bunker, while he went out to work, and he never returned. Irene escaped from the bunker and was caught by a Nazi officer, who put her on the next transport to Majdanek. After spending two months in Majdanek, barely surviving, Irene was then selected for a transport going to Skarzysko ammunition factory. She worked there until liberation in 1945 by Soviet troops. Post war, Irene went to Palestine and then to Canada. Irene married Jack Kurtz and they have three sons, six grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
“It is our deep desire to transmit to the future generations what we lived through in these dark times … we survivors are … beneficiaries of a legacy that informs our Jewish identity and can stimulate our revival and our purpose. We are Jews despite and not because of the Holocaust.”
JOE LEINBURD was born in Suceava, Romania, on February 17, 1922. In 1939, Joe, then seventeen, was playing volleyball with friends when he heard a radio announcement declaring Germany’s invasion of Poland. Two years later, all the Jews of Suceava were ordered from their homes and the entire Jewish population of Northern Bucovina and Bessarabia was deported to Transnistria, an area in southwestern Ukraine. Miraculously, his entire family survived a death march from Moghilev to Murafa and the family was liberated by the Soviet army in March 1944. Post war, Joe met Claretta, and they wed in 1946. They decided to leave Romania, which was under Communist rule, and they spent nearly three years in DP camps in Austria and Italy, before immigrating to Canada in April 1949. They lived in Winnipeg and Calgary, and then relocated to Toronto in 1997, to be closer to their two children and four grandchildren.
“The legacy of the March of the Living is to learn about what happened to our people and what were our traditions that sustained us through the centuries and the Shoah. In order to live in peace and harmony we need to have mutual respect for and mutual acceptance of the other. With the understanding that the laws of our country are paramount.”
NATE LEIPCIGER was born in Chorzow, Poland on February 28, 1928. He had one sister Linka. In September 1939, the German army invaded Poland, and when the Nazis’ decided to make Chorzow “Judenrein”, Nate’s family was forced to leave their town and move to the town of Sosnowiec, which became a de facto ghetto. Nate and his family were transported to Auschwitz, where Nate was separated from his mother and sister, never to see them again. As luck would have it, Nate’s father was able to move Nate into his own line, thus being able to keep his son with him. Nate survived the camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Funfteichen, Gross Rosen, Flossenberg, Leonberg, Muhldorf am Inn and Waldlager (two sub-camps of Dachau). Nate and his father were liberated on May 2, 1945 and immigrated to Canada in 1948. Nate married Bernice, and they have three daughters, twelve grandchildren and one great grandchild.
“In my stories I always must survive, and you can see I’m still alive. I’m often asked do I believe in the Almighty? My answer is ‘I was saved in a forest, judge for yourself! ”
ALEX LEVIN z'l was born July 21, 1932 in Rokitno, Poland. In September 1939, the Red Army entered the town and it became part of the Soviet Ukraine. In 1942 when the Rokitno ghetto was being liquidated, Alex and his brother fled to the Polesie woods. They were in hiding for a year and a half until liberation by the Red Army in January 1944. For the next year Alex accompanied the Red Army troops across Poland and into Germany helping soldiers as needed. In 1945 he enrolled in cadet school in Moscow. He graduated from the Leningrad Higher first artillery command school as a military engineer and was discharged with the rank of captain. In 1974 Alex immigrated to Toronto, followed by his wife and daughter in 1980. In 2009 Alex published his autobiography Under the Yellow & Red Stars. Alex died in 2016 at age 83. He is survived by his wife Marina, daughter and two grandchildren.
“It is our deep desire to transmit to the future generations what we lived through in these dark times … we survivors are … beneficiaries of a legacy that informs our Jewish identity and can stimulate our revival and our purpose. We are Jews despite and not because of the Holocaust.”
JOE LEINBURD was born in Suceava, Romania, on February 17, 1922. In 1939, Joe, then seventeen, was playing volleyball with friends when he heard a radio announcement declaring Germany’s invasion of Poland. Two years later, all the Jews of Suceava were ordered from their homes and the entire Jewish population of Northern Bucovina and Bessarabia was deported to Transnistria, an area in southwestern Ukraine. Miraculously, his entire family survived a death march from Moghilev to Murafa and the family was liberated by the Soviet army in March 1944. Post war, Joe met Claretta, and they wed in 1946. They decided to leave Romania, which was under Communist rule, and they spent nearly three years in DP camps in Austria and Italy, before immigrating to Canada in April 1949. They lived in Winnipeg and Calgary, and then relocated to Toronto in 1997, to be closer to their two children and four grandchildren.
PAWEL LICHTER was born on July 5th, 1931, in Rypin, Poland.
In November 1939, his family to abandon everything and head east, to Russia. They were given “Ausweis” (identification cards) as permission to travel. A Jewish family in Baranovichi took them in. In 1941 the family went to Bukhara, Uzbekistan.
Following the war, his family returned to Rypin. In Rypin thy found that all the buildings and the movie house were still standing. It was impossible, though, to reclaim their properties, which had all been occupied. They decided to leave Poland and with the help of several organizations and a Mexican family an arrangement was made for them to go to Sweden, with the purpose of further transit to Mexico.
In 1947, they traveled on a Swedish ocean liner (Gripsholm), destined for New York. From there they proceeded by train to Mexico City. His mother and sister immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts.
Pawel immigrated to the United States using a Polish visa in 1957. Pawel currently lives in Tucson with his wife Sara.
“I saw how the kids really felt what I went through, and I said to them because I look at you I’m going to live forever.”
JOE MANDEL was born in 1924 in Ruthenia, Czechoslovakia later ceded to Hungary. For Joe and his family, absorption into Hungary insulated them from the harshest realities of the Holocaust. But in 1944, the Germans invaded, and occupied Hungary and Joe was taken as a forced labourer while much of his family was deported to Auschwitz. Joe was in Mauthausen, Dachau, and Gunskirchen, where he was liberated by the Americans on May 4, 1945. After the war Joe lived with his surviving siblings in Budapest but left for Canada in 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution. In 2012, Joe joined the March of the living the same year US liberators were invited on the trip. There Mandel met Mason (Mickey) Dorsey, a veteran of the 71st Infantry Division, the man who blew open the gates of Gunskirchen in Austria. The two men shared an emotional embrace.
HANNA MARX was born in Hamm, Germany and survived the Riga ghetto and Stutthof and Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camps.
Hanna was only 13 years old when she and her family had to pack their suitcases and leave home by train. For three years Hanna was a slave laborer in a Nazi concentration camp, and her father as well as two brothers had been killed by the Germans.
Near the end of WWII, Hanna was among the 5,000 Jews that were forced to take part in the Death March that lasted three months. She was one of only 300 that were still alive at liberation. Hanna lives in San Diego, CA.
“Sixty years ago, if someone told me that this is how my life would turn out, I would never have believed it. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my family and reflect about the horrors I witnessed throughout the Holocaust. All I can ask, now that my story has been shared, is to never forget.”
HENRY MELNICK z'l was born Henry Chmielnicki in 1922 in Lodz, Poland, to Chaya and Elijah Chmielnicki. He had two siblings, aunts, uncles and many cousins. Melnick was only 17 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. After being moved to the Nowy Sacz ghetto with his family, he survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buna, Dora-Mittelbau, Bergen-Belsen and other ghettos and concentration camps. His parents were murdered in the Belżec death camp and he was the sole survivor of his family. He attributed his survival to his mother who he says, “pushed me forward with her hand during a selection, avoiding the line to the death camps.” In 1947, he tried to go to Palestine but was turned back at the Belgian border. In 1948, Melnick volunteered to fight in Israel’s War of Independence. He came to Canada in 1965 with his wife, Hela, and their two children. At the time of the release of his memoir By My Mother’s Hand in 2011, Melnick had two children, seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
“The reason I go on the March of the Living is because I believe it is my duty to teach what happened during the war. And if the younger generation will see it and hear it they will make sure that this will never happen again. The best way survivors can ensure that is by educating the younger generations”
GEORGINE NASH was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1937. She was an only child and lived a comfortable middle-class life. In 1940, Georgine’s father was sent to a labour camp, and that was the beginning of the end. When Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, Her and her mother were forced to leave their home and moved into a “Yellow star house”, and then into a protection house, run by the Swiss. When the protection house became unsafe, Georgine and her mother were hidden in the home of an elderly woman, where they were forced to stay in the coal cellar during bombing raids. In January 1945, Georgine was liberated with her mother. Her father was killed during the last few months of the war, in an unknown location. They left Hungary in 1957 during the Hungarian revolution and moved to Canada. Georgine married Marty Nash in 1961, and they have three sons and six grandchildren.
“ISRAEL = NEVER AGAIN Israel is the only thing that guarantees that another Holocaust can never happen again. Singing Hatikvah at Auschwitz, the biggest Jewish graveyard in the world, and then going to Israel, to the Kotel and singing Hatikvah there is the most powerful few minutes. The March of the Living signifies going from Yom Hashoah to Yom Ha’atzmaut.”
SOL NAYMAN was born in Stoczek Wegrowki, Poland on November 5, 1935. In September 1939 Sol escaped with his family to the forest and then to the Soviet Union. They were sent to a labour camp in Syktyvkar in Komi which was just south of the Arctic circle on the same latitude as Yellowknife and later to another labour camp in the Ukraine. When the war ended they found themselves in a German DP camp and stayed there until 1948. They learned that Canada was accepting a limited quota of tailors to work in the growing garment industry after several prominent Canadian Jewish manufacturers undoubtedly had to provide adequate financial guarantees. They immigrated to Canada in 1948 and first settled in Montreal later moving to Toronto where he helped create a major clothing label. Sol and his beloved wife Queenie have two sons and five grandchildren.
“A wise man once said that “You don’t know your future until you know your past” The children are our future and so it’s important for them all to learn our past.”
SUSAN PASTERNAK was born February 1, 1939, in Zambrow, Poland. She was an only child. While living in the ghetto, arrangements were made to smuggle Susan and her Mother to the apartment of a Polish woman where they hid for three and a half years under a table with a felt cover to the ground. Susan never saw her Father again. At the end of the war, Susan’s Aunt arranged for them to come to Canada, but her Mother suffered a heart attack and died. Susan was sent to an orphanage in France and then to Germany to an UNRRA Children’s unit where she spent two years. Susan arrived in Canada in May 1947, being the first child to cross the Atlantic after the war. In 1961, Susan was adopted by her aunt and uncle. She married a fellow Holocaust survivor, whom she met in university. Susan is blessed with three sons and seven grandchildren.
“Be thankful that you are free. Free to practice Judaism; free to practice whatever you choose to; free to support the causes you feel passionate about and free to give back to people.”
FANNY PILLERSDORF z'l was born in 1924 in Bedzin, Poland near the German border. In July 1940 she and her family were sent to the ghetto, later deported and separated and she would never see them again. During the war she was sent to seven different concentration camps. Then while she was being transported by cattle car toward Prague, the train stopped, and the prisoners were let out for a brief period. She hid with three friends in a nearby field and farm until the war ended. Fanny met her husband in Dresden where he fought in the Russian army and was a Prisoner of War. Together they went to the Russian occupied section of Berlin and eventually made their way to Barbados, where all three of their children were born. They immigrated to Canada in 1962. Fanny passed away on January 13, 2015 and is survived by her three children and three grandchildren.
“As much as we suffered and as hard as it was, we wanted to fight to stay alive. It is important for the younger generation to always remember this and to stay strong. To hear our stories and draw strength from us.”
TOVA ROGENSTEIN was born in Krakow, Poland in 1933. She was the youngest of three children. At the onset of the war, in 1939, Tova was six years old. In 1941, life became horrific, when Tova and her family was ordered into the Krakow ghetto, there they stayed until the end of the year, when they were deported to Plaszow. At the end of 1943, Tova was sent to Auschwitz. After a short stay, her and her mother were taken to Bergen Belsen, where on April 5, 1945, they were liberated. Tova’s father was killed in Mauthausen and her brother in Majdanek. Its unclear what happened to Tova’s sister. 1947 marked the year that Tova made her way to Palestine. She met and married Avraham Rogenstein and they have two children, two grandchildren, five great grandchildren.
“As we travel with the March of the Living to witness places of tragic times in our history, and hear the stories of living witnesses, our survivors. You students, as the future generation, are the memory keepers and one day will be the storytellers.”
MARTHA SHEMTOV was born in Lvov, Poland on October 10, 1940. She was an only child. On June 22, 1941, when the Germans took over Lvov, Martha’s parents decided to move to Stryj, a smaller town, thinking it would be safer there. A few weeks after moving to Stryj, the ghetto was created, and they never left. After getting caught hiding in a neighbour’s house, the family was marched into town and loaded onto a train heading for Belzec. They managed to survive jumping from the moving train, and they found their way back to Stryj. In 1943, at age two and a half, Martha was sent to live with a Polish woman and her grandmother. There she was raised as a Catholic child. She stayed with them until her father came to get her after liberation in 1945. Martha’s mother was killed in 1944. In 1957, Martha went to live in Israel, and moved to Canada in 1963. Martha has three children and six grandchildren.
“I would crawl on my hands and knees all the way to Auschwitz-Birkenau, or anywhere else, to tell my story to anyone who was willing to listen. This is why I march and why I still speak.”
DAVID SHENTOW z'l was born on April 29, 1925 in Warsaw, Poland. His family moved to Antwerp, Belgium when he was six weeks old to escape waves of pogroms. In 1942, he and his father were sent to France to build walls for defense against the allied invasion of Normandy. His Father went back to Antwerp to find his Mother and sisters, but David never saw them again. David was deported to Auschwitz where he was given #72585. In 1943 he was transported to the Warsaw ghetto to level the remains of the buildings shattered during the ghetto uprising. David was sent on a death march from Warsaw to Kutno, in 1944, and was then sent to Dachau where he was liberated by American troops on his 20th birthday. David immigrated to Canada in 1949 to be near his Uncle. He married Rose and they have two daughters Renee z”l and Lorie, two grandchildren and four great grandchildren. David passed away on June 12, 2017.
“I believe the future of the Jewish people is in good hands when I think of all of you. It is your turn to carry the torch, hold it high. Be active in your duty. And we will never again be herded into ghettos or death camps. Be proud of your heritage. Be proud of being a Jew. Am Yisroel Chai!”
ERNEST SINGER was born in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, on July 9, 1930 to an established family. In April 1944 his family was forced to live in a ghetto. In June 1944, the family was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where his mother and sister were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Ernest, then 13, was sent with his father and brother, Alex, to a slave labour camp in Valkenburg and then on a death march to the Ebensee concentration camp in Austria. Ernest’s father died of starvation just days before the war ended. Ernest was liberated by American forces. Ernest and Alex, the only survivors of their immediate family, left for Paris and then in 1948, they immigrated to Caracas, Venezuela. Ernest met Helen in 1956 and they had two children, six grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
“We are the last generation that can tell our story ourselves. The March of the Living allows for our stories to be told from those who were already there and hear our voices directly. You must never forget our stories to help make sure that this will never happen again.”
STEFANIA SITBON was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1939 and grew up in the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1942, her family was smuggled into the Warsaw Zoo by the Zoo Director, Jan Zabinski, and his wife, Antonina. The subject of the film The Zookeeper’s Wife, 300 Jewish men, women, and children were hidden in animal cages from 1939 to 1945. From there Stefania and her family were separated and sent to convents and surrounding villages. They were liberated in 1945 and reunited in Austria and Poland. In 1957 they emigrated to Israel, Stefania was married and she later decided to move to Canada. In 2014, as part of the March of the Living, she went back to the Warsaw Zoo for an emotional meeting with Teresa, the Zabinskis daughter. Stefania and her brother, Moshe, are the only Warsaw Zoo survivors known to be alive today. She and her husband, Freddy, have three children and seven grandchildren.
“No matter how difficult it is to learn about what happened to the Jewish people of Europe, we must continue to go to see the concentration camps and to bear witness to it all, in order to never forget.”
ALBERT SLIWIN was born in Jezow, Poland in 1931. Between 1940 and 1942, the Sliwin family lived in the ghetto “Rava Mazowiecki”. From 1942 until 1945, the family was on the run trying to find places to hide from the Nazis. Just a few days before liberation, the Sliwin family was forced to undress by their so-called Polish “friends”. They were taken from their hiding spot and made to lie naked in the snow where their father Samuel was shot in the head in front of his wife and three children. After liberation, Albert and his brother Bernard moved to France and in 1947, their sister Elise and their mother Rachel joined them in Paris. In 1951, the family immigrated to Canada. He is still actively working at his property management and commercial leasing company. Albert has two daughters, five grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.
Hello, my name is Inge Spitz and I am here to tell you my story. It all started on March 15th 1927 in Potsdam, Germany when I was born. When I was young, I was a very happy little girl. I had a mother, a father and a sister, Edith. I also had a Grandmother and Grandfather who I was very close with. I had a very happy childhood. My family owned a shop, and I would sometimes help my father. I went to school and had many friends, I also loved to read, and still do to this day.
On March 20th 1939, 5 days after my 12th birthday, my mother and father decided it was best to send my sister Edith, who was 10, and I away to France to hide from Hitler and the Germans. When Edith and I got to France, I worked as a maid for a French family. I do not think they knew I was Jewish, I think they suspected, but I was never outed. I used the name Yvette Romer, and I had dark hair and my features looked French, so it was easy for me to fit in. I worked as a maid for this family for 3 years before Germany occupied France. When the Germans came into France, I went into hiding. I hid in a convent, with my sister, where I wasn’t a known Jew. No one knew I was Jewish except Mother Superior. I remember very clearly one day, when I was in the convent; I had door duty. And a German soldier knocked on the door, but of course he couldn’t tell that I was Jewish, because I looked French, and my French was perfect. I remember thinking he was looking for Jewish kids, but he didn’t say so to me. But he went to the mother superior and probably asked her if she had any Jewish kids. If she had given us away, that would have meant she would have died as well. Hiding Jewish kids was against the law. It was a matter of death for you, and for everybody else, so of course, we were French kids.
When I was 17, the Nazis were invading parts of unoccupied France, and in May of 1944, I led a small group of children to escape through the country to Switzerland. We had to crawl under the barbed wire, and the Swiss uniforms were nearly identical to Nazi uniforms, so when we saw the soldiers we thought it was over. But we were lucky, they weren’t Nazis and we made it over safely to Switzerland. I was in Switzerland and I was about to be on my way to Israel, to make an Aliah, but I got a telegram from my father with four words: “Mother safe in Sweden”. So I went there instead. After I met with my mother and father, we went to England, me my father, my mother, Edith and I. There, is where I met my husband.
Hiding was just a tiny part of my life. My whole world was turned upside down at the age of 11. They arrested my grandfather for Russians tad; my grandfather was at the time, 63 years old. The headline in the paper was a kiss for a dress. He was selling goods; he was in turned at a prison camp in Potsdam. For 3 weeks we had to bring him food. My friend took him food, and I was not even allowed to go inside. I waited outside the prison. After Chrystal Nacht, they came to pick up my father. He was sent to sichem houzen, he was there for 3 weeks. At 11:00 one night, knock, knock, and knock; knocking at the door, it was my father without a warning. This thing traumatized me more than anything else. He came in, he took off his cap, and his head had been shaved. And to this day, I am in tears. It was such a terrible experience. After that my father was sent to England with a man’s transport, because those men who had been in turned in 1938 were likely to be picked up, the first ones to be picked up again and put back in a concentration camp. And my mother, with great courage sent my sister and me, to France with a children’s transport. My sister was 10, a very innocent young girl, and I was 12. I now have a saying that I tell my Grandchildren every so often. We are here, Hitler, you did not succeed.
WATCH Inge Spitz on reuniting with her family after the war HERE
“As it says in the Passover Haggadah: “in every generation they rise up against us”, therefore stand tall and speak out against those who want to destroy us as silence is not the answer.”
VIVIAN STOCKHAMER was born in Lida, Poland in 1938. In 1941, the Nazis moved her family into the ghetto. On May 8, 1942 all 6,700 Jews of the town were marched to the killing field outside the city where her father and sister were murdered. Vivian and her mother were saved for slave labour. On Sept. 17, 1943, the Nazis returned to round up the remaining Jews. Vivian escaped to the forest with her aunt and uncle, but her mother was captured and taken to Majdanek where she was murdered. Vivian spent two years in the forests with the partisans until being liberated by the Russians and sent to a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. In 1948 she moved to Canada to live with family in Toronto. There she met her late husband, Saul, also a Holocaust survivor. They were blessed with two children and six grandchildren.
MIKLOS (MIKE) WALLENFELS was born in Budapest Hungary in 1934. His father died in a labor camp in 1941. When his family was round up in 1944, his mother told him to go up to the attic and not to return to the group which was to be deported. He was 10 years old. He survived because he followed these instructions. His mother was taken to Ravensbruk, Germany. His mother survived the war and returned to Budapest., but died soon afterward. Mike his sister and granmother survived the war in the Budapest ghetto. When he and his girlfriend Manya left Hungary, they first settled in Buffalo New York and then later moved to San Diego CA. They have 2 children and 5 grandchildren.
MANYA WALLENFELS was born in 1936 in Buszk, Poland. In 1942, the Germans forced the family to flee. The family escaped to a nearby village. But then returned to their home. They were then forced into the ghetto. The family kept moving hiding places, in the forest, a cemetery and even a swamp. Her mother died following the war in the town of Bytom. Manya has been able to visit her mother’s grave while she travels on the March of the Living. Manya and her father managed to get traveling papers as French citizens. They then went to Hungary. She lived in Hungary from 1947 until 1956. IN 1956 she and her boyfriend Mike escaped to the U.S. They first settled in Buffalo New York and then later moved to San Diego CA. They have 2 children and 5 grandchildren.
“If I inspire even one young person, it is worth it, as I have not only a legacy, but a duty to tell the story for those who did not live to tell or are now gone.”
SALLY WASSERMAN was born in Katowice, Poland in 1935. At the start of the war, her family moved to Dombrowa, her father’s hometown. Soon after he was taken away never to return. Sally, her mother and brother were sent to the Dombrowa ghetto. When the ghetto was liquidated, Sally’s mother hid her with an elderly Polish couple until liberation. Her mother and brother were murdered in Auschwitz. Sally’s mother wrote in a letter to her sister in Canada in 1943 – “I thank G-d for Mr. Turkin – he will save my child’s life. I see the Angel of death before me. I don’t believe even a miracle can help us now…. We do not have a way out.” Sally was eleven years old when she left Poland for the Bergen Belsen DP camp in Germany. Her mother’s sister brought her to Canada in 1947. She and her husband have two children and two grandchildren.
"Salusia Goldblum poses on a street corner in Katowice in her fur coat" (Courtesy of Sally Goldblum Wasserman and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
“This community has given so much to me… Now it is time to give back.”
ERNIE WEISS z'l was born in Mad, Hungary in 1928. He was the oldest of seven children. In 1942, at age 14, Ernie became the ‘head’ of his family, after his father was taken to a labour camp, and died. In 1944, Ernie, along with his mother and siblings were taken to the Satoraljaujhely Ghetto, and then to Auschwitz. All but one sister were murdered. He was then taken to Kitzlitztreben, where he stayed until January 1945 and was then led on a death march to Zitau. Ernie was liberated by the Russians on May 8, 1945. He moved to the US in 1947 as a war orphan. In 1952 Ernie married Rachel Hirschberg, and they settled in Toronto. In 2008, he published Bar Kochba: From the Death Camp at Auschwitz to the Battle for Jerusalem. Ernie passed away on January 7, 2010. He was very proud of his four daughters, and ten grandchildren.
The phrase “Never Again” epitomizes Bob’s view of the Holocaust. Bob felt strongly that the youth of today should know as much as possible, first hand, about the Holocaust. He was able to share with many students’ what life was like during the war and in the concentration camps.
ROBERT WEISS z'l was born in Debrecen, Hungary, on April 28, 1927. In 1944, when the Nazis occupied Hungary, they moved his family to the ghetto and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau where his mother and sister perished. Robert and his father were sent to Schlossenburg. During the liberation, his father was killed by the Nazis. In 1946 Robert left Hungary for Vienna where he met his wife Lola, also a Holocaust Survivor. Shortly thereafter they went to Germany to the Swabishall Displaced Person Camp. There Robert registered as a lumberjack and arrived in Canada in November 1947, worked in Nippigon until March 1948 then moved to Toronto where he and Lola married. They were blessed with two sons, three grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Robert passed away on February 21, 1996.
“I hope that we survivors are never forgotten, and that future generations realize the unspeakable consequences of hatred and prejudice. Educate yourselves; educate others; learn from history.”
HELEN YERMUS was born in 1932 in Kovno, Lithuania. In 1941 when the Nazis invaded the area, the family tried to escape to the USSR but were driven back to the Kovno Ghetto. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis launched a KinderAktion, a roundup of Jewish children. Her brother was taken away, never to be seen again. After the Kovno Ghetto was liquidated, Helen and her mother were shipped to the Stutthof concentration camp and her father was taken to Dachau where he died. In January 1945, Helen and her mother managed to escape the great Death Marches, but were injected with a poisonous substance, when the Nazis found them. Miraculously they survived. After three years in a Displaced Persons camps they came to Canada in 1948. Helen married Aaron Yermus in 1952 whom she met in the DP camp. They were blessed with three children and nine grandchildren.
“Be proud that you are Jewish. You don’t have to be religious to be a good Jew. Teach your children to see and to witness.”
KATHLEEN ZAHAVI was born in 1929, in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, a small city with about 10,000 Jews. In 1944, the German army invaded Hungary, and within days Kathleen and her family had to move into the ghetto. Four weeks later the transports started. At fourteen years old, Kathleen, her sisters and parents were sent to Auschwitz. Both parents perished there, but the three sisters survived. After a few months in Auschwitz they were sent to Dachau and after three months in Dachau, they were deported to Bergen-Belsen. Together the three sisters were liberated on April 12, 1945. One sister died shortly after liberation. Post war, Kathleen and her sister returned to Hungary, only to discover that they were the only survivors from their family. They joined the Shomer Ha’Tzair movement and went to Palestine. In 1959, Kathleen moved to Canada with her husband and eldest daughter. Kathleen has two children, and four grandchildren.
“Never again” you are the young generation. You should remember what the survivor said and showed you and always remember never again. I survived and I’m thankful for this March of the Living. It allows you to see it and then to remember.”
MIRIAM ZAKROJCZYK was born in Krasnostav, Poland in 1936. From her town, along with her parents, brother and sister, she walked to the Warsaw Ghetto, and until 1941 they lived there in a cellar. Her father heard that the ghetto would be burned, and he saved his family by escaping the Warsaw ghetto through a hole in the wall and boarded the last train to Bialystok and from there they went to Russia. They were sent to Magnita Ghorst, and then to Siberia. After the war, in 1946 they returned to Poland and lived there until 1957, when they decided to go to Palestine. Miriam left Israel in 1966 with her husband and two children and immigrated to Canada, where her children were married. She now has three grandchildren.
“ … It was New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31st, 1942, in the forced labour camp, Brande. The sadistic Nazi Second in Command, woke the Jews up at the stroke of midnight commanding them to sing and dance…And the song they sang, was “Ve’ He’ Sheamda”, which states in every generation our enemies rise up to defeat us, but the Holy One will ultimately prevail. It was New Year’s Eve for the sadistic Nazi guard, but for the Jews of that camp they were observing the holiday of Passover and recalling its message of freedom.”F
(This story appears in Voices from the Heart: A Community Celebrates 50 Years of Israel)
ROMAN ZIEGLER z"l, was born in Dombrowa, Gornicza, Poland, in 1927, the youngest of eight children. He spent 31 months in slave labour and death camps, including Brand in Germany, Graditz, Breslau, Faulbruck, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was liberated on May 8, 1945 by the Soviet Army. Roman was the only family member, of his entire family, to survive. Roman immigrated to Canada in 1948. He met his wife Miriam, also a Holocaust survivor, on a blind date, and they were married in 1958. They have three children, all university graduates, and four grandchildren. Roman passed away on March 31, 2020.
MARCEL ZIELINSKI has just completed his third Ride for the Living, a 55km bike ride from Auschwitz to the JCC of Krakow, symbolizing the very trek he made from destruction to hope 70 years ago.
HEINZ KOUNIO, Auschwitz Birkenau #109565. Evacuated From Auschwitz On January 1945 And Was Forced To Walk With The Death Marches, To Austria. He Was Inprisoned In Mauthausen, Melk And Ebensee. Liberated From Ebensee (Austria) 8Th Of May 1945 Weighing Only 34 Kgs. Written A Book With His Autobiography Of His Years In The Concentration Camps: One Liter Of Soup And 60 Grams Of Bread Dedicated To A Life Long Research In Finding All The Names Of The Jews Perished In The Holocaust From Thessaloniki, Finding 37.000 Names. Still Lecturing In Schools And Giving Interviews About His 26 Months In The Concentration Camps. Heinz Kounio was among the first ones who wrote a testimony about his experience in the camps, translated to english too and a film was made this year for the MOTL delegation.
SILVIA SEVI z'l, Auschwitz # 40167. Died in 23/11/2013. Sylvia’s grandson, Victor Cohen, has made a photo exhibition after the pilgrimage they made with the group of MOTL.
International March of the Living mourns the passing of Holocaust survivor and educator, our teacher and mentor, Irving Roth, z”l. Irving Roth educated countless students and adults from all over the world about the history and lessons of the Holocaust through the March of the Living and many other worthy educational organizations.
A dedicated advocate for human rights, and proud supporter of the Jewish people and Israel, Irving Roth touched everyone he spoke to with his singular erudition, eloquence and wisdom. He truly embodied Elie Wiesel’s words, “When you listen to witness, you become a witness”, creating many thousands of dedicated witnesses around the world committed to sharing the history of the Holocaust and his message of love, peace and respect.
The Jewish people and the world were blessed with the presence of Irving Roth for over 90 years, and we commit to continue bearing the torch of his memory and the invaluable lessons he taught us long into the future.
May his memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
To learn more about Irving’s story, scroll down or click here.
Irving Roth, z”l, was born in Czechoslovakia in 1929. He grew up going to school and playing soccer with kids his own age. But by 1938, as the Nazis took power, his life started to slowly change. He was no longer allowed to attend school, play soccer, or go to the park. His family lost their business and they went into hiding in Hungary.
By 1944, Irving Roth, found himself on a cattle car to Auschwitz at the age of 14. He arrived after three days and was immediately separated from his grandfather, grandmother, aunt, and 10-year-old cousin. He never seen them again, as they were sent to the gas chambers.
By 1945, Roth and his brother survived Auschwitz but were forced on the death march to Buchenwald. Upon arrival, they where separated and his brother was sent to Bergen Belsen where he later died. On April 11, 1945, Buchenwald was liberated. Irving Roth survived the Holocaust to return home to his parents, the only other surviving family members.
Irving Roth spent decades travelling to share his story of the Holocaust and the hatred that killed 6 million Jews. He also wrote a book on his story titled “Bondi’s Brother”.
In late 2020, Irving was featured in the documentary film, NEVER AGAIN?, about the horrors of anti-Semitism and the power of survival and redemption.
Irving passed away on Tuesday, February 16, 2021.
“I hope that through my shared personal experiences on numerous March of the Living trips, I have impacted numerous teens and adults so that the Shoah cannot and will not repeat itself in the future.”
MARTIN BARANEK was born in 1930 in Starachowice, Poland. After 17 months in a labor camp, he was taken to Auschwitz. In January 1945 he was forced on the Death March from Auschwitz to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Martin was later forced on another death March to Gunskierchen. There he was liberated by the American Infantry 71st Division on May 4, 1945. He arrived in Italy in June of 1945 before going on Aliyah-Bet on an illegal ship to Palestine. After a forced stay in Cyprus, Martin landed in Palestine where he was placed in the Atlit Detention Camp. Martin fought in the 1948 War of Independence. In December of 1948, he arrived in Canada and was reunited with his Mother. In 1953, Martin married Betty Eidelman. Together they raised four children and are proud grandparents of nine grandchildren.
“I hope that through my shared personal experiences on numerous March of the Living trips, I have impacted numerous teens and adults so that the Shoah cannot and will not repeat itself in the future.”
MARTIN BARANEK was born in 1930 in Starachowice, Poland. After 17 months in a labor camp, he was taken to Auschwitz. In January 1945 he was forced on the Death March from Auschwitz to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Martin was later forced on another death March to Gunskierchen. There he was liberated by the American Infantry 71st Division on May 4, 1945. He arrived in Italy in June of 1945 before going on Aliyah-Bet on an illegal ship to Palestine. After a forced stay in Cyprus, Martin landed in Palestine where he was placed in the Atlit Detention Camp. Martin fought in the 1948 War of Independence. In December of 1948, he arrived in Canada and was reunited with his Mother. In 1953, Martin married Betty Eidelman. Together they raised four children and are proud grandparents of nine grandchildren.
ISRAEL “JOE” SACHS z"l was born and raised in the small town of Przyrow, Poland. At the outbreak of WWII, Joe, a young boy of 12 years old lived with his parents and an older brother in the city of Sisnowiec. During the German occupation, Joe was apprehended in a deportation roundup and shipped off to a labor camp in Germany was he was 15. After nearly three years of concentration camp internment, Joe was liberated on May 8, 1945. None of his family survived the war.
(L-R: Holocaust Survivors Joe "Israel" Sachs z"l, David Mandel and Irene Zisblatt stand in Auschwitz with Melinda Mishkin Kieffer during the 2008 March of the Living.
Click HERE to watch this Survivor Speaks video featuring Joe which was created by the Miami March of the Living.
May his memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
READ MORE ABOUT JOE "ISRAEL" SACHS
In the summer of 1941, the Nazis invaded Rovno, in eastern Poland. I was 4 years old at this time. My grandfather built a hiding place in the house for the men. My cousin and I would play in the yard and watch for Nazis warning the men if any came. After awhile Rovno became a ghetto and the family had to live with many strangers in one room. My grandfather was separated from the family and we never saw him again.
After three months the Nazis liquidated the ghetto but a gentile friend warned my family. 15,000 Jews were taken to the outskirts of town and murdered. My mother, my cousin my aunt and I hid in the hayloft of a gentile farmer. The farmer’s son was a partisan who convinced his father to hide us.
In the summer of 1943, we were forced to move because our hiding place was tipped-off. When the Ukrainians came I pleaded with the older women to run away, reminding my mom that she needed to dance at my Huppah. We did and something averted the attention of the Ukrainians who did not pursue us. The farmer found us and hid us in the forest and brought food to us. In 1944, the Russians liberated that part of Poland. They found my father and we ended up in a DP camp. We wanted to emigrate to Palestine but it was too dangerous. We relocated to America, sponsored by an uncle.
Years later I married Frank Weiner, whose last name was the same by coincidence. My mom danced at my Huppah! Frank and I have three children, one of whom, Donna Freedman, is accompanying me on the March of the Living. Dara, my granddaughter is also with me on the March.
“My message to the next generation is that we must never forget. But remembrance alone isn’t enough. Each of us must also act, speak out, and provide financial support to the causes that will protect our future. If not us, who will?”
JOE GOTTDENKER was born in 1942 in Nazi-occupied Poland. By that time, his father has already been deported to a work camp. Joe’s mother Bina, entrusted her new-born child to Petronolo and Wladyslaw Ziolo and joined the Polish resistance. The Ziolo family adopted Joe and raised him as their own. Joe stayed with the adoptive family for three years until the end of the war. When the war was over, he reunited with his parents in Germany. The family immigrated to the United States in 1948 and to Toronto in 1958, where Joe has lived since. Joe believes that one’s Jewish identity is defined by values of acceptance, tolerance and understanding – not just for our own community but for all races. To be a Jew is to be a citizen of the world – we must be in it together. Joe is a proud father of three children and grandfather to five grandchildren.
“Remember the Holocaust. Love the Jewish people.”
ELLY GOTZ was born in Kovno, Lithuania, on March 8, 1928. He was an only child. In June 1941, Elly and his family were forced into the Kovno ghetto, where they spent three years. In the summer of 1944, he and his parents were taken to Germany by cattle car train. His mother was unloaded with all the women at Stutthof concentration camp. He and his father were deported to Dachau. There they were forced to work as slave labourers, constructing a giant bomb proof aircraft factory. On April 29, 1945, at 17 years old, Elly was liberated from Dachau by the U.S. army. Elly married Esme in 1958 and lived in Norway, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, before immigrating to Canada in 1964. Elly has three children and six grandchildren. On July 2, 2017, at 89 years old, Elly fulfilled one of his lifelong dreams…. to fly. He jumped from a plane in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday!
RAY FISHLER z'l was born in Kazimierza Wielka, Poland, a small town near Krakow, in 1925. His family included 3 brothers and 2 sisters, as well as his mother and father. He was the second oldest child. When World War ll started he was 14 years old. Ray spent 2 years in Krakow-Plaszow, the concentration camp featured in “Schindler’s List”. For most of that time, he and his father, the only family members to survive, were working as tailors for the German prison guards. He spent the last 5 months of the war in 4 different concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Much of that time was spent on Death Marches as the Russians were advancing westward. He was finally liberated on May 9, 1945.
Following liberation, he lived in Germany in various Displaced Persons Camps while waiting for his official papers to immigrate to the United States, which finally occurred in 1949.
While living in Germany, he was a delegate to the first post-war Zionist convention, which was in Munich. This event helped to shape his future.
After immigrating to the US in 1949 he worked in the garment industry, eventually owning his own business. In 1958 he married his wife, Rhoda, and subsequently lived in Queens until they moved to Rockville Centre, NY where they raised their two children, David and Laura. They lived in Rockville Centre for over 36 years where Ray was actively involved in their temple, B’nai Sholom. He also became very involved with Holocaust education, speaking in public- and private-schools, Jewish and non-Jewish, as well as other venues. .
They have four grandchildren, Brian and Melissa who are David’s children, and Ariel and Daniel who are Laura’s children.
In 2005, Ray and Rhoda moved to Wayne, NJ to be nearer to their 2 younger grandsons, Ariel and Daniel, who live in Fair Lawn. Since moving to Wayne, Ray has become very involved with his new temple, Shomrei Torah where he is a regular minyan attendee, a Ritual committee member, a member of the SLI committee, chair of the High Holidays Preparation Committee and had a major role in obtaining a new Torah Holocaust mantle. He continues to be involved in Holocaust education, and has written a book about his wartime experiences, entitled, Once We Were Eight.
Ray participated on the March of the Living 10 times with the NY/NJ Delegation.
Ray passed away peacefully in his home on Monday, November 19, 2018, after a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. May his memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Holocaust survivor FRITZIE WEISS FRITZSHALL of Buffalo Grove stands by the antique German rail car exhibited at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. Fritzshall's family was celebrating the last day of Passover in 1944 when they were forced to leave their home in Czechoslovakia.
Taken by cattle car to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, the family encountered Jewish prisoners who were assigned to board the train and remove the detainees and bodies of those who did not survive the dank, brutal ride. One man, skinny with a shaven head and wearing a striped uniform, brushed by the children, whispering in Yiddish, "You are 15. Remember, you are 15." "This was the first man who made a difference," said Fritzshall, who at 13 quickly learned the significance of her age. By pretending to be older, she was spared certain death and allowed to work in a factory.
Her aunt offered her the second saving grace—sheltering her in the barracks where "she held me every night and said things will be better," Fritzshall said who was eventually reunited with her father in the United States. Fritzshall's mother, two brothers and grandparents did not make it.
Fritzie Fritzshall came to the United States in 1946. She is now president of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie.
My name is Felice Zimmern Stokes; and I was born in Wallduern, Germany -- a small town in the "Black" Forest region -- on October 18, 1939, approximately six weeks after Germany had invaded Poland. My parents, sister, myself (and the rest of our family, how many, I am not certain), and all of the rest of the Jews -- 15,000 German Jews from Wallduern and the Rhineland region -- were deported on October 22, 1940, by the German Government, to an internment camp in France -- "Camp de Gurs" -- at the foothills of the Pyrenees.
My sister (Beate) and I were separated from our parents at the Camp de Gurs. In January 1941, when I was only 18 months old, a French Jewish agency called "OSE" (Oeuvres de Secours aux Enfants) was able to take some children out of the camp to a place called "La Pouponniere" (a nursery) which was located in Limoges, France. And then after it became too dangerous for us at the Pouponniere, I was hidden with an older non-Jewish family (M. et Mme. Gaston Patoux) in the South of France (near Chateauroux) near Vendoeuvres; and my sister was hidden somewhere else. I was hidden with them for three-and one-half -- app. between the ages of 3-1/2 and 6 years.
After the war my sister and I were placed in two different Jewish orphanages near Paris (Draveil -- for 2 years -- and Taverny -- for 3 1/2 years) because our parents had been deported from Rivesaltes to Drancy and then finally to Auschwitz. Much later -- when I was in my mid-20s -- I found out that they had both been deported on November 4, 1942 and killed at Auschwitz.
[I was able -- through some help from a former boss -- to get the recognition of "Hassidei Umot Ha'Olam" for Mr. et Mme. Patoux for what they did for me during the war - and their names are now at the Museum in Washington, DC, in Paris on the Wall, and in Israel at Yad Vashem!]
Eventually, my sister and I were brought to the United States (February 1951), thinking that we would live with our aunt and uncle (in Buffalo), but that was not to be. But that's another story!
Zachor . . . Gedenk . . . Remember
The March of the Living calls to me from the depths of my being. As a Holocaust Survivor I call forth the Hebrew phrase “Ani Ma-Amin ihntn hbt - ’ I Believe’. My trip to Poland is something that I truly believed would happen, and “Eem Tir Tzu” – “I willed it to happen”. Now I am about to embark upon this Journey of a lifetime . . . a return to my roots in Radom, Poland.
My entire family is supportive of this pilgrimage to the land of my early childhood. In fact, my daughter Debby has chosen to travel with me to see herself where the maternal side of her family came from. Our Family never chose to leave Radom, but was forces to leave as a consequence of the rampart anti Semitism that had overtaken Europe. But this is “the now” of my life, a time to reconnect with ‘how it was and how it might have been’.
As an educator, I have always encouraged my students to live their lives as “menchen” and to embrace the mindset of “Yiddishkeit”. My entire career has enabled me to touch the lives of many Jewish students and to encourage them to “Never Forget” what happened to the Jews during World War II. My mother and I were imprisoned in Auschwitz concentration camp, while my father was detained in Dachau. It was only through his perseverance that I survived. My father was determined that I stay alive; and it was only through his resolve that I made it through those times. He was instrumental in saving the life of his only child.
I believe in that special saying which hares the following . . . “A hundred years from now it will not matter what was in your bank account, what sort of house you lived in or the kind of car you drove.” What will be remembered is the legacy you left. It is my fervent wish to be seen not only as a survivor but as someone who made a difference.
Holocaust survivor Susan Winter (Zsuzsi Rosenberg) presently lives in New York. Mrs. Winter was born in Hungary, then Budapest, she lived with her parents and grandparents.
The Nazis enter Hungary on March 19, 1944, that same morning her father went to the Eastern Train Terminal (Keleti Palyaudvar) to buy tickets for his wife and daughter to go to Dioszeg, which is part of Romania today; at that time it belonged to Hungary. Her father thought it would be easier to survive in a small town verses a large one. That was the last time Susan saw her father.
Her memory is quite faded and she only recalls a few things related to her father. At night when she had to go to sleep, he used to read to her story books, she recalls that it was always “Pinocchio”.
At the Eastern Train Terminal there was a ‘razzia’, who was checking everyone’s papers. All Jews were detained, and at first her father got to 26 Rokk Szilard Street in Budapest, which used to be a Jewish school, from there he was taken to Listarcsa internment camp, then to Auschwitz. He was on the first transport from Hungary. Susan knows he died on April 30, 1944.
Susan Winter, her mother and grandparents remained at 19 Nagydiofa Utca. Uncle Haci Rosenberg also lived in the building. The laws restricted the rights of Jews; they surrendered all their jewelry and short-wave radio to the government. Uncle Haci helped the family complete all the necessary papers. Susan’s cousin Loki (13 years her senior), played with her and kept her occupied.
Uncle Haci and Susan’s mother found a Nazi sympathizing lawyer who told them he would get her father out of the internment camp; he never did but was able to get a letter to them from her father.
Major events started in quick succession; Susan was placed with a babysitter and 2 other girls. Some Jews were forced out of their homes and had to move in with relatives. Aunt Iren and Uncle Izidor, distant relatives, moved in with Susan and her family. Her grandmother recognized Jews from outside Budapest and Hungary in front of the Kazincy Synagogue (the main Synagogue). She invited some of them into their apartment. One was a dentist, who transformed a room into a dental office. The apartment became a huge dining room, a large bedroom, a salon and a very large kitchen.
As new laws were passed there became official “Jewish Buildings”. The building on Nagydiofa Utca became a Christian House. Susan and her family moved to 24 Wessellenyi Utca, where she and her mother had to live with another family in a small room and her grandparents were in another apartment with other friends. There were many other
children living in the building, but we were never allowed to go out and play in the street. Jews were only allowed ‘out’ for an hour or two during the day. So we used the stairwell as the play space.
Susan, her mother and grandparents started making arrangements to get Swedish papers. Uncle Miklos lived in Sweden and they were preparing to move there. She remembers that occasionally, her mom would bring her to the Swedish Embassy to arrange for ‘papers’. On one occasion while waiting in line, Ambassador Raoul Wallenberg came out and with the help of a translator, told Susan and her mother that they should move inside for help.
The summer came and Susan’s grandfather, a member of the burial society, told them that Jewish deaths were on the increase. Her mother received a summons and had to report to Kisok Palya, they were beginning to further inter Jewish women, this left her and my grandmother alone in the apartment. One day the courtyard bell sounded and everyone in the building was told to ‘go down’. The building supervisor told her grandmother to hide and he took Susan with him. He told the Soldiers that she was his niece, and therefore she was allowed to stay in the building.
Shortly after Susan and her family received a “Shutz-Pass”, a Swedish protection document that had them move to another building. The fall came and so did air attacks by the Allies, the weather was colder and there was less food to eat. Her grandmother made ‘beggars soup’ – hot water, salt, red paprika and a few caraway seeds. Only the elderly were allowed to stand in line every 3 days for bread. The people in these lines were occasionally shot – for fun.
The Nazis emptied the Swedish protected houses where they lived. Nazis were taking the Jews to the Danube to strip them, shoot them and throw them into the river. Susan and her family knew they had to escape. Her mother was preparing her. Then one day the Nazis decided to empty their building, and started marching them to the river, at the same time the Allie bombs also fell and the Nazi scrambled for safety, allowing Susan and her family to go to their old ‘abandoned’ building on Wessellenyi Utca. They went to their old apartment; it already had too many people living there. Young partisans came to help cover the bombed out windows to keep the cold wind out, and prevented flying bullets. Lying down and not eating is how Susan her mother and grandparents spent the last 10 days of the war in Budapest. The first Russian soldiers arrived and Susan was able re start her life.
After the war Susan always waited for the just punishment to be delivered to the Nazis, but it never came. Susan Winter’s will never forget and will never forgive them.
Mindful of the good fortune that allowed his family to survive the Holocaust, and thankful to a commanding officer who taught him to become a wine connoisseur and merchant, Michael Zeiger expresses his gratitude for his success with acts of Tzedakah.
“I was very young when World War II broke out,” he said. “My father escaped from a concentration camp in Ukraine, and a neighbor took us in and hid us.”
Michael, his parents, his brother, and two orphan girls his parents took into their home “were in a bunker under a barn for almost two years,”. “We were liberated by the Russian Army, but we did not want to stay there. My father said, ‘This is not a life; we have to get out of here.’” In 1946, the family escaped Ukraine, then went to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and finally a displaced persons’ camp in Germany.
“From there we were supposed to go to Israel, but it didn’t work out. My aunt in Newark insisted we come over here.”
At the age of 13, in early 1950s, he arrived in New Jersey. He mastered English in a hurry and finished Central High School in Newark in six months, then won a scholarship to Upsala College in East Orange. After graduation, he was one of only 5,000 young men to be drafted into the Navy — which normally filled its ranks with voluntary enlistees.
It was after the Korean War but before the United States began sending troops to Vietnam. Michael was assigned to an admiral in naval intelligence who loved wines. “We were traveling all over Europe, and every time we had liberty, I wanted to go out with my friends and meet girls, but I had to go with him to taste wines. At that time, the only wine I knew was Manischewitz at Passover.”
Michael Zeiger’s memory of how he and his family were saved from the Nazis is still vivid. Thanks to a children’s book, The Secret of the Village Fool (Second Story Press), a whole new generation will share that memory.
The book revolves around Anton Suchinski, the gentle little man dismissed as the village fool in Zeiger’s hometown of Zborow in Ukraine. Unlike the other town residents who mocked him, Zeiger’s mother took pity on Suchinski, and she would have her sons take food to him. When the Nazis closed in, hunting down Jewish residents, Suchinski risked his own life to create a shelter for her family in his root cellar. Thanks to his courage and generosity, they survived down there for two years, together with two young girls whose parents had been taken away, until the Nazis were driven from the town in 1944.
The man “risked his life and never asked for anything in return”
IRENE KLASS was born in Lodz, Poland. She was 8 years old when the war broke out in Poland. Irene was in the Warsaw Ghetto and then managed to escape to live with a non-Jewish lady in Warsaw. When the war ended, she left Poland with a transport of orphans and half-orphans for England. Irene works as a volunteer at The Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre and addresses Schools and other audiences.
DONALD KRAUSZ is a survivor of 4 Concentration Camps: Westerbork, Ravensbruck Women’s And Men’s Camp, Sachsenhausen Men’s, Death March.
I was born in Warsaw. My Parents owned and operated a restaurant on Leszno Street. It was called "Cafe Sender" (my father's name). Everybody in the family had to participate in running the business, from the oldest to the youngest - me. We were five siblings, 4 brothers and one sister. We were considered financially well off, in the upper middle class group.
My education started with the Cheder (Hebrew school) at age 4 or 5 years young and ended with public school in Sep., 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
We stayed in Warsaw until November, 1939 when my brother Jacob came back to rescue us. He smuggled us in to the eastern part of Poland which was then occupied by the Soviet Union and became part of Ukraine. The local Jewish population was very kind to us, the refugees from Warsaw. They provided us with a beautiful apartment and arranged jobs for my father and brother Sam in a local restaurant. I was sent to a trade school.
We were quite happy there until Stalin decided to convert all the refugees to become citizens of the Soviet Union. My father and many other refugee families refused this offer. Therefore, Stalin decided that "if you are not with us, you are against us", so we became enemies of the state and were shipped, in cattle cars, to a hard labor camp (a gulag) in northern Siberia. We lived in Siberia for 2 winters and a summer. We were released from Siberia, after the “Polish government-in-exile” in London, England, negotiated with the Soviet Union the release of all Polish citizens from Siberia, to the warm climate in Central Asia. We wound up in Kirgizstan in 1942. We were placed in a Kolkhoz (Collective Farm) in Bialovodsk, Kirgizstan where we lived till the end of the war 1945 when we were repatriated back to Poland.
Upon our return to Poland and finding Warsaw in ruins we moved for a while to the city of Lodz and later to Wroclaw (formally the German city of Breslau). I joined the Aliyah Bet group to go to Palestine. When we reached the city of Salzburg, Austria, I decided to join my brother Sam who was in a DP camp near Munich, in the American zone of occupation. Here I was sponsored by the US Committee for Children to go to America. We arrived in New York on Dec. 20, 1946, during a record braking snow storm. I was placed in an orphanage in
Yonkers, NY until they located my Aunt Gutride (my mother's sister). I went to live with her in Brooklyn. In 1947 I met my future wife, Esther Rosenberg. In 1949, I was admitted to Brooklyn College. The New York Association for New Americans (NYANA) got me a job as a junior draftsman in an Engineering firm in New York.
After my discharge from service in Oct., 1953 I got a job with Republic Aviation, a company in the aerospace industry as a draftsman. We moved to North Bellmore, NY and had 3 daughters who are with us on this March of the Living. I became a designer of navigational systems for spacecraft. I was picked to be one of the mechanical design engineers to join the Apollo Project at MIT in Boston, MA.
Esther and I had seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. My Esther passed away on Aug 4, 2008 of a heart attack while visiting the family in NY.
JOSEPH ECKSTEIN z'l (April 24 1929 - October 14, 2018) was born in Etyek, Hungary. His father and uncle were in business together. He had two sisters and an older brother. In March 1944 Germany occupied Hungary. They had to wear the yellow star and move into the town’s ghetto. On June 13, 1944, they were packed into cattle cars. They traveled for three days and nights without food and water. Joe was 15 years old at the time.
When they arrived in Birkenau, the was separated from his family. After the showers and the delousing process, his new identity was tattooed on his arm: B-14777. When he asked a Jewish inmate, about the smoking chimney, she said, “Your mother and father are burning there.”
Joe was assigned to Lager D- Birkenau Barrack 20 with other young boys. After an epidemic of scarlet fever when about 100 young boys were taken to the gas chambers, he was moved to Barrack 5. After Appell (roll call) he often found ways to hide to avoid the work selections and beatings. Sometimes he was trapped and taken to work on roads to perform heavy physical labor. In November 1944 Joe became sick with pneumonia and was sent to the hospital where he contracted typhus. He was fortunate and recovered.
In January 1945 they were ordered to walk over to Auschwitz 1 where they received extra rations. Joe overheard that they were going on a long march and anyone who could not keep up, will be shot. A group of them hid in the attic of a warehouse and stayed three days there until they found the camp deserted.
On January 27 1945 the Soviet army liberated and he was taken to Krakow. There the found out that they wanted him to fight on the front. All he wanted to do was to go home and find his family. Then he found out that his older sister and brother survived.
He remained in Hungary after the war. Hungary was taken over by the Communists. He learned to be a mechanic. In 1949 he was drafted into the Hungarian Red Army and served two and a half years as a gunsmith. In 1955 he married Mary and in 1956 they had a son Peter. During the revolt of October 1956, against the Russians, they managed to escape into Austria and were then able to come to the US to Syracuse NY. They had a second son Jack, whom they lost in 1993. In 1986 Joe and Mary moved to Florida where they lived close to their son Peter, daughter in law Carol and granddaughters Ma’ayan and Keren.
In spite of his experiences during the war, Joe was able to enjoy his life, his family and his good fortune to survive all the horrors and live in this wonderful country.
Joe and Mary participated in several March of the Livings with Southern Region.
He passed away on He passed away on October 14, 2018 at the age of 89. May his memory be a blessing and may his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
I was born in Budapest Hungary in 1936. From 1942 on, Jewish men, my father among them, were taken to forced labor. So I have very few memories of him. The rest of my family lived in a town named Eger. They all perished in Birkenau.
After Germany invaded Hungary March 1944 all Jews had to wear the yellow star and move into special houses called “Jewhouses”. Our home was declared a “Jewhouse”, so we did not have to move. I was 8 years old at the time.
In October 1944 the Hungarian Nazi Party (Arrowcross) came into power. All the Jews of Budapest had to move into the ghetto. Thanks to the heroic efforts of Raul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, who was able to convince the Swedish and Swiss governments to issue safe passes to anyone who was able to obtain one. This safe pass enabled them to move into a so called safe house supposedly protected by the Swedish or Swiss Governments. My mother was able to get one of these and when we went to find a place, we were captured by the Arrowcross men and were marched to the brick factory. We were kept there for a week. Then children were separated from mothers and marched back to Budapest. A good-hearted German woman took me to a place that my aunt found. Three days later my mother came after escaping execution by the Arrow Cross. We moved into a Safe House. We had no food, were not allowed to go out to shop. My memory of this time is being always scared and hungry.
On December 5, 1944 the Arrowcross came and took the young women; my aunt among them. She was deported to Bergen-Belsen. My mother and I were left behind. A couple of weeks later they came back and took almost everyone to the ghetto. We were left behind again. At the end of January 1945 the Russian Army liberated Budapest. My father came and we went to a distant town where order had been restored.
In the beginning of May 1945 we traveled to Eger to my grandmother’s home. There, my father pricked his left thumb and three weeks later died of sepsis. My mother and I moved back to Budapest, where the Communist Government was in power. I finished my schooling and became an optician. I married Joe, another survivor, in May 1955. We had a son Peter in November 1956.
As a result of the October revolt against the Russians, in December 1956, we managed to escape into Austria and shortly after we came to the US. We made our home in Syracuse NY, had a second son whom we lost in 1993. We moved to Florida 1986 and live near our son Peter and daughter-in-law, Carol. We have two lovely granddaughters, Ma’ayan and Keren. They are our joy.
The weight of my childhood experience is always with me but I am able to enjoy life, today, in spite of it. And most of all I am grateful to find home in this country; the best place of them all.
I was born in Switzerland. Being Jewish and coming from Germany my family had to leave this neutral country and we settled in Versailles, France, where I was educated. At the beginning of the war I was in kindergarten. I knew how to speak French and German. Yes, I wore the yellow Magen David. My sister Amelie was born in 1941 and my paternal grandparents lived also with us.
In 1942 I was hidden in a convent. Amelie, at 6 months old, went to a nun’s family, near our home. This was done to save the children. The adults stayed at home, went to work and visited us when possible. My grandfather was a veteran in the German-Austrian army in WWI. He was helpful to the family in WWII, and suddenly died of a stroke in April 1944. After the invasion of Normandy and thinking the war would end soon, my mother took Amelie back home and I would finish the school year in the convent. A few days later the Germans came to the house, arrested my mother, grandmother and Amelie. My father was in the hospital and that saved him from deportation. They were put on Convoy 76 from Drancy to Auschwitz on June 30, 1944.
I stayed in the convent until May 1945, then went to a Jewish children’s home with other boys and girls in my situation. I went to high school in Versailles where we lived a Jewish life in freedom, learned about Zionism and scouting. My father stayed in the hospital because there was nowhere to go; he died in December 1947. Some of the teens went to “Palestine” on the” Exodus 47”. Israel was born in May 1948 and after the summer I went with a group of youth from the same children’s home to Israel with Youth Aliyah and lived on a kibbutz .I decided to study the profession of nursing at Hadassah in Jerusalem and stayed 7 years.
I also worked as a nurse on Israeli passenger ships for 4 years. On one of the ships I met my husband Joseph. We were married in Israel and later came to the U.S. My daughter Nadia and her daughter, Amalena, accompanied me on prior Marches. Joshua my grandson, and KC, his father, are joining me this time. My son Daniel is also married and has 2 sons. As for myself I am always busy, involved in Hadassah, also school speaking, painting and more.
I was born in 1935 in Stanislaw, Poland. As the War broke out in 1939, I was not yet in school. Then, my mom, dad and maternal grandparents lived in our beautiful house. My life was great, but not for long. My first memory of evil was when my grandparents, being elderly, were the first to be taken away. No amount of tears on my part could soften the Ukrainian policeman's heart. He happened to be a schoolmate of my Dad's and when my Dad pleaded with him to spare them, he took his club and hit my Dad in the head, splitting it and causing the blood to gush. Soon we were forced to move out of our house into a designated area known as the "ghetto". Conditions were very bad; overcrowding, lack of privacy, shortage of food and constantly the fear of another "Actia" (round-up of Jews) to ship them off to concentration camps or shoot them on the spot. My Dad was one of the lucky ones who were allowed to go out of the "ghetto" and work in a warehouse. As a reward he was allowed to take my Mom and me with him. The gates of the "ghetto" were patrolled by Nazi guards and vicious German Sheppard dogs, which were trained to attack on command. I can still feel the fear when we had to pass those dogs.
As the liquidation of the "ghetto" became imminent, my Dad looked for alternatives. He made contact with a peasant who, for a fee, took us to a very dense pine tree forest. There were about 35 people in our group. Things ran smoothly for a while until we were discovered by the Germans and shots rang out. My Mom grabbed my hand and we started to run. We wandered around for 3 days without food or water. We survived on wild hazelnuts. Somehow we found our way back to the original site. Soon after, we were attacked again and this time my Dad grabbed my hand and again we started to run. We thought my Mom had taken another road. When the shooting started she, like any other mother, ran to get her child and in the process was shot in the back. She died trying to save me.
We could not stay in the woods, so my Dad contacted a Polish man named Staszek who was hiding other Jews and pleaded with him to take me in. In the basement of his house, he had built a bunker where 32 of us survived. Staszek was truly a "Righteous Gentile". He provided us with shelter, food and, more importantly, he treated us with respect. I begged him to let my Dad join me, which he did. We stayed there till we were liberated on 7/27/44.
It took quite a few years and, finally, on 5/29/49 we docked in New York and settled in Newark, N.J. I enrolled in school as it was time to start a normal life. I studied and made myself learn English real fast. I couldn't wait to become a "Yankee" and a productive citizen. In my senior year of high school I met my future husband. We married after graduation. We have 2 terrific sons (both physicians), 2 wonderful daughters-in-law and 6 amazing grandchildren. Unfortunately in 2006 my beloved husband passed away. We had 52 glorious years together. I volunteered twice in the Army program in Israel, and have visited Israel 7 times. Now I felt it was time to join the March of the Living before I got too old. I live in Boynton Beach in a lovely community where I keep busy with the various activities. I also speak to students during our "Student Awareness Days" and try to impress upon them that evil like the one I lived through should never happen again. NEVER AGAIN.
I was born 1939 in Paris, France. My father was a jewelry maker and his shop was in our apartment in the center of Paris. France was invaded by the Germans in 1940 and by 1942 all Jews were required to wear the yellow star and the round up deportation of Jews began. One day my mother was informed that soon there would be a round up in our neighborhood.
My parents decided to take refuge in my uncle’s empty apartment . My uncle was drafted to the French army at the beginning of the war. He was a prisoner of war and my grandmother had the key. This apartment was not listed as a Jewish residence. We kept a low profile with the shutters closed, but to try to keep a three and a half year old child quiet (me) was a difficult situation.
After a couple days a lady knocked on the door. Through the closed door, she whispered that she would come the following day to take me away if my parents would agree. The lady, Mrs. Thomas, who was Catholic, was sent by our ex-Jewish neighbor who knew where we were. The next day she came and took me. I stayed with her family about six months in this little town next to Paris. With the help of this Mrs. Thomas and her husband, my parents obtained false identification papers. They, subsequently, found their way to escape from Paris. A farmer family in the south of France took them in. There my father found a job in town and also helped in the farm. A friend of Mrs. Thomas’ husband who was traveling for business took me back to my parents and we stayed at this place until the war ended.
With some difficulty my parents were able to regain their old apartment in Paris. My sister was born in 1947 and after grammar school I completed a trade school for fashion design. In 1952 I joined and actively participated in a Zionist youth organization. In 1957 I went with a group to Israel and worked in the kibbutz for two months.
In 1960 I came to the US with my family and found a job. Shortly after we arrived I met my husband. I am married for 51 years to Tom, who is with me on this trip. We have a daughter and a son, as well as, two grandsons. This is the first time I am participating on the March. Tom is with me.
I was born in 1935 in Slovakia. My father owned a general store. In 1939 our town was annexed by Hungary. We moved to Budapest where my dad found a job as a superintendent in an apartment building. In 1941, he was drafted to forced labor camp. My mother worked at home making nurse's uniforms. I was 7 when she sent me to stay with my maternal grandparents. One day my grandparents were ordered to move into a newly set up ghetto. My mother heard this and paid somebody to smuggle me to Budapest. A week later the deportation started from my grandparent’s town. They were murdered in Auschwitz with many of our relatives. All my relatives from my father side were also deported to Auschwitz from a nearby town.
In my Budapest school I was constantly harassed and beaten up by classmates. I was the only Jew in the class and I was scared. I was 8 when my mother obtained false papers and we went into hiding. Then we moved to a small village where my mother worked the fields along with the farmers who kept us. When we ran out of money they asked us to leave. I will never forget the scary ride on the train back to Budapest.
In Budapest, we had to wear the Yellow Stars. After living is a small room for a short while, we were taken by an uncle to a large barrack, which I learned later was under the protection of the Swedish ambassador, Raoul Wallenberg. One day the Hungarian Nazis came. There was a Hungarian Nazi in the middle of the square directing the people to different columns. My uncle was placed in a line and we never saw him again. My mother went to another column with the women and I went to a one with children and old people. I ended up at the Budapest ghetto where my mother found me. She found a place for me in the ghetto where only children were staying and the corn bread ration was bigger. She came every day, with some bread or whatever she had.
In January 1945 the Ghetto was liberated. We went back to our old apartment. My father came back four months later. As a teenager, I became a machinist and worked for two years and then I was allowed to complete high school which was a four year program - but I did it in two years. I attended the University of Budapest where I studied Chemical Engineering. In my third year, in 1956, the revolution broke out, which started in the university I attended, so I had some participation in it. My father was jailed at that time, under false pretenses. He escaped and we all snuck through the Austrian border.
We came to the US in December 1956. I learned English and completed my studies at Texas A&M University and worked as a Chemical Engineer in various positions for 37 years. I am married 51 years, to Danielle. We have two children and two grandchildren and if you want to know my nationality I am definitively an American.
I was born in Lancut, Poland, which was known as a city of maskilim (Intellectuals). Most studied in the Cheder and Yeshiva. Only a few young Jews went to secular education. Among these individuals was my father who went to Germany to study Dentistry. He played in the town orchestra and was on the soccer team. His two sisters Leah and Penina made aliyah to Palestine in 1938.
My mother was the youngest in the family of 7 brothers and 5 sisters. Nine of them were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. She was spoiled by her siblings and loved horse riding and dance. She finished her secondary school and went to Hebrew school where she studied Jewish history and Hebrew. Her brother Yehuda left to Palestine in 1938 to join the British army. My mother’s father died in Lancut in the beginning of the war her mother died when my mother was 15. Her brothers, sisters and their families were murdered by the Nazis.
Before 1939 there were 2,753 Jews in Lancut out of a total population of 8,700. Lancut was occupied by Nazi forces on the September 9, 1939. Immediately, orders were issued excluding the Jewish community. Jewish shops should be marked with a Star of David and their goods handed over to the German soldiers. Jews were engaged in forced labor under the supervision of sadists who beat and degraded them.
During the first days of the occupation they burned the beautiful Synagogue On September 22, 1939, Jews were instructed to leave the city and on the next day all the Jewish families were expelled. My parents and I we were among the lucky ones by arriving to Siberia in the freezing winter. Here, father worked in the forest as a hewer of wood in 40 degrees below 0 degree weather. Then he worked in a kolchoz (a kind of Russian kibbutz). My Mother got sick and stayed in the hospital for nine months and by a miracle she got over it. When she came home I was four years old I didn't recognize her so I ran to hide under a table. The local Russian people wanted gold teeth so my father made the golden teeth, trading for flour.
At the end of 1944 we joined my Aunt Sabina and her children in a town called Almata. In September 1945 my sister Chana was born there. From there we went back to Poland with Sabina and her family to a town called Schechin where we met my Uncle Moshe, his wife Pesia and their five children. At this time, Moshe got sick and passed away. From Schechin, we went to the D.P. camp in Berlin and stayed there until end of 1948. This is where I learned Hebrew and to play the piano. My father practiced Dentistry here.
In 1949 we made Aliyah to Israel. Here I got my degree as a teacher in 1959 and have been teaching ever since. Teaching is my life I hope that G-D will give me the strength to continue my dedication to teach.
I met my husband in Israel. He volunteered in the Israeli Army. Our two sons were born in Israel. We moved to Belgium, then Chicago and, finally, Florida. I taught in all these places. Now we have five grandchildren; two boys and three girls.
Naomi, one of these grandchildren is participating with me on the March, like her sister Alexandra in 2012. I do a lot of volunteer work in our Synagogue and sisterhood, support the FIDF and the Child Survivor Organization.
I was born in 1930 in Warsaw, Poland. I attended Tarbut School Atid until my education was interrupted at the end of 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland, and I and my entire family were placed in the Warsaw Ghetto. While living in the Ghetto, I was involved in labor details for the Germans and did some smuggling of food and other items into the Ghetto. After the uprising and the burning of the ghetto, we hid in underground shelters but were discovered by the Nazis and were taken to Majdanek. My Mother and younger brother were sent to the Gas Chambers. My father and I were selected for slave labor. We were sent to Budzyn (where after three weeks my father was killed), Mielec, Wieliczka, Plazcow and Flossenbourg. These camps were located next to airplane factories. I was a pattern maker for the outer bodies of the German aircrafts (Messerschmitt and Heinkel). The working conditions were humiliating, with very little food, clothing, sanitation, or medical attention. The food rations consisted of one piece of bread and one bowl of soup per day.
On April 23, 1945, I was liberated by the United States Army while they were en route to Dachau. Then, I was picked up by a Jewish Lieutenant with the 179th Signal Corp of the US Army. His name was Lt. Basic. I stayed with that company until 1947. This was in place of being put in a DP Camp. Lt. Basic helped me get passage to the US through The US Committee. I entered the US on Dec 13, 1947. I was turned over in the Bronx to The Orphanage of the Jewish Children's Service and was transferred to Atlanta, Ga., on December 31, 1947.
In 1948, I registered for the Draft and joined the US Army in 1951. I served until 1953, during the Korean War, and was discharged in 1953. I then settled in Dallas where I married a native Dallasite, Frieda Gappelberg. We are proud parents of three children who are all married, and proud grandparents of seven grandchildren, who are the true joy and blessings in our lives.
I am an active member of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Jewish War Veterans, and I am an Associate of Hadassah (I was a Myrtle Wreath Honoree). I am a past President of the Holocaust Survivors in Dallas, and am now a Life Member of the Board of Directors of The Dallas Holocaust Museum. I lecture about the Holocaust in schools, churches, colleges, Sunday Schools, organizations, Military Bases and many other institutions.
I was born in Paris, France, to Polish parents who had gotten French citizenship. My father was in the French army. When the Nazis entered Paris, he was sent to work in a concentration camp. There were twenty-three concentration camps in France during World War II. He was told that my mother and I would be spared deportation if he worked there. Not convinced that I was safe, he asked a farm family in the small town if they would hide me. I was three and half but I remember everything.
One day my father, who visited me every day, did not show up. He had been deported along with the other seventy men who worked in the camp. From there he went to Drancy, onto Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald and then Langenstein Zwieberg, a sub camp of Buchenwald where he died five days before the camp was liberated. I continued to hide on the farm until the end of the war. Many times the Nazis came to the farm. Once I was hidden under a mattress, another time in a hayloft. I remember the loneliness and how frightened I was. I have devoted much of my time to Holocaust education and giving my father the memorial he so richly deserves. I am going on the March of the Living for the fourth time to ensure that our voices will be heard long after our generation is gone.
I wrote this poem to ask you to remember!
We were the children
We were happy
We went to school
We were loved by our parents
We had families
We had siblings
We had grandparents
We had aunts and uncles and cousins
Suddenly the world changed - all was gone!
The world turned upside down and became ugly and was never the same again.
Fear
Sadness
Hatred
Madness surrounded us with unbelievable suffering
We were left alone with our memories t o face this broken world.
Now, we are adults, but we can't forget.
Now we are in a race against time to tell our stories
To these young people
To each one of you
Remember-- and continue our history.
I was born in Poland. I was lucky to survive with my parents and one brother. My other brother died while we were running from the Nazis.
After the war, in 1945, we returned to Poland. In 1947, my brother and l went on the Illegal Aliyah (according to the British) to Palestine. Our parents went ahead of us. The British intercepted our boat and took us to the Cyprus Detention Camp.
In October 1948, I was released and came to Israel legally. But a war was going on and the Arabs attacked the new infant country. I was drafted into the Israeli Army.
After my release from the Army, I married my husband, Benjamin Kutner, of blessed memory, and gave birth to two children. In 1961, we immigrated to the US and lived in New York. I went to school in New York and received my Teacher's Diploma and taught in the Solomon Schechter School in Queens, NY for thirty years. During my teaching career, I was excited to receive a $10,000 award for Best Teacher of the Year. Our family belonged to the Utopia Jewish Center. We were very active. I was the President of Sisterhood.
In 1991, we retired to Florida and joined Temple Emeth. I was teaching adults for 19 years and received the Shem Tov award. For 14 years I was in charge of the Holocaust Commemoration at Temple Emeth.
Currently, I am a member of Congregation Anshei Shalom and teach a Bar/Bat Mitzvah class on Mondays. Last year I co-chaired the Yom Hashoah service with Morie Jusovic.
I am privileged to have received honors for my dedication, twice from the Utopia Jewish Center, the Kehila Service Award in NY, U.J.A, J.N.F. and three service awards from Temple Emeth.
I was born in Warsaw. My Parents owned and operated a restaurant on Leszno Street. It was called "Cafe Sender" (my father's name). Everybody in the family had to participate in running the business, from the oldest to the youngest - me. We were five siblings, 4 brothers and one sister. We were considered financially well off, in the upper middle class group.
My education started with the Cheder (Hebrew school) at age 4 or 5 years young and ended with public school in Sep., 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
We stayed in Warsaw until November, 1939 when my brother Jacob came back to rescue us. He smuggled us in to the eastern part of Poland which was then occupied by the Soviet Union and became part of Ukraine. The local Jewish population was very kind to us, the refugees from Warsaw. They provided us with a beautiful apartment and arranged jobs for my father and brother Sam in a local restaurant. I was sent to a trade school.
We were quite happy there until Stalin decided to convert all the refugees to become citizens of the Soviet Union. My father and many other refugee families refused this offer. Therefore, Stalin decided that "if you are not with us, you are against us", so we became enemies of the state and were shipped, in cattle cars, to a hard labor camp (a gulag) in northern Siberia. We lived in Siberia for 2 winters and a summer. We were released from Siberia, after the “Polish government-in-exile” in London, England, negotiated with the Soviet Union the release of all Polish citizens from Siberia, to the warm climate in Central Asia. We wound up in Kirgizstan in 1942. We were placed in a Kolkhoz (Collective Farm) in Bialovodsk, Kirgizstan where we lived till the end of the war 1945 when we were repatriated back to Poland.
Upon our return to Poland and finding Warsaw in ruins we moved for a while to the city of Lodz and later to Wroclaw (formally the German city of Breslau). I joined the Aliyah Bet group to go to Palestine. When we reached the city of Salzburg, Austria, I decided to join my brother Sam who was in a DP camp near Munich, in the American zone of occupation. Here I was sponsored by the US Committee for Children to go to America. We arrived in New York on Dec. 20, 1946, during a record braking snow storm. I was placed in an orphanage in
Yonkers, NY until they located my Aunt Gutride (my mother's sister). I went to live with her in Brooklyn. In 1947 I met my future wife, Esther Rosenberg. In 1949, I was admitted to Brooklyn College. The New York Association for New Americans (NYANA) got me a job as a junior draftsman in an Engineering firm in New York.
After my discharge from service in Oct., 1953 I got a job with Republic Aviation, a company in the aerospace industry as a draftsman. We moved to North Bellmore, NY and had 3 daughters who are with us on this March of the Living. I became a designer of navigational systems for spacecraft. I was picked to be one of the mechanical design engineers to join the Apollo Project at MIT in Boston, MA.
Esther and I had seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. My Esther passed away on Aug 4, 2008 of a heart attack while visiting the family in NY.
I was born in Speyer, Germany just a few years after Hitler came to power. Speyer is a lovely city in southern Germany on the Rhine. Our family lived in Germany for hundreds of years and was very proud of being German. My Dad volunteered at the age of 17 in the army in World War I, as did many other Jewish German men, to fight for the Kaiser. In fact he was awarded an Iron Cross for his service. My Dad was a very smart person as we escaped from Speyer before Kristallnacht. Smarter yet were two uncles of my Mother who immigrated to the US in the 1890s. They were smart enough to want to rescue their ENTIRE FAMILY, which included all their uncles, aunts, cousins and everyone that was remotely related to them.
Knowing that they could not get American Visas for that many people, they made affidavits for the head of each household they could find and sponsored just that person for a Visa. Then it became the responsibility of that person to bring over the balance of his family. So in my case, my Father came to the US early in 1937 and he was able to bring my Mother, brother and me here in April 1938. (Ask me how he was able to do that, after being here for only such a short period of time.) Because of these brilliant uncles, not one person in our entire extended family lost their lives in the Holocaust.
My parents owned a couple of shoe stores in Germany and of course lost everything before we were allowed to emigrate. We ended up in Toledo, Ohio where my Dad eventually opened up a small shoe store once again. I only went to school in the first grade in Speyer for a few months before we left for America. That school was in our synagogue because all Jewish kids had already been thrown out of the public school system in the whole country. We might have contaminated those wonderful Aryan kids.
I became Americanized very quickly and have lived a wonderful life in this country. Like my Father, I also enlisted in the military. I however joined the United State Navy (during the Korean conflict). After I returned home from my stint in the service, I graduated from the University of Toledo and went to work in the uniform manufacturing industry. I am now retired and live in Seminole, Florida with my wife, Irma. We are the proud parents of three girls and the proud grandparents of five kids ranging in age from 4 to 15 years old.
Both of us spend a great deal of time at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg as docents. I also speak to many school groups about my experiences in pre-war Nazi Germany and my early years in America. This is by far the best "job" I have ever had.
I was born in 1934 in Paris, France, the second of a family of 8 children. My parents immigrated to France from Poland in the late twenties. My father was a self-employed tailor, my mother helped him. We lived in a Jewish neighborhood where nobody had enough money to live decently.
Suddenly we were confronted to situations we as children did not understand: the French police (milice) forcing our door at night and stealing everything in sight in the apartment, looking for my father who was hiding; I do not know where. It was unbelievably scary. These men were dressed in long black trench coats. To a child, they looked taller than average, mean and not human. These intrusions happened many times. We were terrorized.
The SS were on every street corner with their dogs, going into buildings, breaking doors with their powerful boots, taking Jewish people and children away. I vividly remember “La Rafle du Vel d’Hiv” (the roundup of Jews in Paris) in the summer of 1942. Buses riding through our neighborhood full with children, women, men who were crying as their arms stretched out through the windows. It was a horrible sight.
My mother then realized that to save us children that we had to leave Paris and be hidden, which was the general consensus in the neighborhood among the Jewish families. We were taken to the offices of L’OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) which took charge of us with great competence and kindness. The seven children had to be separated. My sister Fanny (7) and I (8) were taken, at night, to a family in Maine et Loire. It took very little time for us to be recognized as Jewish, and as undesirable in the village.
That same night we were again picked up by L’OSE, and traveled at night to Normandy, where the same situation occurred. We traveled at night from place to place until a home was found for us in a village near the city of Chantilly, where we stayed until the end of the war.
At the end of the war, my father being alone, managed for the seven children to be cared for in Jewish orphanages. When we finally met, we were not little children anymore. The beautiful childhood years were lost forever.
The last time I saw my mother was at L’OSE. When she left, I remember breaking the window panes with my fists; my pain was so great. We did not know at the time that she was pregnant with her 8th child. She gave birth in December, stayed with a family for a few months, then in May decided to go back home. The next day, the French milice came to take her away with the baby, first to Drancy and then to Auschwitz. My younger sister who was sick at the time and hospitalized was also taken to Drancy with my mother. To this day nobody knows how she was saved. She could not remember. She passed away, so we will never know. At least half my family was gone by the end of the war. We remember their names.
I was born 1924 in Kazimierza Wielka, a small town 30 miles northwest of Cracow, Poland.
My family name was Rakowski and we lived there for many generations. My family was engaged in the lumber business, which became successful. I attended public school and Hebrew school and the last year before World War II, I attended Hebrew High School in Cracow.
On September 5, 1939 the Germans occupied my town, five days after they invaded Poland. We lived in our town until the summer of 1942 at which time the Germans began the liquidation of the cities and transported many of my friends and family to extermination camps.
We were under severe restrictions and were forced to submit to becoming slave laborers.
In August 1942 I went into hiding with Polish friends and later moved to the Cracow ghetto. On March 17, 1943 I was moved to the notorious Plaszow Labor Camp, which you have seen depicted in Schindler’s List. After that I was sent to the labor camp called Pionki in September of 1943. Pionki was a large ammunition and munitions complex. In July 1944 I was moved to a camp in Germany called Sachenhausen which is near Berlin. There I worked in several sub camps and went on the Death March April 1945.
I was liberated on May 2, 1945 near Schwerin. I went back to Poland and joined the Bricha in March 1946. I became a madrich for 120 youngsters who went with me on the legal ship Champolionin to Israel. In Israel, I lived on a Kibbutz in the Negev and was wounded during the 1948 War for Independence.
In 1956, I joined my parents in the USA. They lived in Canton, Ohio where I lived with my wife, Bilha and three children.
The snow was still on the ground when my parents brought me home from the hospital barracks wrapped in a pillow. It was May 2, 1944 in a Slave Labor Camp in Syktevkar, Siberia. We shared this barrack with an old woman whose job was to "mate goats". My parents had been interred in camps for 4 years with hardly any food, heat, or clothes for themselves let alone for a baby. Luckily, a month later, we were moved South to the Black Sea area of the Ukraine to help rebuild the so-called "bread-basket" of Russia after the retreating Germans destroyed and burned everything in their path. We boarded the Cattle train and spent almost the last year of the War in Ukraine. But as the Russians advanced towards Germany, we followed, jumping on and off trains as the Nazis searched for Jews. My father was anxious to go back home to Lodz, Poland and my mother to Alexandrov, a suburb of Lodz. I was 11/2 when we arrived in Poland only to find out that our homes were taken over by locals and most of our dear families were killed by gassing. So any questions; so many unacceptable answers. Where to go? What to do? We decided that as a Jew it was not safe to remain in Poland so declaring ourselves "home-less" we left for the American Sector of Germany where we had to live in a 'Displaced Person's Camp' waiting for a Visa to the United States. Wait we did- three years! During this time, I learned to speak Hebrew as well as Yiddish and Polish. March 22, 1949, after 10 days in steerage in an American Navy Ship, with $10.00 in American money, we entered the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Refugees like us often found it hard to integrate into the Jewish American community. No one wanted to hear our stories so we remained silent, but silence is never an answer nor ever should be. Children at school were told not to play with the "refugee" in case I carried diseases. When I tried to speak and was laughed at, I too decided to remain silent which I did in school all the way thru college. I became a Jewish Educator.
In 1988, I read about a trip for Jewish Teens to Poland and Israel. I applied as a child Survivor and I finally found "my voice" standing next to the crematoria at Auschwitz. There my grandmother, who was killed, "spoke to me" and said, "speak for me and my little children and tell the World what happened to us here- you be my voice!" So I have, to this day! I have helped lead the March since then.
I was married to my husband, Alan, for 47 years until he recently passed. We have two children, Michelle (who went on the March in 1990) and Howard. Also, there are 5 grandchildren, with Talia coming with me on the MOL in April, 2013. I have 4 more to go! The March of the Living changed my life and I, in turn, hope to do the same for others. I have been on more than 20 Marches.
I am a survivor of the Holocaust. For a long time I couldn’t talk about it at all. It was much too painful and I am still very nervous about it. My mother, to this day, has not been able to approach the subject. As for me, as a little girl, when so many people in your family were killed, you start wondering why them, and why not me. And guilt sets in.
I cancelled my interview with the Shoah Foundation 3 times. I just didn’t have the courage to remember. But, then I realized that my children and grandchildren had the right to know. This was also an explanation for my overprotective attitude toward them. When you have lost so much including your childhood, you tend to hold on tightly to what you have and love.
16,000 children in France under 16 years of age were deported. Most of them never came back. I found pictures of some of my friends in the book dedicated to the dead. I was lucky to have been hidden by a gentile French family, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you today. In spite of its reputation, France is the country that saved the most Jews. The family where I stayed didn’t ask any questions nor any money. They were just good people and shouldn’t be forgotten.
Although I went to church and observed all their rituals, they never tried to convert me and I remained a Jew very proudly. This is my first March of the Living
I was born in 1937 in Stanislov, Poland. The name that I was given at birth was Zigo Levinson. At the age of 6, my mother and I were forced to move to the Stanislov Ghetto, where we resided in very close quarters. My father had a scrap metal business that was located just on the border of the Stanislov Ghetto.
He was able to cut through the fence and made an escape route for my parents, myself, my aunt and two cousins. We escaped to a house on the outskirts of the city where a righteous gentile woman, allowed our family to live in her sub-basement for 18 months. My father helped many families escape through the fence and helped find gentile families to hide them. My father was reported to the Germans where he was executed for hiding Jewish people, and for not disclosing where he was hiding his family. Life in hiding was very boring for a young child as there were no games or books, and food was limited to what the Polish family was able to buy from the jewelry we gave her.
In 1945, the Russians liberated Stanislov and I was one of just a few hundred Jews that survived. Prior to the war, there were over 50,000 Jewish people living in Stanislov. The righteous woman who hid my family was denounced as a collaborator by the Polish people, and she was arrested for her involvement. Despite our pleas to the Russians, she was detained.
After we were liberated, my mother and I made our way to Warsaw. We had little family left and we were told that many survivors were congregating in Warsaw. There, my mother met a man who lost his wife and four children. They decided to marry and rebuild a family together. My name was changed to Sigmont Schleider, as I took on my new father’s last name. We stayed in Warsaw for just a short time before moving on to Prague. We stayed there for a month before moving on to Bologna, Italy where we resided for 5 years. I was 8 years old when the war ended. I did not receive any formal education until I was 9 years old, when my family settled in Florence. Life in Italy was quite good. I did not experience any anti-Semitism. I made friends, and had time to roam and explore Florence.
In November 1949, my family emigrated to the United States, as they wanted to live in a country where we could become citizens. I changed my name one final time to Samuel Schleider.
We resided in the lower east side of Manhattan where my father sold women’s stockings. I graduated High School and took classes at City College in the evening. My father and I went into business together in 1959. I got married to Sara in March 1960. We have two wonderful children.
I was born in Wielum, Poland. On Sept. 1st, 1939, the first day of the second World War, Mark was two months shy of his 10th birthday. At 4:30 in the morning, the German planes bombed and destroyed most of my city and many people were buried alive. My house was on fire and I and my family escaped with only the clothes on our backs. The next day, the German army entered the city. All Jews were required to wear yellow stars on their clothes and the men and women had to work to clean up the rubble.
In 1942, I witnessed my father putting a hangman's noose on a friend.
I also saw my aunt and little cousins being forced into and gassed in specially built trucks that had carbon monoxide piped into them while my father was gassed at a different location that very same day. I recited Kaddish that evening for him. My mother and sister, who was two years older than me, and I were sent to Auschwitz and that was the last time I saw my mother. When we got off the cattle train, she probably saved my life by putting lipstick on my cheeks to make me look healthier before we faced Mengele, the Doctor of Death.
In Auschwitz, in 1944, I witnessed the hanging of three courageous Jewish girls who managed to pass gun powder to some inmates who in turn blew up one of the gas chambers.
In January 1945, as the Russian Army got closer to Auschwitz, I was forced to make the Death March in snow and bitter cold. If you couldn't continue to walk, you were shot. Half the inmates who fell down were shot and left on the side of the road. The next four months, I spent in three different concentration camps, Gross Rosen, North Hausen and Buchenwald, where I was liberated on April 11, 1945 by the American Army.
I came to the U.S. in 1947. In 1950, during the Korean War, I was drafted into the U.S. army where I served for two years. In 1994 and 2005, I participated in the March of the Living and am going again now in 2010 on the 65th anniversary of my liberation.
In the summer of 1941, the Nazis invaded Rovno, in eastern Poland. I was 4 years old at this time. My grandfather built a hiding place in the house for the men. My cousin and I would play in the yard and watch for Nazis warning the men if any came. After awhile Rovno became a ghetto and the family had to live with many strangers in one room. My grandfather was separated from the family and we never saw him again.
After three months the Nazis liquidated the ghetto but a gentile friend warned my family. 15,000 Jews were taken to the outskirts of town and murdered. My mother, my cousin my aunt and I hid in the hayloft of a gentile farmer. The farmer’s son was a partisan who convinced his father to hide us.
In the summer of 1943, we were forced to move because our hiding place was tipped-off. When the Ukrainians came I pleaded with the older women to run away, reminding my mom that she needed to dance at my Huppah. We did and something averted the attention of the Ukrainians who did not pursue us. The farmer found us and hid us in the forest and brought food to us. In 1944, the Russians liberated that part of Poland. They found my father and we ended up in a DP camp. We wanted to emigrate to Palestine but it was too dangerous. We relocated to America, sponsored by an uncle.
Years later I married Frank Weiner, whose last name was the same by coincidence. My mom danced at my Huppah! Frank and I have three children, one of whom, Donna Freedman, is accompanying me on the March of the Living. Dara, my granddaughter is also with me on the March.
I was born October, 1944 in Novosibirsk , Siberia, Russia. Both my parents escaped to Siberia and worked in the Labor Camps. My parents met in 1942 and got married. They worked 7 days a week and all holidays. One Yom Kippur, on a forced labor detail, my father had a lunch break. He sat down on the ground and instead of eating, he told the manager he wasn't hungry and proceeded to pray . The inconceivable courage that my father showed at that moment has sustained me throughout my life. My mother worked at several different outposts and helped build barracks. At one point, she carried a rifle and stood guard at night, as did my dad.. They were both starving - but they stayed strong and resolute in their will to survive.
Despite malnutrition, bad living conditions and freezing weather, my mother conceived and I was born. When they brought me home from the hospital and uncovered me, they screamed because I looked like a skeleton. My nutrition was poor and I contracted pneumonia; I survived - without meds. My dad was inducted into the Russian army. He promised my mother that he would remain alive and that she must promise the same. He returned a few days before my first birthday, as promised.
Six months later, we went to Stetzyn, Poland where we were imprisoned. Then we moved to a DP camp in Berlin. My sister was born in Templehoff, on October, 1, 1946. Here, we shared an apartment with another family. My father found my aunt in the USA who agreed to sponsor us, but my mother refused to go anywhere except Israel. In March, 1949 we left Germany for Israel in an American Army plane. I was four and a half years old. I remember dancing to Hava Nagila, as we rejoiced in the birth of the State of Israel.
. We lived in Israel for six years, and we practically starved there as well. My father helped build the roads from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Finally he was able to get a job as a barber in a shop, but we lived in horrid one room converted water well, which seeped water through the walls every time it rained. My American aunt helped us with packages of food, clothing and money.
In 1955, we were catapulted into extreme culture shock when we arrived to the USA. My sister and I were placed in a public school in New York’s lower east side; we were a minority. In other words we were Jewish and foreigners. We couldn't speak English and we didn't look like others. We were taunted and, once again, were scared for our lives. When we finally moved to Brooklyn, our lives became cohesive and our total Americanization began.
Mom and dad are gone - but their courage, faith and perseverance remain with my sister and me. My parents produced two daughters and we gave them six grandchildren, and my mother lived to see eight great grandchildren. At this point there are nine great grandchildren and hopefully more to come. I am a proud Jew and I love Israel as well as counting the United States as my adopted country.
Born in Lima z'l, Peru, my parents took me to Southern France when I was four years old. I was raised in a beautiful home in Bezier with the best of everything by my Sephardic parents from Turkey & Greece. I grew up with a fine education. The war broke out and we were safe in Vichy France under the French government allied to Germany until May 1944. At that time the Germans discovered that there were Jews in Vichy France that had not been transported for relocation to the east.
In May of that year they came to my door and took my father, mother, sister, brother and me, transporting us by train to Drancy, France. Once we were in Drancy we were then loaded onto cattle cars for a seven day trip to the Auschwitz. I arrived in Auschwitz and was immediately given a number A7085. I am the only survivor of my entire family who traveled to Auschwitz. I survived Auschwitz working in the kitchen and being able to put potato peelings into my clothes and bringing them back to my barrack 24. As the war neared to an end I was relocated to Bergen Belsen and worked in a plane factory in Liepsig. In April 1945, I was evacuated to Thereisenstadt where I was finally liberated by the Russians the end of June 1945.
I returned to France through the efforts of the French Red Cross to try and recapture my life but found that my entire family had been murdered. Through a mutual acquaintance I met Leon’s father when Leon was 7 months old. His mother had died in the Displaced Persons camp in Germany. I married Leon’s father, Sam Weissberg. Sam & I had another son, Albert, in 1950. We lived in Paris for 5 ½ years until we came to America where we stayed in Miami for six months and then to New York to really start our lives anew.
We went to school in NY to learn English. Since I was always good with numbers, I was able to get a job in NY doing bookkeeping work with a few different companies until I found myself at Young & Rubicam and worked there for 27 years until we came to Florida for my husband’s health. We followed our son and his family to Florida and made a life for ourselves here until Sam passed away seven years ago. I took a job with Baby Superstore for an additional 11 years until my retirement a few years ago.
I hope that my role on the March of the Living will provide others with some understanding of what it was like for those of us who survived those horrific years.
We observed all the festivals but my father was not a regular synagogue goer. I attended school from the age of six, and we had a large family of uncles, aunts, and cousins, who we visited and spent holidays with. But on 1st September 1939 life changed drastically for us.
The Nazi invasion started with the bombing of Polish towns. When my home town was bombed on Saturday 2 September 1939, people in panic gathered their families and some belongings together and by evening were fleeing east; my family and I were among them. By early morning we had reached Suljow, a small town some 15 kilometres away, where my parents decided to stop, as my father had met his younger brother Fishel, his wife Irene and their two-year-old daughter Hania. But later that day the bombing started there too, and within minutes much of the town was in flames. We, together with other families, were in one of the few brick buildings in the town and it was only my mother’s presence of mind that saved us. She stood at the door and prevented us from fleeing the safety of the house. When the bombing seemed to have stopped, she opened the door and we all ran to the nearby woods. We were lucky to survive that short, but perilous run as German planes were strafing over our heads.
For the next few days, in order to avoid the bombing, we travelled by night and hid by day in the forests until the advancing armies caught up with us. It was futile to continue eastwards and my parents decided to return to Piotrkow, but on the way back we were told that our town was on fire. From a distance it looked as if the whole town was alight, but we found that some coal wagons on the railway had received a direct hit and were burning furiously; elsewhere the bomb damage was minimal.
At the beginning of October 1939 the new, brutal Nazi regime issued orders that all Jews in our town were to move to a ghetto by 1st November. This was the first ghetto in Poland, located in an old part of town with houses in poor condition. My father managed to find two rooms and a kitchen, with toilet but no bathroom. We were lucky to have this accommodation for our family of five and at some point we even shared it with my mother’s sister Gucia who came to join us from Sieradz. As the ghetto became more and more crowded we had to give up one room to another family, but we were still lucky to have such a large room and a kitchen to ourselves. In some houses there were two or three families in a room. Many Jews from the surrounding areas had been forced to join us, particularly from western Poland which was now incorporated into Germany’s Third Reich. Altogether there were 28,000 people in that small enclosure.
Although there was an official checkpoint, the ghetto was not yet surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Those over the age of 12 were ordered to wear armbands with the Star of David and we were not allowed out of the ghetto at any time. Anyone found outside was severely punished; some were shot. Within the ghetto there were curfews, and we were not allowed on the streets after 8 p.m.
At the beginning life somehow continued, we had some cultural and social activities, and I had lessons with other children. This was, of course, strictly illegal as formal schooling for Jewish children had stopped, but some education continued despite the dangers. Although conditions seemed reasonably tolerable at first, they began to deteriorate almost from day to day. There were frequent raids and searches, and the streets were patrolled by the SS with ferocious dogs. Able-bodied men were never safe as there were frequent round-ups for special assignments and many never came back. New laws were constantly being issued – to hand in valuables, jewellery, watches, furs coats, radios, and so on.
My father, who was a very enterprising man, continued to have dealings with merchants outside the ghetto, and managed to obtain provisions for us and for other families.
One day he needed to send a message outside the ghetto to one of the dealers and I volunteered – much against my mother’s protestations. My father pacified her by explaining that since I did not look Jewish there was not much chance of being caught, and in any case the message was verbal, he would not risk me carrying a note. At that time, there were still many places where one could just walk out of the ghetto if that point was not being patrolled at the time. In the event I got out easily and proceeded on a long walk to the farmhouse. On arrival I was greeted warmly and given a glass of milk. I delivered the message and the men said they were leaving with the flour and sugar on a horse-drawn cart, so I rode back with them. On the way we were stopped and the men were searched and questioned. When the policemen turned to me, I just said that I had hitched a lift and knew nothing about the men or their merchandise. I then got off the cart, my heart pounding, and walked back to the ghetto, trying to avoid any police or SS on duty. The men were taken to the police station and later released; the goods were confiscated.
As time progressed, things got worse; overcrowding and insanitary conditions caused an outbreak of typhoid. By the time the deportations to the extermination camp at Treblinka took place this epidemic had reduced the ghetto population to 24,000.
In 1942 rumours began to circulate that the ghetto was to be reduced to just the Jewish administration and those with work permits. The majority of the inhabitants were to be rounded up, selections would take place, and people would be deported to either labour or concentration camps, and in the majority of cases to their deaths. The atmosphere became very tense and people were in a state of panic trying to find ways to save themselves. Those who could, arranged to go into hiding outside the ghetto. This required not only the means to pay the “privilege”, but also connections and trusted friends outside, for if you were caught or betrayed the penalty was certain death.
My father knew a lot of people outside the ghetto and managed to secure the services of a Christian family in the town of Czestochowa. This arrangement concerned me and my cousin, Idzia Klein who was almost 11, one year younger than me. We were both to be taken to Czestochowa to pass as Christian children and stay there for the duration of the deportations.
The day arrived when a man and woman, named Maciejewski, both aged about 30, turned up at our flat to collect payment in advance. We all sat down at the table and the adults started discussing terms and conditions. I cannot recall the details but I remember the man saying he would come back next week to collect me, then the following week for Idzia. It would be too dangerous to take us both on the train journey at the same time. My aunt pleaded with them to take Idzia first as she was their only child, whereas I was one of three children, but they insisted on their original plan.
The arrangements went smoothly, and we found ourselves in a house on the outskirts of Czestochowa with the man’s parents-in-law. Life there was very precarious and we were extremely vulnerable. We were frightened and homesick and exposed to many dangers. To make our identity more anonymous, we were supposed to be relatives from Warsaw. However, we were not very well briefed and when asked questions by visitors – like the actual relationship or our exact address – we were often stumped for answers and had to do some quick thinking. Whenever there was a knock on the door we were quickly bundled into a wardrobe and had to stay there till the visitors left. On other occasions it was safe to mix. I remember going with the family to visit some relatives and feeling quite comfortable in their company – even though one of them was engaged to a German soldier who was present that day. I recall another evening when a very weird-looking old lady arrived. She wore a cloak and a scarf on her head, and we all sat round the iron stove in the middle of the room. She seemed to be particularly interested in the two of us but we didn’t know why. I learned much later that she was a messenger sent by our parents to find out how we were. There was, of course, no other means of communication. Life continued under these conditions. We both missed our parents but Idzia was so homesick that she asked to go back home. She was told that it was not yet safe as the deportations were still happening. But when she told the family that she could go to very good friends, the Mackowiaks, in Piotrkow who were looking after valuables for her parents, they agreed.
I thought that Idzia was lucky because she was back with her parents and I still had to wait. When I was eventually taken back and handed over to my father, Idzia’s father was present too and asked where his child was. He was told that she had been left some time previously with the Mackowiaks. My uncle paced up and down saying, “But she’s not there, what have you done with my child?” I was shocked beyond words. We just looked on helplessly. Many years later I learned that the couple had gone to the Mackowiaks, collected a suitcase full of valuables and then departed with Idzia and the suitcase. Idzia was never seen again, and the circumstances of her disappearance remain a mystery to this day.
My father smuggled me back into the ghetto when returning with his working party, and I was relieved to find my mother, sister Lusia and brother Ben there. My mother, father, and Lusia had also been hidden outside the ghetto. I was the last one of my family to return. I could feel my mother’s delight at having her children home safe and sound. Home was now a corner of a room in the small ghetto, two half streets housing 2,400 people. Our immediate family was still intact, but alas not for long. When people thought it was safe they had started returning to the ghetto, and the authorities turned a blind eye. Anybody in the ghetto without a work permit was “an illegal”, but nevertheless it was formally declared that the “illegals” were safe. This prompted those still in hiding to surface, but they were walking into a trap. Over the next few days they rounded up most of the “illegals” and gathered them in the Great Synagogue, once a beautiful and imposing building. They were kept there under dreadful conditions: without sanitation, light, heat, food or water. To amuse themselves, the Ukrainian Guards would shoot into the Synagogue through the windows, killing and wounding people. Among those incarcerated in that hell were my mother and Lusia. The only reason I was spared was that when our room was raided I was in bed and my mother told the Jewish policeman in charge that I was not well. His response was to let me stay while he rounded up everybody else in the room. During that fateful week in the Synagogue a lot of bartering took place; some people were exchanged for others, and a bribe could sometimes secure a release. My father used all his influence to get my mother and Lusia released, but they were not letting children out under any circumstances, and since my mother would not leave without Lusia, both their fates were sealed. On the morning of 20 December 1942 people were taken out of the Synagogue in groups of 50 and marched to Rakow Forest, where newly dug mass graves awaited them. They were told to undress and stand at the edge of the graves and they were shot. Those only wounded were buried with the dead. My mother was 37 and Lusia was 8 years old.
The SS were continually rounding up people and sending them to various labour and concentration camps. During one of these raids my aunt Irene was torn from her five-year-old daughter, Hania, her husband Fishel having been shot about two weeks earlier, and sent to a labour camp shouting “who will look after my child?” We were the only relatives left: my brother Ben who worked in the glass factory, my father and myself. As the only female relative, it fell to me to take care of Hania.
At the end of July 1943, the ghetto was liquidated. Only workers remained, who were to be allocated to either the local glass factory, Hortensia, or the big woodworking concern, Dietrich und Fischer. Being children, Hania and I were useless for these factories, and during this liquidation we were lined up outside the barbed wire fence of the ghetto, ready to board the lorries. These would take us to the railway station or some other destination for onward transmission to concentration camps.
The column was four deep and very long, and we were surrounded by guards with machine guns. The woman in front of us, with a baby in her arms, was hit over the head with a rifle. I don’t know what she had done to warrant this blow, but she was a terrible state, bleeding profusely, and it was very frightening. When we were close to boarding the lorry something impelled me to suddenly leave the line, go to the SS officer in charge, and ask if he would allow me to go back to my father and brother, from whom I had been separated. The SS officer looked very surprised, but smiled and said “yes”. He told a policeman to take me back, and on the way I said “just a minute, I have to collect my cousin”. The policeman said that permission was only for me, my cousin would not be allowed to return. It was an impossible situation; I was terrified by the choice of leaving Hania or losing the chance of being reunited with my father and Ben. I begged and pleaded, saying that I could not go back to the ghetto without her, and he eventually relented and allowed Hania to go with me.
My father managed to arrange for all of us to go to the woodworking factory, even though my little cousin was far too young to work. Life there was hard: long working shifts, cramped and primitive living conditions. There were separate barracks for men and women, except for a few privileged families who enjoyed the privacy of one room per family. The women’s barracks had two-tier bunks and the men’s four tiers. There were usually two people to a bunk. I shared mine with Hania and there were two other women in the upper tier. There was an iron stove at one end of the barracks which was kept burning with firewood smuggled from the factory. We worked in shifts, so there were usually women around the keep an eye on Hania while I was away making plywood, which was used to make huts for the German army.
Even at this stage my father still supplemented our meagre rations through his connections outside the compound, and we managed to go on, keeping our spirits up with the occasional entertainment, there was so much talent, and with whatever hopeful news filtered through from the outside. My own little cultural sustenance was in the form of meeting my friend, Pema Blachman, whose mother had the book Gone With The Wind. Pema used to read it secretly when her mother was out, and relate the story to me on our walks. For me, meeting a friend outside working hours was no simple matter because Hania would not let me out of her sight, she was so afraid of losing me.
Although we now know that towards the end of 1944 the war was drawing to a close, for us the worst was yet to come. At the end of November we were all marched to the railway station, and various groups were sent to different places. My father and Ben, I learned later, were sent to Buchenwald, and Hania and I ended up in Ravensbruck concentration camp. We travelled in cattle trucks without food or water, we did not know where we were going. I have no idea how long the journey took, but we eventually reached our destination. On arrival in Ravensbruck, we queued at a reception centre where all our personal details were recorded. Our few possessions were taken from us, we were told to strip, our heads were shaved, and we had a communal shower under cold water. We were then given the standard striped concentration camp pyjama-like garb, and clogs.
Now we felt that we had been really stripped of our personality, and our very souls, as well; we all looked alike, we could not even recognize one another. We began to lose hope, and without hope there is no survival. Depression and despair were setting in, and the years of suffering, deprivation and the deteriorating conditions stared to take their toll. My aunt Frania Klein died soon after arrival, and a few days later so did my friend Pema. Hania was getting thinner and my main worry was how to keep her alive.
We had daily roll calls which meant that we had to rise at 6 a.m. and stand outside the barracks to be counted. Sometimes they counted us again and again, and we had to stand for hours. It was in the depths of a European winter, and we were wearing thin clothing with no underwear, no tights and no outer garments, people used to faint or die.
Our rations were a slice of black bread and soup. Although the soup resembled dishwater, we were glad to have it. Sometimes we would also get imitation coffee, which was really brown water. We were in the women’s camp, where some of the women worked outside in the fields, but neither Hania nor I worked. Occasionally one of the women would smuggle in a potato, turnip or radish, but if anyone were caught the punishment was very severe, usually death. On one occasion Aunt Dora brought us a potato.
After about two and a half months, as the Russian Army approached, although at the time we knew nothing of this, we were again put into cattle trucks to travel to another concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen. When we arrived there was no room for us inside, so we were put up overnight in a large tent on bare ground, along with hundreds of other people of all ages and nationalities. There was only space to sit, lying down was not an option. My worldly possessions – a comb, a piece of bread and a hankie – were in a little bundle, which was very important to me. Somehow during the night, even in this sitting position on freezing ground, I managed to fall asleep. When I awoke, my bundle was gone! The next morning we entered the main camp, where we found total chaos. There was a terrible smell and a sort of smog hanging over everything, the barracks were grossly overcrowded, sanitation was in the form of open pits, and there was hardly any food. People walked around like zombies and looked like skeletons; there were piles of dead bodies lying around everywhere. Typhus was rife and there was an air of utter hopelessness. The degradation, humiliation and despair were clearly visible on people’s faces. You could be speaking to someone and she would literally drop dead in front of you.
Fortunately, although we did not know it, as no one could survive in Belsen for long, the war was nearing its end. Anne Frank was there at that particular time, and we know her fate. But luck was once again on my side. I had heard that there was a children’s barracks somewhere in the camp, so I set out to search for it with Hania. Eventually we found it, a little hut, with Dr Bimko and Sister Luba who were in charge. They interviewed us and asked our ages. I knew that it would be expedient to make myself younger, but in my confusion I took a year off the year of my birth, so making myself a year older! At first they said I was too old, but I pleaded with them to take Hania because she was so young, thin and frail that she would not survive in the main camp. They agreed, but Hania absolutely refused to leave me. I tried everything I could to persuade her to stay but to no avail. I told Sister Luba that I would work on her, and we would return next day. We did so, and this time, when Hania again would not hear of leaving me, they agreed to take us both.
The children’s barrack was run by Sister Luba and a team of Jewish ‘nurses’, themselves inmates, who were very kind and devoted. I know that they used to beg, steal and do everything in their power to obtain a little extra food for the children. And they also gave us loving care. The barracks was situated opposite a large hut with a pile of corpses. I recall a procession of women dragging bodies in blankets, or by a limb along the ground, adding to this pile all day long.
A typhus epidemic was raging throughout the camp and many children caught it, including me. There was no medication and no treatment of any kind. I just lay there semi-conscious, quite oblivious of what was happening around me. My bunk was near the window, and one day I suddenly became aware of people outside running towards the gate. That was the moment of liberation, April 15th 1945, when the British forces entered the camp, but my only thought was one of amazement that anyone had the strength to run when I could not even move a muscle.
Brigadier Glyn Hughes, in charge of the British medical services, commandeered what had been the German officers quarters in the neighbouring garrison town, and quickly set up a hospital; he sent ambulances and medical teams to transfer us to it. I remember wanting to walk to the ambulance and actually trying, but after one step I collapsed and had to be carried on a stretcher. It was many weeks before I could walk again. Hania was going through the same experience, but I was not aware of it at the time. A few months after liberation, after we had regained our strength, we were sent to Sweden with a group of other children and spent the following two years there.
I was in Sweden, not really expecting anyone from my family to be alive, when one day I received a letter from England; it was from my brother Ben. He was always very resourceful, like our father, and started making inquiries immediately after the war and even returned to Piotrkow to see if anyone had survived. But of our immediate family, we were the only ones still alive. I only have a vague memory of Lusia as she was so young. I don’t even have a photograph of her, but Ben obtained a copy of her birth certificate, so there is some proof of her having existed.
I do have a photograph of each of my parents, retrieved from relatives abroad, which I treasure. Ben learned from a witness that my father was shot when trying to escape from one of the death marches. Tragically, this was only a few days before the end of the war.
Hania’s mother survived the war and they were eventually reunited, but her father was killed in February 1943, along with my uncle, Joseph Klein, Idzia’s father. Hania now lives in Australia with her husband and children, as does her mother.
Idzia’s mother, Aunt Dora survived and settled in Israel but she never got over the tragedy of losing her only child.
I came to England in March 1947 to be reunited with Ben. In 1949 I met a young architect, Maurice Tribich, who had served in the Royal Engineers for five and a half years, in North Africa, Italy, and Iraq, whom I married in 1950. We had two children, a girl and a boy, and I settled down to family life, became active in the community, and when the children were in their teens I embarked on a full time course of study and gained a BSc hons degree in Sociology from London University.
During all those years I did not talk about my childhood experiences during the war, and although my family and friends knew that I had lived through the Holocaust they did not ask any questions. They felt that it was too sensitive and that it would be too painful for me. Nevertheless, over the years they gradually learned a little of that period of my life.
During the past twenty years, however, there has been growing interest in the subject, and when I am invited to talk to school children or other groups I accept whenever possible. I feel that it is my duty to speak for all those who cannot speak for themselves, and tell what happened in those dark days in Europe. By speaking out, it is my greatest hope that something positive will be handed to the future generation.
DORA ROTH AKERMAN was born on January 17, 1927, as Devora Steinberg. In Rosvegovo, Czechoslovakia. Dora and her family were all transported to Auschwitz. From there was was transported to Grossrosen and then Bergen-Belsen. Following the war, she went back to her home town to see if her father would return from a labor camp. There she met her husband Samuel Akerman. They then lived in Russia with their 3 children. Upon the death of her husband, she moved to Hungary and later reached with United States. Following much effort she was able to bring her children to California.
My name is Theresa Dulgov, and I am a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. I am one of the youngest Holocaust survivors since I was born June 1944.
My parents lived in a small town in northeast Hungary close to the Czechoslovakia border. Hungary was spared Hitler’s wrath for a long time Since the government sided with Hitler and they were willing to do whatever Hitler and his cronies wanted. The Hungarian men who were between the ages of 16 to 60 were called into “forced labor” (munka szolgalatba). The men worked usually 6 to 9 months and returned to their homes for 2 or 3 months. My father was one of these men and went back to his unit shortly after he found out mother was with child. Mother was at this time on their farm with no family members nearby. In March 1944 German’s invaded Hungary and wanted to murder all Jews. The German’s were very systematic and wanted to make sure they do not miss a single Jew and therefore they started with the outskirt of Hungary in the small hamlets collecting them and marching them onto next ones and so on until they were at one of the strain stations where they were put on cattle cars and on to the camps. My mother wanted to avoid this at all cost. And she prepared herself to leave the farm/ranch and try to get to Budapest where her mother was staying at that time.
It was a long difficult trip. Jew were not allowed to travel. They had curfews so that there, were time she could not be seen on the roads.
She made this trip late in May she wanted to be near her mother, who was living in Budapest. By this time her grand parents and other relative living in the country in small town/villages were already taken (to Auschwitz) at the time she did not know where they were taken. She arrived in Budapest almost 9 months pregnant. She went to the star house where her mother was staying with an Aunt who was blind and needed care. The apartment was my mother’s aunt and her apartment was filled with other Jewish people who were forced to live in that apartment. When the tenants in the apartment saw my very pregnant mother they all wanted her out of there.
There were so many people that they did not want a crying new born baby to share the very full quarters.
She stayed there until she was ready to give birth. Then she went to a hospital where her best friend was a nurse and her husband was a doctor to deliver the baby. It is now June 20th and I am ready to be born. I was just crowning when an air raid sounded and the doctor and nurses told my mother stop pushing and they helped me go back inside the uterus. Then they told my mother to walk down to the basement where the shelter was. After the whistle sounded that the air raid is over they told mother to go back upstairs. Now however I decided that I did not want to come where I am not wanted. The doctors decided they had to do a C-section because my heart was slowing down too much. Now you have to remember that there was no pain relive for civilians since all the medications were sent to the front for the soldiers fighting. Therefore, my mother had a healthy baby girl weighing about 6 pounds. After the surgery mother stayed in the hospital for little over 3 weeks.
My grandmother (my mother’s mom) came to visit her almost everyday when she could. Early part of July there were rumors that they are picking more and more people from the “star houses” and were taken to the trains. My mother begged her mom “Mother please don’t leave me here with this baby I don’t know how to survive with this child. O am only 26 and my husband is so far away that we don’t even hear news of him Please, she asked, stay with me, I need you now!” My grandmother went back to take care of the blind aunt and that night she was picked up and take to Auschwitz . My mother and I never saw her again.
When they let my mother out of the hospital, her friend arranged for us to stay in some kind of red cross facility where they took us in for a few weeks. While there, mother found out about, Raul Wallenberg, who was giving letters of safety to Hungarian Jews. Mother completed an application that took time since there were so many people applying. After completing they had to return to get the papers and be placed into a safe house.
Unfortunately, she never did get to pick up the forms. On her way to the embassy, she was detained, when she met up with some Germans taking a group of Jews to the train station. She was put among the marching people with me in her arms. There was a disturbance on the road ahead, and the soldiers were figuring out what is going on. While they had their eye off the group, while my mother snuck out of line.
She went under a bridge they were passing and hid under the bridge while the line went on to the train station. She was very lucky, none of the Jews in line followed her or gave her away. While she was standing under the bridge she kept talking to me to be quiet and not make a sound.
She waited there until it got a little darker and fewer people were on the road due to the curfew. She looked carefully around, but it was unfamiliar to her. There was a church or something a few blocks away. When she got closer she was hoping it may be a convent. As she knocked on the wooden gate a nun opened the gate. Mother asked if they could hide her. The nun said, “If you let us baptize the baby and you promise to raise her catholic we might be able to help out.”
My mother said oh yes go ahead. The nuns baptized me and mother was allowed to hide with me in the attic. She was able to stay and hide there with me. Unfortunately, there was a window that had broken glass that broke during one of the bombings. This made the room during the winter pretty cold, wet and difficult to stay warm and dry. There was one small round stove that mother kept a pot of water boiling. Whenever she found some food item she would add it into the pot. She put beans, potatoes peel, apple peel, a piece of dry bread or other such items. This would be our meal. For me since I was a baby she put it in a clean diaper and I sucked the contents all day. This also kept me quiet.
While in the convent we were safe, but food was not something they could share food was very hard to come by. Food was rationed and not everyone was given a ration. Jews usually did not get an allotted food. Whatever they could. We were always hungry.
Mother told me about a time that she was so hungry that she stole a jar of mustard in a store. Then when she was in the room and got very hungry she would dip her finger in the jar and lick her finger. She said it helped her fight the hunger like this.
She had no way of finding out where my father was or if he was even alive. In March the Russian Army reached all of Budapest. We were “liberated” unfortunately it did not mean we were free. We just went under a different occupation.
When The Russians first got to the area we were, they were in a large camp near the Danube River. There my mother met a young soldier who felt sorry for this little baby with big eyes, big belly and sticks for arms and legs. I was 9 (nine) months old weighed about 2 ½ to 3 lbs. This young soldier gave for me half his cup of soup and half his ration of bread. He told my mother to come every day with me and he will have food for the baby. After that mother made it her business to go there every day around lunch time to get the food for me. This Russian young man really liked me and wanted to play with me.
As we got on our feet mother went back to the farm that she left in her haste to get away. When she got back all her things were gone. Our Hungarian neighbors took whatever the Germans left behind. My father eventually returned. He was captured by the Russians and was held as a prisoner.
The Russians took the rest of our land that was left after the Germans took most and put my father in jail as a “kulak” (land owner and a Jew) He was in Jail for almost 2 years.
In September 1956, the Hungarian Revolution broke out and my father died on November 28thdduring the revolution.
My mother wanted a better future for her 2 daughters and decided to leave Hungary. We left on December 6, 1956. We walked across the border into Austria. We wanted to emigrate to the United States. After long wait and miss steps we were finally allowed to enter USA We were lucky to arrive on December 16, 1958 in New York City.
LOU DUNST z'l, an unassuming man with the quiet smile and soft voice, rode on trains whose destinations are a litany of man’s inhumanity to man: Aschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen, Ebensee. Yet he told us: “God was always with us in the boxcars, in the camps, even in the gas chambers.”
He refused to be a victim and be consumed by the camps and the war that defined his early life. Instead of finding hate and vengeance in the heart of this man there was LOVE. In a world overflowing with the worst things people could do to each other, Lou Dunst emerged from this with open arms and sincere love glowing from his very being. “We must get rid of the hate…have only love in your heart.”
Lou chose to teach love. That love has built a loving family, lasting friendships, and cherished memories. That love has opened hearts, calmed unrest, assuaged pain and taught us all the redemptive strength of standing tall with one’s faith and principles.
Lou kept that tree healthy with every new branch it sprouted: his connection with San Diego’s Jewish community, his beloved wife Estelle, his 30 years as a successful businessman and as an inspirational teacher and speaker. Lou Dunst’s life is an example of how one man can emerge from darkness into light and carry that true flame to others.
ISAAC GOLDSTEIN z'l (October 9, 1925 – October 9, 2018), was born in Bialystok Poland and was the only person in his family to survive the Holocaust, spoke about living through a death march, only because a friend gave him a pair of shoes at the last minute.
At the age of 14, Mr. Goldstein’s life was turned upside down when the Germans invaded Poland. For the next six he often had to run, hide or lie to keep from being killed.
Isaac spent time in a number of camps including Majdanek, Auschwitz and Buna Amnuvitz. He witnessed first hand horrible atrocities committed man against man. He often wondered why he was still alive while he watched his family and friends dragged off never to be seen again.
There were many times when his life was saved simply by a pretty girl walking by to distract a guard, someone asking him to carry a backpack, giving him a pair of shoes, or even jumping ahead of him in line to board a boat. He acknowledged these ‘coincidences’ are hard to discount, but find it difficult to attribute his survival to a higher power’s plan. Isaac lived in San Jose, CA.
"I am a better person for having known Isaac Goldstein, z”l. When I think of Isaac, I always think of his smile. That’s one of the many things I admired about Isaac, despite all the horror that he witnessed and experienced, he still smiled, laughed and lived life to the fullest. I’ll never forget this one moment when the group was walking through auchwitz when suddenly Isaac stopped. In front of us there was a ditch. Looking right at it he said, “I dug that ditch” and proceeded to tell us the story of how he and his friend dug that ditch to keep a low profile from the nazis. Isaac enriched my March of the Living trip and my life. After the trip I was lucky to share countless dinners with Isaac where I got to know him as more than just a Survivor. He taught me the importance of making time for your family and giving back to the community. When he talked to you, he had this unique way of making it feel like you were the most important person in the world. Thank you for sharing your stories and your laughter Isaac, you will be forever missed." - Abigail Gavens
WILLIAM (BILL ) KUGELMAN's memories of his teenage years are now more than a half-century old, but they have not dimmed. At age 15 or so, he was taken with his family from their home in southwest Poland to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
For Mr. Kugelman, being held at Auschwitz was not the worst part of the Holocaust. It was seeing his brother die of typhoid fever at another concentration camp, affiliated with Dachau. About 3,000 people were sent to the camp at that time, and within months, only a few hundred remained alive, he said.
“We were dying like flies,” Mr. Kugelman said.
Mr. Kugelman, is one of Tucson’s few remaining Holocaust survivors.
PAWEL LICHTER was born on July 5th, 1931, in Rypin, Poland.
In November 1939, his family to abandon everything and head east, to Russia. They were given “Ausweis” (identification cards) as permission to travel. A Jewish family in Baranovichi took them in. In 1941 the family went to Bukhara, Uzbekistan.
Following the war, his family returned to Rypin. In Rypin thy found that all the buildings and the movie house were still standing. It was impossible, though, to reclaim their properties, which had all been occupied. They decided to leave Poland and with the help of several organizations and a Mexican family an arrangement was made for them to go to Sweden, with the purpose of further transit to Mexico.
In 1947, they traveled on a Swedish ocean liner (Gripsholm), destined for New York. From there they proceeded by train to Mexico City. His mother and sister immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts.
Pawel immigrated to the United States using a Polish visa in 1957. Pawel currently lives in Tucson with his wife Sara.
HANNA MARX was born in Hamm, Germany and survived the Riga ghetto and Stutthof and Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camps.
Hanna was only 13 years old when she and her family had to pack their suitcases and leave home by train. For three years Hanna was a slave laborer in a Nazi concentration camp, and her father as well as two brothers had been killed by the Germans.
Near the end of WWII, Hanna was among the 5,000 Jews that were forced to take part in the Death March that lasted three months. She was one of only 300 that were still alive at liberation. Hanna lives in San Diego, CA.
I was born in June 27, 1928, in Bialystock, a city in the eastern part of Poland, Before World War II, Bialystok had a big Jewish community: Hebrew Schools, Hebrew Gymnasium, many Jewish organizations and Yiddish was spoken in the streets. The city thrived with many textile, leather, and tailor factories.
In September 1939, the German forces invaded Poland. Because of the agreement between Germany and the Russian governments, the Eastern part of Poland became occupied by the Russians.
In June of 1941, Germany declared war on Russia. On the 22nd of June, the German Army marched into Bialystok and forcefully invaded homes to kill the Jews. The Germans gathered approximately 1500 Jews to the main Synagogue and put them on fire. They did not allow the fire department to exterminate the fire.
German special action squads called “Einsatzgruppen” were formed to round up all the Jews from surrounding small towns, by the big cities, lead them into the forests and kill them forming mass graves. During one of these raids, my father and one of my uncles were led into the forest, were killed and placed in one of the mass graves.
In August 1941, the Germans ordered the Jews to move out of their homes and into a small part of the city, the Ghetto, taking only their possessions they could physically carry.
My family consisted of my mother, my brother, who was 8 years old at that time, and my younger sister. We were all evacuated from our home and forced to move into one room of my uncle’s apartment in the Ghetto. Food was rationed. Because I was the oldest child, I went to work in a tailor factory in the Ghetto as a presser. Fortunately, pressers were needed by the German army to provide warm clothing to the Germans to fight the Russians. I lived in the Ghettos for 2 years.
In February 1943, the Germans came into the Ghetto, rounding up those families who didn’t have proof of work, and transporting them to Treblinka. My uncles anticipated the invasion and built a secret hiding place in one of the cellars made with planks of wood to keep the dirt from caving in.
In August 16, 1943, the Germans were given orders to liquidate the Ghetto. We all went into hiding in the secret hiding place that we built. One of my uncles with his son, my cousin, and I went out to the yard of the house to see what going on and we were captured by the Germans. We were taken to march into a field nearby the railroads.
Since there were so many Jews that were captured, it took many days to load all us onto the train. Two German officers attacked my uncle, his son and I with the head of a cane and put us in one of the cattle cars. When we got to our destination, Treblinka, the other cattle cars from the train, carrying about 150 people each, were separated from ours. We learned later that those passengers were exterminated in Treblinka. The car that I was in made its way to another concentration camp, Majdanek.
When we arrived in Majdanek, we were separated from the women, discarded any possessions, cut our hair, taken to the showers. We didn’t know if the showers were real or gas chambers. We were then given a set of underwear, a striped camp uniform of trousers, a jacket made of light fabric with gray and blue vertical stripes, and clogs. Every morning, afternoon and evening, we were required to stand in the compound yard in the cold or rain in order to be counted. Sometimes we stood there for 2-3 hours in lines of 5.
Four hundred people lived in one barrack, the bunk beds were three levels made of wooden planks, 4 people to one bunk. Toilets and faucets didn’t exist in the barracks, Special Barracks with only holes in the ground, and another Barack with only a few faucets, no soap or towels for the entire camp to use. Any inmate who got sick was taken to a designated barrack and was never seen again.
During one of the head counts, we stood longer than usual. A high-ranking officer came over accompanied by a well-dressed gentleman. Together, they went through the lines asking each one of us our profession. My Uncle Baruch encouraged me to say that I was a car mechanic like him so we would remain together. However, I was afraid to lie because I didn’t have mechanical skills. The group of pressers/tailors and shoemakers were separated from the other inmates. That was the last time I saw my uncle and cousin.
Once our profession was determined, the pressers and shoemakers were put on a train and taken to Bliszin concentration camp. In Bliszyn, I worked in a stone quarry. I worked hard and tried to do my best. After 1 year, we were evacuated by train to Auschwitz Birknau where I tried to be one of the adult inmates. I witnessed the Germans rounding up the children in the Majdanek camp and sent to the crematorium. I worked in different jobs and anytime they had a need for hard labor, I volunteered.
After Auschwitz Birknau, I was sent to 3 another concentration camp. I tried to stay positive all the time. I kept my family’s memory alive. I wished and hoped that they would still alive in Bialystok. That hope gave me the will power to stay alive with the hopes that I would see them again.
After I was liberated in May of 1945 by the Russians, I went back to Poland to my hometown, Bialystok. I didn’t find my family nor did I know if they were still alive. I migrated to Israel, and upon my arrival, I went to an Agriculture School, Magdiel. In the school, we worked in the fields for 4 hours and 4 hours of studies.
In March of 1948, I was drafted into the Israeli army, the Palmach, and fought for Israel’s independence In Harrell Brigade under command of General Itzhak Rabin. Our unit From 5th Battalion was sent to fight in Jerusalem, Jerusalem was under siege for 3 months at that time, afterwards we were sent fighting in difference part of the country until March 1950 when I was released from the Army. Shortly after that, in Jan 1951, I got married and in 1954, I moved my family to Haifa to work in a dairy, Tnuva, milk plant.
I continuously searched for any living relative and found that I had great aunts that lived in Chicago, Illinois. Upon contacting them, they encouraged me to come to the US to be close to them. I worked for my great-uncle for a short period of time in his grocery store and learned to speak English. After working for my uncle, I became a Production Manager in a milk plant. My dream was always to be in my own business and not be dependent or reliant on anyone. With the help of my son-in-law and my eldest daughter, Tova, I acquired an auto parts store. My compromised health, adult onset of asthma, encouraged me to move seek a warmer climate in San Diego, California.
Today I have 3 beautiful daughters, 6 grandchildren and have been married to my wife, Esther, for 68 years.
Since I was in the Ghetto during my 13th birthday, June 1941, and the Germans restricted us from going to school or experience any form of learning, I was unable to celebrate my Bar Mitzvah. It’s been my life long yearning to be Bar Mitvah’d. As a result, in November 2016, witnessed by my family and friends, I was Bar Mitzvah’d with the members of Chabad of Poway.
MIKLOS (MIKE) WALLENFELS was born in Budapest Hungary in 1934. His father died in a labor camp in 1941. When his family was round up in 1944, his mother told him to go up to the attic and not to return to the group which was to be deported. He was 10 years old. He survived because he followed these instructions. His mother was taken to Ravensbruk, Germany. His mother survived the war and returned to Budapest., but died soon afterward. Mike his sister and granmother survived the war in the Budapest ghetto. When he and his girlfriend Manya left Hungary, they first settled in Buffalo New York and then later moved to San Diego CA. They have 2 children and 5 grandchildren.
MANYA WALLENFELS was born in 1936 in Buszk, Poland. In 1942, the Germans forced the family to flee. The family escaped to a nearby village. But then returned to their home. They were then forced into the ghetto. The family kept moving hiding places, in the forest, a cemetery and even a swamp. Her mother died following the war in the town of Bytom. Manya has been able to visit her mother’s grave while she travels on the March of the Living. Manya and her father managed to get traveling papers as French citizens. They then went to Hungary. She lived in Hungary from 1947 until 1956. IN 1956 she and her boyfriend Mike escaped to the U.S. They first settled in Buffalo New York and then later moved to San Diego CA. They have 2 children and 5 grandchildren.
