Abraham Lewent

Born 1924, Warsaw, Poland

Like many other Jews, the Lewents were confined to the Warsaw ghetto. In 1942, as Abraham hid in a crawl space, the Germans seized his mother and sisters in a raid. They perished. He was deployed for forced labor nearby, but escaped to return to his father in the ghetto. In 1943, the two were deported to Majdanek, where Abraham's father died. Abraham later was sent to Skarzysko, Buchenwald, Schlieben, Bisingen, and Dachau. U.S. troops liberated Abraham as the Germans evacuated prisoners.

Describes conditions in the Warsaw ghetto,Poland.

Gerda Weissman Klein

Born 1924, Bielsko, Poland

In 1939, Gerda's brother was deported for forced labor. In June 1942, Gerda's family was deported from the Bielsko ghetto. While her parents were transported to Auschwitz, Gerda was sent to the Gross-Rosen camp system, where for the remainder of the war she performed forced labor in textile factories. Gerda was liberated after a death march, wearing the ski boots her father insisted would help her to survive. She married her American liberator.

Describes her birthday in the Bielsko ghetto.

Lisa Derman

Born in Poland, 1926

Lisa was the oldest of three children born to a religious Jewish family. Following the German occupation of her hometown in 1939, Lisa and her family moved to first to Augustow and then to Slonim (in Soviet-occupied eastern Poland). German troops captured Slonim in June 1941, during the invasion of the Soviet Union. In Slonim, the Germans established a ghetto which existed from 1941 to 1942. Lisa eventually escaped from Slonim, and went first to Grodno and then to Vilna, where she joined the resistance movement. She joined a partisan group, fighting the Germans from bases in the Naroch Forest. Soviet forces liberated the area in 1944.

Describes conditions in the ghetto in which she and her family were forced to live.

Paula Garfinkel

Idzia Pienknawiesz

David J. Selznik