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Read reflections and testimonies written by Holocaust survivors in their own words.

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  • January, 1945

    In January of 1945, we came to Snina. We came from Kiev. The reason we came was because my friend Monica told me on the night of December 24 that the NKVD [Soviet secret police] would come and pick up my sister and the old lady, Ms. Diernfeld, whom we had met during our travels in Russia. She referred to my sister as a German spy because she had very blonde hair and I never referred to her as my sister. I never talked about my family or anything personal.

  • Do Not Forget Them

    The news of the approaching German army spread like an uncontained fire in this small town in central Poland. The defenseless population was devastated. Only one brave young man, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, a military cap askew on his head, patrolled the streets of his hometown with the illusion that he could single-handedly defend and protect it from the approaching mighty power.

  • Reflections on Pope Francis’s Visit

    An article by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. during the pope’s visit to Washington, DC, in 2015 touched me deeply and brought back some old memories. During World War II I was a child in Poland. I am Jewish, and I wanted to live—which was contrary to what the German occupiers had in mind. After a few close calls where we had to hide to avoid being caught and killed or transported to a concentration camp, my brave mother purchased false identity papers from a Catholic priest for my baby sister, me, and herself. She then took us to a town where we were not known and where we would go by our new assumed names and religion. My part was to go to school, attend church, and act like a Catholic child. I was eight years old and had no knowledge of this religion.