Read reflections and testimonies written by Holocaust survivors in their own words.
Upon our arrival in New York we were met at the harbor by two men. I vaguely recognized one of the men, but the other was a total stranger. After being introduced, I learned that the one I vaguely recognized was my father. Although I recognized his face, something was wrong.
It was August 1989. Fred and I were in Adelsheim, my birthplace. There was silence everywhere; no people were visible. We tried to locate the Rathaus, City Hall. Bertl, my sister, had written a letter to the Rathaus. She had explained, in German, that we were coming to visit and would like some assistance in finding places associated with my family.
Anneliese Brandt hadn’t crossed my mind in some time—until that day I was in Washington on some now-forgotten business and later stopped at the Holocaust Museum before flying home. Afterward, as I was leaving the building and waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light, I thought of another spectacular spring afternoon, the day my father and I went to the season’s first outdoor chamber music concert at the Brandts’ stately villa in Berlin.
Berlin fall 1944, the Americans and British are approaching the Rhine, and the Russians are on German soil. Our group of Jewish husbands and sons of mixed marriages was doing its usual work, demolishing ruins and cleaning up after air raids, when suddenly we were “detached to special duty.”
One day in 1941, four men came to our house. They took my family and me to the outskirts of the town, where all the Jews from the town where gathered. We were about 500 Jews. The saddest part was that a lot of the killers were our neighbors.
The snow had fallen, uninterrupted, since morning. Big, fluffy flakes fell on top of each other, covering the everyday grime with a pure white blanket. Our side street was devoid of any traffic, only here and there footprints made by men or animals were visible, breaking up the smooth surface.
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.
It was about the end of April 1945. Days in camp turned into long months, months into years, one day resembling the other. This day in this small camp, a subcamp of Ravensbrück, began like any other day. Wake-up call at dawn, with all my strength I gathered my weary, aching bones to face another day of misery and abuse.
Hands cupped around a glass of tea, Jakob Herz surveyed the scene from his sixth-floor window with wry satisfaction. The few languid flakes he’d seen the first time he got up during the night had turned into a heavy snowfall—the first since the death of his wife had persuaded him to give up the house they had lived in for nearly 50 years and move to this apartment.
I was uncomfortable in my box. Sure, there I lay wrapped in soft tissue, but the cardboard lid pressed against me so that I felt completely confined, unable to move. I was hoping the rowdy party would soon subside so that the bride could start opening her presents. The noise was deafening.
Listen to or read Holocaust survivors’ experiences, told in their own words through oral histories, written testimony, and public programs.