Echoes of Memory

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

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The Kindnesses
In June 1941, the Germans occupied Lithuania within three days. Shauliai, the town where we lived, was taken over on the third day. We had heard what had happened to the Jews in Kaunas and in other cities. My brother Jecheskel was a student at the university in Kaunas and he had told my parents that the Nazis and their collaborators were looting Jewish homes. Jecheskel suggested that my parents try to ask some of their Lithuanian friends to hold some of our valuable things for safekeeping. My parents asked a few friends and some agreed to help us.
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Mama Picking My Husband, Jack
In January of 1945, we were lined up for roll call, expecting to go to work as usual. Instead we were ordered to get our blankets and our dish for food and to come back. As we stood there lined up five in a row, we were told that we were leaving the camp. We assumed that we would be going to another labor camp, but instead we started off on foot. Later this would be known as a “death march.” We marched through the towns and villages of Poland and Germany, leaving many women behind, some who died from exhaustion and starvation and some who were shot to death. We marched this way until the middle of February. We stopped then outside of a little town called Chinoff, where we were pushed into a barn. How many women were there I do not know. Many women died of typhus and hunger in that barn.
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How Did I Get from There to Here?
My name is Nesse Godin and I am a survivor of the Holocaust.
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Spiritual Resistance—The Hanging
Nineteen forty-three was a very cold winter. Life in the ghetto was very difficult. People did not have wood to heat their rooms; they burned every piece of wooden furniture to keep warm. The hunger was great—the small ration that was given to us could not keep us alive.
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I Never Knew Their Names
I am a Holocaust survivor. I lived through a ghetto, a concentration camp, several labor camps, and a death march. When I share memories of those four years, people from the audience ask questions.
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Dear Papa
Dear Papa, During the day I think about you. In the night I dream about you.
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The Reflection in the Window
On March 10, 1945, the Soviet Army found us in the barn. We had been there for three weeks. The Soviet soldiers told us that the Germans were losing the war, that the Nazis were retreating. They informed us that they had already found other camps and some survivors.
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I Am a Jew
I am a baby in my mother’s arms, surrounded by the sound of laughter from my older two brothers and the shining eyes of my father’s gaze upon me.
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The Russian Prisoner of War
It was dark in the barrack where more than a hundred Russian prisoners of war were kept. About a dozen of them gathered in the dark to finalize the plan to escape. They have been planning it for months, checking all kinds of possibilities.
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- echoes of memory volume 1
- Nesse Godin

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