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

Page 35 of 46
  • Where Do I Go?

    It must have been a few days after the Soviet soldier dropped me off in that house in the small town of Chinow when other soldiers came to take us to the school that was converted into a hospital. When I arrived there I saw some familiar faces, women who recognized me from the camps and the barn. Some of them were helping and translating what the soldiers were saying.

  • Two Decent Germans

    I met them at the first concentration camp I was sent to. Their appearances and personalities were completely different from each other. One, called Shaika, was emaciated, thin. He had to wear suspenders to hold up his trousers. He had a lean, drawn face, protruding cheekbones, searching eyes, and a pipe forever hanging from the side of his mouth—even when it wasn’t lit.

  • Masquerade

    Lieutenant Block had never been to a party like it. The gothic, high-ceilinged hall, more than the length of a football field, was full to overflowing with people in costumes and masks, some humorous, others hideous. 

  • Naughty, Naughty

    The annual spring cleaning was in full swing. The windows were open; the carpets were airing on lines outside. People were coming and going, each one busy with a specific chore. The mattresses were being turned over, feather beds aired and stored for next winter, closets emptied and cleaned and the contents replaced or discarded.

  • Erika's Story

    I remember the time we left Russia and we fled to Poland. We had to leave Kiev in a hurry in 1944. My friend Monika told me that the NKVD secret police were coming to get my sister and the lady we were with, Mrs. Dirnfeld. Monika didn’t know that Beatrice was my sister. I never talked about my sister and who she was, or the lady, Mrs. Dirnfeld.