Read reflections and testimonies written by Holocaust survivors in their own words.
I remember the time in the Czernowitz ghetto when I used to take off the star from my coat, leave my ID, and go out to look for food. I was always hungry and scared. I went to a store that sold food to the clergy, because I knew my father had a priest who was an old schoolmate. It was easy for me to go out since I was blonde, blue–eyed, and spoke German fluently.
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.”
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.
Every time Helena, or Heleneke, as she was called by everyone in the family, wore her light blue ensemble, I was filled with envy. I loved the dress and the cape she wore over it. My favorite part of the dress was the skirt, which fluttered up and outward when Heleneke twirled round and round. When she wore the cape she looked regal, like a real princess. Heleneke had many beautiful dresses; I did not.
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.
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.
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.
It was an early autumn day—the forest was dark and I could hardly see the sun. I felt dampness all around me and I was tired, but there was nowhere to rest as this forest had sparse underbrush and it was difficult to find a hiding place.
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.
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.
Listen to or read Holocaust survivors’ experiences, told in their own words through oral histories, written testimony, and public programs.