Survival

  • Holocaust—A Solemn Cry

    “In shadows deep where nightmares dwell,A chapter etched in history’s spell.Holocaust, your bitter tale,Of anguish, loss, and skies so pale. From ghettos choked with sorrow’s breath,To camps where darkness met with death,The human spirit, tested, tried,Yet hope, a flicker, never died. In ashes rose a solemn vow,To never forget, to honor howThe brave souls fought,

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  • Mary Weinrib was born on July 16, 1925, in Warsaw, Poland. She was born Mary Mania (Malka) Rubinstein. She grew up in Wierzbnik, a Jewish town that was part of Starachowice, Poland. Her mother was Rose Rubinstein, a dressmaker. Her father, Gershon Rubinstein, was a butcher. The family, which included a younger sister (Ida) and

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  • My interview with Jackie Young, a Holocaust survivor: Jackie Young (born Jona Spiegel) was born in December 1941 in Vienna, Austria, but raised by adoptive parents in England. He talks about slowly learning about his own past, which his adoptive parents had kept from him despite his own faint memories and hints mentioned by relatives.

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  • There are very few positive Holocaust stories—but this is one of them. When Abel and Thea Herzberg return from Germany after the Second World War, they only have two things with them: a biscuit tin in which they kept meagre leftovers of food in recent months and the diary that Abel kept about the period

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  • There is no bond stronger than that between a mother and child. The photograph above appears to be of a mother showing off her beautiful newborn cosily wrapped in a blanket and the smiling, doting mother. However, there is more to this photo. It really is a double miracle—giving birth is a miracle itself is

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  • Life is only a sequence of events and accidents, often determined when and where you are born. When I was 15, as a young man in the 1980s in the Netherlands, my main interest was girls and trying to get beer. When Elie Wiesel was 15 and a young man in Romania (or then Hungary)

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  • Mijn interview met Joosje Asser over Vaselientje Joosje Asser is de dochter van Eli Asser, tekstschrijver en journalist Joosje’s moeder is Eefje Croiset. Na de bevrijding werd Eli Asser journalist. Hij werkte voor het Haagsch Dagblad en het weekblad Vrij Nederland. Zijn doorbraak als tekstschrijver kwam in 1953 bij de VARA, waarvoor hij de komische

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  • The Stroomenbergh Family

    I am a great believer in balance. It is good to have a balanced view of life. I have written quite a bit on how the Dutch failed their Jewish-fellow citizens, and the Dutch complacency might be considered a crime. However, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes you need to take a step back and take

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  • Gershon Willinger’s Story

    I came across Gershon Willinger’s name on the Joods Monument website. It is his 80 birthday today, When I saw his name and his birthday, I also saw that the date and the place of his death were not known. I figured this was going to be an awful tragic and depressing story. I decided

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  • The Barneveld Jews

    While most concentration camps were built or configured to facilitate mass murder on an industrial scale, there were some exceptions. Plan-Frederiks was a plan made up by the Dutch politicians K.J. Frederiks and J. van Dam that was meant to protect Jewish people in name of the German people during World War II. The occupying

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