Survivors

  • 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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  • Auschwitz experiences.

    No one of us can ever imagine how it felt to be in Auschwitz. Except for those who survived it. Below are just some quotes from survivors Silvia Vesela -Slovak Jewish  Auschwitz Survivor “It’s a really humiliating feeling when your personality is being taken away. I don’t know whether you can understand it. You suddenly…

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  • Joanne D. Gilbert, M.Ed., is an acclaimed author, sought-after educator, and captivating public speaker. Raised in the close-knit community of Oak Park, Michigan—a predominantly Jewish suburb of Detroit—Joanne was surrounded by individuals whose lives bore witness to extraordinary resilience. Many of her neighbors were Holocaust survivors who had courageously defied the Nazis. Their poignant and…

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  • They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and while this may be true, it can never tell the entire story. That’s why I believe it is crucial to listen to or read the testimonies of survivors, liberators, and even perpetrators to understand the Holocaust from multiple perspectives. Let us begin with the words…

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  • The Children of WWII

    “A child is born with no state of mind,blind to the ways of mankind” I would never have imagined I would  use the words of a 1980’s hip hop song in a blog relating to WWII. The words are from the 1982 Hip Hop hit “the Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. But…

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  • Holocaust Testimonies

    Mara Ginic (now Kraus) was born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1925. At the age of 3 or 4 she moved with her grandparents to Osijek, Slavonia(Nowadays in Croatia). When she was five years old her parents divorced and her mother moved to Belgrade, but she stayed with her father and grand parents in Osijek. When…

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  • Ankie Stork was a Dutch resistance fighter during the German occupation of the Netherlands. She saved thirty-five Jewish children from the Nazis by hiding them in several locations in the town of Nijverdal during World War II. She acted as part of Utrecht’s Kindercomité (Utrecht Children Committee), a Dutch resistance group based in Utrecht. Louis…

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  • On June 5, 1940, Governor Wouters refused entry to Jewish refugees from Austria who arrived by ship at the port of Curaçao. They were only allowed to disembark after pressure from the Minister for the Colonies. However, as citizens of an enemy nation, they were subsequently detained on Bonaire. It wasn’t until 1942, after repeated…

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  • The Rosenboom Family

    I came across this death notification of Jacob Rosenboom. The reason why it drew my attention was the date. Jacob died on 10 April 1968, the very day I was born. Then when I did more research, I discovered that Jacob had lived in my hometown of Geleen in the Netherlands. The Rosenboom-Wolf family lived…

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  • Ankie Stork was a Dutch resistance fighter during the German occupation of the Netherlands. She saved thirty-five Jewish children from the Nazis by hiding them in several locations in the town of Nijverdal during World War II. She acted as part of Utrecht’s Kindercomité (Utrecht Children Committee), a Dutch resistance group based in Utrecht. Louis…

    Read more →