Holocaust Survivor Stories

BORN: 1938
KOLBUSZOWA, POLANDHenoch's religious Jewish parents married in 1937. His father, Moishe Kornfeld, and his mother, Liba Saleschutz, had settled in Kolbuszowa, where Henoch's mother was raised. There, Liba's father bought the newlyweds a home and started his new son-in-law in the wholesale textile business.1938-39: Henoch was born in late 1938, and was raised among many aunts, uncles and cousins. Around Henoch's first birthday, Germany invaded Poland and soon reached Kolbuszowa. Polish soldiers on horses tried to fight against the German army, but they were no match for tanks. After a short battle, there were many dead horses in the streets. Henoch's town came under German rule.1940-42: Everyone in town, including the children, knew of Hafenbier, the vicious German police commander with the face of a bulldog who was posted in Kolbuszowa. Hafenbier terrorized and killed many of the town's Jews. Henoch often played a game with the other children in town in which he would portray Hafenbier, saying to his friends, "If you are a Jew, you are dead." Then, with a rifle made from a piece of wood, Henoch would "shoot" his playmates. They, in turn, would fall over, pretending they had been killed.Henoch and his family were deported to the Rzeszow ghetto on June 25, 1942, and then to the Belzec extermination camp on July 7 where they were gassed. Henoch was 3 and a half years old.Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

BORN: APRIL 17, 1898
STRASBOURG, FRANCEEmma was born to Catholic parents in Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace-Lorraine. Her father died when she was 8 years old, and Emma grew up on her mother's mountain farm. At 14 she became a weaver. Later, she married and moved with her husband to the Alsatian town of Husseren-Wesserling. In 1930 she gave birth to a daughter. In 1933 the Arnolds moved to the nearby city of Mulhouse.1933-39: We decided to become Jehovah's Witnesses. I was blessed with a loving husband and beautiful daughter. I kept house and taught my daughter music, painting, knitting, sewing, cooking and gardening. My husband and I studied the Bible and taught our daughter about Jehovah and the importance of obeying His commandments. Life in Mulhouse was peaceful and quiet under the French.1940-44: After the Germans occupied our town in June 1940, we were no longer free to be Jehovah's Witnesses. The Gestapo arrested my husband in 1941 and took my daughter in 1943. I returned to my mother's farm but was arrested there in September 1943. I was sent to the Vorbruck-Schirmeck camp in Alsace and then to the Gaggenau branch camp in 1944. I was first assigned to sewing and mending, and then sent to be a housemaid for an SS family. Despite the pressure, nothing broke my faith.Emma was liberated by the French army in 1945. She returned to France, where she was reunited with her husband and daughter.Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

BORN: CA. 1899
LIEPAJA, LATVIASarah, born Sarah Gamper, was one of four children born to a Jewish family in the Baltic port city of Liepaja. Her parents owned a general store there. At the outbreak of World War I, Sarah was studying piano at a conservatory in Russia. During World War I, she remained there to serve as a nurse. She returned to Liepaja, and after marrying Herman Judelowitz in 1920, settled there.1933-39: Sarah and Herman operated a shoe store in the front of their small shoe workshop. By 1935 they had three daughters, Fanny, Jenny and Liebele. Sarah and Herman were Zionists and they often helped collect money for Jewish settlers to buy land in Palestine.1940-43: In June 1941 the Germans reached Latvia and occupied Liepaja. That July, Herman was murdered by the Germans in a nearby village. For two years, Sarah and her daughters managed to avoid deportation because Fanny had protected status as a nurse. But in October 1943 they were deported to Kaiserwald, near Riga. On arriving, the deportees were divided--those able to work on one side, the infirm and the young on the other. Eight-year-old Liebele was sent with the young. Sarah would not abandon Liebele and followed.Sarah and Liebele were never heard from again.Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

BORN: MAY 7, 1926
PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIALisl was the youngest of two children born to a Jewish family in the Czechoslovakian capital of Prague, a city with a Jewish community that dated back to the eleventh century. Lisl's family lived on Karlova Street in the Karlin district of the city. Lisl's father owned a wholesale business that sold floor coverings.1933-39: I was 12 when, on March 15, 1939, the German occupation forces entered Prague. I went to school that day and a teacher shouted at me, "You dirty, filthy Jew," and then spat in my face. Almost every day new Nazi restrictions were placed on the Jews. We weren't allowed in any public place and our ration cards were stamped with a red "J," meaning we could shop only at certain stores during certain hours.1940-44: In December 1941 my brother, Peter, was deported. Before leaving he managed to send us a one-word note, "Terezin." Then in June 1942 my parents and I were deported, also to the [Theresienstadt] Terezin ghetto. That September, 5,000 Czechoslovakian Jews in Terezin were being sent to Auschwitz and my parents and I were on the list. Peter, determined to stay with us, was one of four who volunteered for that transport. That pushed the number to 5,004, so four from the original list were returned to the ghetto--I was one of them.Lisl was assigned to a work detail making gas masks, and remained in Terezin until the end of the war. She later learned that her parents and brother were killed at Auschwitz.Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

BORN: APRIL 27, 1906LUEBECK, GERMANYFriedrich-Paul was born in the old trading city of Luebeck in northern Germany. He was 11 when his father was killed in World War I. After his mother died, he and his sister Ina were raised by two elderly aunts. After graduating from school, Friedrich-Paul trained to be a merchant.1933-39: In January 1937 the SS arrested 230 men in Luebeck under the Nazi-revised criminal code's paragraph 175, which outlawed homosexuality, and I was imprisoned for 10 months. The Nazis had been using paragraph 175 as grounds for making mass arrests of homosexuals. In 1938 I was re-arrested, humiliated, and tortured. The Nazis finally released me, but only on the condition that I agree to be castrated. I submitted to the operation.1940-44: Because of the nature of my operation, I was rejected as "physically unfit" when I came up for military service in 1940. In 1943 I was arrested again, this time for being a monarchist, a supporter of the former Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Nazis imprisoned me as a political prisoner in an annex of the Neuengamme concentration camp at Luebeck.After the war, Friedrich-Paul settled in Hamburg.