Survivor Stories
Survivors of Ghettos and Camps
These overwhelming personal losses, whose impact is beyond intellectual or emotional comprehension, together with the total disintegration of Jewish communities, necessarily resulted in radical changes in the survivors' feelings about themselves and their surroundings. An extreme sense of insecurity resulted in the need to search for someone, somewhere, who might miraculously, still be alive. Many returned to their hometowns to seek out surviving relatives, but then 90% then fled westward again when the search proved hopeless.
Sabina van der Linden
Sabina was 12 years old when she last saw her mother in her home town Borislaw in Poland. She and nine other young girls were taken by the Nazis for special work. When she returned home a few days later, only her father and brother Joseph were there.
Click here for more info:Sabina |
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| Documentation of Sabina |
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Greta Allen
We can only imagine the mixed feelings of joy and fear which Rebecca and Abraham Matteman experienced on the birth of their baby daughter, Greta, a sister for 4-year-old Vera. It was May 1942 in Holland, and Jews were desperately seeking hiding places to avoid being sent to Nazi death camps. In any hiding place, a baby’s cries would put the whole family at risk.... Click here for more info:Greta |
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Jack & Bob Grunschlag
In the forest above the small town of Bolechow in Poland – today the Ukraine – 16 Jews hid in a bunker in the forest for more than a year during 1943-4. Among them were Jack and Bob Grunschlag and their father, Moses....Click here for more info:Grunschlag |
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Sam Goldman & Mimi Wise
In 1939, Mimi and Sam Goldman were less than 2 when they left their home in Strasbourg, France for 'Free France' in the south of the country. With their parents, Lola and Harry , and grandparents, Gutcha and Joseph Pszenica, they moved from town to town.
Click here for more info:Goldman Wise |
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Halina Robinson
When Halina was 13, she 'officially' became 16! All Jews under 16 and over 55 in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 were liquidated. Helena jumped over the ghetto wall and, with the help of Loda Komarnicka, was able to smuggle her aunt and grandmother out of the ghetto through the sewers of Warsaw. Loda was later executed by the Nazis for helping Jews.
Click here for more info:Robinson |
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Ruth Leiser
'Hiding' was not a game, but a matter of life and death for the 6-year-old Ruth in Poland, where her father had been a farmer. When the Nazis came in 1941, her father was able to use his contacts with local peasants to hide the family: Ruth, her younger brother Jack, and their parents, Nathan and Bertha..... Click here for more info:Leiser |
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Olga Nowak
Under the floor, behind cupboards, in tunnels and under cow sheds - these were some of the places Olga Nowak found in which to hide Leszek Nadler (Nowak), his mother Cyla, sister Alka, aunt and uncle Aniela and Gustaw, and cousin Dodek. Between 1941 and 1944, at any one time, one or more members of the family would find sanctuary with this remarkable woman..... Click here for more info:Olga 2
Uri Themal
Ulli Konrad wasn’t really Ulli at all! After the war, when he was five years old, he discovered that he was a Jewish boy called Uri Themal. Born in Berlin in 1940, his name, Uri, was one his mother, Ilsalotte, selected from a Gestapo list of allowed names for Jews.
Michel Fried Le Fagnou was a castle in the small village of Niveze, near Spa in Belgium. It was owned by Andre Peltzer, who made it available during the war as a holiday camp for children of employees of the family. His brother, Jean, owned a factory in Brussels, managed by Michel’s father. In 1942, 6-year-old Michel commenced a “holiday” which would last for two and a half years! In December 1944, Le Fagnou became a field hospital for American soldiers and the Mulenaers family, employees at the castle, took Michel to their village, Surdent..... Click here for more info:Fried panel
Survivor-flash movie
According to psychological research, the Holocaust teaches us that some human beings can undergo extreme traumatic experiences without losing the ability to rehabilitate their personal strength. In the process of adaptation to intolerable conditions, some survivors discovered powers within themselves which helped them to rebuild their lives after the war. Here is a silent video of the Survivors in Sydney in the late 1990's |
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