Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is the holocaust?

Adoloph Hitler and the Nazi’s( Germans) discriminated against Jewish people even before the start of World War 2. They blamed them for several things including the defeat in World War 1, the Depression and the fall of the Czar of Russia. People were looking for someone to blame during this time period and Hitler encouraged Germans to believe that Jewish people had caused all of their misfortunes. With the support of hundreds of thousands of people, Hitler rose into power after the beginning of World War 2. In 1933, Jews were removed from their homes and sent to concentration camps and ghettoes. After Jews, homosexuals and Gypsies arrived at camps, some of them were sent to the gas chambers immediately. Hitler and the Nazi’s attempted to make the world ‘perfect’ by exterminating Jewish people. This process grew into what is referred to as the Holocaust.

Q. What is an extermination camp?

An extermination camp is a death camp which was designed for mass murder. These camps contained equipment such as gas chambers which resembled showers and large crematoriums to dispose of corpses. There were six extermination camps in total: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor , Beland Temblinka. All six camps were located in Poland. 

Q. How many Jews died during the Holocaust?

It is impossible to gain the exact number of Jewish people who died during the Holocaust, however, six million is the rounded figure used by most authorities. 

Q. What is ‘The Final Solution’?

The Final Solution is the term which refers to the German’s plans to exterminate all Jewish people. 

Q. What were some of Hitler’s restrictions against the Jews between 1933 and 1935?

1933

·         Jewish lawyers were forbidden to work as lawyers in Berlin

·         Jewish judges were suspended from office

·         Jewish teachers were banned from teaching in state schools

·         Aryan and non-Aryan children were forbidden to play with each other

·         Jewish civil servants were dismissed from public office

·         Jews were excluded from sports and gymnastic clubs

1935

·         Jewish writers were not allowed to carry out any form of literary work in Germany

·         Jewish musicians were not allowed to work in state orchestras

·         Jews were only permitted to sit on benches marked ‘For Jews’

·         Jewish art and antique dealers were not permitted to carry out their trade

The Nuremberg Laws

·         All Jews had their German citizenship removed

·         Marriage ceremonies and extramarital sex, between Germans and Jews were punishable by imprisonment

·         Marriages that had already taken place were declared invalid. 

Q. What are the Nuremberg laws?
After Hitler and the Nazi's took power in 1933, antisemitic rules were created which restricted the movements of Jewish people. The laws are listed above. There were severe punsihments for those who did not abide by the laws.

Gallery

  Firing squads executing Jewish people in cold blood.

Glasses taken from the Jews upon arrival at the numerous concentration camps.

Auschwitz extermination camp.

Gate reading "Arbeit Macht Frei" meaning "work sets you free"

Jewish men forced to wear the Star of David for identification of Jewish blood.

Survivor: Joseph Sher

These are the true stories of the suvivors that lived throught the Holocaust and came out alive..

Joseph Sher

Place of Birth:	Krzepice, Poland
Date of Birth:	July 27, 1917
Life During Wartime:	Labor Camps
Current Occupation:	Tailor
Family:	Widower, Two Children

There were 6 of us, 3 boys and 3 girls. Abe was the oldest. I was the middle son. My brother Leo was the youngest. The girls were Leah, Manya and Freida. Freida was the youngest girl and such a beauty.

There was no future for Jews in Poland. Jews were second class citizens. The church taught that the Jews killed Jesus. This is where the hate came from. In public school I could raise my hand all day, but they would never call on me. In the street a Jew could get beaten up. My mother, not just my mother, every Jewish mother had to go pick up her children at school because it was not safe for them to walk home alone. Women got a little more respect.

The family moved to the city of Czestochowa. When the German army came in, they put placards up in the street. Every male Jew between the ages of 15 and 80 had to gather in the market. We lived in a third floor apartment. I was frightened, so I hid in the attic. I said to myself, "If they kill me, let them kill me here." My father and my brother Leo went to the market. All the Jews were told to lie face down in the street. The sun was hot. There was no food or water. If you raised your head, you were killed. They shot every tenth or twelfth man to scare us. This is when we found out what Hitler means. We called it Bloody Monday because they shot hundreds of people.

They burned down the synagogue. They made a ghetto. We wore the yellow star and the yellow arm band. We were ashamed, but we had no choice. We felt the way a dog feels. The Germans picked out a number of rich Jews and made them responsible for the community. This was called a Judenrat. The Jews had to do to the dirty work for the Germans. They shoveled snow, cleaned horses, shined boots and dug ditches.

They burned down the synagogue. They made a ghetto. We wore the yellow star and the yellow arm band. We were ashamed, but we had no choice. We felt the way a dog feels. The Germans picked out a number of rich Jews and made them responsible for the community. This was called a Judenrat. The Jews had to do to the dirty work for the Germans. They shoveled snow, cleaned horses, shined boots and dug ditches.

Hitler was building a highway in the east and needed workers. Each city had to supply so many men between the ages of 20 and 30. In Czestochowa each family had to give up 1 man. My older brother, Abe, was married. My younger brother, Leo, was not yet 20. Leo was afraid for me because I was little. Leo was strong. He asked if he could take my place, but my parents would not let him go. They just looked at me, and I knew I had to go. You cannot imagine what my mother went through.
They took us in cattle cars to Lublin. From there we went to Cieszanow and from there to the place where we were going to build the highway. Out of the 1,000 young men who went there from Czestochowa, only 3 survived. I am one of the 3. Even strong people could not survive. We had to be at work at 5:00 o'clock in the morning. When we got up at 4:00 am., we had to be counted. We got 2 kilos of bread, which had to be divided between 4 people. Some people finished their bread in five minutes, but I crumbled my bread into the pocket of my coat. All day long I ate a crumb at a time.
We slept on straw in barns, 70 to 80 people to a barn. We wrapped sacks around our feet to stay warm. We got lice, and some people scratched at the bites all night with their nails. Many got infections and died. Once it was ten degrees below zero, and we had to cut holes in the ice to wash our bodies. We took off our clothes and stood as naked as when we were born. We put our clothes on the ice, and in 5 or 10 minutes all the lice got frozen. Then we put our clothes back on. But in a couple of days the lice came back.
When you went to the toilet, you had to drop your pants and sit over a big ditch. There was no paper; you used leaves. All of the sudden from the distance a bullet would knock you down. The Ukranian and Lithuanian guards took their guns and they played with us. They tried to shoot close to us. If they got you you fell in the ditch. I had to sit and do my business. You got diarrhea from the bad food. Someone sitting next to me got shot and fell in. I could hear him saying the Shema Yisroel. For myself, I did not care. What happened, happened. We just lived from moment to moment.
 
We cut down trees. We dug up hills. We filled in trenches. There was a hand cart that ran on rails that we used to move earth. Four of us would push it up the hill, and it was more dangerous to come down. The cart did not have any brakes; you used a 2 by 4 stick to put under the wheels to stop it. People got killed every day. People got beat up. I was careful not to let them hit me because when they beat you up, that was it. If you could not work, you were worth nothing to them. One day I was pushing a full barrel. A Ukrainian guard passed by with a stick, and he hit me right in the head. I was crying. I told him I was pushing with all my strength. I was careful to do exactly what they wanted, but you could not be safe. Some tried to escape. The next day they brought the bodies back tied to a horse.
 
I survived because of two German Jews that I knew from the big ghetto in Czestochowa. They moved into an apartment across from ours. One was a doctor and one a professor, and they worked in the office with the Germans. They had come to Czestochowa with only 1 suit a piece. Every morning I would put a crease in their pants. I would fix what needed to be fixed. When they heard that I was being sent to the labor camp, they promised my mother, they swore to her, that they would do their best to bring me home. They were crying, "We have to do something to get Joseph Sher free." It took them months. One night as I was sleeping, 2 Ukranian guards came in and called me. I thought they were going to shoot me. Instead they took me to the infirmary.

Survivor: Jeannine Burk

These are the true stories of the suvivors that lived throught the Holocaust and came out alive..

Jeannine Burk

 

Place of Birth:	Brussels, Belgium
Date of Birth:	September 15, 1939
Life During Wartime:	Hidden Child
Current Occupation:	Secretary
Family:	Married, Six Children

 

In the fall of 1944 I remember my mother coming to get me. Then we went to get my sister. She had to learn to walk all over again. My brother found his way back to the house where we had lived. One day we saw soldiers on the street. Every family took in a couple of soldiers. I remember them giving me chocolate, and I also remember starting school.

 
We were waiting for my father to come back. Periodically there were groups of survivors and prisoners of war who would march home. They must have been reunited in one particular place. I remember standing outside with my mother, sister and brother and waiting and waiting for my father to come home. We kept waiting and waiting. Later we found out from an agency that my father had been exterminated. He had been gassed in Auschwitz. If I had been home when they took my father, I would be dead too. They would have gassed me instantly. That is what they did to little children.


Belgium was supposed to be neutral during the war but Hitler paid no attention to treaties. Unfortunately, the King of Belgium helped him. Rumors began to circulate in Brussels that things were going to get very uncomfortable for the Jews. There must have been a network of underground resources where you could inquire about hiding Jews. My father had found a place for my brother to go. He had a place for my sister to go. He found this place for me to go.
 
My father took me on a streetcar. This memory is etched in my mind because it is the last time I ever saw my father. We rode to the end of the line. I remember getting off with him. I remember walking what appeared to me to be a long distance. He knocked on a door and a woman answered. I went inside. That was the last time I ever saw my father.
 
I lived inside this house for two years. Occasionally, I was allowed to go out in the back yard. I was never allowed to go out front. I was never mistreated. Ever! But I was never loved. I lost a great part of my childhood simply because I was a Jew.
 
The Nazis used to love to parade. When they used to parade, everybody on the street had to open their doors to watch. The lady I was staying with had to open her door and watch too. She would hide me in the outhouse. I was petrified. I did not know exactly what I was afraid of, but I remember being absolutely petrified. An outhouse is small, and I would retreat to the farthest little corner. There was a crack in the front of the outhouse. I thought that if I could see them parading outside they would be able to see me.
I remember one time pushing open the outhouse door and crawling on my hands and knees after this pussy cat. I grabbed the kitty and pulled it inside with me. I wanted partly to protect it and partly to hold onto something because I was so alone and so scared.
 
My life as a hidden child was...how can I say it...I had no toys. The only fresh air I got was when I was allowed to go in the backyard. I made up imaginary friends because I had no one to play with. I do not remember being hugged and kissed. That was my life for two years.


In the fall of 1944 I remember my mother coming to get me. Then we went to get my sister. She had to learn to walk all over again. My brother found his way back to the house where we had lived. One day we saw soldiers on the street. Every family took in a couple of soldiers. I remember them giving me chocolate, and I also remember starting school.

 

We were waiting for my father to come back. Periodically there were groups of survivors and prisoners of war who would march home. They must have been reunited in one particular place. I remember standing outside with my mother, sister and brother and waiting and waiting for my father to come home. We kept waiting and waiting. Later we found out from an agency that my father had been exterminated. He had been gassed in Auschwitz. If I had been home when they took my father, I would be dead too. They would have gassed me instantly. That is what they did to little children.

Survivor: Eva Galler

These are the true stories of the suvivors that lived throught the Holocaust and came out alive..

Eva Galler

Place of Birth:	Oleszyce, Poland
Date of Birth:	January 1, 1924
Life During Wartime:	Escaped from a Death Train
Current Occupation:	Homemaker, Hebrew Teacher
Family:	Married, Three Daughters

When we arrived at the city square, we saw a fire in the middle of it. The whole inventory from the synagogue was burning, the prayer books, the torah scrolls, everything was burning. The German soldiers pushed the young girls up to the old men and made them dance around the bonfire. When we looked up we saw that each of our town's three synagogues was on fire.

All around us our neighbors and friends were watching and laughing at us like they were at a show. This hurt us more that what the Germans did. After the fire burned down they told us to line up and parade through the whole town so everyone could see us. This I will never forget.

We were living in conditions of hunger and fear, but we were still in our own homes. People made hiding places in their houses to hide from the Germans. Our hiding place was in the attic behind a double wall. Whenever we saw the Germans, we would run to the attic and hide. Even the little children understood that if they made noise it was a matter of life and death.

This continued until September 1942. One day the drummer came. He announced that all the Jews had to take what they could carry and walk the seven kilometers to the next town of Lubaczow. There was a ghetto there.

All the Jews of Oleszyce and the neighboring villages were moved to the ghetto in Lubaczow. The ghetto was the size of one city block for 7,000 people. We slept 28 people in a room that was about 12 by 15 feet. It was like a sardine box. People lived in attics, in basements, in the streets--all over. We were lucky to have a roof over our heads; not everyone did.

It was cold. In one corner there was a little iron stove but no fuel. We were not given enough to eat. The children looked through the garbage for food. There was not enough water to drink. There was one well in the backyard, but it would not produce enough water for everybody. To be sure to get water you had to get up in the middle of the night. Once I had a little water to wash myself, and my sister later washed herself in the same water. Some people started to eat grass. They would swell up and die. Because of the unsanitary conditions people got lice and typhus. My brother Pinchas got night blindness from lack of vitamins. Every day a lot of people died. It was a terrible situation. People were depressed. There was nothing to do. They waited and hoped and prayed.

In May 1945 the Germans started to draw back, and one day the Russians came in. I was still scared to tell anyone I was Jewish. I looked at the Russian soldiers to see if I could recognize anyone who was Jewish, but I didn't.

Survivor: Shep Zitler

These are the true stories of the suvivors that lived throught the Holocaust and came out alive..

Shep Zitler

Place of Birth:	Vilnius, Lithuania
Date of Birth:	May 27, 1917
Life During Wartime:	Soldier and Prisoner of War
Current Occupation:	Salesman
Family:	Married, One Son

On September 1, 1939, the war started when Germany invaded Poland. Poland lost the war in sixteen days. I was with the 77th Pulk Piechoty (77th Infantry Regiment). Our unit was captured near Radom. We were sent to a prisoner-of-war camp near Kielce. I remember that the Jews had already been separated from the Polish soldiers. The Germans could not tell the Jews apart from the other Polish soldiers. They depended on the Poles to tell them that.

    Vilna at that time was technically located in Lithuania which was not at war with Germany. I was classified as one of the so-called Lithuanian Jews and not as a regular Polish soldier. So I was sent to a POW labor camp. This saved my life. The other Jewish soldiers were demobilized and sent back to Poland. There they faced almost certain death.

    I was in various labor camps for five years and seven months. We belonged to Stalag VIII A. But we did not stay there. If we had stayed in the Stalag (prisoner-of-war camp) we would have starved like the Russian POW's we saw because there was not enough food there. They sent us to many different places to work. International law required us to kept in humane conditions, and it forbade Germany from forcing us to be slave laborers.

    I was forced to work on the Autobahn near Krems, Austria. I was forced to load coal at Ludwigsdorf. As Jews we were singled out for special treatment. At Goerlitz the Jews had to clean excrement out of the slit latrines with our hands. The Jews were always given the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. Our lives were threatened and we were beaten. We were always hungry, and many of us did not survive.

   Near the end of the war we were marching two or three days without stopping. The Germans told us to lie down in a field. We slept. The Russian calvary woke us up. About 30 of them on horses rode up to us. The first thing they said to us was, I will never forget it, "Give us your watches." We learned that they were crazy for wristwatches. We told them who we were, and they left us alone. They smiled and rode away. That was our liberation on April 22, 1945.

The Holocaust

The ‘Holocaust’ is a word of Greek origin meaning “Sacrifice by Fire”. The Holocaust was the state sponsored murder of approximately 6 million Jews conflicted by Nazi Germany.

When the Nazis came into power in January 1933, they had strongly believed that the Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews were aliens to the community and a national threat.

Throughout the era of the Holocaust, other targeted victims were the Gypsies, the disabled and the Slavic; deemed inferior. Other groups were prosecuted on behavioral grounds, these being the Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the homosexuals.

In 1933 there was approximately over nine million European Jews, most living in the land occupied by Nazi Germany. By 1945 the Germans had murdered almost 2 out of every 3 Jews.