04/27/06

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     There are 350,000 survivors of the Holocaust today.  Many more died of murder, sickness, and other horrible things. Mass murder swept across Europe in 1942.  In the next 11 months, about 4,500,000 human beings were killed. Some of the best information of the Holocaust comes from the survivors. Here, you can read the stories of some of the Holocaust survivors.

                                Eva Galler

     "We just hoped to stay alive and that the war would end before they would do something to us," said Eva Galler. Eva was a Holocaust survivor. She escaped from a Death Train. She was born in Oleszyce, Poland on January 1, 1924. Eva did not believe Hitler would come to Poland and neither did anyone else. Until the Germans came in airplanes. In a few days the Germans invaded Poland. She didn't expect anything to happen. They had to wear armbands so people would know they were Jews. Eva worked on the tax books for the Germans. One day the Polish police chased all of the Jews out of their houses. They took all of the Jews to a cattle train and transported them to a camp. Eva and some of her family jumped out and survived. She forever walked around looking for a place to stay. Some people rounded up all the young sick people and took them to doctors. One day she decided to go back to Poland. As she was traveling, she got a letter saying two of her siblings were still alive. They said she couldn't go back to Poland and later came and took her to Breslau. Eva Galler survived the Holocaust; she still lives today.

                      Jeannine Burk

     "Rumors began to circulate in Brussels that things were going to get very uncomfortable for the Jews." Jeannine Burk hid in this woman's house from when she was 3 until the age of 5. Sometimes she was allowed to go into the backyard, but she was to never go in the front. She lost a great part of her childhood because she was a Jew. The Nazis would parade and everyone had to open their doors to watch, including the women helping Jeannine. When she did, Jeannine hid in the outhouse. Some neighbors told on them and the Gestapo came to their house and took her father away. The officer was going to come back for the rest of them later. Her mother went to work as a nurse and one day came back to get Jeannine. They kept waiting for their father to come back. They later learned that he had been killed. He was gassed in Auschwitz. They killed him simply because he was a Jew. Later her mother died of cancer during the night. Jeannine was later taken to America. She did not know any English. The day they landed it was her 12th birthday. A couple adopted Jeannine and were amazed at how gaunt she was. Years later, she got married and had two children. She divorced, but then later married again. Jeannine survived the Holocaust, but it was all because of the help of the woman who hid Jeannine. She would not have been here today if this woman had not helped her.

                     Solomon Radasky

     Solomon lived in Warsaw and is the only one of 78 people in his family to survive. Solomon Radasky survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the concentration camps. The Jewish police one day caught him at work on the railroad tracks clearing snow. When he returned to the Ghetto his mother and sister had been killed. Later his father was shot. When they began the deportations of the Jews, Solomon never saw any of his family again. Someone told him that they saw his sister working at a Shultz's shop. He wanted to see her, so he had a German soldier to take him and bring him back. When he got there he couldn't find his sister and found that he was stuck there surrounded by German soldiers. They took him to a death camp and gave him a striped uniform to wear. Everyday they had to walk barefoot three kilometers to work. One day Solomon was about to be hung, but a soldier came and took him to another camp. He was put to work building railroad tracks. He was later taken to the hospital Barracks where someone knew him. This man tried to help by advising him to run away, which Solomon didn't do. Instead, he chose to go to work. People told him he couldn't keep working because he would be killed, so they led him out of the camp gates. Solomon worked with the people digging sand. They later let the survivors out of the camp. Solomon Radasky survived the Holocaust.