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Survivors
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 birth
day. 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
peop
le 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.
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