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The city’s half-million Jews had been crowded into a ghetto about one mile long by one and one-half miles wide. There were 27,000 apartments in the ghetto, each with an average of two to three rooms. That meant every apartment was home to approximately fifteen people-six or seven per room.

1943 Nazis prepared to shut down the Warsaw Ghetto.

20,000/140,000 Jews decided to go into hiding in Holland.

Asked to leave safe houses a lot during 1943.

The Tjeertes’s housed Helen and Siegfried.

Stayed with Mevrouwtje (little women) for one year. She cooked all of their meals and brought them upstairs to eat.

Helen and Siegfried had no contact with their daughter, Doris.
Reusink visited her and left money. He brought pictures to show Helen and Siegfried.

Gerda and Vera were arrested, shipped to Sobibor, and never heard from again; leaving Juro alone.

October 16, 1943: 1,000 Jews are arrested in Rome after a house-to-house search. They are deported directly to Auschwitz. Only sixteen survive.

October 19: A train carrying 1,007 Jews leaves Amster-dam, bound for Auschwitz.

October 21: The Minsk ghetto in the Soviet Union, home to 2,000 Jews, is liquidated. All prisoners are sent to their deaths.

American President Franklin D Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin —met in late 1943 to plan a major new attack. Operation OVERLORD was the code name for the Allied plan to re-take France from the Nazis.

D-Day was the greatest land/sea operation in military history, a victory for the Allies.

August 25, 1944, France was freed from the Nazis.

They didn’t take any clothing or respond to questions about their daughter, Doris.

Throughout the war more than 120,000 Jewish prisoners passed through Westerberg on the way to other camps.

Arrived in Westerbork August 27th and left September 3rd.
160 people per car.

The guards collected fountain pens, watches, and money.

They tore up their money so it was of no use to harm anyone.

Siegfried was giving up hope.

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There was no ‘family camp’

Helen sent to work for the Reich.

Men and women were then separated into two long columns. From where we stood, you could not see the beginning or end of our train. The lines of people were endless.

From May 1943 until November 1944, the Angel of Death (Mengele) held selections on seventy-four train loads of new prisoners as they arrived on the platform. At camp hospitals, he did more selections' where he decided which prisoners were too sick or weak to live. Very few survived the hospital selections.

A25254 - Helen’s # on her left arm

The women who had given us our tattoos now ordered us to strip completely and our bodies were searched for valuables. One of the women pulled my wedding band from my finger.

I did not realize that good, sturdy walking shoes could casily mean the difference between life or death.

Met Mrs.Frank on the train. They were deported from Holland as well.

Anne and Margot survived the first selection.

The women were ordered to stand in line. All prisoners had their head and body hair shaved. After that they were pushed through a cold, outdoor shower.

Not allowed to go to the bathroom, have a drop of water, or even talk about food since arrival.

Lived in horse stables without windows.

1,000+ women in each barrack.

Toilet could be used by 64 people at the same time.

In Birkenau. 1/40 camps in Auschwitz’s.

Everyone had lice.

Left Auschwitz October 28th, 1944, Doris’s 7th birthday.

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Auschwitz to Kratzau in Czechoslovakia.

SS Chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the crematoria to be destroyed, and on November 28, 1944, the gassings ceased.

Our job at Kratzau was to make small cylinders out of light weight metal.

Nearly killed someone for trying to take her blanket.

Helens KAPO - Huge Hungarian woman named Violet. Violent.
Violet punched Helen for her potatoes that she had dropped.

Many people got sick from eating sardines because they were too rich for the women who hadn’t eaten in a long time.

The Red Cross called them pigs. They didn’t care about helping them.

Sever shortage of clothing, food, and medical supplies.

Supplies from factories were cut.

No names or dates on gravestones.

Went to the hospital with contagious hepatitis.

The hospital had no medicine, but had straw beds and warm water. Didn’t have to stand in line for food.

About 9 a.m. Saturday, January 27th the first Russian troops reaches Auschwitz where Helen had previously been.

By 3:00 that afternoon they had liberated both Auschwitz and Birkenau.

The SS shot prisoners as the Russians came closer to liberating them.

Durchfall - Diarrhea caused by extreme hunger.

A doctor thought Helen was pregnant because her stomach swelled with extreme hunger.

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May 9th the doors to the camp was opened. The war was over. They were free.

The German government had surrendered on May 7th.
Harry S Truman and Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared war in Europe to be over. All fighting was to end by 11:01 P.M. on May 9, 1945.

Hitler married Eva Braun and killed themselves. Their bodies were burned.

60,000 children were orphans.

1M+ women were widowed.

Met 16 year old Becky and Becky wanted to go with Helen.

When Helen and Becky were given extra rations it almost started a riot.

Yelled when she wasn’t allowed on the train to Amsterdam.

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Helen was a young Jewish girl living in Frankfurt, Germany, in the early 1900s. Her mother was German. Her father came from Lithuania, on the Baltic Sea.

Lived in Frankfurt Germany.

Moved to Netherlands.

Fore shadowing of “not carrying out their name until the end of her life”.

Helen married Siegfried in Römerberg.

September 15th, 1935, Hitlers government made the swastika an official part of the German flag.

Ab Reusink will play a very important role in her life.

October 28, 1937, Doris was born.

Great Depression in America.
Marinus van der Lubbe was publicly executed by the Guillotine in 1934.

How long did they know each other before marrying?

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Helen didn’t think Doris would recognize her or even want to go with her because she wouldn’t know her own mother.

Jo was arrested and sent to Dachau where he cared for 45 people. After the camp was liberated he was sure that the last sick prisoner was cared for and sent home.

Doris was living in Krommenie.

They stayed in an attic with nothing in it. Doris was awake every night vomiting and crying.

Doris said “I wish you had never come back!”

They moved back to their old neighborhood by November.

Helen spent the summer of 1946 recovering.

On January 31st, 1947 they set sail to America. On February 10th, 1947 they arrived in New York.

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Alfons said he would have Killed Helen Waterford if he had been ordered to do so.

"If you had thing else, our partnership would have been over. I couldn’t have trusted you to tell the truth." - Helen

They lived 60 miles from each other. Wittlich and Frankfurt.

They met because of one of Alfons newspaper articles in San Diego. (1980)

Alfons met her with other Jewish Holocaust survivors.
Two people immediately left the meeting. No one offered to shake his hand. Helen was upset and shocked about the group’s reaction.

They were guests on Good Morning America.

Alfons was threatened by skinheads and neo-Nazis who accused him of "insulting the memory of the greatest man who ever lived, Adolf Hitler."

To those who told Helen lies about the Holocaust in which she endured she said “I do not discuss such important topics with ignorant people.”

Alfons states that the Hitler Youth were just as hurt and traumatized as the Jews, Gypsies, and others who were affected.

Some people called Helen “too forgiving.”
Some viewed her as a traitor.