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"This I Believe.."

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I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction. I remember, I remember because I was there with my father. I was still living with him there. We worked together. We returned to the camp together. We stayed in the same block. We slept in the same box. We shared bread and soup. Never were we so close to one another.

We talked a lot to each other, especially in the evenings, but never of death. I believed - I hoped - that I would not survive him, not even for one day. Without saying it to him, I thought I was the last of our line. With him, our past would die; with me, our future.

The moment the war ended, I believed - we all did - that anyone who survived death must bear witness. Some of us even believed that they survived in order to become witnesses. But then I knew deep down that it would be impossible to communicate the entire story. Nobody can. I personally decided to wait, to see during 10 years if I would be capable to find the proper words, the proper pace, the proper melody or maybe even the proper silence to describe the ineffable.

For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share. When we endure an experience, the experience cannot stay with me alone. It must be opened, it must become an offering, it must be deepened and given and shared. And of course I am afraid that memories suppressed could come back with a fury, which is dangerous to all human beings, not only to those who directly were participants but to people everywhere, to the world, for everyone. So, therefore, those memories that are discarded, shamed, somehow they may come back in different ways - disguised, perhaps seeking another outlet.

Granted, our task is to inform. But information must be transformed into knowledge, knowledge into sensitivity and sensitivity into commitment.

How can we therefore speak, unless we believe that our words have meaning, that our words will help others to prevent my past from becoming another person's - another peoples' - future. Yes, our stories are essential - essential to memory. I believe that the witnesses, especially the survivors, have the most important role. They can simply say, in the words of the prophet, "I was there."

What is a witness if not someone who has a tale to tell and lives only with one haunting desire: to tell it. Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

After all, God is God because he remembers.

Independently produced for All Things Considered by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.

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I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction. I remember, I remember because I was there with my father. I was still living with him there. We worked together.

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Featured Article

The National Socialist German Workers' Party-also known as the Nazi Party-was the far-right racist and antisemitic political party led by Adolf Hitler. The Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933. It controlled all aspects of German life and persecuted German Jews. Its power only ended when Germany lost World War II.

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Featured Article The National Socialist German Workers' Party-also known as the Nazi Party-was the far-right racist and antisemitic political party led by Adolf Hitler. The Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933. It controlled all aspects of German life and persecuted German Jews. Its power only ended when Germany lost World War II.

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Newsela | Famous Speeches: Elie Wiesel's "The Perils of Indifference"

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Newsela | Elie Wiesel, Nobel-winning author of Holocaust memoir "Night," dies at 87

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Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, Nobel laureate, lecturer and the author of "Night," is remembered.

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"I never saw another butterfly..." Children's poems from Terezin

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"I never saw another butterfly..." Children's poems from Terezin

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Amazon book

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We will watch the first twenty minutes of this interview ... by Jessica Prothro

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We will watch the first twenty minutes of this interview ... - ThingLink

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Interactive Map

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Auschwitz, where more than 1 million Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and others were killed.

But as horrific as they were, they were only three camp complexes in a system of more than 850 ghettos, concentration camps, forced-labor camps and extermination camps that the Nazis established during the 12 years Adolf Hitler was in power.

By the end of World War II in 1945, the death camp system stretched from France and the Netherlands in the west to Estonia, Lithuania and Poland in the east.

There were 20 main concentration camps, many of which had many subcamps, according to Geoffrey Megargee, the editor of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos.

Many of them combined the most dehumanizing and degrading characteristics of prison and slave labor camps. In some, Nazi doctors carried out depraved experiments, while others were primarily transit camps -- places to hold Jews and other "undesirables" until they were sent to other camps.

There were also four main extermination camps -- Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor and Treblinka -- devoted solely to killing everyone who passed through their gates. Treblinka nearly rivaled Auschwitz in the sheer number of people who were murdered there.

Between 870,000 and 925,000 people were killed at Treblinka in Poland, 170,000 died at Sobibor, at least 152,000 were murdered at Chelmno, and about 434,500 Jews were killed at Belzec.

In all, about 6 million Jews and millions of others died in the Holocaust.

But the exact numbers of dead will probably never be known, nor will the total number of people held prisoner in Nazi camps.

The Nazis were famously good record keepers, but they managed to destroy the records of some camps before the Allies liberated them.

The infamous Lublin-Majdanek camp, which -- like Auschwitz -- had elements of both concentration camp and extermination camp, was one where records were destroyed.

About 80,000 to 110,000 people died in the main camp, but it's impossible to know how many prisoners it held in its time.

Bergen-Belsen was another camp whose overlords erased as much history as they could.

Historians may never determine how many prisoners the camp held in its time, but it's clear that about 50,000 people perished there, including Anne Frank, who died of disease mere weeks before the camp was liberated.

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Richard Allen Greene and Inez Torre, CNN

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Auschwitz, where more than 1 million Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and others were killed. But as horrific as they were, they were only three camp complexes in a system of more than 850 ghettos, concentration camps, forced-labor camps and extermination camps that the Nazis established during the 12 years Adolf Hitler was in power.

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NewsELA Articles for Night

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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ThingLink list of options

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ThingLink - Make Your Images Interactive

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Make your images come alive with private video, notes, or even music from YouTube.

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Each student:
-Run 5 EdCafes over the course of the novel--first one can be topics created by me-- from then out can be topics created based on questions they generate.
-Write 2 pages of notes
-Write 2 one page papers answering topics addressed in EdCafes.

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Write: "This I Believe..." after reading a couple samples.

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Write: "This I Believe..." after reading a couple samples.

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The investigation? Marat Sade

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THE HOLOCAUST "MAUS II" "Here my troubles began" by Art Spiegelman. Valdek telling us his story of survival. Bribe the German officers - January, 30,1940 - Hitler became chancellor of Germany -Won the elections of 1932 (Think quest, 2013) When did the holocaust start?

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NARRATOR:
Paris, 1900. More than fifty million people from around the world visited the Universal Exposition-a world's fair intended to promote greater understanding and tolerance among nations, and to celebrate the new century, new inventions, exciting progress. The 20th century began much like our own-with hope that education, science and technology could create a better, more peaceful world. What followed soon after were two devastating wars.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
The Path to Nazi Genocide

NARRATOR:
The first "world war," from 1914 to 1918, was fought throughout Europe and beyond. It became known as "the war to end all wars." It cast an immense shadow on tens of millions of people. "This is not war," one wounded soldier wrote home. "It is the ending of the world." Half of all Frenchmen aged 20 to 32 at war's outbreak were dead when it was over. More than one third of all German men aged 19 to 22 were killed. Millions of veterans were crippled in body and in spirit. Advances in the technology of killing included the use of poison gas. Under the pressure of unending carnage, governments toppled and great empires dissolved. It was a cataclysm that darkened the world's view of humanity and its future. Winston Churchill said the war left "a crippled, broken world."

TEXT ON SCREEN:
Aftermath of World War I and the Rise of Nazism, 1918-1933

NARRATOR:
The humiliation of Germany's defeat and the peace settlement that followed in 1919 would play an important role in the rise of Nazism and the coming of a second "world war" just 20 years later. What shocked so many in Germany about the treaty signed near Paris, at the Palace of Versailles, was that the victors dictated a future in which Germany was deprived of any significant military power. Germany's territory was reduced by 13%. Germany was forced to accept full responsibility for starting the war and to pay heavy reparations. To many, including 30-year old former army corporal Adolf Hitler, it seemed the country had been "stabbed in the back"-betrayed by subversives at home and by the government who accepted the armistice. In fact, the German military had quietly sought an end to the war it could no longer win in 1918. "It cannot be that two million Germans should have fallen in vain," Adolf Hitler later wrote. "We demand vengeance!"

Many veterans and other citizens struggled to understand Germany's defeat and the uncertain future. Troops left the bloody battlefields and returned to a bewildering society. A new and unfamiliar democratic form of government-the Weimar Republic-replaced the authoritarian empire and immediately faced daunting challenges. Thousands of Germans waited in lines for work and food in the early 1920s. Middle class savings were wiped out as severe inflation left the currency worthless. Some burned it for fuel. Economic conditions stabilized for a few years, then the worldwide depression hit in 1929. The German banking system collapsed, and by 1930 unemployment skyrocketed to 22%. In a country plagued by joblessness, embittered by loss of territory, and demoralized by ineffective government, political demonstrations frequently turned violent. Many political parties had their own paramilitary units to attack opponents and intimidate voters. In 1932, ninety-nine people were killed in the streets in one month. Right-wing propaganda and demonstrations played on fears of a Communist revolution spreading from the Soviet Union.

New social problems emerged from the impact of rapid industrialization and the growth of cities. Standards of behavior were changing. Crime was on the rise. Sexual norms were in flux. For the first time, women were working outside the home in large numbers, and the new constitution gave women the right to vote. Germany's fledgling democracy was profoundly tested by the crumbling of old values and fears of what might come next. Adolf Hitler had been undisputed leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party-known as Nazis-since 1921. In 1923, he was imprisoned for trying to overthrow the government. His trial brought him fame and followers. He used the jail time to dictate his political ideas in a book, Mein Kampf-My Struggle. Hitler's ideological goals included territorial expansion, consolidation of a racially pure state, and elimination of the European Jews and other perceived enemies of Germany. He served only a short jail sentence, and after the ban was lifted on his National Socialist Party, Hitler and his followers rejoined the battle in the streets and in the countryside.

The Nazi Party recruited, organized, and produced a newspaper to spread its message. While downplaying more extreme Nazi goals, they offered simple solutions to Germany's problems, exploiting people's fears, frustrations, and hopes. In the early 1930s, the frequency of elections was dizzying. So was the number of parties and splinter groups vying for votes. Hitler proved to be a charismatic campaigner and used the latest technology to reach people. The Nazi Party gained broad support, including many in the middle class-intellectuals, civil servants, students, professionals, shopkeepers and clerks ruined by the Depression. But the Nazis never received more than 38% of the vote in a free national election. No party was able to win a clear majority, and without political consensus, successive governments could not effectively govern the nation.

Adolf Hitler was not elected to office and he did not have to seize power. He was offered a deal just as the Nazis started to lose votes. In January 1933, when the old war hero, President Paul von Hindenburg, invited Hitler to serve as Chancellor in a coalition government, the Nazis could hardly believe their luck. The Nazis were revolutionaries who wanted to radically transform Germany. The conservative politicians in the new Cabinet didn't like or trust Hitler, but they liked democracy even less, and they saw the leftist parties as a bigger threat. They reached out to the Nazis to help build a majority in Parliament. They were confident they could control Hitler. One month later, when arson gutted the German parliament building, Hitler and his nationalist coalition partners seized their chance. Exploiting widespread fears of a communist uprising, they blamed Communists for the fire, and declared emergency rule. President Hindenburg signed a decree that suspended all basic civil rights and constitutional protections, providing the basis for arbitrary police actions.

The new government's first targets were political opponents. Under the emergency decree, they could be terrorized, beaten and held indefinitely. Leaders of trade unions and opposition parties were arrested. German authorities sent thousands, including leftist members of Parliament, to newly established concentration camps. Despite Nazi terror and brutal suppression of their opponents, many German citizens willingly accepted or actively supported these extreme measures in favor of order and security. Many Germans felt a new hope and confidence in the future of their country with the prospect of a bold, young charismatic leader. Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels planned to win over those who were still unconvinced.

GOEBBELS [speaking German]:
One must govern well, and for good government one must also practice good propaganda. They work together. A good government without propaganda is not more possible than good propaganda without a good government.

NARRATOR:
Hitler spoke to the SA, his army of storm troopers.

HITLER [speaking German]:
Germany has awakened! We have won power in Germany. Now we must win the German people.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
Building a "National Community," 1933-1936

NARRATOR:
The ceremonial reopening of Parliament, orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels, aimed to link the Hitler government to Germany's imperial past and portray the Nazis as saviors of the nation's future. The event was carefully staged to reassure the German establishment, including the military, that Hitler would respect their traditions. Nazi-controlled newsreels then gave the impression that the Army supported the new government. Though Hitler walked behind longtime President Hindenburg for now, the new chancellor would soon be Germany's absolute dictator.

NEWSREEL VOICEOVER:
Today was dedicated to the New Germany. And more than one hundred thousand schoolchildren stood, shoulder to shoulder, as the car bearing the aged President and the Chancellor proceeded through the crowd to the speaker's stand. Whether you agree with his doctrines or not, it must be admitted that the leadership of Hitler has united the German people for the first time since the war. Their almost fanatical enthusiasm is a marvel to the entire world...

NARRATOR:
Hindenburg remained President until his death in August 1934. With Hindenburg gone, Hitler, by agreement with the army, abolished the office of President, declaring himself Führer and Reich Chancellor, leader of the nation and head of the government. Now there was no authority above or beside him. Immediately, the armed forces swore an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

GERMAN ARMED FORCES [taking oath in German]:
I swear by God this sacred oath to the Führer Adolf Hitler to render unconditional obedience...

NARRATOR:
All civil servants, including teachers and police, members of parliament and the judiciary, swore an oath of loyalty-not to any constitution-but to Hitler as Führer of the German nation.

The economy had reached rock bottom when the Nazis came to power. They boosted its recovery with huge public works projects for the unemployed.

NAZI NEWSREEL VOICEOVER [speaking German]:
A half million folk comrades have gone back to work this year. Since the takeover of power, unemployment has fallen by more than half.

NARRATOR:
Hitler christened new autobahns triumphantly in a display of national will that would unite the country and facilitate the secret expansion of Germany's armed forces. In 1935, Germany openly defied the 1919 Treaty of Versailles by reinstituting the draft and increasing its military strength. The Nazis were delivering on their promises to restore and strengthen the nation. Their achievements encouraged many people to overlook radical Nazi policies, or even to support them. In September 1935, the Nazi Party gathered in Nuremberg for its annual rally. It opened with a traditional hymn that added solemnity and a sense of continuity with the past. It ended with a special session of Parliament far from Berlin. New race laws were introduced by Hitler and read by Parliament President Hermann Göring.

GÖRING [speaking German]:
German citizenship is restricted to persons of German or kindred blood. Marriages between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood are forbidden. [Cheering]

NARRATOR:
The Nazi regime aimed to create a racially pure Germany whose so-called "superior traits" would make it ideally suited to rule the entire European continent. Nazism taught that racial struggle was the driving force in history-"superior" races must battle "inferior" races or be corrupted by them. The Nazi concept of a national community was exclusive and based on race, as defined in the new laws and decrees. Heinrich Himmler and the SS led the ideological battle. Racist ideas were taught in schools. Some groups, such as Jews, Slavs, Blacks and Roma (also called Gypsies) were labeled racially inferior. People with mental or physical disabilities were designated "unworthy of life." Scientists and medical professionals applied pseudo-scientific theories for measuring and valuing racial characteristics.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
From Citizens to Outcasts, 1933-1938

NARRATOR:
Before the Nazis assumed power, Jews enjoyed all rights of citizenship in Germany. After 1933, the German government gradually excluded Jews from public life and public education. Newly established Jewish private schools provided a safe learning environment for some. By 1938, German authorities had isolated and segregated Germany's Jews, expelling them from the professions and eliminating most opportunities to earn a living.

CAROLA STEINHARDT:
We felt so... why can't we be part of it? Why can't we? Everybody said, "Heil Hitler," like this. I did, too. What did I know? I was eight years old. So my mother said to me, "You're not supposed to do that." I said, "Why not?" She said, "Haven't you been told that you are Jewish?" I said, "Oh, I forgot."

NARRATOR:
Germany's Jews would get plenty of reminders.

VOICE FROM LOUDSPEAKER [speaking German]:
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a boycott of Jewish shops. Please keep moving.

GUY STERN:
This sense of isolation that came upon us after 1933, gradual and increasing, it also affected us psychologically. We knew we were in a hostile world.

NARRATOR:
Between 1933 and 1939, the German government enacted hundreds of laws to define, segregate and impoverish German Jews.

GERDA HAAS:
My sister and I used to slink by those huge banners that were all over the city. And we used to just try not to see them, thinking if we didn't see them, they weren't there. But they were there. That just, little by little, that really took over.

JULIUS STREICHER, Der Stürmer Editor [speaking German]:
...without a solution to the Jewish question, there will be no solution for humanity.

NARRATOR:
The goal of Nazi propaganda was to demonize Jews and encourage Germans to see Jews as dangerous outsiders in their midst. After 1935, everyday antisemitism was a regular part of carnival parades and floats. Public displays of antisemitism reinforced a climate of hostility toward Jews in Germany, or at the least, indifference to their treatment. In March 1938, German troops moved into neighboring Austria. Germany shredded another provision of the Versailles Treaty, as Hitler's homeland was incorporated into Germany. It was a disaster for Austrian Jews. Within a year, the Nazis achieved in Austria what had taken five years to carry out in Germany.

On November 9th, the Nazi Party orchestrated an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence throughout Greater Germany. It was a lawless onslaught that outraged the world and provoked criticism of the regime by many Germans. Jewish businesses that had already suffered antisemitic attacks were targeted for deliberate vandalism disguised as spontaneous public action. Party officials directed the SA, SS and Hitler Youth to destroy Jewish shops and torch synagogues. Over 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized. Germans named the violent attacks Kristallnacht-Night of Broken Glass-for the shattered windows of Jewish-owned stores that littered the streets. The nationwide violence damaged or destroyed more than 250 synagogues.

GERDA HAAS:
After Kristallnacht, I remember driving through Berlin and seeing the synagogues in flames and all the glass on the streets, and the people huddled and depressed. They walked around like the victims, like the hunted.

NARRATOR:
German police filled the concentration camps with thousands of Jewish inmates. The SS released them only if they agreed to emigrate. But Jews faced increasingly restrictive immigration quotas in most countries and bureaucratic hurdles in Germany. A new law issued in October 1938 required Jews to surrender their old passports, which would be valid only after the letter "J" was stamped on them. Two months later, another law prevented the flight of capital owned by Jews, when the Economics Ministry froze all Jewish property and assets. Many who had the means and somewhere to go tried to leave Germany. Some families sent their children alone to other, safer countries. They could not know how soon the world would be at war.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
World War II and the Holocaust, 1939-1945

NARRATOR:
As the Nazi regime implemented its long-standing goal of territorial expansion, aggression against Germany's neighbors initially succeeded without encountering armed resistance. Hitler counted on the reluctance of Britain and Europe to intervene, for fear of another war. The German occupation of Prague, capital of Czechoslovakia, left no doubt as to Germany's intent on military conquest in Eastern Europe. On September 1, 1939, a massive German force invaded and conquered Poland within a month. It was the start of the Second World War. In April 1940, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway. In May, the German armed forces attacked France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. In June, Paris fell and France surrendered. The swift and unexpected victory over France avenged Germany's defeat and humiliation in the First World War. It propelled Hitler to a new level of popularity and trust among the German people. In June 1941, the German Army, with more than three million soldiers, invaded the Soviet Union to wage a war of annihilation that targeted tens of millions of civilians. Under conditions of war and military occupation, the Nazi regime could pursue its political and racial goals with more radical measures. As German troops advanced into eastern Europe, Germany's power extended over millions more Jewish inhabitants in the occupied lands, where German authorities could exploit existing anti-Jewish attitudes among local populations.

Across eastern Europe, German authorities forced those identified as Jews into tightly packed areas called ghettos. Separated from the non-Jewish population, Jews in the larger ghettos were imprisoned behind brick walls and barbed wire. The German drive eastward was cast as a crusade against Judaism and Communism-in the Nazi view, two aspects of the same evil. German soldiers and police officials treated Soviet prisoners of war as sub-humans, either shooting them or deliberately causing their deaths by exposure to the elements and by starvation. Millions died in German captivity. On the eastern front, racial political instruction was part of regular training for all types of German occupation forces. SS chief Heinrich Himmler referred to the war against the Soviet Union in an address to his men: "This invasion is an ideological battle and a struggle of races. Here in this struggle stands National Socialism-an ideology based on the value of our Germanic, Nordic blood... On the other side stands a population of 180 million, a mixture of races whose very names are unpronounceable, and whose physique is such that one can shoot them down without pity and compassion..." In July 1941, Hermann Göring-Hitler's second-in-command-authorized all necessary preparations for the "final solution of the Jewish question" in the European territory under German control.

As German military forces advanced, mobile killing squads advanced with them. The German Army, military SS and German police units took an active part in authorized mass murders. The Germans and their accomplices rounded up the victims, drove them on foot or in trucks to a killing site, often made them remove their clothes, and shot them. Participants in the murders included local collaborators-especially police-in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and Belarus. The German killing squads and their auxiliaries murdered at least two million Jewish men, women and children in mass shooting operations.

Back in Germany, SS and police deported the remaining Jews to the occupied eastern territories. In German-occupied Warsaw, the walled ghetto that German Jews entered as newcomers in 1942 was already a place of mass suffering due to terrible overcrowding, lack of sanitation, disease and starvation imposed by the Germans. Despite all efforts of the imprisoned Jews to find ways of surviving and sustaining their communities, those conditions increasingly led to death for scores of thousands. Most vulnerable were the orphaned children.

Originally, German occupation authorities established ghettos to concentrate Jews and separate them from the non-Jewish population. Later in the war, many ghettos served as staging grounds for the transportation of Jews to the east, euphemistically called "resettlement" by the Germans, who promised their captives better conditions and opportunities to work. People endured unimaginable suffering on journeys that lasted days, without food, water, or toilet facilities. Many of the weak, the young, and the elderly died before reaching the destination.

The Germans and their collaborators deported roughly 2.7 million Jews and others to killing centers in German-occupied Poland. At the largest of the camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau, transports arrived from all across Europe.

LILLY MALNIK, Auschwitz Survivor:
Transports were coming in every day, people with all kinds of different languages-Hungarian, Poles, Czechoslovakians, from Holland, from France, from Belgium, from Germany, from Italy, Russians. They were from everywhere.

NORBERT WOLLHEIM, Auschwitz Survivor:
My wife was somehow waving to me, and that's the last I've seen of her.

FRITZIE FRITZSHALL, Auschwitz Survivor:
The smell, gas chambers. When I asked, "When will I see my mother?"-I was shown the smoke. This is how I found out where she went.

ERNEST KOENIG, Auschwitz Survivor:
It took a long time until I started to realize that we are condemned to die. All Jews are condemned to die.

NARRATOR:
Those whom the SS judged unable to work were killed, often within two or three hours of arrival. Those who could work would be used for forced labor, under punishing conditions. When they could no longer work, they, too, would be put to death. In several killing facilities, exclusively designed to kill human beings on an industrial scale, camp authorities used poison gas to murder children, women and men. At these killing centers, nearly half of all Holocaust victims died.

The camps of Majdanek and Auschwitz were the first liberated, as Soviet troops reached Poland. News of Majdanek's liberation in summer 1944 was met with disbelief. The New York Herald Tribunesaid, "Maybe...we should wait for further corroboration...this...sounds inconceivable..." In April 1945, US troops in Germany and Austria came upon concentration camps at Buchenwald, Dachau, Nordhausen, Mauthausen and Ohrdruf. The soldiers saw the camps with their own eyes, and the truth was undeniable. General Dwight Eisenhower, Commander of the Allied liberating forces, wrote: "The things I saw beggar description.... The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were...overpowering..." In American movie theaters, newsreels made witnesses of thousands more. One commentator said, "To future generations it must be told: Once man did this to his brothers. In the 20th century there existed a civilization which for twelve years returned to barbarism."

Shock permeated the camps as liberating troops tried to grasp what they had found. Soldiers did all they could to attend to the dead and to support the living. Those who survived faced the slow task of reclaiming their dignity and returning-somehow-to life.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
The Holocaust darkened the world's view of humanity and our future. As the world struggled to understand what had happened, a new word, genocide, was needed for these crimes-crimes committed by ordinary people from a society not unlike our own.

Prologue (Starts at 00:00)

Aftermath of World War I and the Rise of Nazism, 1918-1933 (Starts at 00:58)

Building a National Community, 1933-1936 (Starts at 12:22)

From Citizens to Outcasts, 1933-1938 (Starts at 18:12)

World War II and the Holocaust, 1939-1945 (Starts at 24:34)

Sources and Credits (Starts at 37:25)

Teach

Explore Museum suggestions for where to begin teaching about the Holocaust. We include resources for teaching with limited class time, for English/Language Arts, and for History classes.

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The Path to Nazi Genocide - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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NARRATOR: Paris, 1900. More than fifty million people from around the world visited the Universal Exposition-a world's fair intended to promote greater understanding and tolerance among nations, and to celebrate the new century, new inventions, exciting progress. The 20th century began much like our own-with hope that education, science and technology could create a better, more peaceful world.

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"Night," Vocabulary from Sections 1-3 - Vocabulary List : Vocabulary.com

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err and wish to enter the orchard through a gate other than his own. That would present a danger not only for the one entering but also for those who are already inside."

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One of Werner Heidemann's earliest memories is being shaken awake by his mother saying, "We've got to go to the basement! Air raid! Air raid!"

As a 5-year-old living in Berlin, Germany, Heidemann was too young to understand the import of what was happening around him.

"It was exciting," he said. "A child doesn't really understand ... We used to go out and try to find splinters from the bombs to collect."

But his mother understood all too well what was going on. It was the early 1940s and, though the intense bombing campaigns of the end of the war wouldn't begin for another couple years, there was enough danger to drive her and her young son from their home.

It was just the two of them because Heidemann's father had been drafted into the German army at the beginning of the war and was killed in action.

They left most of their belongings in Berlin and fled east to a farming area in West Prussia, near where Heidemann's mother had grown up. He said that they expected to return to Berlin and resume their lives "when the war was over."

That was not to be.

Instead, they spent a year and a half in their adopted community of West Prussia. "At that point we weren't refugees, we had just moved," Heidemann said.

But as the Russian army approached from Warsaw, the people of the farming village were evacuated. "Every village was organized as a trek. You stayed together," he said.

The townspeople had one resource to aid them in the journey: the horses and wagons that were used to run the farms.

"They took the field wagons and they either used cloth or some of them had wooden roofs," Heidemann said. "And then two horses and off we went."

They left at night, wagons as far as he could see in any direction. Heidemann described it laughingly as "stop and go traffic," with horses and wagons moving nose-to-tail.

They did not have a specific destination. "The route was to go as far north as possible, and then we went along the Baltic."

They had one suitcase. "My mother had managed to pick up I don't know how many loaves of bread and maybe 25 pounds of butter. So if we had no other food, we always had that - there was always something to eat."

As time went on, horses began to die, so there was also horse meat.

Periodically, Russian tanks would shoot at them. At one point the town they were entering was bombed.

"We ran into the woods and I was so upset," Heidemann recalled. "I said, 'I wanted to see the planes!' And I can still remember my mother grabbing me and lying on top of me. The earth was shaking."

It was a matter of fortunate geography that he and his mother walked away. "They had blown a lot of the refugees right off the road. They bombed along the road and there were all these bomb craters. And there were horses and wagons lying there. And there were dead people just piled up," Heidemann said. "I feel terrible about it now. And sometimes I think I have PTSD because I get very emotional about it. But it was war."

At this point, even though they were still in Germany, Heidemann and his mother were now refugees. They finally landed in a province that swelled from 1 million to 2 million people "overnight."

"There were some public facilities, there were some Army/Navy buildings. They put refugees everywhere. And then the rest of us, we got assigned to people in their houses," Heidemann said. "So for about three years, my mom and I lived with this elderly woman and her niece."

Even though they spoke the same language as their hosts, fitting in was a challenge.

Prior to the war, Heidemann's parents had decided that his father would work and his mother would stay at home. Now that his father was no longer alive, his mother was left without any marketable skills that might have helped her to assimilate.

"We felt we were refugees," Heidemann said.

After several years, they decided to migrate to America and make a new life. Even though they had family in the States to sponsor them, it still took a year to get a visa that allowed them to come.

"My mother always used to say that we have too much to die and too little to live," Heidemann remembered.

They arrived in New York on New Year's Eve 1953.

"It was very emotional for me seeing the Statue of Liberty," Heidemann said. "Ellis Island had just been eliminated three months before we came ... The customs agents came out to the boat when it was still way outside and processed the people. So when we got into Pier 96, we were free to just walk off the boat."

At 16 years old, Heidemann entered high school in New Jersey. He got a job that gave him room and board and a small income, allowing him to pay for college to become an engineer.

He then entered the workforce and eventually came to St. Johnsbury to work at Weidmann. He retired as head of their marketing and sales.

Today, looking back at his time as a refugee, Heidemann expresses great empathy for people who have had to flee their homes, but also believes that the United States should be cautious about bringing them here.

"These moments along with the tanks and the air raids are what help me to fully understand the agonies that refugees experience when they are being bombed and shot at and simply are trying to stay alive," he said. "I know exactly what they go through. The pain - and this is even worse than anything I went through. We never starved. I can't remember freezing."

"Every day in the life of a refugee is a struggle to stay alive," he continued. "These poor people today - they are off in tent cities and camps. They have nobody. They really don't. I feel very sorry for that. And I think all the western nations should make a much bigger effort to help them. But they should also, at the same time, be very careful about who emigrates and who doesn't."

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Werner Heidemann Was A Refugee In His Own Country

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One of Werner Heidemann's earliest memories is being shaken awake by his mother saying, "We've got to go to the basement! Air raid! Air raid!" As a 5-year-old living in Berlin, Germany, Heidemann was too young to understand the import of what was happening around him. "It was exciting," he said.

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ATTN: - The one thing Holocaust survivors want you to know...

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The one thing Holocaust survivors want you to know about today's refugee crisis. #Undeniable

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"I know firsthand what it's like to lose a home..."

Letters from WWII refugees to Syrian children

by Megan Specia

I know firsthand what it's like to lose a home and become a refugee.
Carefully penned in tight script on a piece of ivory stationary, this was the opening of 87-year-old Helga Kissell's handwritten letter. It was addressed to Sajeda, a 16-year-old Syrian refugee in Jordan who Kissell has never met.

Despite their 70-year age difference, the pair share a common life experience: Both know the reality of life as a refugee.

In 1945, Kissell was 16 when she and her mother were forced to flee their home in Berlin in the dwindling days of World War II. Seven decades later, Europe is facing the worst refugees crisis since that time

Kissell's letter is part of a program by humanitarian aid group CARE that connects World War II refugees with Syrian children. Though CARE has been providing disaster relief to those displaced by Syria's civil war, it actually began as a charity for European WWII refugees in the 1940s.

"To hear other stories and see letters from refugees who experienced the same situation before gives them the sense of solidarity," said Eman Ismail, CARE's assistant country director for programs in Jordan.

"I can only hope that Sajeda will find peace, first of all in herself, and also get over the tremendous shock of having to leave her home," Kissell told Mashable.

That is a feeling she knows too well.

Kissell and her mother fled their home in Berlin as the Soviet army crept closer to the city, poised to invade. Her father had been killed weeks earlier in an air raid. Her home was bombed, and most of the family's possessions went up in flames. Kissell and her mother packed everything they could carry and boarded one of the last trains out of the city, fleeing to a relative's home in Bavaria.

"It is never easy to leave one's homeland," Kissell wrote in her letter to Sajeda.

But there were bright moments too, including the day a young American soldier named Leo walking into the shop where Kissell was working. The two became pen-pals when Leo returned to America, and he sent her CARE packages to help them survive the postwar years.

Eventually, Leo and Helga fell in love, and she moved to the U.S., and they married. They've been together for 67 years. Without the war, they would have never crossed paths.

"Always remember the good times and look forward to what the future may bring," Kissell wrote.

Sajeda was moved to tears when she received Kissell's letter and opened the CARE package at her home in Zarqa, Jordan, just 30 miles from the Syrian border. Like Kissell, Sajeda was forced from her childhood home, as barrel bombs rained down on her city. The family stuffed a handful of clothes and necessities in a bag, then left.

"When someone asks me, 'What was the most precious thing you left behind in Syria?' I say that I left myself," Sajeda said.

One of the things she misses most about Syria is watching the flowers bloom in her family's garden. She wonders if she will ever see them again.

"Helga understands my situation and she feels for me," Sajeda said. "Even though I have not met her, she now plays an important role in my life."

For the teenage girl who has lost so much in the Syrian conflict, the simple letter of solidarity made her feel that the world had not forgotten her.

"Helga made me feel like I exist," Sajeda said.

Gunter Nitsch has lived in Chicago for years. At 78, some of his memories of life as a refugee in Germany are so agonizing they still bring him to tears.

Nitsch grew up in Langendorf in East Prussia, then a province of Germany, but after World War II, the Russians occupied his home city.

"In the winter, I went begging," he told Mashable. Many around him at the time were dying of starvation. He remembers being so desperate for something to eat that when a Russian soldier handed him stew in a bedpan, he didn't hesitate to gobble it up.

In 1948, Nitsch and his family were placed on trains with thousands of others and relocated to East Berlin. They eventually fled into western Germany, where they lived in a refugee camp. It was there that Nitsch received a CARE package and letter from a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania. It was packed with much-needed supplies, including food from their own farm.

"We got a can opener and opened the can of fruit salad. I thought, 'this was the food that angels eat in heaven,'" Nitsch said, sobbing over the phone.

The experience of having complete strangers reach out to him and provide aid to his family was life-changing. So he's now writing to an 8-year-old Syrian refugee named Zaher.

"No matter how bad things may seem, there are good people in this world who can make everything better," Nitsch began in his letter to Zaher. He included the note in a box packed with toys and paper airplanes for the little boy.

"I hope that your life will also change for the better soon. No matter where you are, always try to learn as much as possible by reading books," Nitsch wrote. "The day will come when it all will pay off."

Zaher's father, who asked to remain anonymous for this story, said fleeing Syria has changed his son.

"Living through this war has affected Zaher's psychological state so much," he said. "He's quiet and doesn't engage with people as much. My hands are tied here. I have nothing to give now."

While tens of thousands of Syrians are in refugee camps in the country, the vast majority (83 percent) are living in urban settings, with limited access to aid. Their refugee status means they are unable to work in the country, and parents scramble to provide for the most basic needs of their children.

Most refugees struggle to simply pay the rent in modest housing in Jordan, usually just consisting of one small room in which the entire family to lives, a kitchen and a bathroom. Some parents make the difficult decision to send their children out to work or even beg on the city streets.

"They don't have this ability to prepare for their future, to dream, as the rest of the children do," Ismail said. "This puts huge pressure on the Syrian families."

This week, CARE is launching a new campaign through which you can send your own letter to a Syrian refugee. Go here to learn more.

Reporting:

Megan Specia

Deputy Executive Editor:

Amanda Wills

Photos:

Carey Wagner/CARE

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'I know what it's like': Letters from WWII refugees to Syrian children

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"I know firsthand what it's like to lose a home..." Letters from WWII refugees to Syrian children by Megan Specia I know firsthand what it's like to lose a home and become a refugee. Carefully penned in tight script on a piece of ivory stationary, this was the opening of 87-year-old Helga Kissell's handwritten letter.

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Excellent themed collection of holocaust poetry

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Excellent themed collection of holocaust poetry

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Theme III
Ghetto, Hunger, Struggle

The poems in this section bring us closer to the experience of living in oppressive circumstances of confinement in ghetto life. We start with the recognition by the young fourteen year old poet Solomon of Smotche of losing his strength. From the Lodz ghetto come two poems by L. Berman that appeared in the official publication of the ghetto: the first praises the ghetto president, Adam Czernowitz, whose spirits are raised when he visits the children in the ghetto and the second is a poem in which the president, who loves Jews who are peasants, urges the ghetto inhabitants to work the fields in the ghetto.

Yitzhok Katsenelson, a leading member of the Oyneg Shabbes resistance, beloved teacher and poet, wrote while confined in the Warsaw Ghetto. Though a secular Zionist, he recognized the importance of Torah and tradition as sources of comfort and inspiration. He wrote "An Invitation to Torah Study" in poetic form on the day the Warsaw Ghetto was locked inviting people to join in study as a form of resistance and freedom of thought while confined. (This poem appears in the Appendix since it was not found in the Ringelblum Archive.) But his poem "Der Bal", was found in the Ringelblum Archive. In it he describes a starving family in the cellar of a Ghetto apartment house and a Ball on the upper floors attended by the Ghetto Committee.

In three poems, included here, Peretz Opochinsky tells us what it feels like to be "Homeless", "Banned from the World, alone and starving".

Pesakh Vayland (see poem about White Swans in Section I, Nature) was also starving in the Warsaw Ghetto and decided to write a request to Director Goyzhik for a monthly subsidy which some writers did receive. He chose to write it in the poetic form to prove he was a poet... It begins "Very honored and beloved Director, Mr. Goyzhik" and goes on to tell of his situation.

One poet in the Warsaw Ghetto was so popular that he was referred to by his first name alone, Hershele (Danielovitch). He wrote about his family starving. He too was so hungry, depleted and hopeless that he could not act on the advice of Yitzkhok Katsenelson to request a subsistence subsidy. Hershele died in the ghetto.

One of the most moving poems in this collection is by Itzhak Viner who was imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto. The poem is "My Childhood" in which he recalled the severe hunger he experienced as a young child growing up in poverty. He remembers how he and his childhood friends pretended to bake and eat loaves of bread they made of mud. Perhaps it may have comforted him and others in the Ghetto for a while to recall the hunger that had been overcome a long time ago.

The poem "Slupkes", "Posts", author unknown, is thought to be another poem written before the present time of oppression, about a previous time of persecution in which children were killed. Ber Mark, in (The Murdered Writers From the Ghetto, Warsaw, 1954) refers to this poem by an unknown author as "breathing with new life in present Ghetto circumstances".

These poems reflect the daily intense struggle for survival and hope amidst poverty, starvation, chaos, homelessness, illness, loss of loved ones, and traumatic sights, round ups, shootings, hangings and mass expulsions.

Poems in this section include:

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Theme III Ghetto, Hunger, Struggle The poems in this section bring us closer to the experience of living in oppressive circumstances of confinement in ghetto life. We start with the recognition by the young fourteen year old poet Solomon of Smotche of losing his strength. From the Lodz ghetto come two poems by L.

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The Holocaust History - A People's and Survivor History - Remember.org

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I C A N N O T F O R G E T

THE ACTION IN THE GHETTO OF ROHATYN, MARCH 1942.
by Alexander Kimel- Holocaust Survivor.

Do I want to remember?

The peaceful ghetto, before the raid:

Children shaking like leaves in the wind.

Mothers searching for a piece of bread.

Shadows, on swollen legs, moving with fear.

No, I don't want to remember, but how can I forget?

Do I want to remember, the creation of hell?

The shouts of the Raiders, enjoying the hunt.

Cries of the wounded, begging for life.

Faces of mothers carved with pain.

Hiding Children, dripping with fear.

No, I don't want to remember, but how can I forget?

Do I want to remember, my fearful return?

Families vanished in the midst of the day.

The mass grave steaming with vapor of blood.

Mothers searching for children in vain.

The pain of the ghetto, cuts like a knife.

No, I don't want to remember, but how can I forget?

Do I want to remember, the wailing of the night?

The doors kicked ajar, ripped feathers floating the air.

The night scented with snow-melting blood.

While the compassionate moon, is showing the way.

For the faceless shadows, searching for kin.

No, I don't want to remember, but I cannot forget.

Do I want to remember this world upside down?

Where the departed are blessed with an instant death.

While the living condemned to a short wretched life,

And a long tortuous journey into unnamed place,

Converting Living Souls, into ashes and gas.

No. I Have to Remember and Never Let You Forget.

THE CREED OF A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR
by Alexander Kimel

I do believe, with all my heart,

In the natural Goodness of Man.

Despite the blood and destruction,

Brought by one man, trying to be God,

In the Goodness of Man, I do believe.

I do believe, with all my heart,

That God gave man the blessing and the curse.

Man can select the curse of envy, hatred and prejudices,

Or the blessing of love, harmony and beauty.

Despite the painful curses of the past,

In the blessing of the Creator, I do believe.

I do believe, with all my heart,

That God created a beautiful world,

The sun and the trees, the flowers and the bees.

And the best way to serve God, is

To enjoy the fruits of His labor of love.

Despite the painful memories from the past,

In the joyful celebration of life, I do believe.

I do believe with all my heart,

That God has created man in image of His own.

And killing of man, is like killing of God.

Despite the massacres in Rwanda, the cleansing in Bosnia,

The folly of Muslim fanatics, and the cruelty of Pot Pol.

In the love and compassion of the Creator, I do believe.

I believe with all my heart,

That the Messiah and the Kingdom of Heaven will come;

When man will conquer his destructive urge,

And learn how to live in harmony with nature and himself.

When all the preachers of hate will be silenced,

And man will become his brother's keeper.

When man will stop killing man, in the name of God,

And nation will not lift weapons against nation.

When it will be, I do not know, but

Despite all the signs to the contrary.

In the dawn of a Better World, I do believe.

Best Regards:

Alexander Kimel - Holocaust Survivor
PEOPLE THAT CANNOT FACE THEIR PAST CANNOT ADAPT FOR THE FUTURE.
Alexander Kimel was born in Podhaje, Galiza, in the late 1920s. In 1940 Kimel's family moved to the ghetto of Rohatyn, to avoid the Red Army, who where advancing.
Ghetto life was draining, with Kimel being forced to do hard labour everyday. Between 1941-1943, 9,900 out of 10,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto. There were also extreme sanitation issues, resulting in the death of Kimel's mother and hundreds more.

In May 1943, Kimel ran away, just one month before the ghetto and everyone in it was destroyed. Kimel lived in surrounding villages and forest before coming to America.

He attended the 70-year anniversary of the Holocaust service at the New Synagogue of Fort Lee (2010). When asked what he learnt through the Holocaust, he replied,

"We have to be tolerant. I don't care if you're Catholic, Muslim or something else, as long as you're a decent human being. That's really what it is. "

Source: Legacy.com

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"I Cannot Forget", two poems by Alexander Kimel | The Holocaust History - A People's and Survivor History - Remember.org

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THE ACTION IN THE GHETTO OF ROHATYN, MARCH 1942. by Alexander Kimel- Holocaust Survivor. Do I want to remember? The peaceful ghetto, before the raid: Children shaking like leaves in the wind. Mothers searching for a piece of bread. Shadows, on swollen legs, moving with fear.

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This chilling drone video was shot by the BBC and shows the enormity of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as it is today - over 70 years after it was liberated by Soviet soldiers. The camp in Poland is now maintained as a World Heritage Site and thousands of tourists and survivors visit it every year.

Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp established by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Over a million people - most of them Jews - were murdered there between 1940, when it was built, and 1945, when the Soviet Army liberated it.

In this video you will see:

Railway tracks leading into Auschwitz-Birkenau - The Trains filled with victims from all over occupied Europe arrived at the camp almost daily between 1942 and the summer of 1944.

The Ruins of the wooden huts at Birkenau - Birkenau (or Auschwitz II) which was erected in 1941 solely as a death camp, the wooden huts are all ruins now with only the brick fireplaces and chimneys remaining.

The Auschwitz I entrance - The wrought-iron sign over the entrance bears the infamous and chilling words Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work sets you free".

Auschwitz I - At first these brick-built buildings were the cavalry barracks of the Polish Army, they were turned into this evil purpose after Poland was occupied.

Courtyard between blocks 10 and 11 at Auschwitz I - Block 11 was called "the Block of Death" by prisoners as executions took place between Block 10 and Block 11. The posts in the yard were used to string up prisoners by their wrists and let them hang for hours and sometimes days.

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A Drone Flew Over Auschwitz, What It Recorded Will Chill You to the Bone

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This chilling drone video was shot by the BBC and shows the enormity of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as it is today - over 70 years after it was liberated by Soviet soldiers. The camp in Poland is now maintained as a World Heritage Site and thousands of tourists and survivors visit it every year.